Too Lazy To Play? Listen to us play!

In a battle, I discovered something shocking: Destroyers are a better value in a naval battle, IPC for IPC.

Using the calculator I found out that 80 destroyers (640 IPCs) can beat 20 battleships and 20 cruisers (640 IPCs). In addition to that destroyers can do a lot battleships and cruisers can’t do and can be in more places at once.

Destroyers aren’t king however:
Battleships and cruisers can bombard territories which may be the margin in amphibious assaults.
Unless you’re the US, you probably don’t have enough industrial capacity in your complexes to build so many destroyers.
And finally, the margin is so small that it takes 80 destroyers for the advantage to prove decisive. No power can build that many destroyers so this is purely theoretical anyway (unless you quadruple the IPC values of all territories).

@Mark-Prinsen said in US strategy:

I see something in the rules about not being allowed to move units into neutral territories, and that you cannot move units on carriers or into transports of another country.
But nothing about this.

Find it in the blue box on page 14, Pac.1940.2 rulebook:

“The United States: The United States
begins the game neutral, and as such
isn’t initially part of the Allies. Being at war
with no one and having a strict isolationist
policy, the United States has especially
tight restrictions. It may not move land
or air units into neutral territories. It may
not move units into territories or onto
ships belonging to another power or use
another power’s naval bases, nor may
another power move land or air units
into its territories or onto its ships or use
its naval bases. In addition, the United
States may not end the movement of its
sea units in sea zones that are adjacent to
Japanese-controlled territories.”

Right, that’s what I meant.

The standard  theory is that US and UK help each other in Atlantic, while they help each other with China and Anzac’s help in the Pacific.

UK helps USSR too.  USSR helps China. France helps anyone it can.

All is is true about Allies.

For an Axis win, Germany has to help Italy. This happens occassionally.

But what we rarely see is Japan helping Italy.

RamRod is one of the few places that this Japanese to Italian help is crucial in securing Axis victory!

The counter as MOW and others have rightly said is the Persian and SA factory.

The UK transports are critical in the defense/offense role.

However, the Navy protecting them is weak….and there are really no airbases… or the planes in these Airbases are gone.

So, to make the Italian threat potent, the Japanese Navy  (IJN) must help out.

This can be done in 3 ways:
A) By just sallying forth with the combat ships, 2 Subs, BB+ DD, 2CRU .  There can be some additions or subtractions done here.
  The point is… that the UK Navy with the TRs sunk… should make it much much more expensive for UK to attack Egypt  AND  - DEFEND- the Persian complex at the same time.

There is a potential for a 1-2 punch, wherein the Italian Navy could hit the UK navy in Red Sea first… and then withdraw… and the Japanese fleet off India mops up the survivors.

B) Using a CV+FTR+TB  in addition to A) but removing the BB

C) Adding a LOADED TR to A or B

This when done on J4 or J5 will really mess up Allied efforts to get back Egypt.

How the US fleet build is on US1 and US2 and the fleet positioning is of paramount importance for this to succeed.

IJN Build on J2 and J3 are important too.

But if pulled off… correctly… or the UK Botches its play…  by J5-I5 or J6-I6,  Persia can be Italian or Japanese… and S. Africa could be Axis too.

Just a point i  had not mentioned earlier.

MeinHerr

the idea is not to defend every landarea, only the vital ones (italy, germany), then have meches + tanks + planes in range so that you can counterattack anything else.

it is not trivial for US to land in north italy if you defend it with 3-5 units, and are able to counterattack with 15-20 german planes + 20+ german landunits.

german mechs in w germany are able to counterattack most terretories in europe, if the german planes try to stay in range, then it is difficult to land.

the only two terrs that are not “covered” by this strat is norway and s italy. in s italy you need how much you need anyways, and for norway, if your fleet is alive, you can have 5-8 inf in finland, keep your planes within range and then be able to attack with about 25-30 units (depending on how many planes you have).

It is expensive to defend against an enemy that can land everywhere, so rather, counterattack than defend, if you are able to kill one load of americans, then the transports need 3 turns before they are back and able to threathen again.

No.  You can leave the CV in SZ 8 during Combat moves.
You’re operating under the assumption that you will win the SZ 6 battle and move the CV to SZ 6 during Non-combat.

Now if you lose the SZ 6 battle - and you will - your fighter crashes into the ocean, but the CV can move anywhere else it wants during Non-combat.

It’s flexible.  You want to protect Wake and Guam enough that Japan has no realistic chance at taking them. Even falling back to Wake if needed.  If you start this out on J1 because Japan allows it and then they turn and go 100% against you, then yea, you probably would need to buy a destroyer and all aircraft for their scramble ability.  If they ignore you for a time and go to India, then you could do it for less.  Basically, I see them spending 38-41 ipc/round in the Pacific on the cheap side.  Some rounds they may spend more if the player sees it fit to do so.  The good thing about this is that once the war bonus kicks in, it may give you a chance to split your income almost 50/50 so that you aren’t totally ignoring either theater.

hey thanks for the quick replies!