What Do You Buy/Do J1 When UK Puts Pressure on SZ 60/62

[Zhukov44]

Hi guys I’m trying to figure out the meta for the 1942 version currently on steam and I’m puzzled by how to play J1.

Imagine UK has a bomber on kazach and a fighter on Szechwan. Meanwhile Russia has an inf on Szechwan and 5 inf 2 fig in range of Buryatia. Suppose that UK wasn’t aggressive with their fleet and Allies didn’t leave you many ways to get value on J1 except an attack on sz 53. I attached a triplea map below for reference.

The attack on Pearl Harbor is REALLY tricky on this map. Japan can attack sz 53 with 2 fig 1 bmb 1 cru 1 sub but at 85% that’s…dicey. Or they can send a 3rd fighter. Less dicey but invites the risk that USA whiffs and japan is forced to leave a carrier in sz 53 (I assume this will happen 10%-20% of the time). Pretty interesting whether to go for the risky attack with the potentially big payout or the safer attack (though risky in its own right) with the more modest payout.

I see 3 ways to go for Japan

1. Buy AC and 2 transports and go for sz53. I like the idea of getting more transports out fast but I don’t like the idea of buying an extra AC unless I’m forced to. Onth, with the 3 acs I can spread out the fleet into 3 groups to take islands faster. I’ll be secure from sub harassment in a KGF game and I’ll have a starting naval advantage in a KJF game.

2. Buy 2 factories and go for sz53. This would be a lot more attractive if they were priced at 12 like in Global. Or if French Indochina wasn’t limited to 2 production. Still, maybe getting more production out early is the way. After all, with the tank price increased to 6, Japan’s ground army will be more inf/art heavy than you’d see in revised. So this way I get up all the extra production I’ll need round 1 and I start getting use out of the ICs round 2. The disadvantages are this seems less economically efficient and gives me less strategic options compared to transports. As allies I might be more inclined to go KJF against this because Japan will have less transports to trade islands. It’s also an option to hedge bets and just buy 1 factory (plus probably a fighter) but in this case I’m not sure which location is optimal.

3. Forget about sz53 and buy 3 tpt 3 inf. The extra transports will open up strategic options and allow Japan to threaten India/Africa/Aussie faster. The disadvantage is missing out on an opportunity to get ahead in the Pacific wars and a higher likelihood of facing a KJF. But if your opponent is likely to KGF anyway…maybe this is the way to go.

What do the top-rated players tend to do in this situation on Steam?

Japan1.tsvg

[Dead Rabbits]

HI. I was not able to download the image you linked here as I don’t have an application to open it?

My apologies as it does bring me to triple A but I have never learned how to use the interface there to figure out how I might be able to open your link there. A simple screen shot would be more user friendly I think for people to see what you are looking at.

Anyhow this is Japan turn one and I think you covered the main things to be mindful of such as the UK bomber being in Kazakh and the 5 infantry in range of Buryatia with 2 Russian fighters in range of Buryatia as well. I am assuming these are in Archangel? Although they could be in other locations in range than that, this would be a more typical location for them as they were likely used on attacks round one.

I do have one question is what did UK build round one?

If Japan built a bomber in India you do need to be careful about UK air strike on sea zone 60 or 82 where Japan will be placing bought transports. The set up you describe does make me think you need to be wary of that.

One other thing I wonder about is if UK attacked sea zone 61? If so was this successful? Does Japan have 2 transports at the start of its turn or one? I am guessing that UK did attack sea zone 61 because your option 3 talks about building 3 transports and 3 infantry round one. If Japan had 2 transports already then it would only need to build 2 to max out production from Tokyo and be able to transport all 8 units built there each turn.

Are there any UK transports or ships in range for Japan to attack? If so I like to do that as long as it does not leave Japans navy out of position.

With that out of the way I will say that I dont like attacking Pearl Harbor round one as Japan. There are risks involved with that as you described and it also causes some of Japans units to be out of position for round 2.

