Early take down of Sydney

[simon33]

Has anyone ever tried a strategy involving a J3 or later DOW and early (e.g. J3/J4/J5) attack on Sydney? You might be able to get into the capital with as little as 2-3 transports. I guess a totally turtling ANZAC could have 10 inf 1 art 2 AAA 3 ftr to defend and the ships could stop a bombardment, but in all probability some of those troops will have left the mainland on a transport, and the ships might not be present either.

ANZAC are a bit of a nuisance to Japan and it would be nice to get rid of them, but it is dubious that it is worth the investment.

[MarshmallowofWar]

The way I would do this:

Build three transports on J1. Move your sea zone 20 transport to Palau Island on J1 to pluck the lone infantry (if you don’t want to leave it alone, also bring in a cruiser to cover it). Leave the mini fleet off the Carolines in position. Leave the transport in sea zone 6, or move the transport from sea zone 19 back to sea zone 6. This gives you five loaded transports to move on J2 (including the one in sea zone 34) for your attack. Position your southern fleet elements for your J2 DoW. Consider not using the bombers in Yunnan and landing them in Caroline Islands instead.

On J2, declare war. Take New Guinea, depriving ANZAC of all its objectives. Clear the sea zone off Queensland and kill anything that can reach that sea zone. Move your four loaded transports with at least two full carriers and other naval forces to Caroline Islands, bring in your strat bombers if you didn’t already get them here, and take three fighters from Japan to cover the fleet. If possible, you also want to take Western Australia so that your bombers from Caroline Islands have a good place to land.

On J3, invade New South Wales with five loaded transports, two carriers, and as many planes as you can reach. You should win if ANZAC sent all its fighters and a couple of infantry to Java – the fighters cannot make it back on A2, and frankly ANZAC has no good options at this point. If have more force than you need, divert transports to money islands and possibly New Zealand because you are definitely going to need as much income as possible as fast as possible.

If this does work, you have all of ANZAC on J4, which totals up to 15 more IPCs including bonuses, and you are well positioned to complete the capture of the money islands if you haven’t already.

Doing this later than J3 gives ANZAC more time to collect income and build defenses (including the full return of its fighters), which is the last thing you want to happen. That’s why I would DoW on J2, before ANZAC becomes too tough to crack and requires more than five loaded transports.

The big problem with this is that the entire thing is obvious as a clown in church if anyone is paying attention once you move additional naval elements to the Caroline Islands on J1 – you’re moving before the Allied players, so they cannot possibly miss the threat under any kind of reasonable examination. So, you have to do it without moving additional fleet elements to the Carolines on J1, and that makes it kind of hard to kill everything you need to kill without a little lucky Allied assistance – you really want ANZAC ships to move west on A1 and for the US to pull its fleet back to San Francisco on US1. If not, on US2 the US can make life really nasty for you by deploying blockers to sea zones 46 and 49, and the free ship kills are little consolation for the lost turn – you will still kill ANZAC on J4, but then it has probably cost you enough time to make the Pacific a tough battle for you, and it will cost you a lot more in terms of lost units on defense – your five loaded transports might barely be enough with a lucky defensive roll.

Marsh

[Shin-Ji]

Has this ever worked for anyone?  Not the specific strat MoW proposed - though I agree that’s the best way to go - but any taking of ANZAC before India.  I’ve done it a few times, but I’ve lost the game every time.

I think it’s a lot like Sealion.  Even when you win, you lose.

[Young Grasshopper]

@Shin:

Has this ever worked for anyone?  Not the specific strat MoW proposed - though I agree that’s the best way to go - but any taking of ANZAC before India.  I’ve done it a few times, but I’ve lost the game every time.

I think it’s a lot like Sealion.  Even when you win, you lose.

