Axis SBR Campaign

@Cmdr:

Actually, I have only commented on your reading and demonstrated understanding of the situation.  You have resorted to flames, flame-baiting and malicious attacks.

Anyway, you have yet to sufficiently inform the gaming community how you are both placing your AA Guns out in traded territories AND manage not to lose them to the enemy without costs in excess of just taking the damage from attacking bombers that survive your defended AA Guns.

You see, you have completely failed to realize that the counter to your counter was already placed.  The counter is that the axis can afford to lose 8 IPC per territory but Russia cannot afford to lose 8 IPC per territory.  (This assumes you attack with Infantry/Armor and win with Armor on both sides.)

As an Axis member earning 30-45 IPC per turn, I’ll gladly trade you 8 IPC a round.  Especially multiple times in one round of game play! (-8 Kazakh, -8 Novosibirsk and -8 in any other territory you decide to put an AA Gun in.)  Hell, I don’t even need to bomb you then!  Now I can use my bombers on England and America since you are already bleeding yourself dry of units for your own defense!

Of course, you could chose NOT to attack after I capture your AA Guns, but as I said, then it’s a simple matter to just walk the guns away.

In other words, THERE IS NO VIABLE METHOD OF RUSSIA DEFENDING ITSELF WITH ALL THOSE AA GUNS!  You only end up guaranteeing that you will lose 16+ IPC a round in units, instead of 12 IPC + and that’s only on that one front!  That’s not including the other front, but that’s because I assume you want to get those guns back, not liberate EVERYTHING that you lost in the previous round! (I assume you leave that to your allies to at least stop some of the blood loss!)

Russia - 16 IPC from trading Kazakh/Novosibirsk - 12 IPC from Germany’s SBRs of Russia/Caucasus = Total -28 IPC per round.  Income: 27 IPC or less, probably less.  Net:  -1+ IPC a round.

Japan - 16 IPC from trading Kazakh/Novosibirsk.
Income: 45 IPC give or take.  Net: +29 IPC a round

Germany - Normal trading about equivalent between her and the allies (Karelia, Belorussia and Ukraine, possibly Arkhangelsk if Germany stacked Karelia Round 1.)
Income: 40-50 IPC give or take.  Net: +40-50 IPC

Germany + Japan:  Up at least 70 IPC a round
Russia: Down at least 1 IPC a round.

Net Difference:  71 or more IPC in favor of the Axis.

---

Of course, that assumes that round 3 when you buy those AA Guns (and start moving extras from America/England to help) you don’t end up with Germany and a large stack of Germans and Japanese fighters in W. Russia before Russia 4.

amazing, you do it again. A full page summary of how trading terr with aa guns is bad for russia. When i explicitly said i would not be trading terr with aa guns. But great points!!

Amazing Axis, you again fail to read through the post.  I said if you DONT trade the territories with the AA Guns, then the axis just walks them out of they way.  Now you don’t have the territory AND you don’t have the AA Guns.  So you bought them for what?  They didn’t do anything, well, they did, but it was to make your opponent stronger, not you stronger.

At least he concedes that I have “great” points in my assertion that trading AA Guns (or buying them for that matter) is a losing proposition for Russia!

Yoshi,

The bombers cost nothing because they can be used as bombers each round.

For instance, the bombers are used passively as a deterrent to allied naval shipping in the Atlantic forcing them to consolidate their fleets and buy more units to defend American transports from attack.  The best part is, they pretty much have to do this even if you never intend to attack their fleets because they don’t know your intentions!

They are used aggressively in a myriad of ways:

1)  They can attack Russia’s or England’s Industrial Complexes.  Russia can try to counter with AA Guns, but I’ve pretty much shredded anyone’s hopes and dreams that would ever be cost effective for Russia.  England does not have that option being on an island.

2)  They have massive range allowing Germans to trade territories much farther away without having to move their fighters, this allows them to defend western territories with less men and in turn allows them to bring more cannon-fodder to bear on Russia. (Because the fighters can stay in Western and 1 fighter can replace - in my opinion - 3 to 4 infantry on defense.  That means those guys can move to the front lines.)

