Fortress Hawaii & "Pacific Light"

Assuming that the US goes heavier in the Atlantic and doesn’t “go after” Japan very aggressively (e.g., going into costly builds to contest DEI), how about slowly stack Hawaii using a “Transport  shuttle”?

This is accomplished with starting transports, some of the starting infantry, mechs and AA guns. The transports ferry back and forth, certainly when US is at peace and also later as the opportunity arises.

The idea is that the US Pacific fleet will be harassing the enemy with its starting units but not forcing a big naval race or building a very long supply line to fight in the money islands.

A large contingent of fighters adds on to the projected threat in the Pacific. These fighters can be used on land or at sea and therefore cause a significant problem for Japan who needs to spend enough to overtake these planes at sea (defensive sea units), but also deal with them on the land battles (transports + land + their own fighters).

Eventually Japan will secure India (hopefully not too quickly if Russia helps in the land war while US is going heavier Atlantic) and be one victory city short. At that time the US will have Hawaii stacked with a very large contingent of land units. Planes and remaining navy can be used to help defend Anzac if necessary, and might even fly to India in some cases.

I find it very hard to go after Japan at sea and it’s correspondingly fairly hard for Japan to project decisive threat at Anzac and Hawaii if proper preparation is done. Moving around the fleet and stack of fighters can buy precious time until a resurgent UK or China start put enough pressure on Japan to prevent a victory.

In addition, a number of deceptive moves can be done while using the strategy as to keep Japan guessing.

The US can put early naval builds in the Pacific to add pressure to Japan and make the strategy look like a KJF (and slow down their land build) but move them to the Atlantic instead.

Correspondingly later in the game (once the strategy looks like KGF) you can build your fighters in eastern USA but move them to Hawaii in one round instead.

You make valid points and it does depend on whether you play with victory conditions. Most players on this site play with the victory conditions so this is my assumption.

The idea is to spend only about 20 a turn in the Pacific: fighters, subs + some infantry from time to time. This goes on for a while until the US has to turn to Pacific to face the threat (e.g., with large fighter purchase). It’s much easier to pivot with proper pre-positioning of troops (done as cheaply as possible) and planes in the area.

With 50 per turn in Europe, the US will have a very significant impact. The goal is to focus on Germany and Italy first (other than having Russia focus on Japan to slow down their expansion on land) without letting Japan take the victory for the Axis.

Key goals for the US (with UK support).

Take Norway and establish a robust presence there (can include minor complex to replace your landing units, airbase and potentially naval base). This may require clearing the German navy from the Baltic. This and the subsequent Finland takeover denies 10 IPC to Germany and gives 5 IPC to US, a key swing of 15 per turn. A good German player will defend Norway with a land / amphibious and air counterattack. In this case a build up in 91 can threaten multiple locations and forcing additional investment to defend Norway will slow down Germany’s advance on the Eastern front.

Clear Italian navy from the med and maintain a surface presence in it (e.g., destroyer covered by Gibraltar air base is ideal since it forces Axis units to commit significant air to neutralize)

Once Italian navy is cleared, convoy what can be convoyed in the Med. Also convoy Normandy, if feasible.

Once above is accomplished, continue to steadily build air power (including bombers to bomb the German complexes), trade Normandy / Holland / Denmark and eventually Southern France. Work to weaken German air power by adding British starting AA guns to your infantry stacks or create situations with scrambles, naval battles, air raids and so on to force attrition of German air (you can tolerate slightly negative trades in that because German air is so valuable).

The next phase is to up the investment required for Germany to retake Denmark, Holland and Normandy and to potentially hold Normandy with a combination of American and British units. This works especially well if German air power started to fade as it requires German units (often fast units) to be commited to retake these territories. When doing this, keep in mind that US land units are harder to replace / longer supply lines than the British units. If you have Normandy + Norway you can produce 6 infantries a turn to make your landings (which are heavily supported by air, as needed).

Keep sufficient units to threaten a “1/2” punch landing on Germany, potentially with help of US air to do a suicide run (you do not need to do it, but the existence of the possibility makes a difference) allowing the UK a great chance at taking the German capital. The 1/2 punch threat ties down significant German units and may lead to abandonning of Western Germany (taking that and destroying the major industrial complex there is also a major accomplishment). Always keep US and British destroyers handy around Norway / the UK which guarantees that you can perform the landing you want.

@taamvan:

That’s a pretty good idea, to land AAA in there.   But taking Norway has some serious problems.   The US transports are on a one-way trip, one that takes them so far from the US that they’re never heading home.   The germans can easily defend Norway (or Denmark, Italy, France or any other part of the wall)> Yes they only have 1 transport, but with just one more, they can consistently re-take whichever squares the US and UK decide to grab.

