German onslaught defense tips?

[Gonqueasel]

My brother encountered a strategy for Germany that results in the defeat of Russia on turn 3 - before any meaningful intervention can arrive from the Allies. Has anyone else encountered this? Has anyone found an effective counter strategy? Our interest in the game is going to wane quickly if it's just three turns long and more or less the same outcome every time.

[FlaMiN_EliTe]

I feel like you're going to have to flesh out exactly what was encountered to get any meaningful response. Bottom line is that there's no way three rounds is typical in the least bit. Allies screwed up majorly.

[reneesugg]

I could see it if the Russian player was out of place with his infantry stack.

[Gonqueasel]

That’s fair - I’ll try to put together a more detailed analysis before work tomorrow, I just thought some folks out there might have been familiar enough with it to comment.

[shmity72]

uk fighters in moscow if germ is obviously pushing with tanks
and 'buy more inf' always and it bears repeating: 'buy more inf'

[Gonqueasel]

Turns out, the claim of turn three appears to be excessively ambitious, but the situation is still worthy of input.
Essentially, he drains all of Europe and throws it at Karelia on turn one, buying 6 tanks. In our current game, Russia decided to essentially abandon Karelia in order to avoid the assault and push back the Germans in West Russia
Turn two, he consolidates in Karelia after making an attempt on West Russia - pulling up those six tanks. Buys a couple of bombers. This results in a force of 7 Inf, 18 tanks and two fighters (he lost two fighters to AAA fire in the attempt on West Russia) in Karelia.
Between West Russia and Russia itself, The Russians have 14 Inf, 5 Arty, 2 tanks and 4 fighters.
Link to photo below.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOPFZh-pxx5yCylKohljRao0FWi0LZwHML2l3sM

[FlaMiN_EliTe]

sarutter a écrit :

Turns out, the claim of turn three appears to be excessively ambitious, but the situation is still worthy of input.
Essentially, he drains all of Europe and throws it at Karelia on turn one, buying 6 tanks. In our current game, Russia decided to essentially abandon Karelia in order to avoid the assault and push back the Germans in West Russia
Turn two, he consolidates in Karelia after making an attempt on West Russia - pulling up those six tanks. Buys a couple of bombers. This results in a force of 7 Inf, 18 tanks and two fighters (he lost two fighters to AAA fire in the attempt on West Russia) in Karelia.
Between West Russia and Russia itself, The Russians have 14 Inf, 5 Arty, 2 tanks and 4 fighters.
Link to photo below.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOPFZh-pxx5yCylKohljRao0FWi0LZwHML2l3sM

If Germany is purchasing six tanks initially and then following that up with two bombers he's effectively out of the running for Africa and dangerously weak on his read guard. He has no infantry support and no meat shield to take or hold territories. If Germany shows his hand like that with six tanks and reveals that he's going for a fast push to Moscow then I'm completely going to make the game a short campaign with the referendum on whether or not his German tanks can win Moscow before Berlin falls. You could also just stuff defensive fighters into Moscow with Russia supplying the stack of infantry to take the hits while you destroy tanks and aircraft. He won't have time to adjust and get a stack of infantry to Moscow in time if he waits until R3 to buy it, especially since he'll be having to deal with allied shipping threatening most of western Europe by R4. Usually when people can't figure out for to stop or slow Germany they're messing up Russia in a big way with bad purchases and attacks. if not that, then really bad support from the British and to a lesser extent the Americans. There's really no way for Germany to seriously threaten Moscow until R5 or R6 unless he's just taking great advantage of poor allied play (in my opinion, anyhow).

[Gonqueasel]

The loss of Karelia on R1 makes bringing in fighters from the UK challenging. In this case, the UK experimented with putting a factory in Egypt, pulling in the fleet from India to cover it and provide amphibious support. 'Poor allied play' may be accurate, but a bit vague. We've been trying to puzzle this out for a bit, so it is possible some of our underlying assumptions are incorrect. Our typical Russian strategy (minimal attacks purely defensive buys) thus far hasn't been successful. It's quite likely we are failing to put together an effective response from the UK and the US, as thwarting the Japanese may be taking too much attention from the German threat.