3)  They CAN go attack America’s transports if you chose to send them there.

Because of these 4 reasons, a bomber has either no cost, or a negative cost to Germany.  Do note, however, I did assign a cost to Japan’s extra bombers due to their lack of utility.  They either go SBR Russia or they go SBR America, they really serve no other purpose at all and they cannot shift from one to the other like Germany can without downtime in between.

Now, I’ve demonstrated that Russia building AA Guns has a cost far in excess than they can afford. (Both in building the actual unit and in units lost defending it.  And yes, you have to defend it or you basically gave 5 IPC to your opponent for nothing, so I’ll assume the better players in the field are defending them while the best players are just not building them to begin with.)

How about America though?  Well, to defend those 4 transports (32 IPC) they need to get units from North America to Europe/Africa/Asia they will need something.  They COULD strip naval assets from their fleet, but that would almost require them to keep their fleet with England stripping them of the flexibility of striking at Germany’s soft underbelly and liberating Africa or stripping them of their ability to reinforce Russia.  Neither option is exceptionally good in my opinion.

So what else can they do?  Well, +2 Destroyers would serve the purpose of taking the 2 starting destroyers out of the fleet, right?  So you can invest 24 IPC in destroyers to defend those transports and now break the two fleets apart allowing the allies to engage as they otherwise would all along the northern, western and southern borders of Europe and liberating Africa.  But alas, those 24 IPC are locked away from the battle and may never be engaged, thus, they cost 24 IPC since they add nothing to your ability to win the game, but are used solely to restore the status quo.

In summation:

German bombers:  No to negative cost. (Like infantry and tanks have almost no cost to negative cost for just about every nation at any point during the game.)

Japanese bombers: Moderate cost.  They can still be used, but a fighter would do the job just as easily and Japan has plenty of those to start with.  Not to mention, the two viable SBR targets are sufficiently far enough apart that Japan cannot pick a central location to hit either target, so they have to chose one and move to get in range.  Still, this is not horrible and it can be beneficial, even if all you do is hit Caucasus and bring extra firepower to bear in your other battles.

Russian AA Guns: Potentially the worst move possible by the allies.  These have an insanely high cost, even buying just one of these too early in the game or too late in the game could tip the scales of power giving the Axis an upper hand before the allies can recover.  They’re a liability.  They’re cumbersome.  In order to negate the potential negative affects of them, you have to stack them with another AA Gun which completely defeats the purpose of building extras!  To be perfectly honest, I think building a Russian Battleship in SZ 16 is a wiser move than building a single AA Gun with Russia except in the most extreme situations - even then, think twice and phone a friend before making the purchase!

I do have a viable solution, but no one likes it.  It’s almost my normal allied strategy to begin with.  England vs Japan, America vs Germans in Africa and Russia vs Germany, allowing Russia to focus it’s power on taking German territories while England/America liberate making Russia stronger over the course of the game, not weaker.

Parting Shot:

Always endeavor to build units that add to your ability to win the game.  As soon as you build units to restore the status quo, you have lost.  You cannot win Axis and Allies through defense and reaction alone.

The reason none of the solutions presented are good enough to win (and they have ALL been tried and defeated, which is how I know how to defeat them) is because they are all yielding the initiative to the Axis.

I gotta agree with Yoshi on this one.

Responding to your earlier post, Jen:

1. Russia sometimes has more because it takes manchuria and/or doesn’t lose buryatia, particularly in a strat like this.  Please let’s not debate the details of an effective allied asian campaign, though.  It’s a whole separate topic and I don’t really care if russia’s making 31 or 29 or 27.