Germany and Italy are 1 or zero turns away from being able to build defenders with any of their 3 major or 4 minor complexes.  They can build infantry for 3, and supplement either on defense or counterattack with planes they already have.

The US on the other hand, can only cycle fresh troops in every other round if it dedicates all 70 income to this and takes Spain.   Otherwise, the transports are on a one way trip.  You have to buy a whole turn’s income worth of transports, along with a destroyer and carrier to defend them–and against a cagy or bomber equipped Germany, you’ll need much more to defend the stack from an air attack.   You’d want the UK to help, but they don’t have the money it takes to buy a navy, transports, and then fill them with troops and supplement them with tacticals so that you have a tactical and a fighter making each assault.

The allies have such poor ability to broadcast power against the atlantic wall, there are many times where I wonder how Germany and Japan seem to do it so easily;  its because it doesn’t take them 4 turns to get ready, 2 turns to get there, and Germany and Japan start with 30 planes.   UK and the US don’t, and if they build planes to support atlantic efforts, well, there is no middle east and no india and a raging japan to deal with.    So what will happen is that I have a huge stack of infantry, ships, and artillery ready to attack the European axis but it cant roll worth crap on offense or defense because none of that junk helps during land battles like tanks and planes do.

Germany and Italy can just leave a few pieces in France and counterattack you at their leisure.   They are counterattacking a wildly overpriced and overprotected one-shot invasion force with backup units—the volksturm essentially.

I wish there was a KGF…but it doesn’t work very well.   Right around the time that you are making progress, Germany gets the Russian $$ and that is enough to end your invasion no matter how it starts.

The US can mount a pretty serious threat to several points at once. The key is to build up the threat of holding a territory while trading the territories with Germany. Dump UK AAA gun, cheap infantry and other fodder.

As for Norway, sometimes there are 2 transports in the Baltic. Force Germany to protect these as you can use your air against land and sea while they can only use their Navy at sea. Don’t forget that you have 1/2 punch and can bomb airbase to prevent German scramble. Sending troops to Finland through Leningrad takes time and usually Mechanized units are on standby. As you build up a strong American landing force in 91, Germany will have to abandon Western Germany at some point. Once abandonned, you can land lightly, pick up the IPCs and dowgrade the complex.

My sense is that you try to take the coast and hold it too early as opposed to projecting threat with the US for a massive landing / do the easy landings and using larger UK “bridge landings” to cause real attrition on the Germans.

Add to that strategic bombing, the sub convoys and the pressure can be quite effective. The issue is that Japan can grow very strong which is what the Fortress Hawaii strategy is trying to counter.

Sometimes the German player will respond to Americans in 91 by dropping a destroyer in 110 via Normandy to buy a turn. You can kill that destroyer (8 IPC) at zero cost (battleship of carrier damage). It’s obviously better to take and hold Norway but it’s a costly move on the German’s part to delay Norway falling by a turn. Meanwhile you are also forcing them to take care of holding Southern Italy (which is often done with costly mechanized units).

Once Norway is taken, the Germans will often build a destroyer in 112 to prevent US transports from loading and invading Denmark.

One tip, keep the Russian sub in 104, it is often forgotten, has a chance of Killing the destroyer blocks and can cause Germany a big surprise.

@taamvan:

It was clarified in earlier posts that you cannot strike the airbase before the scramble can occur.  You can attack the airbase with tacticals or bombers, on the same turn as you attack the sea zone, but the scrambling occurs before the results of the damage to the airbase are tallied.   It is therefore impossible to stop the scramble in this manner.

It sounds pretty good to hold off with a big American attack until its in force.   If Japan permitted you to enter the war early, this opportunity is often wasted because you are rushing to get the forces together without 4 turns of preliminary building.   If you do it late, it is so late in the game that by US6 it is Russia that is in trouble, not Germany.   Using your US forces piecemeal is a waste, sure, but unless you grab Spain, it is your transports that are stuck wasting time and resources by not returning for a second load.  I guess no game I’ve played lasted long enough to get a second load of guys back to the continent (in the same transports) but even if it happened, it happens way too slowly.    In any event, every euro space is two spaces from every other euro space, so that armor and mechs can counterattack any square the turn after they are built.

Regarding the airbase. Bomb with US and strike next with UK.

Since you seem confident about your ability to fend off the Allies in Europe, are you up for a league game with average bid in the league (something like 20 IPC?)

It’s true that StuckToJo you’ve been victim of this tactic more than a few times!  :-D