A better plan would be to take S France G1, build fleet and take Greece G2, build factory in Greece and take Egypt G3, build units and airbase (if needed) in Greece G4. The units can deploy to Africa more rapidly and the airbase can defend both the Adriatic and the Aegean. You also have the option of a Black Sea fleet should it ever prove advantageous.

One argument against it is that America can swoop in with 10 bombers on turn 4 and destroy your Mediterranean fleet unless you’ve invested a lot in it, which means you haven’t invested as much in boots on the ground.

Personally I would try to do it on I2/G3 with mostly the Italians and then two German transports from S. France and the entire Luftwaffe. That way you haven’t diverted too many resources away from Russia and you can still have Leningrad on G4. Instead of building tanks and mechs on G2, you could build artillery because your push into Russia will be slower anyways and the savings on unit costs plus the 7 IPCs from Egypt will pay for the G3 conquest of Cairo.

No matter what Germany does, optimal play seems to include a push into Russia and conquering Leningrad and Stalingrad as soon as possible. You can accomplish those goals cheaply and effectively with just ground units. Other goals should be considered secondary because they involve building air and naval which don’t provide as good a return on investment. Large naval purchases, in particular, are much easier for the Allies to push back against.

Most of the players here seem to agree that building offensively is a good idea for Russia, but it isn’t yet clear exactly what the consensus is on what units to build, when, and under what circumstances. I would like to propose the following:

If Germany is set up to bring a “normal” amount of units to an Eastern Poland stack:

22 infantry (reduced by 2 for a Yugo strafe)
5 artillery
3 tanks
3 aa

then Russia should respond with a Red Blitz and buy 6 tanks per Gargantua’s suggestion. The Germans will either:

a) hold back from advancing their main stack
b) take Baltic States instead of Eastern Poland, or
c) get crushed in Eastern Poland

All three of those outcomes are good for Russia. Russia would prefer for Germany to take the northern route so they aren’t threatening to capture the southern oilfields.

If Germany is set up to bring an “extra” amount of units (at least 2 more than they have in the stack I described above), Russia should build 9 artillery. They should still bring everything up to the front lines to keep the Germans honest, but they will fall back to Bryansk on R2 and buy another wave of artillery.

In either scenario, there are two goals:

1. to hold at Bryansk instead of in Russia. If the Germans take the northern route, this is accomplished by keeping enough firepower across the two territories that the Germans can’t advance to Smolensk. If the Germans take the southern route, Bryansk simply needs to hold defensively.

2. to contest every territory in reach that doesn’t contain the main German stack. This includes Novgorod if the Germans go south, but not if they go north.

If the Germans are pouring everything into the eastern front, Russia will require Allied assistance in the form of American bombers and British fighters and mechanized units to accomplish goal 1).

In order to accomplish goal 2), the Russians should maintain a mechanized contingent consisting of around 8 units until and unless the British have enough units in the stack that they can take over this role.

As I see it, it is open to debate whether the Russians should pull the Far East forces. It may depend on how intent the other Allies are in bolstering Russia’s defense.

6 tanks are not better than 9 artillery in actual combat - this is true even if the artillery aren’t paired with infantry. What makes the tanks better is their range. However, if you know the German stack is advancing towards you, you don’t need that range if you plan on an all-out assault.

You said yourself that the Russians need to be able to attack the forward German stack before it’s reinforced because it’s the “lull in the wave, and the only chance Russia gets to go pound for pound or better”. I agree with you on this point; however, if the stack looks as I described it (which, by the way, doesn’t require “outrageous sacrifices” - at a minimum you simply don’t strafe Yugo and don’t take Bessarabia or Baltic states unless they can be blitzed - Russia has 37% odds against that stack), there is no such opportunity on R2 and the Russians will have to wait. If the Russians must delay their strike until at least R3, it does no good to have 6 tanks sitting around that can’t attack anything for a turn. It would be better to get the artillery, then move them up and buy tanks the turn before you are going to attack.

There is still the argument that possessing a stack of tanks and mechs gives you the ability to continue threatening two spaces away throughout the game - for example, Novgorod and Archangel from a Bryansk stack, or the Ukraine-Volgograd line from Russia if and when the stack must retreat. I really only see this capability as worthwhile against smaller stacks - you won’t be able to take down the main German stack with just the tanks and mechs. It seems to me that the best compromise is to maintain a contingent of tanks and mechs capable of hitting small stacks, but not too much more than that.

Because they want to push south of the Pripet Marshes and eventually take the oil fields.

@wheatbeer:

@larrymarx:

The Germans, if they do the following things:

• pull off the Yugo strafe losing 2 infantry
• bring 3 aa from Germany with the main stack
• add 3 tanks from GSG to the main stack instead of using them in Paris

The Soviets would be able to see that in advance and change plans if necessary … but would players really divert 3 tanks from Paris on G1?

If Germany were that serious about countering such a Soviet play style, they could simply buy a couple tanks on G1 to mobilize in range of E. Poland.

I agree with you that the Soviets would see it in advance and change plans, but I still posed the question to Gargantua because he said “RUSSIA buying 6 ARMOR first turn is a must.  It’s not a debate”, and I want to see if he can actually back that up.

Diverting 3 tanks from France is not that big of a deal. If you bring every other land unit in range plus the two aircraft on the Russian front lines, France is a 99% battle for Germany. Basically what the tank diversion means is you’re giving up an extra French territory (Normandy or S. France) for one turn.