2. with regards to average damage for bombers, you do have to account for 0’s, it’s called probability and i suspect you know better than that.  Here is a simple excel chart of the probabilities and the real way to calculate expected damage on a given turn (sumproduct in excel):

Damage Probability
0.00 0.17
1 0.14
2.00 0.14
3.00 0.14
4.00 0.14
5.00 0.14
6.00 0.14
1.00
Expected Damage Value: 2.916666667

You said:
“I agree that in some cases, 2 bombers for Japan on Round 1 is sub-optimal.  England pulling everything except 1 infantry out of India with Russia pulling everything but 1 infantry out of Buryatia and England doing the Pacific shuffle with the fleet is not a case where 2 bombers is sub-optimal.”

I agree. That’s not what I would do as the allies.  Earlier in this post I noted that it’s important to fight japan, and in any case my standard opening involves neither of those moves, but instead a heavy mobilization against japan.  (For someone who doesn’t do this, the german bomber is hint enough that the brit can afford to do a more anti-japan strategy.)  I’m sure many players’ allied moves are different and involve folding to japan on every front, but i’m not answerable to that.

I do stand corrected on the german 2 bombers.  They can be ready to raid on german round 3, and i’m not going to do anything to stop them because alone they aren’t overwhelming.

You said this:
"For the record, odds of shooting down 1 bomber out of 3:

(1/6)(5/6)(5/6) = 12%.  Not exactly the best odds out there.
(Success)(Fail)(Fail)"

That math is not appropriate to the question.  The combined propability that 1 or more bombers of 3 are shot down by a single aa gun = 1-[(5/6)(5/6)(5/6)] = 42%.  A player gets away scot free just 58% of the time.  Your math may be coloring your conclusions, but don’t be surprised when your bombers get shot down more than 12% of the time :)  Keep in mind that 1/6 is 17%. – that’s for just a single bomber run.

As for your latest post, did i or did i not say that the key to beating this strategy was to pound on japan with britain and other allied forces?  Your megolamania in that post is astounding, and for the record I’m pretty sure everyone who has posted to this discussion disagrees that you have “proven” anything.  But please, don’t keep trying to convince us!

Okay, but let’s keep in mind that Germany and Japan are going to know Russia’s first move before they do their own moves.

For instance, if Russia takes Norway, W. Russia and Ukraine on Russia 1 and sets up an attack on Manchuria for Russia 2, then things are going to be insanely different.

As for the math you cannot include the odds of a bomber doing zero damage in the amount of damage expected from a bomber.  If the bomber is shot down, you have 100% chance of doing 0 IPC damage.  It’s completely unrelated to the average damage expected from the bomber.

To clarify, you first have the binomial of shooting down a bomber.  After that, you have the probability of doing X amount of damage for each bomber.  They are not dependent variables, they are independent.

The way you set up the numbers, if all three bombers were shot down, they would still be expected to do 3 IPC in damage each.  You failed to run that through the logic check.  If shooting down a bomber affected the expected damage, then your equation should have resulted in 0 IPC in expected damage, not 9 IPC total in expected damage (3 bombers * 3 IPC.)

So in reality the odds, according to Frood, of shooting down bombers are:

Probability % # units / losses
  57.57% 3: 3 Bom. no units. : 0 IPCs
  34.8% 2: 2 Bom. 1 Bom. : 15 IPCs
  7.24% 1: 1 Bom. 2 Bom. : 30 IPCs

So in that regard, the odds are slightly better you may lose a bomber.  But you will notice, they are still very significantly in favor of the Axis over all.  In fact, shooting down all three is so rare it doesn’t even make the list at 0.01%!

Then after you determine bombers shot down (probably zero shot down) then you calculate damage inflicted by bombers. So the damage expectancy of a bomber is 6!/6 that is (65432*1) / 6 or 3.5 which, since you cannot surrender half an IPC is really 4 IPC in damage per bomber.

