From: pendy@ais.org (Paul Hohn)
Subject: Re: A&A: Allies buy how many dice?
Keywords: A&A
Organization: UMCC
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 04:43:30 GMT

In article <goudswaa.717824727@sfu.ca> goudswaa@fraser.sfu.ca (Peter Goudswaard) writes:
>obbe@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Obbe Vermey) writes:
>>Bombing Berlin is a nice idea ofcourse but how are you going to
>>stop Japan. If the allies don't take any action, Japan will attack
>>Russia in 5 turns or so and Russia won't be able to defend itself
>>against a German/Japanese attack. If the Allies (USA & Britain at
>>least) would invest everything in development they should have heavy
>>bombers in about 2 turns. It would take 1 extra turn to buy the bombers,
>>to bomb all the money out of Germany. In 3/4 turns however, the axis
>>are ready to conquer Russia. A critical situation. Did you ever play
>>this scenario and what happened ?
>
>No, not specifically like this, but I really wish some of the original
>A&A gang was here to defend me!  But to deal with the above, you say,
>"If the allies don't take any action..."  This isn't the way I or any
>of my players would play!  US would put at least *some* pressure on
>Japan!
>
Very recently I was "entertained" by just such a game that had bombing as an
Allied tactic. This strategic bombing was concentrated upon Germany. It was
conducted by the Brits and the US on a continual pace. The bombing began
around turn 3 and continued until Germany fell. 
In response, firstly, to the idea of Japanese domination of Russia in 5
turns, that could only happen if the Russian player never made a direct
attack against the forces in Manchuria and instead played possum and waited
for the Japs to hit him. Either that or totally withdrew the forces in the
east. Two key factors to Japan's domination in Asia are India and what the
Brits do there, and the Far East and what Russia does with the infantry and
armor there. In my recent struggle, there was a sufficient resistance in
Asia alone to keep the Japs from advancing upon Moscow until turn 4 when
most of the resistance had been cleared and Japan actually had enough land
units to do anything worthwhile. 
In regards to leaving Japan alone, it can be done and still win the game for
the Allies. Apart from attacking the Japanese fleet whenever within striking
range for fighters off the west coast of the US, the only engagements with
Japan were purely defensive (again I refer back to my game). While the USs
and the Brits mercilessly bombed Germany's factories, Russia, the US and the
Brits made successive assaults upon the German frontier. They just kept
pounding at him and pounding at him until there wasn't enough left to fend
off any large-scale invasion. The key was Western Europe, which got brutally
mauled time and again, eventually falling into Allied hands. In this game,
all three Allies ignored Japan except for defense, concentrating everything
upon Germany. The pressure was so intense that Germany fell within 6 rounds
of play (or was that 7...) at which time Japan was in no position to
liberate the German capital, thusly demanding a capitulation. 

To sum up: if the Allies are played competently and aggressively, there's
little chance for an Axis victory. That is, unless something goes dreadfully
wrong, like the Allies failing to eliminate the German navy or failing to
make enough critical die rolls to make anything count.