You mention that Japan does not have many juicy targets for round one besides PH. Well I hear you on that but Japan can make many attacks on the mainland that can be very effective by using all its air support on those round one which limits hit back potential by shortening those battles.

What I like to do round one with Japan is buy 3 transports 1 infantry 1 tank.

Send 3 infantry from Manchuria to Buryatia. Yes Russia can attack these back if it uses its 2 fighters with very good odds to capture it. https://aa1942calc.com/#/XSqIoFf021FzY1RayZwYJg

However if it does so then its fighters must land in Yakut and will be out of position to defend its borders from Germany round 2 if it does. You also could position Japanese aircraft to be in range of Yakut from Manchuria and look to trade Japanese air for the Russian fighters which are very precious. That said its not an ideal position for Japans aircraft at the end of round one as I would prefer them to be somewhere else. That is a decision you will need to weigh if you think Russia is going to do this attack or not. A lot of that depends on your position with Germany. Can Russia really afford to not have its fighters available for trades in Europe and for defense of key territory like West Russia? Under most circumstances I would say no they cannot. Again it would e helpful to actually see the map here. If Germany has no strong forward position vs Russia then maybe they can afford to do this. I will say Russia doing this is unusual.

Japan attacks Anhwei with 4 ground units and 1 fighter 1 bomber. Attacks Yunnan with 4 ground units and 1 fighter using its transport. Leave the tank in Tokyo. Use Battleship from sea zone 37 to bombard.

Japan attacks Burma with 1 infantry from Thaland. Sending fighters from carrier in sea zone 37 if UK left an infantry there.

Position sub to be in range of sea zone 45 in case US fleet from Pearl tries to move in there. Position the rest of your fleet to be in range of sea zone 45 to dead zone it. Much of this position depends on if UK has a bomber in India or not.

If not then leaving 1 battleship 1 destroyer in sea zone 60 should be enough to protect your 3 transport build in sea zone 60. The UK fighter in Szechwan cannot reach there even if Russia takes Buryatia. US could send 2 fighters at this but its only 13% chance of success. The Battleship will heal itself and then one bomber vs battleship is 6% chance of success. If a 2nd UK bomber can reach that is very different though!! So this matters a lot.

If UK does have a bomber in India then you want to bring the carrier from sea zone 50 to sea zone 60 and land 2 fighters on it. Note the fighters in sea zone 60 can still reach sea zone 45 to help dead zone US fleet if it moves there.

The battleship and carrier with 2 fighters in sea zone 61 to protect the one transport that landed units to Yunnan. You can have the cruiser here as well if you want extra defense.

If you dont need the carrier in sea zone 60 or the cruiser in sea zone 61 then I prefer having the carrier and cruiser in sea zone 48. Its just more versatile. But again the UK bomber in India means you may not want ships to be here.

[Dead Rabbits]

Attacking Pearl is not terrible. In my experience about half of the Axis players attack Pearl Harbor. Maybe more than half of them. However some top level players do not do this attack. I for one prefer to not do it for many reasons I wont completely cover here. You have already mentioned many of them. The risk of having to expose a Japanese carrier in that sea zone is the main thing I don’t want to happen.

I want all of my initial attacks with Japan to be as efficient as possible. I am trying to prevent Japan losing any ground units to hit backs. So while only attacking the 2 groups of US infantry may not seem like high value compared to other targets, doing so with decisive attacks that are somewhat overkill is what I want to do.

Often there are UK ships in range somewhere around here to consider attacking as well. I prioritize killing UK ships with Japan over US ships because of the turn order.

The main goal is for Japan to finish round one with zero casualties or as close to that as possible.

The other set up I did not mention is 1 infantry 2 fighters in Kwangtung. Many reasons for this as well such as being able to land in Ukraine or West Russia if German can take them round 2 or even Caucus sometimes and then have the fighters land to help them hold that position. If you can safely place a carrier in sea zone 48 (instead of sea zone 60 to protect vs bomber in India) then the fighters in Kwangtung can still reach sea zone 45 from there because of the carriers position.