That means your break down is actually:

1 IPC = 16.67%
2 IPC = 16.67%
3 IPC = 16.67%
4 IPC = 16.67%
5 IPC = 16.67%
6 IPC = 16.67%

Since the odds of all events are equal you can use the formula above.  6!=21 for the record, and 21/6 = 3.5.  Since we are using 3 bombers, that’s 3*4=12 IPC most of the time.  Rarely it is 8 IPC expected.  Very rarely it is 4 IPC expected.  Almost never, so close to 0 probability it does not register as even 1 hundredth of 1%, 0 IPC.

The only way I can think to make it a joint probability is to multiply the expected damage by the expected number of bombers left.  That would be the expected value of P time the most likely outcome.  {E(Y)}{P($)}

That would be (12*.5757)+(8*.348)+(4*.724)+(0*0) = 9.982 IPC lost per round.  So with 3 bombers, accounting for an AA Gun, Russia should still lose 10 IPC per Axis bombing them.  That’s 20 IPC per game turn with each side hitting you with 3 bombers.

I used two separate calculations to show two different probability problems, and my “average damage” was a probabilistic expected value.

In any case, Frood’s numbers are the same as mine (42% of someone getting shot) and you and I are almost in agreement with your final expected value calculation.  Except for expected value you should not be rounding damage, and if you substitute 3.5 for all those 4’s in your final calculation, you get…

10.5 0.5757
7 0.348
3.5 0.0724
8.73425

Using frood’s numbers.  Hence my analysis of ~9 damage on average for 3 bombers.

@Cmdr:

The basic premise here is that 3 bombers for each Germany and Japan can do a maximum of 24 IPC damage to Russia (cap because Moscow is 8 and Stalingrad is 4.)  Since Russia is generally earning 24 or less anyway, this could potentially be their entire pay check.  If they cannot build units, they cannot afford to attack territories even if protected by one measly infantry.  That means you don’t have to invest in units to trade territories so you can mass your army faster.

@Cmdr:

Notice the strategy IS NOT TO STRATEGICALLY BOMB RUSSIA.  The strategy is to get the allies to waste money on things that are not tanks and transports!

Sure looks like it morphed to me, but hey what do I know?

You know what, Axis, I’m tired of letting you flame bait me and attack me with slander.

I’ll be referring your comments to Imperial Leader and DarthMaximus for review.

Seth:

A basic premise is not a strategy.  The PREMISE is to do 24 IPC dmg to Russia each round.  the STRATEGY is to make the allies waste money.

In either event the outcome is the same.  You either attack Russia doing 24 IPC in damage (max) through direct bombing, or you cause the allies to spend 24 IPC or more to return themselves to the status quo (which has the same effect as just bombing them, but at a reduced risk to the axis.)

Eumaies:

I disagree.  It should be counted as 4 IPC in damage.  Likewise, in LL, you shouldn’t have 2.5 IPC damage to your bomber, it should be 3.  This negates having partial IPC if using odd numbered bombers.

for the record, i’m completely on axis’ side in this skuffle.   IMO you were really rude and condescending in this paticular discussion, jen.

@Cmdr:

Yoshi,

The bombers cost nothing because they can be used as bombers each round.

As I said, I agree that this bombers are usefull. But some other use of the 15 IPC could be more usefull in such situation. What I want to say is that building a bomber has a cost: 15 IPC. This is not zero IPC. Then, of course, the bomber is used, so that you do not lose your money : this money is a usefull investment. But you cannot say “the bomber  has no cost ; they make russia lose IPC ; thus the axis win” (I do not say that these words are precisely yours, but this is the way I understand what you mean when I read your posts). Indeed, you can loose the bombers, such that you are trading money between Axis and Russia (if making SBR campaign against this country). This is not useless, and can be very good. But this is not unbeatable. It depends of what happens in the other points of the game, and also of the dice (for instance, if you are quite unlucky with AAguns, you can be in trouble, and on the other side if your bombers are never killed, Russia will be in a very bad position ^^ ), more than in classical battles I think (since each plane killed is 15 IPC lost, and not 3 IPC when you took one more defense it than the average in ground combat for instance)

@Cmdr:

For instance, the bombers are used passively as a deterrent to allied naval shipping in the Atlantic forcing them to consolidate their fleets and buy more units to defend American transports from attack.  The best part is, they pretty much have to do this even if you never intend to attack their fleets because they don’t know your intentions!