[reneesugg]

If you put a factory in Egypt, have U.S build a factory in Brazil. I have seen this in over the board games where US ends up with fighters in India to help assist in defense. You can then use your bombers and fighters to strafe the board.

[Gonqueasel]

Thanks for the tip! We may try it at some point.

[reneesugg]

Germany can do something similar and build a factory closer to Russia thus helping to insure their tanks and infantry can amass and sustain assaults. Hopefully, this strategy helps you out, at the very least provide a change up from time to time.

[aardvarkpepper]

sarutter a écrit :

The loss of Karelia on R1 makes bringing in fighters from the UK challenging. In this case, the UK experimented with putting a factory in Egypt, pulling in the fleet from India to cover it and provide amphibious support. 'Poor allied play' may be accurate, but a bit vague. We've been trying to puzzle this out for a bit, so it is possible some of our underlying assumptions are incorrect. Our typical Russian strategy (minimal attacks purely defensive buys) thus far hasn't been successful. It's quite likely we are failing to put together an effective response from the UK and the US, as thwarting the Japanese may be taking too much attention from the German threat.

Yes, you'll find a lot of advice you get from Axis and Allies players is vague. But you've identified issues and are asking questions, and key - I really like that you wrote "possible some of our underlying assumptions are incorrect". as well as some of the details you provided. I find that your description of the issue is still not enough to convey what's going on (details about that later) but at least there's something to go on. So let's get on that. In a moment.

reneesugg a écrit :

If you put a factory in Egypt, have U.S build a factory in Brazil. I have seen this in over the board games where US ends up with fighters in India to help assist in defense. You can then use your bombers and fighters to strafe the board.

reneesugg a écrit :

Germany can do something similar and build a factory closer to Russia thus helping to insure their tanks and infantry can amass and sustain assaults. Hopefully, this strategy helps you out, at the very least provide a change up from time to time.

I've seen those things too, and I think they're bad. I'm not opposed to the idea that maybe they're good and maybe I just don't see how. But I've never seen either Brazil or Egypt ICs explained in a way that makes me think they *are* really good. Well if you want to have that discussion then maybe put up a thread. As it is, I'll assume you're suggesting it because you're happy with it, and as I think it's all right to have differences of opinion we'll leave it at that. (Unless you want to discuss the mechanistic reasons for why I think they're bad but that's really for another thread).

sarutter a écrit :

My brother encountered a strategy for Germany that results in the defeat of Russia on turn 3 - before any meaningful intervention can arrive from the Allies. Has anyone else encountered this? Has anyone found an effective counter strategy? Our interest in the game is going to wane quickly if it's just three turns long and more or less the same outcome every time.

This doesn't give enough detail. There's different variations of Axis tank dash to Moscow, and some *simply do not have good odds of being countered*. And the different variations require different counterplay. It's just not possible to give "general case" advice that's actually going to be useful based on such vague description of the problem. (Again, more on that later).

sarutter a écrit :

Turns out, the claim of turn three appears to be excessively ambitious, but the situation is still worthy of input.
Essentially, he drains all of Europe and throws it at Karelia on turn one, buying 6 tanks. In our current game, Russia decided to essentially abandon Karelia in order to avoid the assault and push back the Germans in West Russia
Turn two, he consolidates in Karelia after making an attempt on West Russia - pulling up those six tanks. Buys a couple of bombers. This results in a force of 7 Inf, 18 tanks and two fighters (he lost two fighters to AAA fire in the attempt on West Russia) in Karelia.
Between West Russia and Russia itself, The Russians have 14 Inf, 5 Arty, 2 tanks and 4 fighters.
Link to photo below.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOPFZh-pxx5yCylKohljRao0FWi0LZwHML2l3sM

I didn't find anything at that link. Generally a lot of websites may be having increased use, resulting in overload, so don't be too surprised if it happens in other cases too.

Even with a photo, though, it STILL probably would not be enough detail. (Details later. But even if you put up a photo of Europe, you still need to look at the Asia situation. You really need a picture of the whole board, and a list of the buys and moves and combat results helps for those that don't want to recalculate from scratch. Well more on all that later.)

sarutter a écrit :

The loss of Karelia on R1 makes bringing in fighters from the UK challenging. In this case, the UK experimented with putting a factory in Egypt, pulling in the fleet from India to cover it and provide amphibious support. 'Poor allied play' may be accurate, but a bit vague. We've been trying to puzzle this out for a bit, so it is possible some of our underlying assumptions are incorrect. Our typical Russian strategy (minimal attacks purely defensive buys) thus far hasn't been successful. It's quite likely we are failing to put together an effective response from the UK and the US, as thwarting the Japanese may be taking too much attention from the German threat.