This is up to you and your goals with Germany round 2. But it is a good place to be. It also denies US or Russia from a quick 2 IPC boost from trading Kwangtung.

You might want these fighters to be in Manchuria for the potential counter attack if Russia does use its fighters to attack Buryatia. This is up to you. Killing those Russian fighters if they did do this I think is well worth it. But you need to consider if anything else might be able to reinforce Yakut with those fighters as well? Is there still an infantry in Okrug that could?

Pearl Harbor attack does help somewhat if you think the opponent is going to do KGF. Its fewer escorts that US gets to start with. I will sometimes do that attack for this purpose. It does stop the sea zone 45 move pre-emptively as well. There are just so many things that can go wrong with this attack.

If you do it I recommend 1 sub 1 cruiser 2 fighters 1 bomber attack. Sometimes referred to as Pearl light as you are not bringing the carrier into the battle as well. When you do this take the first hit on the fighter that does not have enough fuel so that your carrier does not have to catch it. This is part of the long list of things I don’t like about doing the attack. Automatically losing a fighter.

As far as building factories round one with Japan? I never do that. Japan has enough build capacity and expensive things it wants to build in the first few rounds that it does not need another factory until round 3. I prefer that first factory to be India. I go for j3 timing attack on India. I think most if not all players know this attack pretty well by now. But if you don’t I could explain that in further detail.

As far as building a factory with Japan I prefer to build it in East Indies. If there are no UK ships in Indian ocean to threaten it you can even build it round one and still go for India round 3 but you will be 2 attackers short of what you could have if you dont build it. Having it built does give you follow up attack options and many other options to use production there for taking Australia and Africa after you take India though. It is nice to have. I just dont really recommend it round one until you see what the Allies are actually up to.

[Zhukov44]

@Dead-Rabbits said in What Do You Buy/Do J1 When UK Puts Pressure on SZ 60/62:

Pearl Harbor attack does help somewhat if you think the opponent is going to do KGF. Its fewer escorts that US gets to start with. I will sometimes do that attack for this purpose. It does stop the sea zone 45 move pre-emptively as well. There are just so many things that can go wrong with this attack.

If you do it I recommend 1 sub 1 cruiser 2 fighters 1 bomber attack

Right, there’s that too. Allies might use that fleet later to open up a front in the Med and Axis will regret it.

Whether I go with the weak Pearl or strong Pearl attack, by my estimate the best Axis can do in the trade is +12. Japan will lose 1 fig 1 cru 1 sub while USA will lose 1 ac 1dd 1 fig plus 1 dd or 1 sub to clean up the remaining Japanese units. And there is the possibility that USA will whiff and you have to leave the ac in sz 53. So best case scenario is a +12 trade and there’s lots of ways it can go wrong.

So my feeling is Pearl isn’t a great option and if there’s an additional target (like another British ship or transport or Szechwan) it’s better to skip it. But assuming
the only good J1 targets are Yunnan, Anhwe, and the cruiser in sz 61…then I have a harder time justifying not going for sz 53.

If my opponent knows how to position the UK1 planes effectively than it seems fair to assume they’ll have a plan to punish me if I skip sz 53.

[Dead Rabbits]

Yes as far as reading your opponent goes I think that is a good assessment that if their positioning with UK and Russia so far looks good to you they are also likely to do some good things with US as well and they have a plan that will synergize well together.

Where I somewhat disagree with you is about doing the PH attack simply because you don’t have any other juicy targets available to you.

I think you need to have a plan that works well together also and not have the opponent make that decision for you.

That said I don’t think the PH attack is bad. When opponents do this against me I wish they wouldn’t as I do have plans for using those ships if they don’t.

At the same time if they do it I also know that their J3 timing on India will be a bit weaker than it could be and that allows me more freedom in other locations.

There is a thread here started recently that perhaps you have seen where I am looking for other ideas of things to do after the opponent does the PH attack and I am still seeking more ideas about that. So this does go over at least some of the reasons why doing the PH is good.