I totally agree with this point. This is one of the interest to invest in planes with germans. But in practice, it will make the Allies buy a carrier for UK and US, what they often do. And then, to force them to buy more naval units, you will have limited movement with your plane. Thus, you force them to buy these carriers, but you cannot say that this is 32 IPC spent for nothing for the Allies : first, they often buy it, and secondly this enable them more flexibility for their plane also.

But on an other hand, the first bomber bougth by german is very usefull to protect Algeria in the first trun (and so to gain one turn on the classical Africa reconquest of the Allies).

To conclude this point, I would say that bombers are very interesting for this point, but it is difficult to conclude that it cost money to the Allies…

@Cmdr:

They are used aggressively in a myriad of ways:

1)  They can attack Russia’s or England’s Industrial Complexes.  Russia can try to counter with AA Guns, but I’ve pretty much shredded anyone’s hopes and dreams that would ever be cost effective for Russia.  England does not have that option being on an island.

without talking of buying more AA guns for Russia (which I think need a lot more of details to understand all the problem), attacking industrial complexes has a cost : the price of the bombers you can lose. In average (and to look this point we need to consider the average), you loose 15/6=2.5 IPC, and you win 5/6*3.5=2.91 IPC, that I will round to 3 (which is better for your strategy). Thus, you gain only 0.5 IPC buy bombers. And this is for one bomber, which can make 6 IPC damage (for instance, this change when you attack Caucas or when you have two bombers on Russia, since when the two bombers are not killed by AA Gun, you are limited to 8 on your damage). But anyway, I think that we can assume the following : you do not gain money when you attack russian industrial complexes, and you do not loose money (I can make the all average computations if you want to be more precise, but I do not think that we need more mathematics in this discussion. The aim is not to see if you win 0.1 IPC or 0.3 IPC, at least this is my opinion: I make enough mathmatics at work :) ).

This said, I think that even if you do not gain money by bombing the Russian Factories, it is still interesting: as Germany and Japan make this, they each loose a part of their money where as the Russia loose most of its own. And this is an oter interesting point of this strategy. What I want to say is that bombers have a cost: precisely this money that you invest to make Russia loose money.

@Cmdr:

2)  They have massive range allowing Germans to trade territories much farther away without having to move their fighters, this allows them to defend western territories with less men and in turn allows them to bring more cannon-fodder to bear on Russia. (Because the fighters can stay in Western and 1 fighter can replace - in my opinion - 3 to 4 infantry on defense.  That means those guys can move to the front lines.)

If you replace fighters by bombers to trade territories, when you are not applying your original strategy. Thus here you do not gain really something from your bomber. I mean, let say that you can keep 2 more fighters in France because you have two more bombers. Assume that this 2 fighters enable you to send 7 more guys to the east then if you needed your fighters (and this is I think a lot, or only when you already have a very big number of infantry in France, that means not a the beginning). The two bombers you bought cost you 30 IPC, that is 10 infantry, less than 7.

But I agree that this may be a usefull use of your bombers, especially to force allies to invest in navy if they want to attack for instance from SZ 5 (since the fighters in france are more agressive on the UK or US navy). One more, UK can go via SZ 4 to deal with such fighters agression.

To conclude, this can be interesting, but not more (in my opinion of course, I do not claim anything more than my opinion ;) ). Only in special situation I think.

@Cmdr:

3)  They CAN go attack America’s transports if you chose to send them there.

Once more, a AC buy from the US, added to its initial boats (1 BB and two destroyers, added to 2 planes an a carrier, and say 5 trannies, you need a very big number of planes to attack that), can cancel that. And this is when you want to go close to the German planes. Otherwise, you can for instance go to SZ4 with the UK, and do not have to consider any defense against Germans planes, since you will have the two Allies fleets together)

@Cmdr:

Because of these 4 reasons, a bomber has either no cost, or a negative cost to Germany.

