@Argothair said in Taking French Indo China without a J1 DOW:
@weddingsinger intriguing, but what’s Japan’s endgame? India is worth 10 IPCs in your hands (5 territory + 5 NO), plus it gets you the use of a naval base. In Britain’s hands, it ties down your subs, part of your air force – so even with the money islands, you’re earning less than the usa.
What do you do when you run out of extra aircraft to land on carriers? Is the point to just stall until Germany can win?
IF the U.S. is going strong to the Pacific and ANZAC sent its fighters to Calcutta…
The goal is to avoid losses on your fleet and air force as much as possible and keep them within strike range of Calcutta, SZ6, Caroline Islands, Money Islands so the U.S. can’t move against Japan and, if UKPac is turtled, you keep gobbling up income in China/Russia. (heck, you can start bombing Moscow J6 or so, if Germany is going slow). Leaving Japan’s 2 subs off Calcutta isn’t a big loss. You’ve got bombers for any unattended transports and not really anywhere else to convoy.
With all your planes still around FiC/Kwangsi, they can join almost any fight including if India is foolish enough to send some troops out of Calcutta.
The idea is that either the U.S. has to spend ALL its income in the Pacific, meaning Germany wins.
If the game goes on for a bit, Japan is still building 6 fast movers a turn on the mainland so you can take Calcutta J7+ without real risk to planes or even needing your ships (or at least many) and/or keep taking Eastern Russia so that Japan can win the game for you.
So, usually by J3 I’m at 60ish ipcs, spending 12-18 ipcs on mechs/tanks and buying 2-3 carriers a turn J3-J5. Income still goes up 2-5 ipcs a turn. J6 you’re around 70 and China is dead and you’ve probably got a U.S. fleet to deal with but you can now move on Calcutta without your navy, taking it around J7 or J8 with 9-12 extra mechs/tanks than a J4 while UKPac has barely been able to buy anything and you’ve kept the U.S. at a stalemate. Maybe you can’t take Calcutta because London or ANZAC has shuttled a bunch of fighters there, but that works for you, too, since it means they’re not somewhere else.
If I have that sort of income, and I’ve used up the available planes to fill 6-7 carriers, giving Japan 9-10 carriers total, plus all its other starting ships, I’ll buy a round of hit soakers (if he doesn’t have many destroyers and has a lot of planes, I buy destroyers over subs)