@Uncle_Joe:
Yep, harassing the DEI us the Anzac’s primary mission IMO. Your secondary goal would be to provide ‘kill zones’ around Australia where it would be costly for the Japanese to place their fleet. Subs and land-based air work well for that. This gives the US some safe havens near critical areas from which to attack.
Remember that you dont have to do everything alone with each country. If the Japanese move down towards Australia it might be time for the US to pounce. And often they’ll lose their whole fleet. But if they weaken the Japanese to the point where the Anzac’s can mop-up, it’s worth it. And the sooner the better. Japan has a lot of areas to protect and to do that, she needs a fleet. If you can trade out your own fleets and air for the Japanese ships at even a slightly disadvantageous rate it’s well worth it.
I think it was the biggest leap for us when we came to grips with the fact that in order for the Allies as a whole to win, each individual nation had to make what appeared to be bad moves. The thing here is that Japan can kill anything she wants, but she cant kill everything she wants. So if you put enough out there to pee in Japan’s pool, some of it will go unanswered (or else Japan will stretch quite a bit and risk heavier losses).
I agree with Uncle_Joe’s post above.
We had one game where the Japanese had split up their fleet in the DEI. The US kamikazied their at start fleet into one of them, and then the British did same to the other (4 ftrs, 1 TAC, 1 BB, 1 CA & 1DD - loosing the ships, but not all the planes).
Next game, the Japanese did the same kind of move, but kept their fleet all together. This time the US kamikazied it’s at start fleet + bombers in on it’s turn, loosing everything, but chopping the Japanese down. Then the British attacked with the same force above, and cleaned up the left overs. Potentially, the ANZAC player could have continued attacking on it’s turn had there been the need.
I’m used to the double whammy, but in this game, you can actually get a tripple whammy if you’re smart about it.
