US forces in Alaska

As a nobody around here, I will boldly push ahead and give my two cents worth.  (fair market value)  The advantages of this strategy are many.  You can do much of the maneuvering before turn four.  You are in complete control of this strategy from turn 1.

It will necessarily draw some of the Japanese navy or air force north where you want it and not south (Calcutta crush).  By where you want it, I’m suggesting you embrace a meat grinding fight in which you will not shrink from the loss of many of your ships.  The wonderful thing about this fight is your next wave is right there, steaming out of SF bay.

One more advantage is that you are going for or near the jugular.  Obviously you have to contend with the kamikazes, but there are crazy ways to non-com into areas that don’t seem to trigger those nasty buggers.  You can also endanger Manchuria, Korea and perhaps factories.  Thus  creating a three front war and getting US forces onto Eurasia.

There are disadvantages.  The biggest negative is that it is a KJF strategy that demands nearly every dollar of the US income for 3-4 turns at least.  So will you beat Germany to Moscow?  How many turns before you can invade Japan?  Do you have to invade in order to neutralize?  How soon before you can divert Indian troops north to aid the Russians?  Or fly American or British fighters in to defend Moscow?

If you haven’t tried it, you should.  It’s not a waste of time, even if it is not the unbeatable key to Allied victory.  Let the pinata exercise begin.

also if you coordinate with the Russians you could have a fantastic base of bomber operations in  Siberia.  Imagine Japan taking over India turn 5 and not being able to use much of it because they have to repair their plants.

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.