As far as the decision I think its close. I see many good players make the attack but there also many good players who don’t.

Personally I rarely do that attack as I prefer to save that fighter and even the cruiser and some are useful units I would prefer to keep. It makes it so I do not really need to invest in ships with Japan at all in the early rounds or some games at all, especially when opponents are doing KGF strategy.

What I prefer to do is dead zone sea zone 45 instead as I already talked about somewhat.

Saving that fighter that would surely be lost in the attack makes my J3 timing on India stronger as well as Japans overall set up. I don’t have the risk of PH going too well and losing other high value assets such as the carrier as possibly more aircraft as well. Sometimes the battle does not go well and you get more hit backs.

Sometimes your aircraft landing after the battle are vulnerable to counter attack as US wants to trade ships with Japan and will sacrifice their Battleship to kill those aircraft even if you have a counter set up to get the Battleship if they do.

[Dead Rabbits]

Usually if they do that they build more ships to counter your counter with.

Now Japan is trading expensive ships with US and they don’t have them in position to keep taking territory in Asia as a result of that.

India survives longer to be a thorn in Japans side. With that 2 bomber set up UK might start adding subs or other things to attack Japans weakened and out of position fleet with. Sometimes attacking PH round one leads to KJF strategy. Which based on the UK and Russia set up you described they are already somewhat set up for.

A good thing if you do the PH attack is that positioning your fleet in sea zone 60 does allow you to protect your transport build from UK and be in position to counter US counter if they do go after your surving aircraft from there as well. Just be aware that this might lead to US building more ships to counter your counter.

[Dead Rabbits]

Or you could skip PH attack dead zone sea zone 45 and have a stronger position to attempt J3 India attack, enough force in position to cause Allies continued withdrawal from Asia and secure income Japan desperately needs. Sustained sea battles with US does take Japan away from doing that somewhat and then leads to more expensive ship builds to try to stay ahead of US navy.

[aardvarkpepper]

1942 Online uses LHTR setup. There’s good reason for it; Axis heavily favored in OOB (and I’d personally say favored in LHTR too, but eh.) Use World War II v5 1942 SE TR.

Could comment on .tsvg but the way I see it if you play “meta” then you’ll play LHTR setup, then it’s all out the window.

Top rated? Well, rating means ladder games means LHTR. But 1942 Online meta is, you make a bad move, your opponent walks into it, then you’re a visionary genius. Eh.

Re: Japan KJF response:

1. If you want to send three fighters to Hawaiian Islands sea zone and maybe commit a carrier, then you’re immediately starting trades with US. It’s the KJF dream; instead of Japan being a spoilsport and going after India as a secondary naval production point and fighters on Tokyo, Japan obligingly lets UK produce at India while solving US’s logistics problems for it.

2. If Allies go KJF, ICs cost a lot, don’t fight, give Japan more vulnerable spots to defend, and super-accelerate Allied offensive once they’re lost.

3. . . . or 3 tpt 1 inf 1 tank for a J3 timing on India. Which would be even better if UK were distracted in Africa. And if UK doesn’t respond to G hit on Africa? Great, early G income in Africa, fantastic.

“Allies might use that fleet later to open up a front in the Med” - I would agree, but that’s US4, and some lines open up a front in Med US2. And if you’re like “what about Karelia”, good point.

“If my opponent knows how to position the UK1 planes effectively then it seems fair to assume they’ll have a plan”

No, it’s just a dummy check. Of course, here it’s not ENTIRELY a dummy check, but it also sort of is.

Dummy check, in that there’s always going to be problems with UK Indian Ocean fleet, especially without bid (1942 Online has no bid). Either UK runs a risk on UK1 attack against East Indies fleet, or UK invests a load and telegraphs KJF so if Japan doesn’t have optimal investments UK can’t transpose out of the line too well, etc. etc. About the best you’d see is maybe UK1 inf at India and fighters at London; the London fighters fly to W Russia then to India, at least that’s the threat. What I’m getting at is instead of having an albatross around UK’s neck with an Atlantic fleet that demands reinforcement, instead UK has flexibliity to use UK1 fighter production to support Atlantic fleet OR India fleet. But here, UK1 dropped fleet Atlantic. Eh.