As already said, I considered that they have a cost. This cost  is an investment that you will get back during the game. But it include the Allies losses from your bombers.

So you can say that it has no cost if you include money lost by the Allies from that bomber, and I will agree with that. But then, you cannot say “they have no cost and then they make Allies losses”: the Allies losses have already been counted to say that the bombers have no cost.

@Cmdr:

Do note, however, I did assign a cost to Japan’s extra bombers due to their lack of utility.  They either go SBR Russia or they go SBR America, they really serve no other purpose at all and they cannot shift from one to the other like Germany can without downtime in between.

For Japan bombers, I think it depends: if US goes KJF, then you will have more power to fight against the US navy and may appreciate these bombers. Thus, in such case, we can say that this is usefull (but as said a44bigdog, I think that a 8 bid for a japan tranny is required such that you can send some troops in Asia at the begginning).

Otherwise, if US goes KGF, I think that Japan can buy bombers, since he will become rich quite fast. Thus, the trade of money between Japan and Russia is clearly an advantage for Japan.

To conclude, I think that this strategy is interesting. I see here an other way to defeat Russia. But how Germans will defend against a KGF strategy with a two bombers buy at the beginning, I do not know how it will conclude for the germans. I would say that it would conclude with a fall of Russia an Germany, as quite often in KGF games, but then… too much difficult to say what would appear ^^

Let me rephrase, since it seems some are unclear on the concept of “cost.”

The bombers require 15 IPC to build.  However, if their original purpose for being built is not realized, they are still valuable units.  Therefore they don’t “cost” you anything to build.  Perhaps 5 infantry would be better, perhaps not.  Remember, the bombers still pull double duty by acting as both a deterrent and a long range heavy hitter for your attacks.

Building a second carrier and fighters for it, or a pair of destroyers (which I prefer since they don’t tie up the fighters which is what makes the carrier a good defensive piece) to defend against the threat of the bombers is “lost” money.  Yes, you have the units, but they are not adding anything to your ability to prosecute the war.  Their only reason for being is to counter the bombers.  If the bombers never attack, then they have added nothing to your strategy.  Therefore, they “cost” you money.

Building AA Guns are potentially the worst possible move you can make.  Not only are they completely useless unless they are attacked by aircraft, but they can be captured.  If they are captured you have to chose to attack them with high value units or let them be wisked away.  There’s just no good option with these things.  No matter what you do, they’ve cost you more in the long run than if you had never built them to begin with.  At best you are out 5 IPC and manage to win every engagement to liberate them with only the 2 infantry you would have sent in to battle in a normal engagement.  At worst, they cost you the 5 IPCs to build them and tanks or planes liberating them each round.  No matter what you do with these, they cost you!  Now, I know, you are going to say they cost the Axis too since they have to dedicate tanks or planes trying to take them each round, but you have to think, we’re talking round 3 here (according to eumaies) when these things are built.  Who exactly can afford to lose tanks each round better?  Germany and Japan or Russia?

Furthermore, each AA Gun that Russia produces is one less unit that can attack.  That doesn’t seem like much, but then, you are worried about a little old bomber doing a mere 3 IPC (according to eumaies) or 4 IPC (according to me).  Both of those are less than the cost of one little AA Gun.  So right off the bat, if you build two of these which is what eumaies wants to build, you are taking a 10 IPC hit, and now you have to defend them.

Furthermore, if you wanted to bring AA Guns from America, as some had mentioned, if you started in Round 3 we’re talking 1 Round to E. Canada from E. USA.  1 Round to England from E. Canada.  1 Round to Arkhangelsk from England. And multiple rounds getting into position from there (depending where you want to go, Arkhangelsk could be your destination, but so could W. Russia, Kazakh, Novosibirsk or Evenki.)  So at the very best, you’re looking at 3 rounds just moving the gun.  So, starting in round 3 which is when you see those bombers (1 Gerry in Round 1, 1 Gerry in Round 2; 2 Japanese in either Round 1 or Round 2, I prefer round 2, but the original statement by A44 was Round 1)  means you will have your AA Gun from America around turn 6 to turn 8.  Are you sure Russia will still be there?