Yeah, this is where it starts to get interesting. Russia being defensive? Egypt IC? Oof.

As I wrote to reneesugg, I'm not opposed to the idea that maybe there's a good line of play even if I think it's bad. But the problem is every post I've ever seen regarding certain lines of play have always been vaguely described. I don't doubt they may work in some games, but what if something else could have worked better? This is what I think.

But generally I'd say Egypt IC is bad. Unless you already "won" (not in terms of victory cities, but in terms of production and logistics and tempo). Well I digress.

==

OK so I said - details later, about the missing details. Welcome to later.

I'll write stuff like "R1" or "G1". I never talk about "rounds", so R1 is never a reference to the round. R1 = Russia's first turn, UK3 = UK's third turn.

First - there's different varieties of tank dash. Just the major ones you have to contend with all have very different counterplay. And no, you can't just build the same stuff to counter all of the variations then use it differently. Well okay you can, but it's going to suck. So don't.

A) Dedicated G1 tank dash in Europe post R1 bad dice and/or bad R1 moves.

B) G1 infantry push followed by later tanks, or G1 infantry/tanks. Which are different in purpose, neither of which are directly relevant to OP. But it bears mentioning as there's players other than the OP that are going to try to apply what's written here in other discussions.

C) German tank push in Africa. Also as B.

And *each* of these major variations has different counters depending on the *specific* board situation. And *none* of them involve purely defensive Russian buys.

I wrote a Steam guide. Go read it. No really. Then come back here, and read the later posts I'll be putting up.

[aardvarkpepper]

OK so you read the guide. Controlling infantry push and flow, the basic of basics. But the application is a little tricky.

So here we are, as I read it you're building a load of infantry with Russia and nothing else. And if you're reading the guide I wrote maybe you're thinking that's a good thing, because Russian defense, Russian economy, Russian infantry. Right?

No. Because it's NOT just about Russian infantry. You also need to consider GERMAN AND JAPANESE infantry push. And UK and US. The whole thing has to come together.

And now I'm going to write some vague-yet-specific stuff. It's vague because I'm not using exact numbers with exact percentage breakdowns of different outcomes for specific distributions of units on a specific board position. But it's specific in the sense that I'm identifying *numbers* and *principles* that you want to remember and consider when you play. What I'm getting at is - I'm not addressing your situation, because I just don't have enough detail, and if I DID have enough detail I still wouldn't want to run the analysis. But I am going to give you some tools to work with, some methodologies to consider. OK?

Consider Germany, Italy, Karelia, Russia, Caucasus. Then think about Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Belorussia, Karelia, Archangel, Caucasus, Iceland. (What are you considering?). Then think of income with all that in mind. Think about Africa. And instead of looking at this as a vague mishmash of "there's a lot to consider", try to think about the *connections*, how one thing influences another, the specific timing.

Roughly, Russia starts at 24 IPC, gains West Russia and possibly Ukraine, pushes to 26-28 income. It can't control Karelia for long, and is effectively limited in production for much of the game to 12 units a turn (at Russia and Caucasus), which is further limited based on income (14-26+) to perhaps 8 units a turn. (Assuming NOT pure infantry builds for reasons I'll get to.) See? So income is the real choke point for Russia, not production. And also logistics is not so much the issue either; Russian units pop up almost right where the combats are.

*note - Russia has logistic problems in Asia, but I'm not addressing those as I'm mostly addressing (from now) the OP's concern about Axis tank-dash-to-Moscow.

Now Germany. Germany starts at 40 IPC, has Germany and Italy, and quickly pushes to 42-46+ IPC. But Germany has *severe* logistics issues. Stuff that's produced in Germany has to move to, say, Eastern Europe, then Ukraine, and all this time Russia's producing units, then eventually Germany maybe who knows manages to push somewhere. But if Germany pushed infantry then Russia had more time to build, if Germany pushed tanks then it's trading 6-IPC German tanks for 3-IPC Russian infantry.

