Critique this US strategy

My idea with the perl fleet still alive was to buy 3 subs, 1 AC turn 1, 4 fgts turn 2

turn 3 hit SZ 60 with 4 subs, 8 fgts, 1 bmb possibly a BB and the AC’s and a trn. still a lot for turn 3. but that wouldn’t of worked out. He would of holed up in SZ 61 or the W-Jap SZ

Somewhat.  It did definitely help to see a you (a different opponent) use the US effectively against Japan.

I saw it twice before from this guy at Daak, so I was somewhat prepared.

That is why I countered you with mostly, if not all, air for Japan.  I had seen that ignoring the US and/or ship competition with them failed.

There is no reason what you did in our game can’t be done from US 1 provided certain things in R1 to J1.

In our game I could take Cauc but never had the momentum to push beyond that due to the tank heavy Russians.

And bingo, it is VERY HARD to take Russia when they can fall back and play the tank game against an expanding Germany as their supply lines increase and Russia’s shrinks.

Back to the Pac, I’m not convinced all Air was the right way to go, but that was slightly different as you made a mid game move.

When I have encountered this from US 1, I’ve found ignoring the US until Rd 3 is bad, esp against a committed Pac opponent, and that you can’t rely on subs either, esp when they can’t hit ftrs which should always be a worry.  One game I had about 9 and when he moved, I attacked with subs, ships ftrs and boms, I brough everything, but when all my subs missed his AC/Ftr - BB combos absolutely leveled me.  Even if I hit on 2 or 3 it was an up hill battle, b/c (even if you go back to our game) the US can easily rebuild while Japan cannot.

This is another reason why I really don’t like the G1 AC buy.  In my third game with this guy, I finally took Moscow, but I seriously went all out for Moscow and played probably the best game I played yet, in terms of staying focused.  I finally took Moscow in Rd 11.  Eleven!!!  After a Germany-Japan 1-2.  We are still playing but I feel a bit better b/c in order to take Mos, I have lost all my islands, some now have US IC’s,  as well as I’m now trading Fic and Kwa and he has all of Afr and the ME.

It shouldn’t be long before I tip the balance back now and boot him off Asia for good, but had he rolled up when Ger attacked Mos, Japan wouldn’t have been able to take and I would have been in serious trouble.  and if I didn’t stock pile Inf on Japan, that would have been in Jeopardy even after Mos fell.  I took out his first fleet woth my mixed fleet in like rd 8 or 9, he finished off a few lone trns in the next 2 rds and owned the Pac from about rd 9 on.

Luckily I planned the Moscow attack 3-4 rds ahead of time, bought the appropriate things and geared everything for that one shot, had I been diverted at all I never would have been able to take it and it would have turned out like my game against NoMercy.

@NoMercy:

My idea with the perl fleet still alive was to buy 3 subs, 1 AC turn 1, 4 fgts turn 2

turn 3 hit SZ 60 with 4 subs, 8 fgts, 1 bmb possibly a BB and the AC’s and a trn. still a lot for turn 3. but that wouldn’t of worked out. He would of holed up in SZ 61 or the W-Jap SZ

I like the AC/ftr combo, b/c once he does move back to sz 60/61, you are free to expand b/c now in order to kill you, you get AC’s that defend at 3 and ftrs at 4.  And then you can even counter the next turn with your new builds if he attacked you.

Go defensive and claim Sol, make it really hard and expensive to stop you.

Once you inch out it becomes a real burden to stop them, esp if Japan isn’t prepared for it, in terms of what they bought their previous turns.

divertion was my ally against you.

I believe I diverted you everywhere and anywhere, from the Med to WE to EE and most of Europe then into Asia then into the Pacific.

The quick boot I gave you out of Africa always helps too.

by the time you had taken Cauc (errors on both our parts led to this) The russians always outnumbered or stayed even wtih the ger/jap combo of units on Cauc which was good news for me considering I ahd 20+ tanks and 30+inf  = pretty near impossible for the axis to take. that didn’t count the few figs I had there, or the few more I would of sent and made had I known moscow would have been in any real danger.

Yeah, unfortunately there wasn’t much I could do about the diversions in our game.

We both know I never had the Punch to take Moscow.  I had to sacrifice some of Japan just to get Cauc with Germany, but then it simply became the wiating game, when never really helps the Axis.

