You are still talking a LONG delay for major US entry to Europe if you are going to get EI and Borneo first.
If you want to go heavy in the Pacific, start on US2 instead of US1 with it.
In US 1, get your Atlantic fleet together, and the land units they will transport. Then stage in SZ9 for a direct out and back transit to Africa, leaving ytour fleet in SZ12 at the end of each move. That threatens Western AND Southern to help hold Germany back from a full-scale offensive on Russia, as well as allowing the US to secure Africa (or kick the Germans out, reducing their income).
THEN you can start building in the Pacific (and keeping your Atlantic TRNs full).
This has the added advantage of letting Japan start their pull-out from the Pacific, heading for India, etc., before the US starts their build-up. Sure, those ships will come back, but it costs Japan an extra round to react.
I understand that each country is in the end responsible for itself but if the Russian player makes his R1 moves assuming or after deciding on a KGF strat, then the US player does a 100% Pacific build as Russia you are going to be hurting. I don’t think the US needs to do anything in the Pacific except prevent a Japanese invasion, and should send its units towards Europe. However pacific builds will slow the Japanese assault on Mother Russia. Buying time is great, but if it is only slowing the demise of Russia then what. If Moscow falls it is really hard for the Allies to recover.
With 13 IPCs in japanese islands in the Pacific, it would make sense to me for the US to go for Super Submarines and go at it with AC + TRN + INF + ARM and/or BB + TRN + INF + ARM while harrying the Japanese navy with 2-4 Super Submarines per round.
Eventually Japan will just get whittled down while the US forces can maintain 97% of American land value without any effort at all.
Perhaps the US needs to send a bomber or three and a couple of fighters to England to help defend and SBR Germany a bit.
Three Words…
Air Force and Germany
Super Subs are worth jack against Japan’s AF. And a single DST drastically reduces their effectiveness even aginst Naval units (they still defend on 2’s, and with just 1 DST they cannot run away…)
And while the US is spending $36 IPC’s in the Pacific on 4 super subs (AFTER they develop them), Germany has sunk the UK fleet and is pounding on Moscow’s door… building in Caucuses for shites and giggles.
If the US wants to develop a navy wouldn’t the Atlantic be a better place for it? The Navy can be used to protect US and UK transports against the Luftwaffe. After Germany is in shambles you could send it through the Suez and fight Japan from both directions if you so please.
@ncscswitch:
Three Words…
Air Force and Germany
Super Subs are worth jack against Japan’s AF. And a single DST drastically reduces their effectiveness even aginst Naval units (they still defend on 2’s, and with just 1 DST they cannot run away…)
And while the US is spending $36 IPC’s in the Pacific on 4 super subs (AFTER they develop them), Germany has sunk the UK fleet and is pounding on Moscow’s door… building in Caucuses for shites and giggles.
Well, I was assuming the US puts in just enough cash into the atlantic to stop Germany from taking out the british fleet. That’s why I put such a large fluctuation in the number of SS-X into their per round.
And yes, 1 DD stops subs from retreating, but it’s only 1 DD. 1 Sub hit and it’s gone just like anything else. Besides, teh point of the subs is to annoy Japan, not to defeat it. USSR/UK can do that just fine with 0 Japanese intervention because it’s busy fighting off American privateers.
If you are going to go KJF, you have to do it full-bore.
If you divert major resources to the Pacific, then the US is going to be weak or non-existent against Germany. That means that the US has to make PROGRESS and ADVANCE against Japan… and QUICKLY.
A few super subs, 2-3 turns into the game is not making progress against Japan. It is sending IPC’s into the water to be sunk.
You can HARASS japan with your intial forces in the Pacific. You can even build an IC in Sinkiang for FIGs and ARM, which, once Japan gets too strong for those forces to successfully harass, can be evacuated to Moscow to aid in defense. But anything more than that, and your harassment of Japan simply means a lot of dead US IPC’s in the form of sunk navy. And it leaves UK to try to build up a fleet to survive/defeat the Kreigsmarine w/o assistance, and that takes a few turns to accomplish… around UK 3 or UK 4 the UK will be ready to start landings… if any TRN’s survive the attack and counter-attack of the Luftwafe and Baltic Fleet.
Meanwhile, Germany has raided 9+ IPC from UK in Africa and pushed Russia back to be trading Caucues. Germany is in the mid 50 IPC range by about G4, while UK is just begining to make landings… assumign they did well on the naval battles and don;t have to rebuild all of their trannies, and UK is reduced to just INF for 4 TRNs, because that is all they can afford. And it will take a few turns for them to get enough INF in position to do much against Germany…
If you are going to KJF, do it right. Spend the $ on surface ships and TRNs by the US in the Pacific.
Have Russia divert AT LEAST all eastern INF, plus a couple of ARM, and even 1 or 2 of their FIGs for battle in Asia.
UK will need to just realize that Africa belongs to Germany for a while, and go after FIC and anythign else they can get to (which may be some islands if they were able to preserve any of their fleet).
