How Do You Play The US?

I will use any one of the three (go to Europe, go to Afr, or use a Pacific strat).
All can work, but it sort of depends on the game.  I’ll go to Afr for as long as Germany has its trn and BB.  Once I kill those then I shift to Europe.

Here are some things to consider,
If you go to Europe you need twice as many trns but you have a powerful combined defense and as long as you can stack in Kar you can also send units to Mos for help.

If you go to Afr you only need about 4-5 trns total and can threaten SE.  You’ll have extra income since you can fill 4 trns with 24 ipc, so that means you can buy lots of planes or gradually increase your ships to expand into the Med.

If you go to the Pacific that means either Rus had a really good turn, Germany had a really bad turn, or Japan took some heavy losses at Pearl.

But almost any route the US takes will take a lot of time to get going, probably 3-4 turns before you really get your trns and troops in place.  And even then you still may not be operating at 100%.

@RorkesDrift:

I always seem to end up with the UK helping out Russia nicely, via Karelia, but I can never seem to get the USA into the game.

What’s your preferred strategy with the USA? A north European juggernaut with the UK? Through north Africa? Island hopping in the Pacific? Or something else?

Really need input on this one  :?

As I always say, it depends on the board situation.

I’ve said it a hundred times, I’ll say it a hundred more.  Your best response depends on the board situation.  If you don’t adapt to the board situation, you are going to get hammered.

For example, say Russia either attacked 3 German territories on R1, or got bad luck on a 1-2 territory attack, and say Germany bought 8 tanks and kitchen sinked Russia on G1 (i.e. used German air to slam any concentration of Russian units wiping out most of Russia’s forces) and Japan built 3 transports 1 tank, and say Russia put 6 infantry at Burytia that Japan killed.  In such a case, even though you will probably still have the Pearl fleet, you are probably better off going for a KGF with US reinforcement from E. Canada to London, then London to Karelia/Archangel.  The Axis are going to try to whack Russia FAST and HARD, and a KJF is just way too slow.

On the other hand, if Russia opened conservatively with a 1-2 territory attack and Germany didn’t hard counter with air, and UK built an industrial complex at India, then US is almost forced to KJF, as the UK complex at India will fall if the US doesn’t do something to pull Japan’s attention away from it.

CSub 20 probably refers to

1:  the fact that an Allied fleet in the Med is vulnerable to combined German naval and air attack, which can inflict very heavy casualties.  The Allies can clear the German Med fleet with air, but it delays either UK or US a turn for the air buy.

2:  the fact that an Allied landing at S. Europe has to risk valuable fighters against AA and/or overcome infantry defense there.  Following turn, Germany can counterattack with infantry and artillery from Germany plus tanks from Eastern Europe (the usual defensive posting for German tanks).  It is very hard for the Allies to sustain any sort of offense in Southern Europe, as Germany can just retake in most instances.  For the Allies to take and hold, you typically either need A) massive UK ground forces in Africa with the UK fleet abandoning the Baltic/North Atlantic to pull units from Africa to S. Europe, B) a REALLY massive US fleet, and in either case you need to defend two fleets against German air (you need to defend the Allied fleet unloading into Africa that’s west of Algeria, and you need to defend the Allied fleet unloading Africa to S. Europe).

Yeah, the Germans can force the same 2-fleet defense against the E. Canada-London/London-Karelia route by posting bombers at W. Europe, but Germany only starts with 1 bomber - Germany should have 4-5 fighters to threaten the S. Europe route, which means the Allies need that much more defense.

If you try to SEAL the Germans in with a block of US and UK infantry at E. Europe, then that’s a lot of force that isn’t at Russia.  If the Axis player is decent, you’ll probably find that Russia falls before Germany does, in which case you’ll have a problem.  The solution is to NOT block Germany at E. Europe, and to keep dumping infantry into Russia through Archangel.  After you have a nice fat block of infantry at Russia, then you press UK/US against Germany and Russia against Japan, or you press US/Russia against Japan with UK running interference in Europe.