You could do other things like not do a Yugo strafe and bring some mech from W Germany instead of diverting 3 tanks from GSG. If you leave the Eurofluff countries entirely to Italy, then you can throw everything into France as usual. Replace 3 of the tanks in my G2 German stack with 3 infantry in that case. This is a 37%/-30 battle for Russia. Germany has plenty of options to put up a strong Eastern Poland stack on G2.

The reason I didn’t suggest buying ground units G1 is that I’m trying to operate within what I believe to be the current meta, which is a Sealion feint.

The Germans, if they do the following things:

• pull off the Yugo strafe losing 2 infantry
• bring 3 aa from Germany with the main stack
• add 3 tanks from GSG to the main stack instead of using them in Paris
  can have the following units in Eastern Poland on G2:

21 infantry
5 artillery
6 tanks
3 aa

The Russians, if they build 6 tanks R1 and bring every unit to bear on the Eastern Poland stack R2, can enter the battle with:

18 infantry
2 mech
2 artilley
8 tanks
2 fighters
1 tactical bomber

This is a 26% battle for the Russians with a TUV swing of -38.

So what would you do as Russia in this case?

@PainState:

I think the discussion should be how do the Allies accomplish this goal. IMO a massive stack of Russian INF sitting in Moscow with some Allied air support does not accomplish this goal on the Russian front. It just leads to the standard, been there done that, dice fest on G6 or G7 on Moscow.

If we factor in the British and the Americans, we may be able to turn the Bryansk scenario I described around in Russia’s favor. They can add 10 bombers, 5 fighters and 1 tactical bomber minimum to the Bryansk stack and make it hold even against a German all-in. The British can also kick in a tank and a mech from Egypt.

Maybe this is the best Red Tide strategy. From turn 1, the Allies stack Bryansk with everything they have, and then they attack on any battle where the odds are 50/50 or better. The British with their fast movers and modest air force, and the Americans with their bomber stack, can annihilate small German and Italian troop elements or mop up after the Russians throw themselves completely at the German stack.

The purchases would look like this:

Russia
R1 9 artillery
R2 9 artillery
R3 6 tanks 1 mech if attacking R4 / 10 infantry, 2 mech if not

Americans
A1 4 bombers
A2 4 bombers / 6 bombers if Japan went J1
A3 6 bombers

British
B1 6 infantry, 1 fighter
B2 1 bomber, 2 minor ICs for Persia and Iraq
B3 4 mech, 2 tanks

The purchases beyond these would depend on how the board looks on R4.

The biggest problem as I see it with the hold Bryansk strategy against a German / Italian all in is the possibility that they will take the northern route for the Smolensk can opener threat, forcing Russia to keep a small stack of infantry there that can withstand the Italians. If the British rush to join the stack, they can be the ones to retake Smolensk from the Germans starting on B6, but Russia will have to take care of defending the territory on R4 and R5.

Let’s consider an optimum offensive Bryansk stack on R3. If the Russians pour everything they have into being able to threaten any units that step up to Bryansk, they can have the following available on R3 for an R4 strike:

27 infantry
21 artillery
12 mech
2 tanks
2 fighters
1 tactical bomber

Let’s take a German Sealion feint as an example. Suppose the Germans build two bombers and a sub and lose one infantry and two fighters on the first turn. Then, on the second turn, they build 8 mech and 6 tanks. Italy will can open, which means that there’s no hope of stopping the German air force from landing. Not counting Italian units or the 7 Scandinavian infantry, Germany can step up on G4 with the following:

27 infantry
5 artillery
12 mech
15 tanks
6 aa guns
3 fighters
4 tactical bombers
4 bombers

My battle calculator shows that the defender wins 100% of the time. If I swap sides and have the Germans attack the Bryansk stack, they win 87% of the time.

It really doesn’t look too good for the Russians. I think this confirms that if the Germans pour everything into the Russian front, there is no Red Blitz or Red Tide.

However, if the Germans pour less than everything in, the Bryansk stack can hold. If I remove the planes and the 6 AA from the calculation, suddenly the Russians win 53% of the time. Also, if I build 6 tanks, 1 mech instead of 10 mech on R3, the odds are now 58%. I’m not sure the extra 5% justifies the sacrifice in the defensive power of the stack, but this is certainly open to debate. In any case, I think the R4 Bryansk gambit is worth considering in any game where the Germans are doing something less than full-bore Barbarossa.

Gargantua alluded to a concept in his original 6/21/2016 post that I think all of us have been overlooking: strategies that have a 50/50 shot at success are good for the Allies.

Given that the Axis are viewed as having an edge overall in the game, reducing things to a coin flip should be viewed as a success for the Allies just as a draw can be seen as a good result for black in chess. In Axis & Allies, the Allies are the black pieces.

Though we say the game as a whole favors the Axis, what it really boils down to is the Axis having an edge in the key battles that the game hinges on. Normally, this means the battle for Moscow. However, that particular battle doesn’t have to be the one that the game hinges on. Aggressive Allied play can force the game to be decided on earlier battles. If the Allies are the ones choosing which battle will be decisive, then they can simply choose battles with better odds than the final Moscow battle will have and this will be good for them. The Axis can respond by following through with their plan as normal and exposing themselves to the reduced-odds decisive battle, or they can prevent the Allies from obtaining this advantage by playing more defensively so that any given battle will not have greater odds than the final Moscow battle. If the Axis play more defensively, then the Allies are compensated for the extra IPC’s they spent on offensive units.