what I wanted to try was on J1 attacking Hawaii with an AC, 2 Figs (one from Japan, the other from the AC), a DD and my sub (if it survived). Fight one round and retreat to SZ57 with at least my AC and 2 Figs (hopfully my DD also). Everytime I attack Hawaii - heavy or lite, I get lambasted on US1 and lose most if not all my units. I was thinking about trying this new strategy to avoid this. Any thoughts?
2 strats work well at Hawaii.
1. Pearl Light. Sub (if survived), destroyer, 4 fighters, 1 bomber. Take casualties on sub, destroyer, possible fighter or two. Japan puts two carriers and battleship at Solomons during noncombat and lands Pearl fighters on carriers. The US will probably not try to hit the Solomons sea zone unless they go for long range aircraft (yay), or they’re retarded (also yay). If the battle goes REALLY poorly for Japan, you can always just not move your navy towards Solomons. Meanwhile, the other Jap battleship stays east of Japan escorting the transport against UK2’s possible naval/air attack.
UK can mess with this move by moving their UK transport (usually) north from Australia. (Usually UK blocks with a transport while seding the sub to attack the Jap Solomon sub). Now Japan either has to attack the UK transport with a battleship, leaving two lone carriers with probable light to medium fighters at Solomons (the US can think about attacking then). Or Japan has to use a fighter to clear the transport (it’s risky; Japan can lose, and Japan doesn’t really have the air to spare).
Sometimes you see the UK sending the India fighter plus Solomon sub to try to hit the Jap sub at Solomons; the UK fighter lands on the Hawaii carrier.
2. Pearl Heavy. You send everything in reach. This has good and bad points, of course, like anything else. The bad thing is that Japan’s forces in Asia suck at the beginning, so losing that transport east of Japan hurts (Russia could grab Manchuria). Also, the dice could hose the Japs, then the Allies could really mess with Japan’s navy (pretty improbable, but possible). You might lose Manchuria to Burytia, and you probably won’t have an escort fleet for your Jap transport build (you can get around this). The good thing is that Japan usually takes a while to build up in Asia anyways.
