Seems counter-intuitive because generally speaking air units CAN hits subs, thus the defending power should have the option of allowing its subs to participate.  Nevertheless, thanks for the rule clarification.

If G is attacking a combined UK/US navy with only air, and the naval fleet consists of subs, destroyers, carriers and fighters, can the Allies take the subs as casualties (fodder) due to the presence of friendly destroyers?  My initial thought was YES because the rules provide that destroyers cancel the “cannot be hit by air” ability of subs, thus the Allies have the option of leaving their subs in the battle as long as they also have a destroyer in the battle.  However, reading the rules again it looks like the attacker (G in this case) would have to attack with a destroyer in order to cancel the “cannot be hit by air” ability of the Allies’ subs and the Allies can’t unilaterally cancel this ability of their own subs with their own destroyers.  Can someone clarify?

Most common buy on UK1 is 1 carrier 2 destroyers. G should not have more than 1 fighter in Norway, and if it attacks this fleet with subs (2 or 3), 1 ftr and 1 bmb, then G likely loses. UK’s advantage is that it follows G and can alter it’s buys based on where G left it’s air.  If more than 1 ftr is in Norway, then G likely made bigger mistakes elsewhere and Allies should capitalize. You can also try the Norwegian Gambit, which removes a G ftr and removes Nor as a landing area for G.

With US fighters and bomber moving away from the Pacific to help secure Africa, then of course there will not be a counter to J’s attack on Pearl, leaving J’s huge fleet in tact.  It seems like Africa is still the priority, but this massive fleet with 2 battleships, cruiser, carrier, fighters, etc. seems like a major problem - could quickly take Alaska, Aust, force US to defend Western US, or even make its way around Africa to cause a serious problem with the US/UK train of tranports.  J could have its fleet in range of attacking SZ 2 by J 4/5 … this would seriously set back the US in that it would be forced to builld heavy air and/or navy to protect SZ2.

It always seems like Axis has a counter to everything the Allies do …

If you send the Russian fighter to Egypt, then the most Russia has to take Ukraine is 3 inf, 3 tanks and 1 fighter, against G’s 3 inf, 1 tank and 1 fighter.  If R fails in Ukraine, the surviving G fighter now supports the Egy attack, basically ensuring the lost of the R fighter and maybe also allowing G to use the bomber in SZ 2.  Seems too risky … or does R still have high probability of taking Ukraine without the extra fighter?

Curious, assuming G has taken AE on G1 with at least 2 units, what do you typically do with the UK fleet in SZ 35 on UK1 - do you go after Borneo on UK 1, use the SZ 35 fleet to retake AE, or maybe combine the fleet with the Aussies in SZ 38 (and further assuming in all scenarios you still send the fighter to take out the J trns in SZ59)? It seems like retaking AE is the priority, but then leaves India weak and J free to start pressing Asia right away. I’m sure there are prior posts on this so I apologize for the repetition.

Also, I’ve tried to get the point in New Guinea, but rarely succeed, which leaves Aust and NZ rather easy targets for J, and UK with even lower IPCs earlier in the game.

@Granada:

If you trade EE/WEU or whatever other European teritories with Allies, distribute the income in such a way that the UK has optimally 32 ipcs to spend every round, the rest should go to US to build air, or a tranny to drop to Africa from time to time or even a sub in pacific.

Great advice from Granada.  My biggest mistake has been strat bombing because my opponent has been ridiculously lucky in shooting down allies bombers.  One follow-up question, however, is how in the world the UK maintains 32 IPCs?  By the time the UK is able to trade EE/WEU territories, it has already lost India, Persia and French Madagascar (-5 IPCs), and usually also New Zealand, Trans-Jordan and other territories in Africa
(-2+ IPCs), and has only gained Norway (+3 IPCs).  So, even with EE, UK might get up to 28-29 IPCs, but never gets close to 32 IPCs.  Of course, WHEN Japan takes the Africa in the later rounds, UK’s income is often in the low 20s.  We’ve never been able to take WEU and hold it without substantial losses, so those 6 IPCs never get factored in.  So, it seems like 32 IPCs for UK is unattainable in the mid to later rounds when UK needs them to send units to Europe.  Also, G frequently strat bombs the UK, depleting much needed IPCs.  As a result, I really never have enough to fully utilize UK’s 4 transports.