Just to reclarify:

“cost” does not mean IPC required to build it.  “Cost” means a detraction from your ability to prosecute the war.  Anything built purely for defense with no offensive ability and/or offensive expectation “costs” you.  Sometimes that “cost” is valuable, sometimes it is not.  In the case of extra ships and planes to defend transports way out in SZ 2 for America or extra AA Guns for Russia, that “cost” is not justified.

What does it “cost” Germany to build the bombers?  Nothing.  The loss of cannon fodder is minuscule compared to the production ability of Germany.  That minuscule loss of fodder is more than balanced by the increased flexibility of having an extra or two extra bombers on hand.  If that were not enough, the ability to keep your fighters in W. Europe to maximize your threat to the allied fleet and defend from invasions (thus freeing cannon fodder which might even exceed the number you could have bought for those IPC) clearly sends the value of that Germany bomber from “cost” to “asset”.

In Japan’s case, it is a cost.  Japan does not have the same production capacity of Germany and what it does have, requires transports and/or new industrial complexes.  Furthermore, Japan has plenty of fighters and bombers to do what it needs without needing to build more.  If America was being a nuisance and going KJF, then they might be an asset, but in the general case, they are a cost.

i think aabigdog and jen you both just have different experiences, or “data sets” in terms of what occurs on the asian front than others in this discussion do.  It’s probably a function of opponents and play style, but in my games japan gets squeezed very hard for a significant amount of time, rather than the all out KGF that is closer to normal in the games and examples you’re citing.  Examples include jen’s expectation of a retreat from buryatia and india, as compared to my expectation of pushing hard on those fronts.  The bomber strat no doubt works better in the former case.  Part of this might also be the bid of a transport for japan, which i do think is a bit much (certainly more than i’d ever expect) and probably colors the experience.

Axis has already addressed the first of these two expectation differences but I’ll make them again:

1. the aa’s positioned in asia covering the east asia front presuppose there’s no back and forth conflict there for several turns.  In our games, there typically isn’t.

2. for the allied fleets in the atlantic, i think your expectations (and aabigdog’s opponents) are simply mistaken.  allied fleets need to be capable of killing expensive german bombers and fighters, not of keeping all their transports safe no matter what.  1 destroyer & 2 transports is FINE against 2 bombers.  1 destroyer and 4 transports is FINE against 3 bombers.  It seems crazy, but the defender wins more often then not and germany (which can least afford it) loses at least as much value as the US.  What has essentially happened is the us builds a high volume of useful transports, and if they get attacked it’s not the end of the world and a few ground forces get delayed, and if they don’t, you use them.   Finally, as axis pointed out, where you land the bombers makes all the difference in whether they can threaten the US or prep for effective SBR runs.

anyway, while it’s only one of multiple reasonable responses to the SBR strategy, i’m certain building 2 aa’s is not a game breaker build for russia on turn 3.

also, jen, while i’m not banking on any aa guns from eastern us, it actually makes perfect sense to move the us aa gun to eastern canada on turn 1 in every game.  it’s no use at home and you never know when you might want to or have extra space to ship it over.

finally, on the disagreement about probablities – rounding is probably not something you want to do until you get your final answer… at the end 8.7 or 10.2 is not a whole $ value, so then you round to 9 or 10.  But I gurantee if you bomb with 3 bombers 100 times in various games, you will on average cause 9 damage, not 10.  (as a simple example, consider 2 bombers – one rolling a 3 and the other a 4, = 7, /2 = 3.5… and suddenly the average damage was 3.5.  Go figure!  Fractions happen in real life).

p.s.  i just can’t bring myself to learn how to work the aabattlemap system withposting on the forum and separate die rolling and all that, but if either of you guys ever wants to try this on gametable.com, i’d be open to it. While I can’t give you the extra transport in the environment, I could simulate a reasonable bid bonus for the axis by walling off $3-5 away from russia that i would hold but never spend, or something like that.  The idea would not be for me to test a rigid strategy like always building 2 aa guns (i might or might not depending on situation), but I’m pretty sure I could demonstrate the asian experience japan should be contending with given those builds.

