What should UK do with India?

[Witt]

I did that to safeguard my Italian Battleship and harass a US2 NAfrica landing. Unfortunately, UK can then start rebuilding its fleet and take Norway on 4.

[AxisBrutality]

@Sean.C:

I’m going over the numbers again and again, and every time India seems like a money/time sink that ends up getting the allies no where.

Thoughts?  I just can’t think of any other good things to use India for.  Defending it seems like a lost cause.

Since India starts off with an IC now, India is extremely important. UK Fleet is wiped out, well most of it anyway, on G1. So UK can’t drop any naval forces outside London. There is no point in building INF, Art or Tanks on London. So the only place that can be done is India.

I would protect India. Russian FTR goes to Egypt, that’s standard in my strategy. Egypt survives which gives you 63% chance of killing Japanese fleet outside East Indies. Even if something goes wrong all the way there, I can’t see Japan standing there with more than a Battleship. So either way, 2 Japanese FTR and the Carrier will die big time even if things go wrong for the UK, but there is a 63% chance that UK will win, so 2 out of 3 times, UK wins.

After Japanese fleet being destroyed, you move 1 Art and 1 INF with your Indian transport from Egypt to India. Iran INF also to India. UK Tank from Egypt goes to Iran.  UK-Syrian INF to Egypt, so you should have 2 INF there. Buy 2 Art, 1 INF on India. That leaves you with 6 INF, 3 Art on India, and 1 UK Tank on Iran. 1 UK INF is on Burma too.

What to do with Australia, send 2 INF against New Guinea. 2 FTR from London can fly to Archangel. Now UK still has 20 IPC to buy something for, UK could buy 2 FTR on London.

Position your UK Bomber and fly it to Caucasus.

Now you have a very nice UK Force on India, and 4 FTRs between London and Archangel. Plus any addition FTRs that survive the East Indies battle, most probably 1 FTR.

Now, you need to build what I call an Allies-wall in Asia. That can only be done by the U.S. So the U.S needs to build an IC on Alaska. This is extremely important because this will never give Japan any peace to do anything what so ever, knowing that there is a huge U.S. Fleet and IC only 2 spaces from Japan and 1 space from Russia!

So do consider an IC in Alaska something like mini-UK. This is the clocest way to harrass one of the Axis countries, in this case Japan, and also the clocest part where you can support Russia at the same time. A Japanese player will never know what you will do, support Russia and dump in forces there or invade Japan or Manchuria, and therefore Japan will be denied IPCs, will be forced to build naval forces and India will fvck Japan in French-Indo-China.

Furthermore, an attack on East Indies fleet by the UK enables U.S. Forces to survive at least with 2 INF and 1 FTR in Tibet, which would be supported by 1 Russian INF also in the beginning of R1 turn.

Now you have a nice wall where U.S. can build Battleships and Bombers which will massacre most of the things Japan put’s out on 2nd and 3rd turn.  Japan will lose big time, since Japan can only build like 4-5 subs per round while the U.S. can build 2 subs on Alaska and rest Bombers on Western U.S., that leaves Japan with no ground units or anything, what so ever, and India will then crush them, there are already 10 - 11 UK units in that area by the time UK is finished with it’s UK1 turn.

[Witt]

UK has to attack the Jap fleet to reduce their Navy. Japan, like Italy(Anniversary or 1940), is dead once it’s fleet is sunk. Leaving the fleet on UK1 gives Japan two taskforces: one for conquest and a second for defence: Philippines and Japan.
UK come before Japan for a reason: to weaken Japan. (Same reason in 1940 they come before Italy: to weaken them!)