This is why i think a better US strat combines the sub blockade with a shuck into SFE. And anzac pressure on Indonesia and phillipines. US trannies are safe up north and dropping 8 units a turn into russia. These head down to Manch/ korea. Us subs are dropping japans ipc count. And anzacs are grabbing any islands left weak.
US in a typical turn might buy 3-4 subs for pacific. 8 ground units for asia and 6 ground units for Africa spain.
@Arthur:
I build two factories on the mainland, allowing me to add six units per round. Tokyo’s factory makes a few planes plus a sub or two a round. If the US really wants to spend heavily to kill those subs, they can win the battle but often at a heavy positional price and so little TUV swing.
Japan absolutely must have their fleet down in the Money Islands on J2 and J3 or else the transports will get cut to pieces with no cost to the Allies. That means that SZ6 cannot have much defense until J5 at the earliest. If the Allies do a KJF-type strategy, I can never afford to bring a significant number of ships back up to SZ6 until late in the game when I must abandon the South Pacific.
I would much rather lose control of SZ6 and have the Allies convoy raid the adjacent territories, compared with having either a single Money Island fall firmly into Allied control. The economic and strategic swing is significantly bigger.
Japan needs to do both things. Unless the USN main fleet is in SZ25, SZ26 or SZ33 the whole IJN isn’t needed to defend SZ6. SZ33 is an awesome location for the USN because it can hit all but one of the money islands as well as SZ6 and most of the Japanese coastal territories. The problem is that planes from SZ35 and the Philippines can hit it and land on land, assuming one of the three surrounding islands is still in Japanese hands. Japan shouldn’t be allowing the USN to hold this space! That leaves the main fleet in SZ54 and transiting ships/planes in SZ26/Hawaii.
What happens when you play?
I can certainly see the need to move planes in an India threatening place on the turn that you are planning to take that. On that turn, you may need to abandon SZ6.
Is it possible the counter to the USA sub spam is that Japan then starts spamming 5 subs a turn in response?
As many have said, for this to work US has to spend all ipcs against Japan to replace the destroyed subs and destroyers. US fleet has to be in range of Japan fleet to do this so they also need blocking ships which you can use a sub backed by planes to defeat. So, the net gain for US is pretty low. Also, Germany and Italy should be rolling against USSR and GB. I’ve won many games where US under-spent on the Europe side of the board.
Is it possible the counter to the USA sub spam is that Japan then starts spamming 5 subs a turn in response?
And then what? you got 5 subs that can only convoy the US in 1 SZ so i can attack them with 1 destroyer and 10 air units.
Japan is at risk of this because with the money islands they got 11 convoy zones to protect, that is 22 dice thrown from subs so 20-30 ipcs loss if not countered.
But each sub is on its own so you need 1 destroyer against each sub, and each sub you kill i can counter with 2 to kill of the destroyer.
You missed the point of the counter….
If the USA is putting all its IPC into subs and the only surface fleet they have is their starting fleet and the ANZAC fleet is small. Well, Japan if they spam 4-5 sub a turn, they do need IPC for land units and so forth. Well, all the Allies will have left is a bunch of USA subs and ANZAC and UK Pac getting convoyed.
Granted convoying UK PAC and ANZAC does not seem like a big deal BUT they only get around 10 IPC a turn with out bonuses and you can reduce them to the 4-6 IPC range, that is HUGE.
With just $30 to $40 IPCs, Japan has to defeat USA sub-spam, take and hold large IPC islands, perhaps take Hawaii, Philippines, etc. and try to keep the Chinese and Burma road under control. Japan can buy a few destroyers (3 about consumes all $) but that means no factory in China for a while, fewer troops to combat the Chinese (god forbid they start building cannons), etc, etc. If the Russians keep a large infantry force near Korea then troops have to be dedicated there too just in case. The Mongolia factor is not much of a deterrent for the Russians. In the mean time, the AZNACs are massing, India is supporting the Chinese or re-taking South East Asia.
I think the best approach is to forget about China, let the Chinese have it, they cannot go anywhere. Hold the larger territories (3/4 IPC) for as long as possible but do not pump infantry in…just a money pit. Concentrate on the islands, India, ANZAC…maybe even East Africa/Middle East. Control sub-spam as best as possible.
I think the best approach is to forget about China, let the Chinese have it, they cannot go anywhere.� � Hold the larger territories (3/4 IPC) for as long as possible but do not pump infantry in…just a money pit.� � Concentrate on the islands, India, ANZAC…maybe even East Africa/Middle East.� � Control sub-spam as best as possible.
This is the plan of insanity my friend. Mainland China is worth 11 of the 26 IPC Japan starts with.
IF you let china get so large to control all of the mainland, well, yeah, they cannot move out of china BUT they have one Victory city in Shanghai and China is allowed to move into Hong Kong regardless if UK Pac is still alive or not. So, Japan lost 2 victory cities on the mainland.
Remember that China has two exceptions for where they can move. They can move units into Burma and Hong Kong.
In essence this plan makes the only Axis path of victory reside on the European board. The Pacific map is the easiest path for victory, which, this plan just blew up.