For the US to go after Southern using a NAD strat, the US needs to purchase exactly ONE non-transport naval unit… a Carrier.

With the remaining PACFLT and the initial Atlantic Fleet, USA can set up to do a shuck into Algeria fron ECan, and then from Algeria into Southern.

5 Transport, 1 Carrier are all the naval units that are required bey those normally alive after J1.

If Germany wants to sacrifice the Luftwaffe to kill either of those fleets…  I am doing a Happy Dance as the Allies.

Correct, you MIGHT need 1 fodder unit (or two) for the Med Fleet, IF it has been reinforced by Germany.

I usually play the US with a nice bottom fermented dark brew in a chilled glass.  You will need to have two glasses so that one can be maintained in the freezer at all times…. wait… what was the question?

@RorkesDrift:

Thanks Darth. A couple of points on your thoughts :-

I understand what you say regarding switching from AFR to SEU once the German med ships are sunk; however, CaspSub p.20 says that you should ‘rejoice’ if the Allies attack SEU - should I take that with a pinch of salt?

I’m not too familiar with the Csub papers, but I’m not necessarily saying to attack SE, only threaten.  There are rare cases where I might attack, but for the most part if you are going the NAfr route and have a few units moved to Egy, then 8 inf in Lib, then just landed 8 in Alg and you shift part of your fleet (AC, 2 ftrs, BB, DD, 3 trns) to Sz 14, now look at what you can do.  The entire underbelly of Germany is vulnerable and you can even go directly to Cauc.
(Note:  The turn you do this move to sz 14 you should buy 2-3 US trns so you can still land in Alg. as well without any interuptions)

Again, you don’t have to attack, BUT Germany doesn’t know you aren’t going to attack so they are likely to at least leave a token Def in SE (3-6 inf) b/c if it is too few (1-2 inf) it becomes worth it to try and attack with 1 inf/1rt (or arm) and a BB-shot.  This all means less troops pressing on Mos or in EE or WE.  It also protects the Med from Japan trying to sneak in there.

@RorkesDrift:

As you say, it can take a few turns to get the US logistics set-up, but I find a reasonably good Japan player can play havoc during that time by landing or threatening a landing during that period which requires a reaction, thus hampering the US by another couple of turns. By the time my US is ready to kick-off the Japs are breakfasting in Moscow.

I take a more delibrate approach to the early US turns to make sure this isn’t an issue.  I won’t over buy trns early since I already know I’ll be going to Afr for at least the first 3 US turns.  You already start out with 3 trns (2 in Sz 10, 1 in Sz 55), so that means you only really need to buy 1 more.
So US 1, I’ll buy an AC, 1 ftr (or trn), and inf.  Inf gets placed in Wus.  I move all North American inf to Wcan.
US 2 I’ll buy trn (if I didn’t on US 1 otherwise I buy ftr), plus Inf.  Inf get placed on Wus and all units shift to Ecan-Wcan, etc.

Japan would be foolish to think about attacking (Ala/Wcan) this early when you have roughly 4 inf in Ecan, 4-6 units in Wcan, 4-8 units in Wus (depending on buys).  I do like air as the US so I buy losts of ftrs (1 per turn if it seems doable) and the newly placed ftrs can also threaten any lone J trans that may venture up to Ala Sz.

So by US 2-3 I never have to worry about Japan doing any serious damage, they’ll probably take HI at some point but for the most part they’ll see 8 units continue to cycle through Canada which makes any small scale attacks not worth it.

I always assume Japan is going to be somewhat annoying in the North America at some point, so I just plan for it from US 1 so I never have to deal with a mid game surprise.  I’d rather get to Europe one round later to start than have my shuck-shuck disrupted at a crucial point in the mid game when UK-Rus really need the help.  And coincidently I’ve found the US isn’t really slowed at all when placing in Wus on Rd 1.

a buy that worked for me US 1 is the 1 AC, 2 tran, 2 arm

this lets you send a full boat load of 2 trans on US 1 and 2 then be in position for 4 trans, Ecan-Alg on US3.

