If you know your Allied opponents will go for a ‘Germany first’ strategy, you should attack Pearl and be prepared to pursue with aircraft that DD and Trn as they attempt to leave the Pacific. However, you do lose on valuable BB shots/fighter support in the fight on Asia. It is of course possible for Japan to pursue an aggressive land war in Asia and attack Pearl but it can (as I’m sure others have seen) leave Japan spread very thin and result in some battles relying a little too uncomfortably on luck.
Ultimately, destroying the US Pacific Navy will not win the war. It will take that US fleet at least four turns to become effective against Germany and the same again if used as the foundation for a Pacific fleet. If the latter, the Japanese have enough time to respond. In the meantime, factories in Asia and aggressive advances in Asia will, by turn 4, see the J.forces next to Moscow where they can most effectively help the Axis.
Anyway, I really feel I’m teaching people to suck eggs here so I’m gonna sign off.

I agree with AgentSmith entirely, unless the US player is inexperienced, any deployment of Japanese forces into (what I would term) ‘sideshows’ does more harm to the Axis than the Allies. It gives the Allies time to build up. With only two J.Transports on turn 1 I would be very reluctant to waste one for just $2 in Alaska when I could use it to begin putting pressure on the Soviets/re-take Manchuria etc. Japan attacking the USSR helps win the war for the Axis. Putting any effort into what is, at best, a diversion, just weakens any assault on the USSR from the East.
As for sending capital ships to help invade Alaska, :roll: that really is a waste. If I play J. I need every battleship shot and aircraft to secure my initial advance across Asia.
From this point of view, the only side which gains anything from supposedly ‘disrupting the other’ is the Allies. If I faced a player who attacked Alaska like this I would leave him there. Only if he looks like threatening Western USA would I even begin to start paying attention. The war is won taking Tokyo or Berlin, not checking Japanese interests in the Arctic.

And yet I would argue SeaLion would never have succeeded anyway. If you compare D-Day to SeaLion you can see the level of commitment and support needed for such a large amphib operation to succeed. Of course Germany did not have this.

Yes, I would totally agree with you here. Whether you can then infer that the Germans were never serious about Sealion as a result is another matter but I would agree that the level of ‘amateurism’ compared to Allied preparations for D-Day indicate a collossal defeat waiting on the other side of the Channel.
As for North Africa being a ‘sideshow’ Agent Smith……I’m not so sure. In Axis and Allies yes it can be ignored because it is pretty much irrelevant. But in the war…as someone said most of the Italian army was committed to Africa and its large Navy was of course Med based thus seriously challenging Britains’ links with India. Whatever your opinion as to italian quality their destruction helped pull Italy out of the war thus obliging German forces to defend against another front. (Italian engineers were also well ahead of others in jet-engine research. Another good reason to knock Italy out of the war. Which of course was begun through africa.)
It also allowed Torch to take place (thus giving a good dress rehearsal for D-Day and showing how well the Allies could co-operate in a combined arms op.) It also checked German ambitions in Iraq and Syria which thus checking an attempt to widen the war.
It was also, along with strategic bombing, the only place the British could challenge the axis on the ground until the war became global with Barbarossa and Pearl Harbor.
North Africa irrelevant? Come off it!

it was my own fault for going on holiday

@Zhukov_2003:

Also, the Germans had 50 divisions committed to counter D-Day

Hmm…I guess thats would explain how less than 10,000 allied soldiers secured a beach head on France facing a 50 division strong army. :D Germany had more like 1-2 divisions facing the allies on D-Day.

you got me!
(I meant 50 divisions in the west, The Heer)
The Germans didn’t know where the Allies would land so they spread them right around the Atlantic wall. In Normandy the Allies faced (initially) 3 German divisions to their 8.
Big problem of course faced by the Germans was getting their reserves into the fight.

@Zhukov_2003:

I know the battle Chindit is talking about, but it was in 1939. The Japanese attacked the Russians and lost something like 20,000 men in the attack. After this attack, russia and japan had a non-agression treaty until 1945 when russia attack japanese forces in manchuria. Although, the non-agression treaty, not the battle, helped Russia. This allowed Zhukov and a horde of exprienced soldiers to help the losing war on the Eastern Front.