China chews through that Japanese 11 or 12 IPCs every turn with a few Japanese causalities and keeps all or a good portion of the planes occupied in China. India can bounce their planes back and forth from China to SE Asia to assist the Chinese for defense (good portion of the critical parts of China 4 spaces away) and perhaps throw some troops in to boot. It is just a meat grinder and bottomless pit for the Japanese. Take French Indo, India, the islands…make up for that 11/12 $. Keep the ANZACs at bay and maybe mop up the 5pt bonus islands (Solomans, etc.). Keeping the US at bay, reducing threat from ANZACs and helping in Europe/Africa/Russia is better than endlessly feeding the Chinese whack-a-mole machine. Trying to hold Hong Kong and Shanghai…will expend every penny there is.
Right, focus on the Europe side, push into Russia, Africa, Middle East. Open to ideas on China though…just seems like it takes turn, after turn, after…to subdue them. One can churn through a lot of IPCs and at the expense of much else. By that time the Java, India, etc are reinforced, the ANZACs are on their way to a carrier or two, BB, etc. I propose, perhaps, hold the high value coastal territories a long as possible with some infantry and a fighter or two but don’t push inland. Control but do not try to eliminate the Chinese.
I normally limit myself to about four territories in China beyond starting until I take India. 5 if I decide to take chahar.
That way China are contained but not tying up too many resources.
There are 10 seazones on the board, (DEI, coast of China, phillipines, and Japan) where Japan can be convoyed.
Meaning in general, you only need a handful of destroyers to keep them clear. If you’re getting sub spammed, build destroyers and use your aircraft to clear these zones. Even if you wanted to clear all of your zones, you would only need 10 destroyers to do so.
80 IPC’s is just over one average turn of income for Japan.
Playing it safe, I would say 2-3 destroyers near Japan, and 2-3 destroyers near Malaya, should give you all the coverage you need.
Remember that your opponent can only flood you, if you don’t have enough DST to counter attack most/all zones.
All good considerations. However, 80 IPC is after Japan has secured Asia, more like 40 or less early game. Massive USA sub spam (12 per turn) begins turn 4. By turn 4 (pre-war) there can already be 26 US subs spread across the Pacific then an additional 12 per turn (72 IPC/6) after that. The USA can outspend Japan on subs vs destroyers and drag Japan down into just buying destroyers early game or for most of the game. Not sure how Japan can get to 80 IPCs through conquest if they are buying destroyers every turn to make up for the losses. And if they don’t buy destroyers then their fleet and convoy IPCs will suffer. Also, to counter the subs Japan has to keep their aircraft on airbases/islands/etc. That prevents much action in China/India. Japan also has to keep the fleet in ports to rebuild BB and CVs or suffer true losses from sub attacks every turn. If the ANAZACs build subs too then it is relentless and paralyzing.
And why isn’t Japan attacking these massive stacks of subs that defend at 1 as they cross the pacific?
Japan Starts with 21 air, a handful of destroyers is plenty. The subs can’t even hit your planes.
I’m not saying that super sub spam is unviable for USA, I’d need to try it, but one dimensional strategies always have an appropriate response.
If us builds 12 subs a turn axis strategy is simple.
No pressure on Europe means Germany Italy have less to worry about and can hammer Russia and UK. Plus eventual push into Africa.
Subs can only hit coastal areas. I would simply build enough factories to launch full scale invasion into heart of asia. It should be fairly easy to mop up china and then knock the russian back door in.
If US gets the upper hand in naval raiding i would snipe those lone subs defending on 1s with bomners and destroyers.
I can see this strategy as being a problem for Japan. Everyone knows that Japan is easier to shut down than Germany.
I’d imagine a grand US fleet with some transports to take Calcutta followed by a supporting carrier fleet from ANZAC and planes on the Carolines’ Airbase. From that point, subs can go to the coastal territories while close to their US coast supply point.
Not sure on the timetable of when US sub swarms need to be hitting to effect Japan in time. Obviously there are so many variables in this game which are effected by dice outcomes.
Also, I don’t think people just buy only subs kind of like the misconception that Dark Skies “means” just buying bombers when it’s more like buying 8 Mech 2 bombers per turn rather than 4 tanks 8 mechs.
Sub spam certainly isn’t just buying subs. Just having an additional 5 subs per round can cause huge headaches for Japan. They get distributed in easy-to-counterstrike seazones. Sure, Japan could take them out with five destroyers, but most or all of those destroyers get killed in retaliatory sub+plane strikes during the Allied turns. Japan will struggle to find factory space to make five ships a turn, unless they are willing to lose yet another destroyer/round to ship block subs that are based in Pearl Harbor.
If Japan has to spend 40 PUs/round to limit the distributed subs, plus perhaps another 14 PUs/round to retake a Money Island that is captured by an ANZAC raid, that does not leave enough income to press an attack to India or contain the Chinese rebellion that is brewing in the mainland. I am not saying that the USA sub strat is uber powerful or necessarily the best option, but don’t trivialize the difficulty for Japan to respond.
Bomber Harris - exactly…there isn’t enough Japanese IPC to build enough destroyers every turn to counter. The US simply can out produce. Even if it is just few turns it bogs Japan down and gives China, India and the ANZACs to build up a little defense or offense. The US is versatile enough that it can very quickly shift to the Atlantic if necessary.
Where are USA planes hitting SZ19 coming from/landing?