My hope was that maybe you would do something while trying to create a diversion and leave an opening.  But it never appeared.  You always had forces to protect against a move on the ME or a Japan landing in Afr, then the US showed up to keep my ships at bay, etc.

In hindsight, I should have probably deadzoned Cauc and tried for Wrus instead, maybe try and manever it so Japan could have taken Cauc, but I think there were issues with that as well.

But the great thing about that game was seeing all the different stuff play out and really gave me some do’s and don’t’s at least for my style of play.  Which have more to do with bid/purchases/focus/when to move on Ukr/Cauc/Wrus.

The initial Japan defensive buy is an AC, and land based FIGs.  You lose some punch as Japan in Asia, but if you built and TRN land units to Asia, there is usually not a strong land counter by Russia.

Dependign on US counters, etc, Japan then has 2 or 3 AC’s, loaded or nearly so.

J2, Japan gets to 3 AC’s, and if no AC’s have been lost, they finish loading all 3.  This of course combined with TRN buys to reach 4-5 TRN.  Any remaining BB’s are consolidated.

Your TRN’s are your fodder if needed.  Your FIGs are you main defense.  USA doing an all air strike on you with just AF is going to be expensive.

Further additions consist of a bit of mixing… a DST if you do not already have one.  Perhaps a second if US is buying SUBs.  1 or 2 of your own SUBs, extra TRNs (to scavenge islands, re-route Asia force to islands if needed, and of course as Fodder with air defense capability).

If US is going REALLY hard core in the Pacific, AC#4, loaded.

Come and get me Yanks!

Agreed. 
It is very easy to build a defensive force, but the problem is the US does not have to kill the Japan fleet, just force it back to sz 60, which is very problematic for Japan.

Likewise, the Japan fleet won’t be able to kill the US fleet.

If I’m not mistaken the US can have 4 acs, 7-8 ftrs, 1 bb, 1 dd, 1 trn at the sol is sz at the end of US 4 with an ac and 2 ftrs in the Wus us sz.

This now leaves Japan with a choice, do you attack?  Which turns all your 3 and 4’s into 1’s and 3’s while the US shifts to the 3’s and 4’s?

Or do you let them be and continue to build defensively?  Just for a strafing run to kill the trn you are looking at minimum 7 hits.

Further, your ftrs are now stuck defending in sz 60, which means you need to buy more offensive punch for the land.  Your ftrs can’t reach very far and still land back in the sz, you can of course buy new ftrs to place directly on the AC’s but you are still not increasing your unit count for the sz.

I’m not saying it is unbeatable or anything, just that Japan has to be very careful.  You don’t want to get caught buying a sub or 2 on J2, only to see the US continue to buy AC’s and ftrs making your subs useless.  You’d be better off buying trns, but again you concede taking out the US fleet at that point and are forced back to sz 60, otherwise the US will attack the sz and any new naval purchases with ftrs and then land on their AC’s.  But even trn buys have a downside once you go over 4 or 5, and it starts becoming “wasted” IPC’s that should be spent on land units in Asia.  And if you go IC’s you’ll need at least 2 but that is 30 IPCs on top of the trns you bought???  You can barely fill 4 trns and 2 IC’s with all inf buys (42 IPC).  You could commit to IC’s early, but then you lose some flexability on J1 and J2.

All this can play into the Allies hands as it buys time for Russia.

It basically boils down to, the Japanese player really needs to be on top of their game and prepared.

Japan only needs to kill the USA trn´s……  USA pacific fleet without trns are useless.

And you do enought damage for US to pick trn casualties, so Japan win… (or get´s like 3 more rounds, and that is usually enought to win the game)

There is 1 TRN in that fleet Darth.  So Japan loses 1 island of value per round starting in J5 (solomons, lost in J4 has no IPC value).

I have still sent 30+ divisions to Asia at that point, and reinforced my fleet.

If I built up my Japan fleet at minimal level that I posted above (to 3 AC loaded, a DST, a SUB, 5 TRN’s, my 2 starting BB’s), and my BOM, I have a 2/3 chance of winning against the Solomons fleet, with 2 BB an an AC left on average.