It’s the lack of progressive income that hurts Japan whether it’s a Sydney crush, or Calcutta crush. Any strategy that ignores the money islands for a quick capital is an unnecessary risk IMO. Even if you get a capital J3 or J4, all your initial resources have been spent taking it and your weak economy can’t bounce back, meanwhile your newly taken capital is extremely vulnerable to liberation.

[MarshmallowofWar]

Your carrier based aircraft from carriers in the Carolines cannot participate in the attack on New South Wales. That means the fleet elements moved to Carolines on J2 really should include both battleships and both cruisers so that you can expect two kills from bombardment on the first round of combat, and that you really do want to take Western Australia (or Southern Australia, or Northern Territory) on J2 so that your bombers from the Carolines can participate in the attack.

Serves me right for posting at o-dark-30 when I am tired.

I really wouldn’t count on this strat being a game winner by itself – taking ANZAC out on J3 is sure to get the US’s attention, making it very unlikely that you will ever be able to get Hawaii, and by the time you can kill India the US will have liberated Australia. On the other hand, the US won’t be able to use its full weight against Germany in this situation, which probably cooks the Russian goose!

Nice to have in the toolkit though.

Marsh

[SubmersedElk]

This is one of those ideas for when you’re bored to death with the same-ol’ same-ol’ and don’t care if you win or lose the game.

Let’s just say there are plenty of reasons why Japan never does this.

[simon33]

@Young:

@Shin:

Has this ever worked for anyone?  Not the specific strat MoW proposed - though I agree that’s the best way to go - but any taking of ANZAC before India.  I’ve done it a few times, but I’ve lost the game every time.

I think it’s a lot like Sealion.  Even when you win, you lose.

It’s the lack of progressive income that hurts Japan whether it’s a Sydney crush, or Calcutta crush. Any strategy that ignores the money islands for a quick capital is an unnecessary risk IMO. Even if you get a capital J3 or J4, all your initial resources have been spent taking it and your weak economy can’t bounce back, meanwhile your newly taken capital is extremely vulnerable to liberation.

I agree, ignoring the money islands is a fatal flaw. You can’t take the money islands without a DOW though. With a China crush and no Japanese DOW, I expect the UK to DOW UK2. Otherwise Yunnan is toast. That means you can attack the UK BB and ANZAC DD & Cruiser in SZ54 without involving the US ships if they are all there. So long as you position shipping to block the take down of Dutch New Guinea, I don’t see the need to spend a transport on that one. So I don’t like MMoW’s idea of sending a transport via Palau to take that.

I also think without a DOW J1, you need to buy an IC on China - Shantung J1. That doesn’t leave enough cash to buy two transport with loads. Assuming a UK2 DOW, you can’t take the money islands until J3 so you can buy probably two transports J2 for that goal.

Could a feint for this move be better than the actual move? I like the idea of blocking the take down of Dutch New Guinea with warships though. That normally isn’t done until at war because it’s better to claim the money islands. You could also block the UK from taking down Celebes UK2 if they declare war that turn.

[MarshmallowofWar]

Wasn’t my idea – I just posted how I would do it. And taking Dutch New Guinea only deprives ANZAC of one NO – only taking New Guinea itself deprives ANZAC of both NOs.

Marsh

[simon33]

True, but I am assuming that Malaya will fall pretty quickly. And if you can take down the capital, who cares about NOs that they can’t collect or collect for one turn only?

[MarshmallowofWar]

I would agree with that. Probably better to use that transport to create a landing place for your bombers.

Marsh

[simon33]

You know what’s a good place? New Zealand. A couple of bombers hitting their bases and IC would keep them on the ropes for a while. They’re also losing 2 production and one of the NOs.

[MarshmallowofWar]

You can’t take New Zealand on a J2 dow unless the sea zone off Queensland is empty and you moved a transport from sea zone 6 to the Carolines on J1. None of the other transports can make it.