So at this point you're getting some sort of idea. The Axis can push a harder and faster early attack, but *only at cost* The big problem for Axis tank dash is when the Axis start trading 6-IPC tanks for 3-IPC infantry - combined with the secondary matter of defending Axis's grasp on Europe against UK/US transport and escort fleets.

I know I'm throwing a lot at you. But you need to understand the overall Axis plan, and YOUR overall Allied counterplan. Imagine you manage to stop the first wave of Axis tanks. What then? You still need some sort of midgame/lategame plan, you can't just let Axis continue throwing tanks at an economically starved Russia all day, you're going to lose in time. And your UK/US forces will not magically teleport into Russia. Quasimystical mumbo jumbo players that omit the details just say "blah blah git gud blah blah" essentially, but HOW EXACTLY do you git gud?

OK. So first - countering the tank push to not lose while *also* remembering you'll want resources for the long game (I'll write about KGF (Kill Germany First) because I think KJF sucks.)

There's three ways to go. Infantry (cheap), infantry plus (expensive but tactically flexible), or non-infantry (so expensive that the increased tactical flexibility isn't worth it in terms of counterattack, it's really more of a "we're about to die, emergency measures" thing.)

Just infantry normally doesn't work. And why? Because your target is those German tanks. There's two ways for you to kill them, either the German tanks attack you and you win by weight of numbers. Or you attack the German tanks.

And if you're not used to thinking about the game in a certain way, you're going to say OF COURSE you try to win by weight of numbers it's simple, plan with fewer moving parts is less likely to break down, you can see attack is more expensive than defense, you MUST go defense right?

But really no. Two big reasons why. First, the Axis will not attack you unless they think they have good odds. That means if you're being attacked by a competent Axis player - and I mean COMPETENT in the literal sense, you just won't kill enough Axis tanks while defending, because the Axis just won't have attacked you in the first place. So literally planning on killing Axis tanks that way relies on either a stupid Axis player or lucky dice. You can see why that might be a problem. Second because Axis tanks are mobile. You can defend one territory with stacked infantry, Axis can hit four to six territories with those tanks probably, whether redirecting for defense or pushing offense whatever. Then there's other reasons like Japanese reinforcement of German positions, but I'll leave that for another time.

So what do you do? Infantry/artillery. Germany pushes early, and instead of flinging your infantry in some horrible ineffective attack (or probably just not attacking and waiting and letting Germany do whatever they want which isn't great either) you build artillery. Your defense is weaker because you have less infantry. But your offensive threat is much nastier. You can attack, lose some cheap infantry, then move more infantry up. You don't even lose your expensive artillery, you keep them.

So what does Germany do, what does it REALLY do? If they push their tanks forward, then you punish them. If they keep their tanks defensive, then you trade for valuable European territories to address Russia's choke on income while also killing Germany's units that were such a problem to bring to the frontlines. If Germany just sits on its tanks, Russia keeps building up too. So you limit Germany's options, see?

. . . which brings us to some particulars.

Because right now you're probably saying yeah but you tried some variation of whatever and you don't think that artillery are going to help. Because your issue is Germany is breaking through your raw infantry defense, so how is artillery going to help? And you understand on some level that yes, Russia has a big income problem, Germany has a logistics problem, light trading for Russia is generally favorable for Allies, yes artillery threat maybe allow Russia some more income, but you're thinking in the back of your mind . . . you get some more income, you're spending more income on artillery, German tanks still coming in . . . you're not seeing it. Right?

Right. So that's where we have to start looking at the UK/US moves and counters and timings, and general strategy.

(continued)

[chong.ong]

sarutter a écrit :

Turns out, the claim of turn three appears to be excessively ambitious, but the situation is still worthy of input.
Essentially, he drains all of Europe and throws it at Karelia on turn one, buying 6 tanks. In our current game, Russia decided to essentially abandon Karelia in order to avoid the assault and push back the Germans in West Russia
Turn two, he consolidates in Karelia after making an attempt on West Russia - pulling up those six tanks. Buys a couple of bombers. This results in a force of 7 Inf, 18 tanks and two fighters (he lost two fighters to AAA fire in the attempt on West Russia) in Karelia.
Between West Russia and Russia itself, The Russians have 14 Inf, 5 Arty, 2 tanks and 4 fighters.
Link to photo below.
https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOPFZh-pxx5yCylKohljRao0FWi0LZwHML2l3sM

I used to play the original Axis and Allies on a physical board game set. I think 1942 is much better and has different strategies.