On that board, UK put a load of fleet east of Africa. The threat is UK drops a fat fleet at India sea zone. 1942 Online doesn’t allow allied use of carriers which could be a big problem (I wrote the lines out somewhere, I was surprised to hear apparently it’s not a thing at GenCon, but it IS a thing) - anyways you won’t see it in 1942 Online. But 1942 Online the threat is still UK producing surface warships at India sea zone, because Germany can’t do anything about UK blockers, which opens up a load of Allied fun-fun KJF times.

Okay yeah. My opinion about KJF in 1942 Online is so bad, I’m like PLEASE KJF. It’s not really that simple, but pretty close.

With LHTR setup, there’s a buncha different wee plans for KJF and anti-KJF. On Discord I’ve seen plans for Persia IC (Roland Frisky Cow), India 1-sub-a-turn (cbrownpt), then I feel like it was Amund or Atskeu that’s a fan of UK1 London fighter / India ground leaving the G Med fleet alone, there’s a lot more to each of them, though UK1 London fighters is kinda the solution I think a lot of players came up with to try to not commit Allies strongly to KGF or KJF by end of UK1. (Mind, Amund uses UK1 fighters for KGF.) And yeah okay, it’s not THAT awful maybe.

But generally, if UK1 hits the East Indies fleet, then you want to think about J1 carrier, because if you don’t J1 carrier then when Allies start coming closer, then you want a second carrier (you lost one at East Indies probably) to defend your fleet. But if you build a J carrier later probably you want to use the rest of your fleet to defend the new carrier build, and that means you’ve got to tie your whole fleet to a Japan sea zone. And if you’re tied to a Japan sea zone then you’re not threatening to drop to Yunnan, so the Allies push Japan back on both sea and land.

And UK1 to East Indies is dicey without the bid. Contingnencies in case of failure not great, especially if Japan keeps its battleship and maybe a fighter.

But let’s say that doesn’t happen. Let’s say UK1 hit the Yunnan sea zone’s destroyer/transport, so J builds 3 trn 1 inf 1 tank. It’s not FANTASTIC. But what do Allies do? (And key, Japan should threaten the India sea zone and ideally sea zone northeast of Australia and Solomon Islands too.)

So let’s say UK doesn’t manage to have a surface fleet at India. Then UK has this really slow sorta reinforcement deal where they go around south of Australia, which takes forever. It’s a problem.

So US has to stretch its logistics, see? Japan builds cheap subs and lets US get closer. If US builds lots of transports then US doesn’t have much defensive navy, and Japan trades cheap subs for expensive everything else. If US has almost no transports, then Japan can afford to let US grab an island. So what? And if US keeps it next turn, so what? US plops an expensive 15 IPC IC down, well that’s less money for military units. On the next turn then US maybe gets 3-4 units on Manchuria, East Indies, Philippines, or Borneo, and THAT can be inconvenient. But Japan can grab the island back before then, and there’s plenty of time. And Japan has transports, if it built them earlier.

When Japan goes to 4 transports on J1, it grabs stuff off Philippines and East Indies, then maybe it harasses Africa and/or Australia, maintaining 6 ground production on Tokyo and 2 subs. That’s 2 subs 6 inf at 30 IPC, that’s right, that’s just about Japan’s income. And you do probably want to think about occasional artillery and one or maybe two tanks, just something to grab territory faster and do little fun things in Asia and Africa.

And if you have anything left over, you bank it, then when US gets close and Japan runs its fleet away, then Tokyo fighters keep flying over. US still has to build navy because Japan’s threat keeps growing.

Then if Japan controls India, you see where US logistics stretch crazy far, and Japan can drop carriers or destroyers or whatever supplemented by those Tokyo fighters. It’s a lot.

