Early War Allied Naval Strategy?

[rkr1958]

Prior to Italian entry what are your CW and French naval strategies. Specifically, what is your strategy for protecting CPs against a potential Italian surprise attack? Strategy for West and East Med? How do you minimize risk to the RN and French navies?

[Jagdtiger14]

France: You never want to minimize risk for your French navies. Anything Italian they can sink is huge! I try to keep my Italians away from the French as much as I can (although there are a couple things worth risking the Italian fleet over). Sending units into the Baltic on the first turn is automatic...just a matter of how much...the subs for sure. I always intern the CV.

As the Italian player I enter into the war ASAP as I usually have Germany maximize Italian production..."prior to Italian entry" to me is about two Axis impulses.

So pre-fall of France:

CW: I keep CW (allied) cp's out of the Med sea zones until the Italians are in the war, and even then I would rather not risk CW cp's there. At most I might try to time the end of a turn, and then return them ASAP the beginning of next turn to limit their exposure while giving myself the opportunity to get something. I set up my convoy protections in the 0, 1, and 4 boxes. I keep a fleet in reserve to react to Axis fleet activity...and provide max protection for any TRS I might have in a sea zone.

Once France falls, there is a completely different strategy for the CW fleets.

[brian brian]

Don't minimize risk with the Royal Navy, or the French. Smash the Axis anywhere you can, until they run out of ships, and blockade them in their ports. Britannia rules the seas, not the bad guys. Uncle Sam has your back.

Eventually though you can't pick battles with 3+ Axis NAV without appropriate land-based air resources of your own, as by then your string-bag CV planes will be whittled down some. Keep the CW FTR3 pool empty and try and get what you can from the FTR2 pool as well with the American Lend-Lease models, even the Brewster Buffalo is good out at sea. The CW should get the P-40 Lend-Lease model at least once or twice before the Chinese do as they should still be building infantry class units when the CW needs it in the Med. The war at sea becomes an aerial struggle, and a struggle over the airbases. Don't give away Malta, put a couple TERRitorial units and a British division on there; and keep supply runs out to it also. Later Gort and the Royal Engineers can set up shop there to bring the war into Italian waters, unless the Italians get slack defending Sardinia and you can pounce on that (first turn perhaps, should Italy be appearing to have have anything more than Continental air force aspirations). Remember it's your ocean, not theirs. Build an extra British SUB to remind them, later it can enjoy life at the wonderful Submarine pens of Calcutta.

I don't intern the French CV unless it is the US Entry phase before the Vichy negotiations. If it is already in the Repair Pool and the Axis want to eventually spend 5 Build Points to deploy essentially a fragile short range aircraft just as your naval forces reach a mid-war peak, let them. The USA spends what, 1,000 Build Points in the game? They can afford to let the Bern fight for a few turns, taking every possible opportunity to help pick off an Italian TRS.

[brian brian]

More specifically for the very early war in the Med - keep a solid patrol in the East and West Med. A pair of BBs and the Eagle (w/range 4 Nimrod) in Alexandria and some speed 5 CA; use the speed 6 CA in Gibraltar where they will have many possible missions. Anything in Alexandria is likely only going to fight in the East Med.

I will set up a French CP in each zone in the Med to either get one Iraqi oil home to France for a turn or so, or perhaps the Cyprus resource. If the Italians want to try and get at the CP, well that is how you get at the Italian navy before it is covered by a whole lot of Axis NAV.

The French can generally afford a Naval action on their first impulse to put everything in the water at once. After that fighting with the French navy will depend on the level of German activity on the Western Front, so the first French move is their best shot.

If the Italian TRS leave port, throw everything available at them, even if at a slight air disadvantage. Use the 2 AA factor ships in the Med (London class) and the weaker AA ships in the Atlantic. Until the Axis NAV build up in force some, they are not that dangerous.

If the Italian TRS are unprotected by land-base FTR in their port, go in after them with the Swordfish. If the random dice of air combat leave the French with a pilot surplus and a reserve aircraft deficit, put their NAV on the map and do the same.

Put the British SUBs in Malta and be aggressive with them = the Italian Coast, every turn.

The Royal Navy didn't win the war in the Mediterranean by minimizing risk. Fight them. You can't win a battle if you don't roll the dice.