If Japan got beat up at Pearl, I may send the fleet there to sink it, and then press the attack with the building of another transport, a carrier and whatever else I can get as submarines.  Remember, island hopping only takes one transport!

If not, then I like to run through Africa, it frees money for England, stops Japan from taking it in the mid-game and sets me up to attack the southern European states.

I like having 2 trannies for island hopping, and 4 land units. Not only because risk of strafe: in a game, my rival simply attacked my 2 unloaded land units at N.Guinea with aircrafts. End of island hopping. Imagine my face…  :-o

And you can take both E. Indies and Bornero in a row… priceless  :-D

Forget Japan.

Set up the Europe/Africa shuck starting from WUS to prevent Japan incursions into North America.

Most US players place their ground units in W. US and march them across Canada for transport to Europe or Africa.  I also do this with fighters, place a carrier with your transports in either sz2 (for Europe) or sz12 (for Africa) fighters in W. US can reach both of these seazones, and planes on those carriers can reach Moscow (from sz2) or Caucasus (from sz12) which makes reinforcing Russia with planes very handy.

I have seen an interesting strategy that works better than it should.  Assuming that Japan is Russia focused, and does not threaten an attack on the US (which should happen in most cases), US builds bombers with a research roll for heavy bombers, when possible.  Then every turn land bombers in Eng and StratBomb germany.  By US3 you are taking an avg of 15IPC from germany every turn, and 6 more every turn after that.  Once you hit your research roll, you double it, which is absolutely devestating to Germany.  But even if you never do, you are taking on avg half of germany’s IPC every turn by US4 or maybe even US3 if the afrika corp is struggling.  This is more than enough to crack an already weak germany, or grind a strong german offense into defensive mode.

I think that strategic bombing sound better than its work.

You should consider that strategic bombing raid damage are capped to the income value of the the territory that contains the attacked IC. From England is possible to attack the German IC, and the maxim damage per turn is 10. If we consider also the UK Bomber in the operation then the maximum damage is 6 (maximum damage for the UK bombing) plus 10 (if USA buy another Bomber), then 16.
To increase damage done to Germany is necessary to attack also Southern Europe IC and this means you need to conquer at least Algeria and make it a safe place for bombers to stay. This may bring the total maximum damage to 22.

However the expected damage of this four (1 UK and 3 USA) bombers is 3.5 then … about 14 IPC of damage on average.

Statistic is useful to work with a lot of dice not only one single dice rolled at time, which result is less “predictable”.
Usually I do not like to have all the USA war effort appointed on single die roll. If you roll always 6s on the bombing run you really damage Germany. But it is similar to have an army composed only of infantry hoping to roll always 1s when attacking.

Summarizing: strategic bombing is a complementary option for USA to hinder German economic effort, and when Bombers hit hard they really decrease German Army strength, that should always be paired with a main strategy effort to bring troops to Europe or Asia.

@Shiftone85:

I have seen an interesting strategy that works better than it should.  Assuming that Japan is Russia focused, and does not threaten an attack on the US (which should happen in most cases), US builds bombers with a research roll for heavy bombers, when possible.  Then every turn land bombers in Eng and StratBomb germany.  By US3 you are taking an avg of 15IPC from germany every turn, and 6 more every turn after that.  Once you hit your research roll, you double it, which is absolutely devestating to Germany.  But even if you never do, you are taking on avg half of germany’s IPC every turn by US4 or maybe even US3 if the afrika corp is struggling.  This is more than enough to crack an already weak germany, or grind a strong german offense into defensive mode.

yes, but this how you practicaly loose Africa, Germany expands over not just British but Soviet territories( not just expanding its economy, but decreasing the allied) + the bom.thing  takes time to start bringing results

and there are no Superfortresses anymore, with them its anothers story

this bom. can be shot, and altough this strategy can seem very strong, i wouldnt evaluate it that way

plus, it seems like a non-interesting and non-creative solution

but it has its + too, agree with Romulus, it can be very good when being supplementation to the American navy/land forces