Yeah I feel you man! Too true
To go back to the nuts and bolts for a sec, just thought I’d chime in on the British fleet question.
For an Atlantic crossing set up, I enjoy something like the following…
Round 1:
UK buys 2 fighters setting up the transit to W. Russia or Arch (and then India) in the following rounds. 3 hitpoints built for India factory.
US buys 1 carrier, 1 destroyer, 2 transports and 1 sub to recover their Atlantic position.
Round 2:
UK repeats first round buy, and basically does the same.
US buys 1 carrier, 1 fighter, 1 transport, 1 destroyer.
Round 3:
UK builds 3 hitpoints in India, saves the rest for round 4 purchase.
US buys 2 fighters, and as much ground as they can afford. All available Anglo-American naval units should by this time be able to safely, converge off Africa, in range of UK for the following round.
Round 4:
UK drops a double carrier fleet with the second deck to be supported by US fighters. (You can try alternatives depending on whether the sz 35, or pearl carrier is still afloat to converge, but the goal is an Atlantic fleet with at least 4 carriers.) They don’t need to be fully stacked with fighters immediately, as long as you have sufficient defense to deter an airstrike, or room for the full 8 fighters should you need them. It can actually sometimes be advantageous to have a landing spot open for UK fighter flexibility or emergency escapes from Russia.
US from this point focuses primarily on purchasing transports, ground and aircraft. Moves the Atlantic fleet to support the British naval defense, while the transports go to sz 10 (or sz 1, if 10 is threatened by Axis bombers). All north American ground to Eastern Canada, to set up a repeating launch on either Africa or the North. From here on the goal is to build tandem transport fleets, capable of delivering as many ground units as possible across the pond. The ideal is building towards a dozen total transports (6 to launch, and 6 to return) capable of dropping 12 US ground each round. Basically 12 inf, if you can maintain 36 ipcs on income. As soon as it’s feasible you want the whole fleet up north, first Norway, then Finland every round until you can move on Karelia, with the British backing them up each time. The principle objective is to stack Baltic States or France, with a line on Berlin (and hopefully prevent a premature Moscow collapse by diverting Germany, so the Russian killing role falls to Japan alone.)
This is a painfully long and narrowly focused KGF set up for the Allies, which means Japan is almost certainly running the board. With any luck, you got enough ground out of India before abandoning it to make the Moscow battle a bloody affair for Japan, but in the end you’re hoping to trade a Japanese Moscow, for an American Berlin, at which point the balance resets with an insurmountable Allied advantage.
With a 4 carrier Atlantic fleet, it’s very hard for the Axis to build up sufficient bombers to challenge you, as long as you can keep it out of Axis fighter range. For their part, Axis will be hard pressed to retain fighter defense on Karelia and Berlin at the same time, while simultaneously threatening Moscow. At some point Germany will make a bold move on the center or south, or withdraw to protect the fatherland, ceding the North, and that’s when you want to crack Karelia. In the lead up to this I would try to avoid trading too much territory with American units unless you really need to block an Axis air landing. Better to stack the American ground so you can build for a back-to-back drop that will actually make a difference (e.g. 24 hitpoints, using all the transports at once for a key drop, with another dozen or more hitpoints at the ready for an immediate follow up. This is way better than taking France or Northwestern for a one round income boost, losing the dudes, and then back to being 2 turns out of position.) This is particulary true when setting up the final stack drop as a precursor to the amphibious assault on Berlin out of sz 5, since your transports will then be committed and unable to return to North America for more troops.
Whether any of this is achievable short of an early Axis setback somewhere, or a crushing and consistent bombing campaign against G, is where the whole bid discussion comes in, but I think that’s probably the cleanest route to Allied victory on this map. The alternative of stalling Japan and redirecting after, or just gunning for Tokyo is much harder, mainly because it’s so hard to cover the center against a full press by G under those conditions. Even if KJF is always more entertaining, it’s dicey, and doesn’t result in the same kind of overwhelming advantage that a Berlin kill affords.