And if Japan does NOT control India? Then Allies committed a lot to holding India, so Germany should be progressing well against Moscow.

(continued)

[aardvarkpepper]

(continued)

So yeah my previous post, you see what I mean.

1. I’m saying you do cheap subs, let Allies come to you, then you use cheap subs and your mass starting navy to whack 'em.

2. If US doesn’t come close then you have tactically inflexible subs. Sad. But a few cheap subs to keep US at bay for a while, while Moscow goes down? Not too bad.

3. But if you buy expensive capital ships and get in an expensive fight with US right off, well, you see how that plays out completely different. You’re not really pressuring Asia, so Allies keep all that lovely territory and income and India production and they just make problems for you.

4. But you’re using transports to drop to India? If you send a lot towards US, then you bleed out anything you could threaten India sea zone with. Then UK is going to look at that and say “heyo”, then there’ll be subs or bombers or something floating around that Japan needs to deal with.

==

ICs are, yeah. I really don’t like 'em. For UK IC at Persia, I’m like . . . there’s a production shortage in the area, and Persia does do some things; I don’t LOVE it but I’m like okay maybe.

But what does Japan get out of ICs? Where are you going to put 'em? On an island? So you protect one island, but not all the others? And it’s expensive. And then there’s more points you need to protect. And it’s not like Japan’s going to be hitting production capacity off its Tokyo IC if it’s producing naval units, and Japan’s not central to the Indian Ocean and southwest Pacific, but still.

==

3 transports 1 inf 1 tank isn’t flashy. But yeah.

==

So let’s look at this all again. Let’s say you’re doing Pearl with 1 bom 3 fig 1 cru 1 car 1 sub. Because you don’t like Pearl Light with 1 bom 2 fig 1 cru 1 car 1 sub.

US counters with up to sub (if it submerged), destroyer, battleship, 2 fighter 1 bomber. That’s 18 punch 7 hp. Whatever Japan survived with probably dies, and when attacking US can even retreat so Japanese fighters on defense have to die first (impossible to reach any carrier in an adjacent space as none will reach on J1, and of course US controls Hawaiian islands.)

Say Japan keeps the bomber, that’s still Japan dropping 62 IPC on US1. You could say the cruiser is overvalued and other stuff, and I’d agree, and maybe Japan saves a fighter, but whatever. You’re looking at a 52 IPC trade scenario.

And if Japan loses two fighters so doesn’t need to commit a carrier? Then Japan has three carriers four fighters, which is kinda the wrong way around. Carriers, like subs, aren’t tactically flexible. But unlike subs, carriers aren’t all “yeah come on up here in my back yard I’ll give you such a whupping”. They’re more like “I’m going to sit here and hope you don’t hit me”.

If you want to say carriers have range extension tricks, then I’d absolutely agree IF YOU WERE US (or US/UK in board game, that can get pretty nasty). But for Japan? Why do you want range extension tricks; are you trying to invade Western US? No? Exactly. If you’re using range extension for Japan, then you’re going the wrong way; your fighters in far Pacific aren’t threatening India or supporting in Europe.

. . . when UK pressures 60/62

. . . specific moves?

Well, that’s the question, isn’t it. There’s a lot Japan wants to threaten, but with UK pressure it’s not that simple.

But think about it this way. If Japan doesn’t drop ground to Asia, Japan WILL get choked on income. If Japan makes expensive early trades, Japan will be in worse place to leverage superior numbers against growing Allied fleets.

So if Japan can’t dominate the India sea zone, well, that’s not great. But if Japan dominates India sea zone at the expense of Japanese ground in Asia? That’s really not great either.

Of them, I’d say not having ground in Asia is worse. No ground in Asia means no pressure, so UK can send from India towards Moscow, making Germany slower.

Anyhoo ya.

[aardvarkpepper]

Down the analytical rabbit hole.

