It wont work if they block SZ37, Japan player. Only one ship is needed to stop japan from moving there on J3.
Also, if they scramble (and they can do this with or without an airbase if you are amphibing them) you lose all your support shots. One plane or one destroyer is enough to scrub ALL shots.
Attacking Hawaii is an ok way to put America back a notch, but it is pretty dangerous to move your whole fleet there if you don’t’ control Hawaii land, because then they can bring all their fighters and tacticals, hit you, and then land. The other guys suggested that you hit it with a partial force (but a blocker must be left behind).
This seems dangerous to me, because unless you are committing %70-%100 of your navy to threatening the north pacific, you risk an arms race with America that you can only match (without having attained threshold income of 50+).
If you kill Philippines J1, it requires about 40-50% of what you’ve got to seal the deal and kill the BB. You can’t take Borneo and Philippines AND kill the Hawaii ships because you wont have enough up north/near wake/Hawaii to threaten the Americans.
If you leave Philippines alone, America gets like 77 money…you’re gonna get walloped if you J1-J2 and America turns on you while you’re down south.
And if you keep your fleet up north, whether we mean SZ 6 or warding off America in the north islands, it really cant do much but threaten and wait…not being put to active use
Overall, I’ve seen several good “Hawaii first” strategies, but they require that you
- bring America into the war early and big
- take it in force the turn after you defeat the fleet (J2)
- put a crapload of fighters on it so it cant be retaken (J3)
- then shift and kill ANZAC
- Japan’s money is going to be limited under this scenario <40 until J5