Let’s clarify, in a Kill Japan First game, this is not an ideal solution.

Generally speaking, you will know it is a Kill Japan First game at the end of Russia 1, definitely by the end of England 1 against MOST opponents. (I do not follow the traditional path for KJF, I like to make my opponents feel that it is a traditional KGF in the first round only making the first KJF move with America 1.)

So, if you follow my traditional method of SBR potential against Russia (note, POTENTIAL, not ONLY OPTION) you have purchased 5 Infantry, Fighter, Bomber (possibly 2 armor instead of the fighter, I just happen to enjoy having that 6th or 7th fighter for use against the Allied fleets, stops them from uniting in SZ 8 or 12 pretty effectively (5 Fighters, 2 Bombers, Transport, Battleship and possibly surviving members of the SZ 5 fleet which I have “unBaltic” moved. See Caspian Sub Paper on the Unbaltic.  Sometimes it is Submarine to SZ 3, Submarine to SZ 7 and Submarine, Transport, Destroyer to SZ 6 (BB by Gibraltar sunk with Transport/Battleship instead of using the SZ 12 submarine. and yes, there are likely to be fighters in that battle.))

So if the allies do go KJF, you are not locked into bombers for Japan nor have you wasted any money for Germany. (I’ve never heard of aircraft for Germany being called a waste.  Possibly bombers are not your thing, but I happen to enjoy their immense flexibility and the amount of trouble they can cause for the allies.)

To be honest, that 3rd bomber for me usually comes on Germany 3, possibly on Germany 2 if things are going well.  Japan is almost always Japan 3 for the two bomber build (since this is when Japan is earning 40+) but again, it could happen on Japan 2 if the allies are bone-heads allowing me to expand faster than normal.

If you start moving AA Guns from England/America on Round 3, it’s round 6+ before they are in place.  And they are really expensive to use effectively.

Honestly, the only hope I see for the allies is for America to do a super job liberating Africa, England to do an amazing job dumping units into Russia to use keeping Japan back (by liberating Russian territories, Russia can focus on taking German ones, increasing Russia’s income that much more instead of sapping it) and Russia, as I just mentioned, storming Germany.

But the Axis have an easy counter to this as well.  By taking Karelia very, VERY strong, you can stop England from reinforcing Russia.  I’d even go so far as to not liberate W. Russia if I needed too (Ukraine can be liberated from Balkans by units that cannot make it to Karelia anyway).

you see, there we go.  now we agree perfectly when considering a KJF strategy.  all a big misunderstanding.

so aabigdog, i might get on one of these days.  let me review some technical detail questions with you:

1. i have to learn how to use the battlemap graphics so i can change maps and send them (doesn’t seem too hard)
2. i have to be able to use some kind of die rolling web tool, right?  or is it manual?  plz let me know what the link is.  (also, this is an honor system, right?)
3. and then i just have to type in each of the moves i made (and the results of each combat round?) on the forum back and forth.

how long do games usually take this way?

Rolls: 1@6; Total Hits: 11@6: (6)

neat (if this works)

at some time when i have time i’ll probably give this a try.

I have to admit, the thing that makes Battlemap my favorite, even over using the real board, is how simple it is.  Sure, the graphics are really old school, but so what?

If you run into any problems with battlemap, eumaies, feel free to PM me.

cool, thanks for the tips, folks.

worst part is probably those little details that require back and forth interaction, like establishing the axis bid bonus… but i’ll give it a try sometime.