• The title is pretty self-explanatory, but here is the story. Basically im a noob. I have only ever played axis and allies 2nd edition once, and i played against another noob. I played as US with my noob friend as britain and russia against my other noob friend as germany and japan. I ended up winning by taking japan, but it was extremely lengthy, costly, and ineffecient. I would really appreciate some help from some veterans who know the best way to take japan. How i took japan was by buying almost all battle ships, and getting some help from britain with fighters. After reading around on these forums, i realize thats probably not the best way.

    Thanks for any help.

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    Hi NuclearFusion,

    Most players agree that it’s harder and slower for the Allies to conquer Japan than to conquer Germany, but it can still be fun for the Allies to try it, and it’s possible for the Allies to win that way.

    There’s nothing wrong with including one or two battleships in your fleet, but after that you’re going to see sharply diminishing returns. To attack Japan, you mostly want carriers, fighters, transports, and infantry. The transports will let you bring infantry over to seize control of valuable territories, the fighters will protect the transports along the way, and the carriers will give the fighters a place to land.

    Unless Japan is being reckless, you probably can’t afford to directly attack Tokyo in the opening or middlegame – instead, you want to attack China, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc. so that American income becomes much higher than the Japanese income.

    Finally, there’s nothing wrong with having the British support you against Japan, but I wouldn’t have them send fighters; the fighters are a little bit slow to reach the front lines, and they can be awkwardly placed on American carriers. I would rather have the British either focus on pushing northeast from India over land, into Burma and Indochina and China, or have the British send bombers to do strategic bombing raids on Tokyo.

    Good luck, and happy hunting!


  • Good post from Argothair.

    Just to add that you’ll want at least 1 DD with your fleet to avoid losing carriers and so planes to J subs.

  • 2024 '22 '21 '19 '15 '14

    I’m not sure that there is a consistent opening strategy for Russia and UK, that will reliably set up a KJF on this map. Usually it comes down to Japan getting screwed somehow by Allied defensive rolls, that gives the Americans a chance to overtake them. If that happens, say Japan loses a couple fighters or gets hosed in China, then usually you have to gun across the Pacific to start taking high production territories asap. You really don’t have much time for that either, because Germany is so heavy, and hard to contain with the British alone. If you wait more than 4 rounds to move on Borneo, or dead drop Manchuria, it’s probably too little too late to stop the Axis. Usually best you can hope for is to air blitz Tokyo in the same round that Moscow falls to Germany, but that requires a ton of aircraft. You basically have to match the Japanese unit for unit, except that your units are expensive fighters and bombers, whereas theirs are probably just a big mountain of infantry. It’s pretty hard to leverage into total victory as the Allies. Europe just offers a much stronger endgame, which is why it’s harder to justify going after Japan all the way.

    A UK bid likely nets you the best chances of turning things in your favor, and send your UK Airwall from Russia to the Asian coastline, before they’re destroyed at Moscow, with pretty delicate timing. Because you have to somehow knock off the Imperial Japanese Navy quickstyle to have any real chance at dropping on Tokyo.

  • '17 '16

    That Black_Elk guy always seems to have some of the most level-headed reasonable responses!  Well put.

    I think the KJF strategy ranks right up there for the Allies as much as the KBF strategy for the Axis.  Its just not really the preferred strategy, but usually gets done more out of trying to “mix things up” or “target of opportunity” more than the best sound strategy.

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