Even if I lose, you have no TRNs in the Pacific with the builds posted.  2 turns to build and move them into position…
And at 36 IPC’s to the Pacific per turn (in order to get 4 loaded AC’s on turn 4, US is buying only about 2-3 INF to Europe or Africa per turn (assuming US used existing FIGs for 3 of the 8 FIGs needed) on only 2 TRN…

Alright, if you guys say so….   :-)

:evil:   :evil:   :evil:

Muhuhahahahahahaha!

@Nix:

Japan only needs to kill the USA trn´s……  USA pacific fleet without trns are useless.

And you do enought damage for US to pick trn casualties, so Japan win… (or get´s like 3 more rounds, and that is usually enought to win the game)

As America I’ll gladly trade my transports for your fighters/carriers.  And that IS going to be the trade you are going to make.  Meanwhile, you really don’t set me back that much, because I’ll just have more transports comming shortly afterwards.  Meanwhile, I’m gobbling up Islands like crazy.  You might not think East Indies and Borneo are worth that much, but it is 8 IPCs or the value of India, Buryatia, SFE, Yakut and China combined.

Add in American and English units moving into India/Sinkiang (or maybe just a couple Russian infantry a round) and you’ll be drawing negative starting income instead of positive.  And as mentioned, you’re going to be quickly locked into SZ 60/61 while the Allies have free reign.

We don’t need to take out your fleet, once we have you reduced to Japan, Phil, Oki we can build units to help Russia reclaim Europe.

Jen,

As Switch as posted… it will take the States WAY to long to accomplish anything in the pacific.

and by going the pacific route.

UK is almost useless… (All of Africa will be in Germanys hand in no time)

Russia will be helpless without american help. (moscow will fall by the time the States are re-building trns in the pacific) considering pretty much Germany’s full might will be sent after the russians and thats 45-50IPC worth a turn to use vs russia.

Can’t UK just reinforce Africa themselves with their transports?

Couldnt America put a BB, Trn, Inf, Arm in Solomons on US 1 to be met by the British AC, Fig, 2 TRN, sub and DD?  That’s a pretty good defensive force and it’s in striking distance of Borneo, East Indies and Phil on US2.

You don’t HAVE to wait, in other words.  You can start forcing Japan into making naval decisions which will weaken him starting on US1.  And without diverting assets.  Though, you can compound the damage done to Japan with even 50% of your assets in that theater.  After all, England and Russia are more then capable of keeping Germany from taking Moscow, they cannot beat them, but they can stop them from winning while America withers the Japanese.

UK’s Fleet in India SZ cannot reach Sol SZ on turn 1

I would have to argue that Russia/UK might have a hard time stopping the Germans from getting them.

Russia will have to turtle after turn 2-4

Germany can hold the North and at least strafe or kill British reinforcements. while perhaps going into Cauc with the Japs.

to be met by the indian fleet meaning that america will go their first so UK will move their fleet closer on UK 1 then on UK2 link up

Japan has a start-off fleet around East-Indies designed to kill the British fleet. It could intercept and kill it before it would link up with the States Navy. thats just 1 option.

Yes, but I’d much rather Japan try and sink the English fleet then hit the one at Pearl.  I have a pretty good shot at sinking a capital ship with the British fleet too.  We’ve got 1 submarine, 2 transports, 1 fighter, 1 destroyer 1 aircraft carrier.

That’s:

14 or 2 and 1/3 hits on R1

You have 2 fighters, 1 aircraft carrier, 1 battleship.

That’s:

11 or 1 and 5/6 hits on R1

You take 1 hit on BB, 1 fighter.  I take 1 or 2 transports (let’s say 2 for arguement’s sake.)

You are now 1 fighter, 1 carrier, 1 dbattleship vs 1 sub, 1 carrier, 1 fighter 1 destroyer (8 vs 12)

I get 2 hits, you get 1

It’s now 1 dbattleship vs 1 carrier, 1 fighter, 1 destroyer

So we end up with 1 carrier, 1 fighter and that’s about what England is going to end up with ANYWAY if they go after all your ships on UK1.  Meanwhile, you’ve lost 33% of your fighters, 50% of your carriers and 50% of your battleships giving America a golden opportunity to annihillate you after countering Pearl.

You are missing 2 Japan FIGs that can join in that fight usign fighter exchange on the AC…

That changes your odds quite a bit.

And that fleet link-up also leaves Africa in German hands, costing UK not only their fleet, but 1/3 of their income.