In the original Axis and Allies, Russia could simply stack loads of infantry. Furthermore, transport ships were OP because they could even attack planes back (and be used as casualties first). So UK and USA could easily send troops across.

With 1942, I think a strong way to defend is to amass a combined army of infantry and artillery (buy e.g. 2 or 3 infantry to 1 artillery) and stack them together with the starting tanks and fighters. Then leave buffer territories with 1 soldier.

The Germans have a huge advantage in air force. But upon attacking the buffer territory (with 1 soldier), then can't simply stack their entire tank army together with their planes (since planes can't land on newly conquered territory). If they were to move an entire tank stack in, they could easily lose their entire expensive army to the combined army of infantry, artillery, tanks and fighters of the Russians. As a side note, I think it's extremely important that Russia preserves their 4 tanks and 2 fighters (i.e. don't throw them away).

Lastly, if the Germans are completely focused on building a tank army to rush the Russians, this also means they are not attempting to stop UK/USA from landing, nor preparing a defence.

[aardvarkpepper]

(continued)

Here's where I start talking about the details (a little) and where you'll see why, exactly, I said the provided details simply weren't enough for real practical advice that would help. We don't know what else is going on the board, what else the Allied players tried. And even a complete board picture doesn't give sufficient information, oh no. No no no. Because there's a gigantic difference between a player that tried the RIGHT things but had a load of bad luck, and a player that tried a load of WRONG things and got killed as expected.

Example? Let's say R1 you build 4 infantry 3 artillery and hit Ukraine with all available units and West Russia with everything else (I don't love that open but whatever it's not the worst and it's simple). And let's say you get weird and bad dice in West Russia AND Ukraine. Then let's say you move all east Asian units west, Kazakh infantry to Russia.

Okay so let's say Germany decides to attack AND gets lucky. They take West Russia, Ukraine, Caucasus, and Karelia. And since Germany knew it was going to be aggressive, they also bought a load of German tanks. You see how that's a very nasty situation.

Then let's say that we go a few more rounds, Russia's infantry that started in east Asia all moved into Russia or nearby, Japan pushed, Russia's R1 artillery got traded. Then what?

Well we can't tell much from looking at a picture of the board. We know Allies are losing, and losing hard. But we don't know if it was because Russia was massively dumb, or because Allied to Axis luck just didn't turn out well. We can't get a read on the player because by this late point in the game all the opening positinos have been subsumed over time. If there's an industrial complex on Egypt and the Axis are winning hard, for all we know the Axis built it. Etc. We just don't know.

Contrast that to a player that did something like land Russian fighters on Caucasus after not attacking West Russia or Ukraine, building Russian bombers, stacking Buryatia, then losing those Russian bombers to industrial complex antiaircraft fire, the Buryatia stack to massed Japanese attack - then a few turns later the Axis pressing on Moscow. If we look at a picture of the board at that point, again, we can see Allies are losing. But we don't know what happened before.

And even if the screenshots between those two games are *exactly the same* at that point, one's a game with perhaps a competent player that got unlucky, and another's a game of a not so competent player that got what was coming.

And that's why it's important to list the buys, the moves, the board position at each point, why the board needs to be able to be visible at different points in the game. And it's for this reason that I say that if you want to run a more serious game and have a record that's going to help other players analyze your game, you need TripleA's system that lets you look at previous board states. Axis and Allies 1942 Online's system is just not up to the task. Of course, as I ALSO say, if you're a casual that doesn't care about those things (but what causal is going to have read my posts to this point anyways lol) - but if you don't care about that stuff then sure 1942 Online, why not. But if you DO care . . . well you understand.

Okay. So on to what you can do, what you should do. Ish.

GENERALLY speaking, the Allies can trade their timing for speed.

1. Fighters. They're expensive. UK fighters fly from UK to West Russia (and from there to India possibly). US fighters can route too. I forget the details for US, like if you keep a carrier at East US sea zone you get a bit more range, or maybe you didn't need in some cases?