Not sure what Hobbes means by “trying a small bid with the Allies?”

Anyway, my German opponent typically builds mostly inf in the early rounds to hold territories, then subs and 1 or 2 carriers to threaten the US / UK fleet.  Also, he usually has a bomber or two (German and/or Japanese) on WE, forcing US to build addional navy to support the SZ 2 transports.  On other occassions, he and I (when I’m the Axis) instead just build inf with G and move all armor and many inf to Karellia, which doesn’t allow the US and UK to maintain a steady stream of Europe landings.  In those games, Russia might trade land with G early on, but G always manages to buy enough time to allow J roll over Russia. Sure the US and UK can eventually out-build whatever G does, but it always seems to take too log.  It’s possible that I haven’t been aggressive enough with Russia when G spends IPCs on navy and air, or aggressive enough with US/UK when G piles up infantry.  Seems like i’ve tried everything suggested in these forums and nothing seems to work.  I’ll keep trying and thanks for the various suggestions.

Neither my friend nor I have figured out a way to win with the Allies.  We used to play an older version when we were in college 20 years ago, but this version just seems impossible for the Allies.  Every game has gone to the Axis (about 14 games now), and every one has been a KGF strategy.  We routinely go with the Norwegian Gambit (preserving the UK battleship) and have never failed.  Yes, we lose the R fighter on Germany R1, but one Russian fighter does not make the difference.  We both have been successful in sinking the German’s Med fleet early in the game and keeping Germany’s income down, but the Russians just don’t have enough to hold German territories, so Germany often builds infantry to hold land, and fighters/bombers or navy to prevent or delay UK / US landings in Europe.  The bottem line is that after many hours of the Allies buidling a navy and the Axis destroying the navy, eventually Japan just gets too powful and takes Russia.  On the few occassions when German was able to take and hold Africa for a few rounds, then it was a shorter game with Germany rolling over Russia.

So, I was wondering if anyone has ever considered taking Borneo on UK 1 and placing a factory on Borneo on UK 2, reinforced with Aussie infantry on UK 2?  UK 1 would include taking out the J transport in SZ 59 and leaving the carrier in SZ 49, thereby blocking J’s only other way of retaking Borneo on J1.  Russia could land one or two fighters on Borneo on R2 (before J2) just to hold if for one more round, then from there UK can fortify with 4 land units per turn.  Seems like this factory would stall J’s progress to Russia, allowing the US and Russia to focus on a KGF strategy.  This also seems like it could be more effective that a UK factory build in India.  While a UK factory in either India or Borneo would eventually be taken by Japan, the India factory allows J to more quickly get to Russia, whereas the Borneo factory would be most useless to Japan’s efforts to get to Russia.  Any thoughts or am I just grasping at straws at this point?

All good responses, I appreciate the input.  However, in just about every game I’ve played, the allied navy is usually destroyed by Germany alone or with the assistance of the Japanese airforce, and long before the allied navy made any meaningful landings in Europe.  In the last game I played, I spent several rounds just building a large UK navy, which was intially effective in SZ 5, but by the time a large enough US navy was within range of helping in SZ 5, Germany/Japan easily killed the whole fleet.  G’s 1 bomber and 6 fighters (assuming Norway fighter alive), along with an additional a fighter or bomber every other round, seems like it will always be too much for allies to effectively land ANYWHERE in Europe.  The more allies build, the more air units Japan sends over to help.  I’m still at a loss as to how to stage/time effective landing ANYWHERE in Europe without losing it all to German and/or Japan airforce, particularly how to get US armor/inf. to Europe consistenty without leaving at least one set of transports vulnerable to attack.