Historically the US was “the sleeping giant.” Yes it was still struggling from the depression pre-war, but it still had the highest industrial capacity on Earth. The US helped bankroll almost every allied power pre-war and throughout the war (Lets not forget that America became one of the banks of the world after WW1 and had been heavily involved in lending European countries money since the treaty Versailles). Once the US entered the war it was able to outproduce almost all the other powers combined. The US possessed almost every resource needed for the war, and those it did not have in great quantity (ex. rubber) it could import from it’s sphere of influence within South and Central America. Yes the war was won by the allies, but it was won with US dollars, weapons, and ordinance (except maybe Soviet Russia although it did receive massive amounts of lend-lease weapons early-war and copied American technology whenever it could late-war). Russia may have survived without the US, but not for long. England would’ve fallen as easily as France without lend-lease or if Hitler wasn’t intent on invading Russia. The US defeated Japan almost on it’s own and all while fighting a war on another front. By the end of the war the US fielded more aircraft carriers than all nations combined. The US conducted (with the British) the largest amphibious invasion EVER. The US dropped hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs. Game play wise, the US needs to build a transport (7 IPC) for every 2 land units (assuming at least one is infantry). So in essence, it pays double what Germany or Russia has to spend on land units. In the Pacific, it is dealing with a monster (Japan) that no other power can fend off unless the US is involved in 30+ IPC per turn builds. Let’s not forget that after turn one Germany makes 70 IPC and around 50-60 IPC per turn after, and by round 3 latest Japan has 50+ IPC. Not to mention the US starts out with very few units compared to the other major powers. Almost every build the US makes (minus air units) will take at least 2 rounds to reach the front. I think the US is represented fairly in-game and fairly historically. If the US is not a beast, it cannot fight a war in the Pacific and Atlantic and the Axis will run all over the board. In fact in most of my games the Allies can only win by playing defense until the US gets involved (just like in real life!) and smart Axis players can knock out both UK capitals by turn 3 and whittle the USSR to 30ish IPC. The Axis needs to wait until turn 3 or 4 to bring the US into the war. When they have in my games, they have won.
Patriot much? I hate to burst your bubble but while the USA was immensely powerful they did not single handedly win the war. The US did not train the majority of your pilots (The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan or BCATP did), they could not effectively figure out how to move goods across the Atlantic and had to rely on Canadian escort. Should I also mention that Canada had a bigger navy at the end of the war then the US? The USA did take part in D-day but to a lesser extent than the British and Canadians, the Russians contributed immensely in every way to the European war effort and made it to Berlin before the USA. The Russians produced more tanks than ALL Allied nations combined (Yes that means more than the USA AND ALL OTHER ALLIES combined, actually the Russians LOST almost as many tanks as the other allies produced). I could go on but I think everyone is getting the idea.
As for the game itself, I believe that the representation is just fine. The one problem if anything is that the USA should have a slightly bigger economy and NOT be able to reach the European or Pacific fronts in a single turn. It should take at least an extra turn to get into combat. I can assume that this was done for playability as apposed to historical accuracy.
As Gargantua and Calvin (I think it was the two of them) said the axis have to think ahead and prepare for plans to delay and push the US troops back if the US comes in without adequate protection on their landing forces.
OK pilgrim what have you been smoking?