[rkr1958]

ORIGINAL: Jagdtiger14
CW: I keep CW (allied) cp's out of the Med sea zones until the Italians are in the war, and even then I would rather not risk CW cp's there. At most I might try to time the end of a turn, and then return them ASAP the beginning of next turn to limit their exposure while giving myself the opportunity to get something. I set up my convoy protections in the 0, 1, and 4 boxes. I keep a fleet in reserve to react to Axis fleet activity...and provide max protection for any TRS I might have in a sea zone.

So in my setups I get full CW production but this requires that 5 RPs (Cyprus, India x 2, Malaya x 2) be routed through the Med. The routes for these 5 RPs through the Med requires 30 CPs. If instead, I were to avoid the Med then I could only get 3 of these 5 RPs to England, meaning two of my factories would sit idle. So as the CW player, assuming the Italians stay neutral until early 1940, what is your convoy strategy then? Do you try to get CPs out near the end of the turn and return them to base early next turn? By the way, this would require reorganization to get them back out to sea again in the same turn. Who do you use for that?

Or as the CW player with a neutral Italian player, during setup and early game do you just take the hit in production and route Indian and Malaysian RPs around the horn? What about the Cyprus RP?

[rkr1958]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

If the Italian TRS are unprotected by land-base FTR in their port, go in after them with the Swordfish. If the random dice of air combat leave the French with a pilot surplus and a reserve aircraft deficit, put their NAV on the map and do the same.

Would you DOW Italy in 1939 to do this or are you suggesting this only after the French and CW are at war?

ORIGINAL: brian brian
The Royal Navy didn't win the war in the Mediterranean by minimizing risk. Fight them. You can't win a battle if you don't roll the dice.

I like it! But, as I've learned the hard way, only if you have air parity or better with the Italians in the sea zone(s) that the RN is going into.

[brian brian]

Some players do prefer a 1939 DOW on Italy, almost as a standard move. The strategic implications of the loss of the Italian TRS are huge for the CW.

The trade-off is the US Entry chit it generally costs. There is a "5" chit in the 1939 pool. But if the Germans are gunning for Belgium on the first turn....every game is different. Aside from the chance to hit an Italian TRS, you also deny them any chance to do a surprise uncontested landing by their infantry divisions, and that is quite significant as well. The risk of going for a Port Strike is an Italian DOW and significant surprise point swing on the carriers' approach to Italy if you are trying to 'Pearl Harbor' them. And if they want to do a surprise landing, that is up to the Axis on impulse #3, not the Allies.

There are a lot of ways to set up the Allied convoy routes. It would probably be easier to mess around with it using a piece of paper covered with hand-drawn circles, or even a spreadsheet. I did the latter once long ago and still never optimized it as good as paulderynck did.

My suggestion is to maximize French production first, including delivering the New Caledonia resource to France. The defense of Gibraltar begins in Flanders. As does the defense of Moscow, for that matter.

Then maximize CW production. Hint: it is OK to burn oil in the UK factories for a few turns. The USA can play Resources to Western Allies as a first choice, ASAP, and begin a massive Allied oil savings program in Canada anyway.


And no, you can't just sail the Royal Navy into the teeth of an Italo-German NAV horde all the time. But early on vs 2 NAVs, those won't hurt you that much if you are careful about assembling a good AA task force. A surprise point swing might hurt, but those hurt the Italians a lot more, particularly when fighting the French on the surface, where Allied losses are irrelevant. The only way to get those swings for the Allies is to risk your own ships, and the Allies have a whole lot of those. If you play the Allies conservatively early in the war, waiting for overwhelming force to start their comeback, you will be coming back from a lot farther away.

[Centuur]

I agree with Brian Brian. However, Italy should get into the game ASAP, because it needs to get at full production as fast as possible. No Italian cowardice in my games.

Now, if Italy is foolish enough to not DoW the CW with Swordfish off the port where the TRS are, the CW should DoW the Italians (except when doing so, the US can't DoW the Euroaxis anymore), port attack that port in the surprise impulse and kill the TRS. Those are the most precious units the Italians have at start. So don't ever let the CW take a shot at them in a surprise impulse or in a port attack phase when you can't fly a FTR to defend them...

