Your hope that Germany should hunker down with infantry and wait for japan to arrive is both right and wrong. You are correct in believing that germany’s best hope is that Japan will beat Russia. However, Japan cannot conquer Russia alone, it needs firepower from the German army. The US, UK, both move in with transports through the back door of finland karelia and russia to fight Japanese troops. Japan cannot counter 10 US infantry, 8 UK Infantry and 6-7 Russian infantry a turn. Germany needs to have a significant amount of armor power to make a strategic timed attack on karelia, in order to split up the defenses and buy Japan a couple turns late in the game to outproduce the allies, in the two turns where allied troops don’t arrive in Russia. Furthermore, Germany doesn’t need that many infantry early in the game. Assuming the destruction of most of the english fleet, an invasion of Normandy requires waiting until atleast the 3rd turn, giving Germany ample time to purchase infantry. I’m also not sure why u think that Eastern Europe is ever under any threat. Russia lacks enough offensive firepower to attack the brunt of the german army in Eastern Europe, and the Ukraine is not likely to be held by Russia for very long, as battleship bombardments can kill infantry to help an attack on a small amount of infantry, (assuming Russia only leaves 1-2 infantry behind around the 2nd turn, otherwise, if they leave much more, a german en masse attack would be devestating, and without any chance for a Russian counterattack). Germany can buy large amounts of infantry later in the game, but it needs to maintain a strong amount of armor for an attack.
On the Japanese subject. If you are going to buy an IPC later in the game, then u’ve just wasted the money on the two transports, because its unlikely Japan will be able to fill all four transports late in the game with 2 IPC’s on the shore. Instead of trying to get 8 Inf and three tanks coming in a turn as you said, you get 6 tanks and 2-4 infantry.
clay