Your strategy is sound and is nearly what I would do if I thought the US could spare the effort away from Europe. It’s unfortunate that this very usually isn’t usually the case especially if the German navy was reinforced or linked up, which means Africa is in dire trouble and the UK is hardpressed to land anywhere.
Also island hopping takes a fairly long time to execute, and by the time you start to get Japan’s attention, he has already probably unloaded 3-4 sets of land troops which is a mess to do deal with. I’m sure you know this, but for those of you who don’t, the US cannot win against Japan alone. Japan will have more IPCS than the US unless the other two nations have been working since turn 1 to help kill Japan first. Japan will take 4 IPCs away from the US in sinkiang/china, as well as eat up India and a number of Russian territories. I would also note that it’s actually very difficult to take advantage of Japan even once you manage to take some of his islands. You still have to clean out his navy to do anything, and you still somehow need to get a number of land troops into action which is very annoying over such long distances and can be hung up if the trannies get killed.
Usually the second I see the US start a naval build, I will include 1-2 subs with every Japan purchase while still pipe-lining troops to Russia, and up the number of subs if a serious naval battle becomes imminent.
I think you also have to be very careful of where you’re sending your recently built equipment. Sending them to Solomons naked isn’t usually a good idea past turn 1, since Japan has a number of transports, 2 bbs, and planes to strafe/kill an isolated fleet that was recently purchased. Well I don’t know, maybe there is some value to it since if the Japanese did send their navy out, they would have to watch for a counterattack as well as they wouldnt be funneling land troops with transports, but I wouldn’t dare to send an unusually weak navy like a bunch of transports out to solomons naked. I would also be very careful about invading Borneo first, because the navy in SZ60 can reach it in one move. I like to invade the East Indies first because it’s nearly immune to counterattack unless the Japanese navy has moved.
And I think if your goal is to create a navy that Japan is going to worry about, focus on subs, not destroyers. Subs have the same attack/defense power per IPC that destroyers have, except that you will have numerically more subs than destroyers so subs have the advantage because they can take more hits. Subs can’t hit air, but a stack of fodder subs with a carrier + bb should be more than Japan is willing to try to strafe with just air units.
IF your UK and USSR are up to the task of handling Germany on their own.
Even if the UK/USSR can handle Germany on their own, I would still be tempted to send the US to help them out. For one, it’d help Germany go down faster, and for two, you can reinforce the Russian capital with plenty of defense units from the top from Archangel with your transport system when needed.
My own personal style of island-hopping goes like this:
US1: buy 2 carriers + 1 transport. There’s 3 planes to land on 2 carriers, which will give you immense defensive value and highly dissuade the Japanese from strafing you idly. Also planes can help you invade islands. Send everything westward (one or 2 fighs/bomber alone aren’t going to help much in europe).
US2: buy mass subs (much needed fodder and attack value for your fleet) and perhaps 1 or 2 transports. Invade solomon islands.
US3: from here on out, play it by ear. I like invading East Indies and throwing up a complex there so I can reinforce my navy on the spot. I don’t buy any land troops with the US unless I have a lot of transports since you already have quit a bit of equipment to move that’s in the US, plus stuff you can grab from midway on US1 and hawaii as you go along (not like you need much offensive land equipment since you have bb shots and fighters and are fighting against low numbers of infantry). I tend to build subs early on, then switch to battleships if I’m really trying to kill Japan.
I’ve tried this a couple of times, and it works just fine if your point is simply to delay/annoy Japan. But if the German player is somewhat enlightened and has achieved a skill level where he can manage both Russia and UK alone, then this really isn’t a good idea as Japan still has had about 3 full rounds to drop troops against Russia and still can maintain a small pipelin as the US comes in.