The Russians start spread out and they all need to be in the same coastal square to have much of a chance of dissuading a Japanese attack. That’s the dance…the Americans can provide all of the planes but they have to coordinate a landing with the stack despite the fact that Japan may or may not still threaten that area.
Japan always seems to have at least 3-5 air pairs plus the 2 strat bombers, any time I can eliminate these Russian Troops I do, and any time I can block the coastal, non-Mongolian adjacent, landing squares before America enters the war, I do.
Then, the Russians build an Air Base, which permits the American Fleet to squat against the SZ 6 build. Its not really necessary though.
Since both of your forces are unbalanced (one is all infantry, the other all planes and ships) your offensive capability is limited.
However, you then strat bomb Japan into submission after you fly past with as many bombers as you can build and destroy their fleet. Since Japan doesn’t have gads of money, it cant even replace the fleet since it is too weak to withstand all the planes coming back over on subsequent turns. Some bombers can kill ships while others smash the factory. If they cant put a fleet in the water, subs show up and eat the rest of their money, at least that’s the plan.
When this has been done TO me rather than BY me, I ended up building 10 fighters on japan to counteract the bomber swarms and of course, still lost all my $$.
As Mr. Simon states, if you can keep Japan near SZ 6, you’ve already sort of won the game by paralyzing them. It won’t be very likely you can invade anything; Korea, Manchuria etc…going after these targets is just a distraction which will spread you out and the transports loading in hostile SZ rule and the kamikaze rule, with some turtling and planes makes Japan pretty much impossible to invade and conquer.
If you force Japan to turn around and return home from their southern targets, this is also a pretty big victory though again, the US may have a problem defeating them in detail. The rub for Japan is that once your Allied landing stack/base forms up, they have at most one shot at defeating it.
Allies; Don’t lose those Russian Infantry early or lightly they are the entire eastern Allied game plan. Up to 5 USA bombers can fly straight into pretty much any sea battle where Japan is light. Because of the geometry of the northern pacific, a direct naval attack before US6 will only be successful if Japan doesn’t stack/screen.
Axis; If and when you turn your back on the allies, make sure their LZ is threatened and you still have plenty of planes to counterattack with.