@TripleA:
Yes, Pearl Harbor is always possible. Japan can muster enough ships to convincingly destroy the fleet at Pearl Harbor. But the question is: what are the consequences after round 1?
I agree with you, but for totally different reasons. I simply don’t think the J1 Pearl Harbor attack is a good long-term strategy period, as it’s basically trading half of your irreplaceable fleet for 2/3 of the highly-replaceable USN on the first turn on the game.
Either way, I’m going to reply to your points and continue to play Devil’s Advocate, because we’ve got to show Revised the love it deserves!
@TripleA:
You can not attack both the UK fleet and the US fleet with convincing odds if you lose the sub.
Sure you can! Assuming the British Fleet went to the Kwangtung SZ B1, just send the East Indies SZ BB + CB + 2 FTR. If you’re feeling super paranoid about Pearl you can send one (or both) or the East Indies FTRs to Pearl and use the FIC/MAN FTRs on the Brits instead. This weakens your mainland campaign to an uncomfortable degree (you’ll lose a lot of INF taking China this way), but you’ll totally win the naval battles in a convincing fashion.
@TripleA:
So, Japan need to choose in that case to do either one. From a tactical point of view the US fleet is the better choice. But if you let go the UK fleet, you can not buy transports! In combination with the bomber, the UK can wipe out all Japanese purchases in UK2 in SZ60 and 61. If Japan can not buy transports it need to buy IC’s or other suboptimal purchases! Either way the Allies have a certain gain. Or the Allies keep the US carrier with planes, or Japan is forced to delay their push into Asia.
As someone who never does a PH attack J1, I agree with your assessment (although I’d argue that killing the British Fleet + making faster gains on the mainland > killing the USN). Letting the British Pacific Fleet live past J1 is just asking for trouble.
@TripleA:
The UK bomber is important in this strategy. Without it you’re threat to SZ 60 and 61 is not so big. However it is not essential! You might get the same result without it. It will especially help indeed if you want to switch to an KJF strategy. It can double in threatening FIC, but it can do that too from Caucasus or Moscow.
If the Bomber is in Moscow it can make it to SZ60 via Moscow->Novo->Yakut->Bury->SZ60 with 2 moves left to escape back to Yakut (hopefully the Soviets are holding the line there). Unfortunately they would take 5 moves to get to SZ61, so I can see your point in wanting to keep it in Novosibirsk instead. I guess the exact position of the Bomber is something you’d have to vary depending on how G1 went.
@TripleA:
Egyptian Blurb
OOB I have no problems with letting Germany go hog-wild in Africa, because given enough time the Americans will force Germany off the continent. I typically play under WBC rules which, among other things, limits the game to a 5-6 turn (4.5 hour) time limit and heavily modifies the Victory Cities (Egypt is a Victory City, which matters in this case). Me retaking Egypt B1 (assuming Germany lost at least 2 INF attacking it, otherwise I just write-off Africa in the same way you do) is just a way to delay the German IPC explosion by a turn and a means of forcing them to commit at least one more TT’s worth of reinforcements to Africa (diverting them from the all-important Russian front).
That probably explains the difference in our approaches. As I said before this is a pretty convincing strategy, especially if you want to play a heavy KJF game.