And while doing that, get every INF and FIG into Europe you can to try to keep Germany from taking and holding Caucuses, WR, Karelia and Archangel…
Kinda what I was thinking Hawk.
Maybe add a destroyer or a couple of subs a round to supplement losses to the current American fleet while not diverting what you need for Europe. After all, if you have 6 trannies (two groups of three shuttling troops) the most you’ll ever need is 3 tanks, 3 infantry per round for the shuttling process. That could leave 10-14 IPCs a round to “play” with.
I don’t know, all out to me against Japan means you can threaten a landing on the home island or in FIC that has a chance to succeed and stay there and be reinforced before the Japanese have moved enough stuff to attempt an attack on Moscow. How many TRNs and INF and FTRs and ARM and RTL is that? You need a lot of navy, :-o to KJF.
But you have a decent military between USA and UK already in the Pac. A few reinforcements, a little russian harrsement and a concerted US effort at collecting islands and Japan’s done for.
YES, the US can have superiority. Well at least it happened to me in a game at DAAK.
However, I put my bid on Libya then FAILED to take EGY on G1. So that does indeed skew the results somewhat as Germany was basically removed from Afr on rd 1 and finished off on rd 2.
Anyway the US was relentless in building an AC and 2 ftrs every turn for the Pacific.
Perhaps my arrogance played a bit in my downfall as well, as I was happy to see the US constantly devoting money to to the Pac, I thought I could get to Moscow before he could even use his fleet. But with the loss of Afr I couldn’t afford to waste time.
The first 2 AC’s for the Pacific I didn’t think much about them, since I think I took Pearl WOL and figure he was just being super defensive. But then when the AC and 2 ftrs purchases started to come in rds 3, 4, and 5 it started to look very bleak. With the AC and ftrs, that now makes the US a direct threat to the E Jap sz. Again I neglected my navy for a bit trying to get to Moscow and it almost worked. I had Germany in Cauc and Japan in Novo, but he had a heck of a force in Moscow with the UK able to reinforce with tanks and ftrs from Kar as well as he could threaten a direct landing in Berlin.
I did eventually have to start diverting money to the Pacific as Japan, but once he moved to Wake Island, I simply didn’t have the numbers to attack. He had 5 AC, 10 ftrs, 1 BB, 1 trn, 2 DD’s plus another AC with 2 ftrs in Wus sz. I had about 6 subs, 3 AC, 6 ftrs, 2 BB. A nice defensive force, but offensively it was pointless to attack, since AC and ftrs are both better defensively. We stocked up on ships for another rd or 2 while he picked off some southern Islands.
Japan also had a failed attempt on Moscow in the mean time and evetually he crushed my fleet with ~2 AC, 1 BB, 4 ftrs, 1 bom leftover. Then it was just a matter of time.
Germany later failied on a last ditch effort on Moscow with 40 inf, 2 rt, about 6 arm against 20+inf, 10 rt, 10 arm, 6 ftrs.
I certainly made mistakes but I think the US can wage a successful Pac strat provided 1 KEY FACTOR, Germany is removed from Africa early and you don’t split your money.
Now that I’ve seen a US Pac strat succeed, I really think it ultimately isn’t that great. Had I not been so stubborn with Japan early or simply planned things a little better. I could have negated the effect of the US fleet with better moves by Japan.
So I think the US could have superiority, but if Japan is played wisely, you can negate the superiority with less units and cheaper units you just have to recognize what the US is doing.
For informational purposes the final battle was:
Japan:Â 1 trn, 9 subs, 3 AC, 6 ftrs, 2 BBÂ vs.
US:Â 3 DD, 5 AC, 14 ftrs, 1 BB, 1 bom
And all nine of my subs missed.  :cry:
Exactly Darth.
I am reminded of my first game with Ezto, where he went USA Pacific. Japan met him naval for naval, sort of, with Japan matching US offensive power with Japan defensive power. That left spare $ for Japan to land in Asia.
And with UK and Russia being totally tied up with Germany, Japan still advanced quickly in Asia.
And with a few Africa IPC’s, Germany did get enough forces to break through…
So the US can have superiority but it seems that it takes an awful lot of resources. So say the US tries a 5 to 6 turn campaign against the Japanese and fails. Is it too late to save the Russians from the Germans? I guess the most important thing is to decide on a strat and stick to it. My allied friends and I have our work cut out for us but I think with enough UK and US troops landing in archangel in 3 to 4 turns we can pull it off.
I don’t know Hawk, I’m not sure it’s worthwhile. 4 US units won’t be nearly enough.
It won’t matter that the Allies can out produce Germany, you have to overwhelm them. Remember, 10 german units can easily hold off 15 combined Allied units in groups of 5. Those units would be defensive only and with enough Japanese pressure they would just be forced to slowly retreat to Moscow. And by splitting your US builds, Japan should be making enough money to counter with it’s own naval builds to hold the US off and still land plenty of units to crash Russia.