You do NOT want to just buy a bunch of fighters. A fighter costs the same as two infantry and an artillery; the ground forces have more hit points, more attack power, and more defense. You need to try to get cost-efficient infantry *IF YOU CAN*. If the game is going in a direction that you can't really take the time for infantry/artillery, if you REALLY REALLY can't afford it THEN you think about pushing more fighter builds.

But I need to emphasize. "really really can't afford it" is a mathematical calculation. You look at the Axis forces, the Allied forces, you calculate income and what the Axis can buy to press their attack, you count the units and their positions and what the Allied defense at various times can be. You compute and consider not just any *initial* German attack, but *also* any followup Japanese attack, then *ALSO* (and a lot of Allied players miss this last) the expected position post major Axis attack.

Because - and I want, again, to be very clear - you can compute an okay-ish odds defense for Allies on a particular set timing, yet STILL LOSE EASILY TO PROPER AXIS PLAY. Because if the Axis wear down that defense even at Axis cost, if the Axis machine is set up to roll in reinfrocements and the Allies can't respond, then even if the Allies won the battle, they lose the war *because the Allies have no follow through*. The Axis speartip is blunted, but the shaft is still coming, and the Allies only built to handle the speartip. The shaft is still coming, and the Allies get shafted, and that's no surprise.

You understand? You push Allied fighters, you blunt the Axis speartip. Fine. But that Axis shaft is coming, and Allied fighters just don't have enough staying power to also withstand that shaft's attack.

2. Tanks. They're expensive. But not as expensive as fighters. There's five general uses to remember with Allies. UK tanks in India, Allied tanks in Europe, US tanks in Western USA, Allied tanks in Africa, Russian tanks in Europe. Plus additional specific uses but I won't get into that here.

A) UK tanks in India. Generally you push UK infantry in India early and tanks never. But there *is* a line of play in which you push UK tanks at India - exactly when Germany pushes hard. It's something like - Japan has to build up to threaten India, you push UK infantry to Persia and build UK tanks on India, you threaten and/or reinforce Caucasus, the UK India units are this big block of reinforcements that blunt the German speartip. And maybe you lose India a bit earlier, but it's better than losing Moscow early. The UK tanks at India change the timing on a credible UK counterattack against Germany in Europe, even if UK forces build up a bit and the timing is less an issue, tanks still attack and defend on 3. In terms of balancing cost and per-unit-effectiveness (considering UK's limited placement at India), tanks are an option to remember. (Again, you normally don't want to build tanks if you can help it, but if Germany's about to bust down the door with a bunch of German tanks, then . . . yeah.)

B) Allied tanks in Europe. If Allies just try to land infantry in Europe, sure it's economical and transports can land on any number of territories. But if you're just maintaining one fleet of transports/escorts then Allied infantry pushing into Karelia then Archangel/West Russia then Russia is slow. And if you're going two fleets of transports/escorts that's slow and vulnerable to Axis air (at least). But if you go Allied tanks, then maybe you push tanks into Karelia, then Russia the next turn. It's not "economical" but if you're at the point that the Axis are really pressing Moscow, you can't be so greedy for small tactical gains that you lose sight of the big strategic picture. Winning the battle but losing the war, no good.

C) US tanks in Western USA. You think this doesn't apply? It does. Because Japan has a tempo shift it can use to pressure US. Japan grabs Alaska, not an issue of itself, but it also threatens Hawaiian Islands, secures territory it can use to land air on, and threatens Western US. And those are problems.

What are US counters? Build a navy to challenge Japan's mighty navy? Super expensive. Let Japan just sit on Alaska and build some defense for Western US? Nice, but if Japanese bombers are on Alaska, they can hit the sea zones around Eastern US. Which is a problem for efficient US logistic chains. US needs a second defensive fleet, or needs to push Japan out. And the threat to Hawaiian Islands can be a problem. If Axis control 9 VCs they win. Germany, Italy, France, Japan, Philippines, Kwangtung, Karelia, India make 8. Hawaiian Islands make 9. So Japan can try to push Allies into premature moves in Europe, and once Allies commit to contesting in Europe, things can get REALLY interesting.

For that last, there's not much Allies can do except keep Japan's options in mind and play as best they can in Europe. For pushing Japan out though - US tanks in Western US.

