Has anyone tried a J1 invasion of Alaska?

I wouldn’t imagine building an mIC there ever worth it, but that’s just me.

Crockett36, just an FYI this is a Pacific 1940 thread, NOT a Global 1940 thread. So keep in mind your parts about defeating Germany are invalid in this particular situation  :-)

To sort of piggy back off of crockett36’s post though, for those that apply to a Pacific 1940 game, you’ll definitely need to look at how the whole game plays out. By that I mean, you’ll probably need to be prepared to be semi-aggressive with ANZAC and UK both with an Alaska strategy. As Crockett36 points out, you’ll be throwing most of your force that way presumably, so that leaves Japan to (also presumably) focus efforts north as well. If that happens, you’d want to be ready to pounce as ANZAC and UK, wouldn’t you? Attack the Caroline Islands, fortify the Philippines and DEI, etc.?

That all said, the other tricky thing about this strategy is knowing you start out on the second foot to Japan. they get to go first, so will dictate play a lot. Also depends on when Japan attacks. They start out with an obviously significantly larger naval force than the US, and could potentially leave enough force to deal with Alaska, and also continue to strike south. If a J1 happens, I think an Alaska build up is rather difficult.

But, if it’s delayed to J3, with a US entrance to war on US4, then you may reasonably be able to have built up a decent size force to do this. Again, assuming you coordinated with ANZAC and UK as well. This might all be pointless to do if ANZAC has only built defensive ground forces, or UK gone all ground force to help China, etc. You’d essentially have an empty theater in the south where Japan isn’t getting hit in that case. Or, by staying defensive, might allow Japan to still do what needs to be done in the south pacific without jeopardizing it’s Alaska force much.

@Whackamatt:

Well, I suppose the US economy could go up if they took some DEI, but really, if that’s happening, that it’s pretty much over for the Japanese anyway.

Not in my game  :-)  Func really likes to snipe at those DEI islands.

@calvinhobbesliker:

The rationelle is that the defenders of Mongolia don’t defend the country, but their own territory only

Mongolia was a full contry, not a bunch of isolated hordes. Still, any army will attack a declared enemy if has the chance and it gives advantage, no wonder if they enemy is beyond your frontiers

@calvinhobbesliker:

In how many games can China attack a territory it can’t right now?

See the map attached. I had more games where Japan taken advantage of this rule, even in AAP40

@calvinhobbesliker:

Since it is a VOLUNTEER unit, it is controlled by China; otherwise the US would be at war with Japan

The FTs can be China controled but they are still USA’s citizens. You can bet your pants that the real FTs would bomb lone trannies and escape to home if needed in the real war, Chinese civil war or not

@calvinhobbesliker:

No, they destroy IC’s since they can never use them

Well, they should use ICs, even if purchases are limited to inf and art. The current dinamic leads to some wacky situations. Anyway, there is not real world reason why China can destroy ICs and, say, soviets cannot do the same as a scorched land strat. Or all, or nobody

@calvinhobbesliker:

Greece and Spain were industrialized nations

More reasons to ban the ACME wall from neutral powers  :wink:

@calvinhobbesliker:

In history, did any Chinese forces attack the Japanese anywhere outside China besides Burma?

In history, wich army in any epoch would not attack a enemy power for the only reason that the enemy units are outside their frontiers? In real war, China attacked Burma because they had a reason and because they had the chance, and you can guess that they would do the same if Korea or FIC were in the same situation. Why limit chinese options then (that should not be done any case) and at the same time refuse to do a non-agression treaty jap-USSR? The chinese civil war is already represented by the fact that the chinese army is smaller than the real combined armies of KMT, CCP and warlords (China should have more units in game, but is OK that they have a smaller army because half of them are fighting the civil war. I don’t have complaints about the chinese army size in AAP40, maybe about the size of the japanese army, but that’s another matter)

ACME_wall.AAM

@MaherC:

come on TripleA!

It will take a while (if ever) before there’s a playable version of Pacific because of all the rule changes. But let us hope a little longer…

Buying a major IC by J3 is risky (like everything else) because you need to spend at least 30 IPCs for turn to fully use it otherwise J is wasting production capacity. And Japan needs destroyers, destroyers and destroyers to take hits and deal with subs.

I agree with a J3 attack at this point. And yes, I also believe that there will likely be no ‘Pearl Harbor’ attack on the US.

The Carolines are an ideal spot to stage the IJN. I like to have the bulk of the fleet there and another group off the coast of China to support that efforts against the Brit holdings in the DEI and Kwangtung. Also, staging at Truk pretty much cuts the US off from doing anything useful to help the Brits for the first few turns as well as threatens the Aussies enough to force them to build ground troops for defense.

Given that the US will have spent only 39 or so IPCs by the time of the Japanese DoW it’s impossible for them to have anything to withstand the full weight of the IJN at Truk. That means that if they want to survive the will likely have to be back at the West Coast or someplace else out of the way. That adds another turn or so to the timeline before the US can intervene effectively to help relieve pressure in China/India.

If the Japanese do not take NSW in turn 1, the ANZAC folks can put their destroyer off New Guinea.  With a destroyer there, the Japanese can not reach NSW from the Carolines in a single turn.  The Japanese would have to attack the destroyer in turn 1 or do some other move to open up the sea lanes to NSW.  For these reasons, an early attack on NSW does not look very good.

The second link you sent seems to apply- thanks for clearing this up.  I was rereading the parts in the rule book and it is very unclear and contradicting when talking about the “scrambling” and the “amphibs”

So then even a combat move with no sea combat that results in a amphib is still grounds for scrambling.  I’ll tell Kreighund to clear this up in the FAQs because it is worded very badly.

thanks
:-)

What about using DDs in conjunctiion with SSs?  The subs can soak hits in the early rounds right, for only 6 IPCs instead of 8 IPCs.  I understand the extra #3 attack over a #2 gives the DDs a slight plus for the IPC cost, but i think adding a couple subs could give a small bonus to the final numbers.