@keplar:
even though the attack itself failed, the outcome was not a failure. The US was extremely delayed in attempting to take gibralter.
Typically when the US enters the war, Italy has to spend every ipc it earns to hold/retake gibralter until eventually the US finally has enough to take and HOLD it. When the US finally holds gibralter, usually it’s 2-3 turns until Italy is done. Plus all that time and effort to take/retake gib forces italy to spend less on the african front. With this strategy, Italy had no threats of any kind and was able to freely send 30ish ipc’s worth of units to africa every turn. By this time UK is only bringing home 20ish with convoy loses and they can’t compete with that.
With Germany, keep in mind that I had only 4 transports in my attack, which leaves TONS of troops to head towards Russia. Germany is making 50ish per turn, all towards Russia. Russia starts with very little and only makes 37. Once again, it’s hard for them to compete with this.
I never said Japan was “squashing India”, Japan was trading interior territories with China, and sending transports to Asia and collecting islands when possible. They took Hawaii on J4 and eventually relinked the both fleets together to make a monster fleet that the US could do nothing about w/o spending every penny on the Western coast. Japan makes mid 40’s per turn, US is down to 60 ish. India had a HUGE land army retaking China, but by endgame was making 11 with loss of territories and convoy loses. ANZAC is usually just a small thorn in Japan’s side.
With all this in mind, it seems hard to say that this can ruin a game. Bad dice can ruin a game.
If germany still has a large army to keep russia down, how did it afford the strike force to hit us? if its only 4 trannies, then the attack would of been a flop, if you built extra naval stuff, thats less vs russia. A good Uk would of locked down italy in africa/mid east if italy tried to help at gib. I don’t see how the US would be knocked out for a while. The attack required more form the axis than it would be for the US to get into gear. Since your attck failed, the US will still be getting well over 60 IPCs every turn, Japan can’t take Hawaii and WUS unless it commited over 90% of its navy to the cause. If he goes through with attacking WUS then his navy would be hella crippled and if he took any dmg on his carriers, his planes won’t be able to land, cause logically you would take hawaii at the same time so thath the US won’t have a war income for a turn. Also, you let russia build for 4 turns. I don’t see how russia would have problems especially with a failed US attack. Britain will still be alive and well and a big threat on italy. With india supporting africa (since jap navy moving to Hawaii) the taking of perisa and eth quickly, and Italy dedicating a significant portion of his money/starting units to Gib and US, Uk would be in perfect position to contain italy. The only way this can go well for the axis, ESPECIALLY after the attack did not knock out the US, is if the UK/Russian/US players are rooks and/or dice rolls were favorable to the axis. Its just not logical Captain.