Normally I say tanks, you just don't. They're not economical. But US tanks in Western US are economical. Given an infantry screen, each 6-IPC tank on Western US does the job of 1.5 x 3-IPC infantry. So 4.5 IPC defensive value. But also they do the job of an artillery on Western Canada, in terms of threatening Japan's hold on Alaska. So that's another 4 IPC attack value. Combined value 8.5 IPC (considering infantry screen) then there's other benefits like being able to route to Mexico quickly in case Japan tries to grab territory down there to control the canal.

So US tanks on Western US, yes. If Japan does that tempo shift.

D) Allied tanks in Africa - it's about blunting that Axis shaft after blunting the Axis speartip. Tanks in Africa can quickly secure a chunk of territory. Just letting Axis control Africa is not good. Committing too much to taking Africa isn't good either. You may not want to push Africa if you're concentrating on blunting the Axis speartip. But if you ignore Africa *especially if Germany controls it* then the Axis shaft is very strong.

(Germany, because Germany's logistics/production against Russia are very strong. Japan's logistics/production are very bad. It's hard for Japan to really capitalize as much on African income, but if Germany has a chunk of African income on top of Europe income, watch out.

E) Russian tanks in Europe. This isn't really like US tanks in Western US even though the broad theory is the same. In practice, Russia is beset by both Germany and Japan, and its infantry are slow moving and only can defend one territory at a time. So depending on the situation, you *can* (usually not, but it's possible and something to remember) - you *can* get Russian tanks hitting a position, screened with Russian infantry so Axis can't retake easily, or Russian tanks threatening territories in both Europe and Asia, threatening *both* Germany and Japan away from taking territories they could otherwise take easily. Instead of Germany and Japan just pushing easily.

e.g. say Germany and Japan are both pushing tanks. If Russia only pushed out infantry/artillery then it has to commit to one territory or another, and Russia doesn't have much in the way of counterattack options. But suppose Russia has a chunk of tanks at Russia, a defended position in the west, and a defended position in the east, and another pile of infantry/artillery in the center on Russia.

Now suppose Germany wants to attack in the west. Suppose Russia only has infantry and artillery (maybe a couple fighters and tanks, but really not much). Suppose Germany attacks and does well. Too bad for Russia. But suppose Germany attacks and doesn't do too well. Well it's too bad for Russia again. And why? Because even if Germany didn't do well on the attack, Russia's lack of tanks means it has no counter. That pile of Russian units on Russia can't do any counter-threat. That lack of Russian ability to punish means Germany can play *more* aggressively and take *more* chances *because* Germany can't be punished. It's counter-intuitive that Russian infantry could actually end up *hurting* the Russian defense but sometimes it works out that way.

I'm not saying Russia should build a load of tanks. But you can see where Russian tanks can fill a role, and it's something that needs to be considered. Again, you do want to be greedy, but just not *too greedy* - but calculating where, exactly, that greed point is, is tricky.

3. Infantry/artillery. At this point it's not speed, it's economy. And you want to mix some of that in, sure. But if it's a counter to Axis tank dash, you may end up having to push infantry/artillery a lot less than otherwise.

Dedicated Axis tank dash is *different* to handling even Germany's - what is it, 9 starting tanks after losing West Russia, and maybe 8 starting tanks after Ukraine, then there's maybe German tanks in Africa whatever? You have 8ish tanks, that's not too difficult to push off with Russia's starting forces and easy builds. It's when Germany starts shoving 14 tanks somewhere at a time that it gets nasty. 20 tanks. Whatever. The dynamics change.

And part of that is - if you're doing infantry stack against infantry stack, you develop this very numbers-mentality, where you're doing brute defense against brute attack, with small battles around the main show. But if you're doing infantry stack against tank stack, it's completely different. You can brute defense, but tanks can redirect at speed. So say you stick an infantry stack on Caucasus, if it's too small then Axis can break it with cost efficiency. If it's too large then Axis just push up into Archangel. Etc.

What I'm getting at is - you can't just try to use infantry/artillery against large tank stack. It doesn't work out the same way, you can't redirect infantry/artillery against large tank stacks in a punishing way the same way you can against small tank stacks. So you really do need to mix it up and throw in fighters/tanks so you get effective counters with the right timing.