CW BB's should get scratched and bumped a lot in the Med. A Italian or German BB lost has the same value as 2 CW BB's lost, because the CW has so many of them at start. That's not to say you should take high risks with the Royal Navy, but any combat between about equally sized and positioned fleets should be done and not avoided (whereas for the Italians and German, one needs to think if attacking an equal CW force is worth the risk they are taking)...

[Jagdtiger14]

So in my setups I get full CW production but this requires that 5 RPs (Cyprus, India x 2, Malaya x 2) be routed through the Med. The routes for these 5 RPs through the Med requires 30 CPs. If instead, I were to avoid the Med then I could only get 3 of these 5 RPs to England, meaning two of my factories would sit idle. So as the CW player, assuming the Italians stay neutral until early 1940, what is your convoy strategy then? Do you try to get CPs out near the end of the turn and return them to base early next turn? By the way, this would require reorganization to get them back out to sea again in the same turn. Who do you use for that? Or as the CW player with a neutral Italian player, during setup and early game do you just take the hit in production and route Indian and Malaysian RPs around the horn? What about the Cyprus RP?

It all depends on what the Axis are trying to do. Italy sometimes tries to get the supply unit out of Africa...do the Allies allow it, or DOW to sink it (think about the consequences for the Allies if they decide to sink it)? In my face to face games the Italians are in the war pretty quick...but in your scenario, I would test the waters([:)]) with the cp's.
After all, what are cp's but BP's?...if you lose a cp to try to get another BP's worth of production, what have you really accomplished?...especially early on when PM's are what they are.

I try to get the French to help out as much as possible (as Brian wrote), but as the CW...I don't fret over not getting full production if that means losing a bunch of valuable cp's. The Med is a dangerous place for cp's...I prefer to send as much around the horn as possible. CW should be in the habit of building cp's every turn.

I like to have cp's in reserve if I try timing turn ends.

If the Italians are neutral after the S/O'39 turn ends, then I would get a bit more risky with cp's for a little while. I think its a mistake for the Italians to be neutral for long...the longer they stay neutral, the better for the Allies!

[Jagdtiger14]

Don't give away Malta, put a couple TERRitorial units and a British division on there; and keep supply runs out to it also. Later Gort and the Royal Engineers can set up shop there to bring the war into Italian waters, unless the Italians get slack defending Sardinia and you can pounce on that (first turn perhaps, should Italy be appearing to have have anything more than Continental air force aspirations). Remember it's your ocean, not theirs. Build an extra British SUB to remind them, later it can enjoy life at the wonderful Submarine pens of Calcutta. I don't intern the French CV unless it is the US Entry phase before the Vichy negotiations. If it is already in the Repair Pool and the Axis want to eventually spend 5 Build Points to deploy essentially a fragile short range aircraft just as your naval forces reach a mid-war peak, let them. The USA spends what, 1,000 Build Points in the game? They can afford to let the Bern fight for a few turns, taking every possible opportunity to help pick off an Italian TRS.

I'm not sure at what point Brian gets two TERR into Malta, but early on the CW can not (due to more important demands elsewhere) defend Malta with anything more than a division sized unit (normally the gun it gets down there). This allows the Italians to take it early, but there is something else more important for the Italians to do anyway.

Once France falls, what ever the CW has in Malta/Sardinia either runs away, or CW player decides is expendable. Now the real naval war for the Western Med/Gibraltar begins with the Axis normally clearing out the CW (or CW retreating) with the following struggle being in Cape St. Vincent where the CW has a chance (assuming they have Portugal).

If the Axis want the Med as their lake, they can make that happen...so the CW has to beware of this when it comes to assets they wish to allocate or put at risk there.

As for the Bern, I just get it out of the way and give the US a TRS as soon as it becomes possible to do so. While the US has tons of BP's over the course of the game, early on it does not. I prefer to get an early start, especially with a TRS.

[brian brian]

Jt14 is correct in that the CW probably can't deliver TERR units to Malta right away, probably not until a few turns into 1940. But then the Axis can't threaten it with corps sized units until then either.

I like to put the free-set-up gun counter, and the Royal Engineers there. 6 total Italian factors from a 3 division landing probably can't beat that, and you probably can't send a division sized unit to France until Alexander heads in there firs anyway.