However, if you take New Guinea and drop a couple of infantry on it with an AA gun and park some bombers and a couple of fighters there, you can keep ANZAC from collecting NOs for a long time – the bombers in New Guinea can hit the sea zone of New South Wales, so unless ANZAC builds fleet to cover that sea zone any transports it builds just get splashed. If ANZAC builds a MIC in Queensland, then their airbase can cover transports, but of course they are down 12 IPCs for the MIC at that point.

Marsh

[simon33]

I was thinking of hitting it J3. I guess the limitation with that is you only start bombing the IC J5.

wrt the IC in Qld, I would say that they might as well invest the extra 4 IPC and build a carrier.

I don’t know, I guess I’m just not a fan of using a transport’s time on New Guinea for no production and no NO, and without a base that can strat bomb Sydney. If you’re still keen on this idea, why not the Solomon’s? At least that is 1/4 of an NO for Japan and also blocks both NOs for ANZAC.

Without a DOW you can get to New Hebridies, but that seems to have all the same limitations except for being able to land J2 and keep peace.

[simon33]

@Marshmallow:

You can’t take New Zealand on a J2 dow unless the sea zone off Queensland is empty

I guess the solution to this is to make it empty, you just can’t do it by J2. With peace, you can move a sizeable fleet in and a UK2 DOW requires them to run away or fight. The problem remains with the blocking which can still be achieved by running to SZ46.

I guess the question is what would you otherwise be doing with the Japanese fleet, assuming peace?

[MarshmallowofWar]

@simon33:

I don’t know, I guess I’m just not a fan of using a transport’s time on New Guinea for no production and no NO, and without a base that can strat bomb Sydney. If you’re still keen on this idea, why not the Solomon’s? At least that is 1/4 of an NO for Japan and also blocks both NOs for ANZAC.

Taking New Guinea to me seems like a strat for nerfing ANZAC’s income for several turns when you are not planning to kill Sydney quickly. With just a little fortification and a strat bomber, you can keep ANZAC pinned unable to build transports (and thus unable to contest the money islands) until the US brings in enough force to scare you off or until ANZAC invests in a factory in Queensland. Keeping down ANZACs income seems like a necessity if you aren’t going to kill it immediately. If you can kill it on J3, then you actually want it to collect objectives on J2 so you get more money.

Marsh

[madscientist]

This isn’t an easy take down of Sydney, but what about landing a few troops in Northern Territory and then following up with say 2 tanks 2 inf every round from Tokyo to Philippines to Northern Territory? You would probably eventually take Sydney and get a little more income in the process.

[simon33]

@Marshmallow:

@simon33:

I don’t know, I guess I’m just not a fan of using a transport’s time on New Guinea for no production and no NO, and without a base that can strat bomb Sydney. If you’re still keen on this idea, why not the Solomon’s? At least that is 1/4 of an NO for Japan and also blocks both NOs for ANZAC.

Taking New Guinea to me seems like a strat for nerfing ANZAC’s income for several turns when you are not planning to kill Sydney quickly. With just a little fortification and a strat bomber, you can keep ANZAC pinned unable to build transports (and thus unable to contest the money islands) until the US brings in enough force to scare you off or until ANZAC invests in a factory in Queensland. Keeping down ANZACs income seems like a necessity if you aren’t going to kill it immediately. If you can kill it on J3, then you actually want it to collect objectives on J2 so you get more money.

Marsh

Sounds about right. I’d still attack the Solomons instead unless there’s something I’m missing.

@madscientist:

This isn’t an easy take down of Sydney, but what about landing a few troops in Northern Territory and then following up with say 2 tanks 2 inf every round from Tokyo to Philippines to Northern Territory? You would probably eventually take Sydney and get a little more income in the process.

It would but it you’d be investing 8 transports in that unless I’m missing something? With that sort of force, you might as well hammer the capital in one go.

[madscientist]

Yes, you’re right. It would use up 8 transports. Maybe just shuffle 1 tank 1 inf per turn and only use 4 trn.