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[aardvarkpepper]

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Finally, after having provided some context, I'll write about general Allied moves.

Russia buy 4 inf 3 art, attack Ukraine with all possible, West Russia with all else. (I don't personally like this but it's simple). Depending on how Ukraine goes either retreat to Caucasus and fortify there, capture Ukraine, or abandon Caucasus after failure at Ukraine. If Ukraine wasn't captured and/or the European front looks dicey, Kazakh infantry to Russia or Caucasus, otherwise to Szechwan. Russian infantry in east Asia moves west.

UK buy 2 inf 1 art 1 fighter, then maybe put in another artillery instead of infantry and/or another fighter depending on board. Kill German submarines in Atlantic (if possible), fly UK fighters to West Russia depending on board, kill German Med fleet depending on board and risk preference, kill Japanese destroyer/transport, UK fighter from that attack lands on Szechwan, other UK fighters in Pacific region land in India and/or West Russia.

US buy 1 carrier, depending on board additional carrier, and/or destroyers and/or transports and/or fighters.

This assumes Germany got lucky on dice on R1, so Allies need to respond. Depending on how Axis shaped up, Allies may have to push a lot faster (but remember pushing faster with Allies risks blunting the Axis speartip only to die to the Axis followhtrough). The more fighters, the more speed.

Then you follow up with UK2 or UK3 tanks, you retreat out of India (you do NOT do a battle in which Japan gets to blow up a big UK force for relatively cheap cost to Japan, then say you killed some Japanese units so at least it was better than nothing, that's how you lose), you use the UK chunk of troops to help stabilize against Germany, your UK/US transports arrive to relieve more of the pressure against Russia, with US/Russia acting against Japan (probably mostly Russia) and Russia/UK/US all acting against Germany as the case may be, to throttle Germany as the case may be, and Allies push in Africa, less to seriously claim Africa (unless Germany has income there, then you really push Africa) than to pressure Axis to redirect units there for local superiority of force. Then you try to wrap up basing off Germany's having pushed 6 IPC tanks that you traded for 3 IPC infantry; Germany transposes to infantry production to try to defend, but at least it should be a game.

If Germany *didn't* get lucky dice on R1, you can be greedier with Allies perhaps, not push so many fighters, and try to get Allied transport chains going in Atlantic earlier. You clamp down on Europe earlier, Germany's out of position to do much economic trading. So it has to retreat until its infantry can push forward (or it can trade 6 IPC tanks for 3 IPC tanks, either's fine), and though Russia gets horribly weakened, the Allies arrive in time to relieve pressure, then it plays out as above.

And understand this is not saying "blah blah tank dash doesn't work". Depending on dice, depending on variations, Axis tank dash can get nasty to a point that players that haven't really played against a *competent* tank dash don't understand. Especially if you got bad dice and if Axis took a few chances, you are going to get into situations where you don't have great odds for some battles and/or you have to try some chancy attacks or defenses. You have to figure out what you're likely to get away with, and play to maximize your chances, but even if you play *just* right it's not that there's some perfect strategy to counter a good Axis tank dash especially if it's one that's capitalizing off bad R1 dice. There is no hard counter to Axis tank dash any more than there is to Axis "Dark Skies" provided those strategies were properly implemented in proper situations by competent players (and even if the strategies were used in less than ideal situations for the Axis, they still have some nasty lines that unprepared players won't be able to meet well.)

As I wrote in that Steam guide - you don't want to muck about with battleships or cruisers. There's different balances of cost efficiencies when mixing in destroyers, carriers, and even subs to defend against potential Axis sub builds. You're doing fighters for fast defense, tanks for fast defense, both of those also have tactical flexibility so can really extend the effective threat range of even a small force of infantry, you have to use that. And while you're doing that you're doing destroyers, carriers, and fighters for escorts for transports so you can dump cost-efficient infantry (and perhaps some artillery but money is REALLY tight) for the mid/long game, with *maybe* some subs depending on the specific situation. You need to destroyer zone like I wrote in that guide, you need to protect your transports.

And if you want to take a line on pushing Allied bombers you can do that too. Allied bombers in Europe especially have excellent threat range and if no targets are available can strategic bomb. But GENERALLY against tank dash bombers are not what you need - or so I would say.