OK so there I am writing about generalities. But let’s look at some specifics, in the .tsvg, then I’ll move to the screenshot I put up.

TSVG:

R1: 5 inf to Yakut implies unprepared player. On the other hand, they put inf at Sinkiang, 2 fighters on Archangel, and didn’t just dump artillery on Caucasus, which as G1 could capture Caucasus makes sense.

But then, why not 1 fig Archangel 1 fig Caucasus, see if G wants to roll unfavorable dice on G1 Cauc? Because R is committed to countering G1 Baltic? And we see on G1 that R submerged submarine, which would be consistent.

From R1 I’d say R isn’t going to take big possibly unsafe gambles (if they mobilized 3 art at Cauc and no fighter for example). But also, they’re possibly very risk-averse to losing fighters, they’re willing to let their Europe game suffer to fake a counter against Japan (I don’t imagine for a moment they’re seriously going to try to fight Japan early and solve Japan’s logistics issues for them), and inf/art build indicates they don’t think G will misplay into a fat R2 counter, (as opposed to R1 inf/tank build which punishes bad play and overextension).

So basically noncommittal, won’t say R good or bad, but they’re playing a bit greedy and a bit conservatively.

G1: 7 inf 5 art perhaps overconfident (because it implies Germany’s going to be using artillery to break down R’s door instead of using infantry to establish a front then tanks for hitting power), then 2 inf to Gibraltar bleeds out Europe, 2 fighters to Africa. There’s no real G2 London invasion threat but probably there wasn’t meant to be; looks like G is going for a mid-long game with Med control for Africa/southeastern Europe threats.

Here, I’d say G isn’t exploiting a weak UK India/Africa, and G is really playing a mid/long game despite a heavy artillery opening. I wrote “overconfident” but G’s position is pretty good, so there’s some good chance it makes good on all its threats.

Again, noncommittal. I don’t like G’s tank placement; I prefer Baltic States to Poland and France. Seems pretty ambitious to me to keep tank at S Europe for Med transport pickup, and the AA/art at Italy as well, but on balance I like it more than the R1 turn.

UK1: Committed to Atlantic fleet, but flew air east.

They didn’t like UK1 destroyer/bomber against G Med fleet. Maybe they’ll like fighter/bomber against G Med fleet but my guess is maybe not.

At any rate, they bought ground to defend against G invasion of London, and only placed 1 unit at India, plus committed to a navy in Atlantic. That’s big signals. Theoretically they could build a decent sized fleet at India on UK2, but fundamentally they just don’t have the wherewithal to stave off Japan and Germany both pressuring India/Africa.

So now I revisit earlier advice. I wrote you shouldn’t fight US IPC for IPC, shouldn’t sink IPCs into ICs which are immobile targets, and you should go transports. Make more sense? If UK commits to Africa, Japan gets India. If Japan gets India in the KJF, Japan has a rear position to mobilize carriers, destroyers, and attack Africa (and if you fought IPC to IPC early on then you won’t have the weight of numbers to add to cheap subs to punish US overextension, or if sinking IPCs into ICs the same. And if US hangs back to build up strength, fine, Axis grab Moscow then consolidate, Japan’s 50ish IPCs battle US’s 40ish plus US has to come to Japan, that is, US must come in range of Japan’s cheap subs.)

Returning to the OP, “pressure on sz 60/62” - absent other considerations, sure. But? Germany has a pretty good threat on Africa income, India’s 3 infantry down compared to what it would be in LHTR setup, and UK1 dropped an Atlantic fleet. Sure, UK has an offensive threat, but if they don’t keep up on ground count (which they didn’t), then either Germany gets early Africa income (hooray) or Japan eventually pushes UK out of the naval zone or Japan grabs India because UK has loads of navy/air in the region but not much defending Calcutta; if R helps India then G can push faster in Europe, especially with G Baltic fleet intact. Make sense?

That is, there’s a UK threat, sure. But when you think about how that UK threat really needs to develop, and how to leverage Axis current position, well, I’d say transports.