I don’t think Karelia is a strategic enough territory to land in. Germany should be funneling units through Eastern Europe so you wouldn’t be able to completely cut off their reinforcements going to the Russian front. You will be achieving FOR Germany exactly what you are trying to do against them. Germany can hold off the Allies in Karelia and still make a push for Caucasus. Plus, without big US fleets in the Atlantic, the UK won’t be landing many units in the early rounds because they will be spending the bulk of their money on capital fleet builds to protect their transports AND the US’s. A large German airforce based out of Eastern Europe can also make shipping units through sz4 a very hazardous place to be.
Yes, but the problem is that you aren’t really going after Japan with everything you have. I see your point that you are simply using the allied units to help defend Russia and reinforce Russian gains. But, I’m just not convinced that it will be enough.
I can’t see Germany not getting out. Without significant Western Allied pressure, by T3, Germany owns most of Africa so the UK will be lucky to fill 4 TP’s per turn and those units likely won’t include any armor. In that case, Germany can easily go head to head with Russia. Plus, Germany doesn’t even need to own all of Africa. They just need Trans- Jordan. If they have T-J, they can force Russia into a two front war by pushing units up through the Middle East and this will free up Japan to slowly build navy to counter the US fleet and focus their ground attacks in the north.
Even with a full US focus in the Pacific it won’t be until T3 before the US can begin to press Japan and if you are going to be diverting about 16 or so IPC’s to Europe it will take you even longer. Japan will quickly be earning as much or more than the US and they start with a larger fleet so they can afford to focus early on ground units and turn to navy only when the US begins to become a threat. The longer it takes the US to get into the Pacific the more ground units Japan can produce. The more ground units they produce, the more territories they will take and the more money they will earn. That situation can snowball out of control if the allies aren’t careful.
The poster asked if the US can achieve naval superiority. The way I see it, if the US spends every dime in the Pacific then, yes they can. But, if they split their income between Europe and the Pacific, then I think they can’t.
Well, alright, I’ll agree with you there. The US can get close with a full 1st turn naval build. But that also depends on variables that neither of us nor the original poster addressed. By the time US1 comes around a whole lot of crazy things could have happened. He never really gave us the whole picture. What did Russia and UK do in Asia? What did the UK do with their Indian ocean fleet? What did Japan build? Did Japan attack Hawaii or not?
Our criteria for attempting a US fleet buildup in the Pacific could be miles apart, too. As far as I’m concerned, In order for me to even think about going after Japan with the US, Japan would have had to have taken a beating in either Hawaii or Asia and I would need to have seen some type of support in Asia with the Russians and/or UK. Otherwise, I think Japan is more than capable of swatting the US fleet and still put enough pressure on Russia to get an Axis win in the majority of cases.
I believe that the US should attempt Naval Superiority in the Pacific… as if they don’t the Japanese can pour ALL of their IPC’s into Asia which NO Russian player wants… with the American’s distracting SOME of their IPC’s to the Pacific by putting ALL US IPC’s there… then the Japanese need to choose between a split … giving the US Superiority… or Putting all their IPC’s into keeping up with the US.
Japan cannot have enough money to keep up with a FULL US pacific campaign AND take ASIA.
Not quite true… if Japan is building DEFENSIVELY, then yes they can.
Japan can get 11 points on Naval defense with a single AC build and land based FIGs, FIGs that can still be used in Bury, China or even India depending on the location of your AC’s.
From then on out, Japan can get 11 more points of defense for 36 IPC’s. Spread over 2 rounds, that still allows about $25 IPC to be sent to Asia, with the TRNs to support Asia adding to your defensive fleet.
To get 11 points on attack with navy, you need to spend a LOT more than $36.
2 BB and 1 DST is 11 points and costs $60
6 SUBS gets you 12 points and costs $48, but must be protected with surface ships or they are sunk by Carrier based FIGs before they even get to attack.
4 DSTs costs $48 for 12 points of attack
And with AC’s and FIGs, you have to spend $62 for 2 AC’s and 3 FIGs.
Against that kind of IPC outlay, it will take many turns for the US to be able to punch through a consolidated Japan navy… turns which are used to reduce US income in China and Sinkiang, and start making more IPC’s in India, Bury, etc.
Meanwhile, Germany has only 2 opponents, and for 3-4 turns they can keep the UK navy at bay with startig navy, an AC and their air power… that leaves Russia outspent 2-1… gates of Moscow before UK even has the ability to land forces…
The only case when US can have a confident surperiority is when Japan is very aggressive in Asia and the US is nearly 100% comitted in the Pacific. Even though there are many ipcs to have in the Pacific it is better to Support your allies in Euope.
One other factor for the US fleet…
Japan land based FIGs
If Japan has a defensive fleet that can withstand a US attack, then with the addiion of land based FIGs and BOM, Japan CAN attack the US fleet on any round they get within range of both the fleet and the land based AF…
And remember, from Japan’s perspective, all they have to do is kill the TRNs, preventing units from being moved to take islands. All the BB’s inthe word can;t take an unoccupied territory…
So… STRAFE… then interdiciton of the new trannies being shipped forward (or to pretect new trannies, the US has to sail back to California, get the TRNs, and sail back again… 3 TURNS WASTED…