well, even though Zhukov_2003 has somewhat stolen my thunder I will (very graciously) respond to the original request and fill in the tiny gap Z-2003 has left me.
The big battle was ‘Nomonhan’ (there is another name for it which is Mongolian ‘Khalkhin Gol’ though there are others) in 1939 and did indeedcost the Imperial Japanese. They lost about 25,000 men to the Soviets 5,000. The Japanese were very badly organised and even though possessed great aggression lacked decent transport and even water supplies. Zhukov’s armour ran rings around Japanese artillery units (literally).
However, everyone wanted out of this fight. The Russians had other things to worry about and the Japanese army in Manchuria had deeply embaressed Tokyo. (Apparently the Emperor had ordered there to be no fighting).
In the air the Japanese did a little better relative to the Soviets.
Most interesting was how these respective armies were then regarded. The Soviets were seen as expert but then went on to suffer humiliation at the hands of the tiny Finn army and so were downgraded in everyone’s eyes. The Japanese were seen as next to useless until they swept the British and Americans aside and so were then elevated to ‘superhuman.’
As Zhukov-2003 says these Russian Siberian troops (about 50 divisions) were thrown at the Germans outside Moscow in December 1941 and removed the G threat to Moscow for the rest of the war.
Now, I’ve saved the best to last.
Zhukov_2003 is wrong to say the battle was only 1939. There WAS also a battle in 1938 (though nothing like on the scale of that a year later) about 1,200 soviet losses to 500 Japanese.
There was also a border clash in 1936 but I think this was Mongolian forces (supported later by the Soviets) against Manchurian troops (supported by the Japanese).
Apparently, the whole incident flared up because of confusion over which country owned a hil on the borderl.
Clearly though, as has been said, these battles resulted in the Soviets not having to face a war on two fronts after Barbarossa began.
A final interesting point is the Russian attack into Manchuria in 1945 swept the remnants of the Japanese army there aside and was only stopped by two nuclear devices.

Donkey Kong Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2004 11:52 am Post subject:

–------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think that a war that involved only Russia and Germany would be just the same as the war was originally. The Germans pushed almost every tank, man and artillery into russia in the first place. Only in 1944 the allies came to a sort of “rescue” and then Russia had full controll. The answer is clear

you know its interesting, how much of a contribution did the West make?
I remember reading that the Germans kept back about 300,000 soldiers to man AA batteries and attempt to cope with round-the-clock USAF/RAF bombing.
Also, the Germans had 50 divisions committed to counter D-Day. Hitler believed that with D-Day taken care of those could be sent east to deal with the ‘greater threat.’
Again the Ardennes offensive sapped the Germans of any chance of holding the USSR back.
I think a point someone made some time back stands; a stalemate was likely if it was only USSR v Third Reich. But a victory against the latter needed more.
(And to think someone once said this posting belonged in the General postings)

i almost completely agree with Guderian here. ME and North Africa are distractions. Easier to access them through the Caucasus rather than investing that $44 of axis shipping in a sideshow. However, taking out that fighter in Malta is important too so I would attack Malta using both shore bombardment shots to be sure of nailing it (Des plus BB) then move west to cause damage in the Atlantic.
IMHO, any British invasion of Greece or Italy is easily dealt with since the Germans are near their base of supply and the Brits are a looooooooong way from theirs. Therefore, you can afford to ignore that des/trn Egypt task force.

its a very interesting question. IMHO, a couple of points; number one, technology. Personally, I think the Third Reich was not interested in wonder weapons until the heady days of early victory were long gone. THerefore; I would assert there would have been no Tigers, no rockets and no predecessors to the AK 47 in a campaign against Russia.
Second. Even after Barbarossa had begun German troops were being demobilised and the German economy did not reach a total war-footing until 1944. So an assault against USSR would not have been a wonder army qualitatively and quantitatively greater than the 3 million men committed in 1941. (I promise not to use the terms ‘quantitative’ or qualitative’ in any form for at least a week).
Plus, Stalins army is still crippled by the purges amongst its upper and middle management.
Therefore, with the above in mind, could the Germans have broken the USSR? Assuming they could have given it all their attention? No distractions from the West what-so-ever?
tricky……
I would say ‘no’ albeit with some hesitation, because the above situation described is what the Germans actually faced in 1941. I think there would probably have been a stalemate for a while. But in the long term? Who had the greater resources on which to draw? USSR or Nazi Germany?
Plus the big issue; Stopping a German offensive is one thing but hoisting the Red Flag over the Reichstag is another.
Could the Allies have actually crushed Nazi Germany without one another?

Chindit.

how about those ones against the Japanese in the thirties?
It stopped the IJA being able to force the USSR having to fight a war on two fronts. It convinced the Japanese that Siberia would not be a walkover. It allowed those 50 crack siberian divisions (and Zhukov) to be released from watching the Japanese amd throw the Germans back from Moscow.
Those two victories in 1938 and 1939 changed the course of the war.