MOVED: Japan Naval Defense (WARNING: LONG)

@MarineIguana:

First of all, I want to say that USA committing any purchases to the pacific is a mistake. For the same amount of resources, the USA can always pressure Germany more than Japan. This is from my experience playing hundreds of revised games, many at a high level.

That said, assuming the US commits to the Pacific…

1. Japan should always sink the US fleet at pearl harbor. If this is done, Japan generally starts with a 1 battleship, 2 carrier, 3 fighter advantage compared to the USA that will take 5+ turns of buildup for the US to overcome.
2. The US can’t make significant advances unless the Japan fleet is destroyed. The best way to stall the USA is to place your fleet in the sea zone off the phillipines or china and deadzone all sea zone within 2 spaces of Japan’s fleet. Have the carriers filled with fighters AND try to have an equal number of fighters in a land territory that can reach all the sz within 2 spaces of Japan’s fleet. For example, 2 carriers can support 8 fighters attacking a sea zone.
3. Japan can continue pushing land units into asia, even with all US purchases going to the pacific. My typical purchases are like 6 inf and 2 fighters. With the Japan fleet off of China

From what I have seen when the allies does a KJF is that, PH really isn’t that easy. If UK commits and is lucky, PH can be very difficult. Complete UK commitment would be  UK india ftr attacking the J sub in 45 with the australia sub, and then landing on PH. The Australia TT taking 2 infs to papua, the indian TT taking 2 infs to borneo, The UK CR attacking the japanese TT in 59 and the India CW either standing in 36 or 49.  At this point, taking PH might be difficult for japan. If they do it with air only (5 ftrs + bomber) they will lose about 3 ftrs for 2 ftrs, 1 cw, and 1 sub. The good news is that they will not lose boats to a counterattack, and can use their boats to deal with the british fleet, the bad news is that they are spread out, will be in trouble on land and will take 3 ftrs in losses for only 36 US ipcs (+ 10 UK).  If they try to do a heavy PH, alot of the uk fleet survives and UK will keep borneo until J3.

I still feel it is a bad move, since you are handing africa to the axis, but japan will be in trouble.

Honestly, I like unification of the British Fleet in SZ 30 with 1 Infantry from India.  This makes it financially worse for Japan to attack than for England to be wiped out, strategically worse for Japan to attack (since they’ll lose their air force and have to leave Pearl unattacked maybe even not take China’s fighter out) than for England to be wiped out (all those ships are generally dead by UK 2 anyway, so what have you lost?)  BUT

it really tempts Japan to try!  Furthermore, form here, you can hit E. Indies with 4 Infantry, Fighter if Japan leaves you alone, or you can hit Egypt or you can just dump the infantry in S. Africa to bolster the defenses there.

Furthermore, if you build an IC in S. Africa (which negates the risk of losing Africa and thus your paycheck and allows you to stay in the upper twenties, lower 30s) you can be a relatively annoying pain in the butt. (Once Africa is secure, you can always dump a submarine or two in S. Africa making SZ 34 a threatened zone if you want too.  Or at least pose the risk of doing so if you don’t want too.)

That said:

if I had to attack the japanese iwth England, I’d go Destroyer/Carrier to SZ 59; Fighter, Submarine to SZ 45 and land the fighter in SZ 52.  I’ve seen quite a number of Japanese attacks on SZ 52 go south because of that extra fighter.

@kiyosa:

Second is more complex:  When an Aircraft  Carrier is defending, are fighters on it simply considered cargo, or do they get to defense dice just the the rest of the units in the seazone?  Do friendly powers’ fighters on a Carrier get to defend at a 3 as well?

I ask because the rules specifically state that Aircraft Carriers have ‘Fighter Defense’ and that a fighter can “take the hit” for the carrier.  If the fighters are active defense units, the statement seems kind of redundant (other than to specify that friendly powers’ fighters can do this).

From a defensive perspective, this statement can seem redunant.  However, I believe the statement is made because from an attacking perspective it is different.  Friendly fighters on a carrier ARE considered only cargo: they can not join the attack nor be taken as a hit.

@Bean:

:-) Feel free to ask questions and discuss, no matter how small.

Yea, cause this entire site is designed to discuss the game!  We don’t know everything, but we can field the majority of questions.  If you wanna know what the designer was thinking, well, you’ll have to ask him. grin

I like dumping the US AA gun in Karelia, they usually have extra transport space early on when I overbuild transports. It makes me mad as Germany to see an AA gun in Kar and Ukraine. The Russian fighters are happy trading Belo, while using art in Ukraine and the British are helping out in Kar  :lol:

I move the TRN in SZ 40 with the two troops to India where if the timing is right I build an IC.

As far a s Russian troops I mass all the troops from SFE (2 INF) and Buryat (2 INF) in Yakut (2 INF for a total of 6 INF. Maybe move a tank from Moscow. It works but be advised it’s a temporary solution. It will only work a an effective barrier until Japan has a bigger force next to it.

It’s important to hold China as long as you can. The reason for this is you want Japan to have a multi front with your territories. If you hold China they will have to defend and hold French Indo-China, Kwengt…, and Manchuria, as apposed to you holding up in Sinkiang and Japan only having to defend China.

That’s what I do as far as Japan goes. Axis countries have a lot of assets and a smaller economy base. For them to have any hope of wining is to match or exceed the income of their allied rivals. In order for you to prevent that you need to contain them in a timely manner.

-LT04

@frimmel:

God d**n perhaps?

okay i gottch’ya. if your goin swear paintbrush do it right you F*******e(wroung way)  :-)

And leaving that DST alive and the Suez open invites another problem…
A pretty nice UK fleet roaming the Indian Ocean.  By UK2 it can be 2 DST’s, an AC, 2 FIGs, 2 TRNs and a sub.  That puts them on par with Japan’s remaining fleet after Pearl…