If you do take the carrier, then on UK1 you are sitting off the Middle East. On UK2 you make India or off in the Indian Ocean. On UK4 you can make New South Wales or Queensland or the Philippines. You could also sit off India and make a pain of yourself.
In any point here you can rendezvous with the cruiser, destroyer, and some planes from India. So far so good. If Japan waits, you may even get to put the battleship into your task force. But, you’re still a puny fleet compared to Japan. You can’t really give battle unless Japan has violated Mahan and divided its fleet.
You could argue that Japan loses resources killing this mini-fleet, and that would be true – probably four units would go. I guess it’s a question of whether or not you consider those losses valuable. You could also argue that you are forcing Japan to commit more fleet, which leaves it weaker against the US, and that also is true. I guess the question is about how much positional advantage the US is getting from your sacrifice.
You could do additional naval builds with India if you like, to make this mini fleet stronger. Of course, that means you are weakening India’s overland defenses, but given that Japan may not build ICs on the mainland (preferring a naval kill) that might be a great idea.
So I guess it depends on what the person playing Japan prefers. If you force them off your script, you erase a big part of their advantage.
Has anyone had good results with this approach?
Marsh