@ncscswitch:
As Japan you need punch on attack. You need massed units (nothing different from any other nation here).
As for speed… Japan also cannot outrun their INF, or their tanks are chewed to shreds by Russian counter-attacks, trading INF for Japan ARM in a trade that Russia can and will take all day long.
So your speed of advance is reduced to the speed of your INF screen… 1 territory per round max.
Which means you don;t need the ARM for speed, just for punch on attack.
1 INF, 1 ARM has an attack valule of 4 and costs 8 IPCs
1 INF, 1 ART has an attack value of 4 and costs 7 IPCs
Japan builds 2 new IC’s, and starts producing 2 INF, 1 ART at each, sneding 3 units per round toward the front with an attack value of 5 and spending only 20 IPC to do it (once the IC’s are built).
With the remaining 20 IPCs (Japan hits $40 pretty quickly) Japan loads up TRNs from Japan dropping those units in Bury. 2 more ART, 4 INF fillign 3 TRNs.
Now you have 12 divisions per turn being poured into Asia with a total attack value of 20. You have cheap fodder for your attacks, and your main punch is suppled by 4 “aerial tanks” and a BOM. That brings the punch of your 12 divisions up to 36, 6 kills per round of combat.
If you are buying ARM and INF, you spen more money, losing 2-3 divisions of units per turn, in exchange for NO increase in hit value, and no increase in speed since you are limitted by your INF fodder for forward movement.
Once you ahve a solid wall of INF/ART combos lined up from Novo to the coast, THEN you start adding ARM to race forward through your already captured territorie to increase the punch for your final drives on Moscow.
Conservation of force and economy :-)
1. I do not build 2 new ICs with Japan. I might build 1 IC and 2 transports on J1 if I had a leftover IPC from a bid. But never 2 ICs; I believe 2 ICs on J1 is too slow. You can upgrade 15 artillery to 15 tanks with what you spend on a single industrial complex.
2. I do not try to match mass for mass with the Allies. Instead, I deliberately allow the Allies to press in on one of the three aforementioned territories, and use tanks to hit one or two of the other places. If the Allies press too far, they will lose what they pressed with, or will at the least either be cut off from reinforcements, or not be able to reach Moscow in time for the crucial battle.
Let me give you an example.
Say it is early game, and that USSR has 2 infantry in Yakut and Ssinkiang, while Japan has 2 infantry in China and Burytia. USSR puts three tanks and two infantry in Novosibirsk. Now if Japan has tanks at Manchuria, no matter where the USSR attacks, Japan can counter. But if Japan only has infantry and artillery in Manchuria, then Japan cannot threaten any attack that USSR does towards China. Note that I do not say that Japan has artillery at China, because it takes TIME to get artillery from the coast to China.
So instead of threatening to take and hold, Japan must now pull back, giving USSR more time to build up.
The same thing is true later in the game, but with larger forces. Say Japan has a good-sized force of infantry and artillery at Yakut. Then it is BOUND to be weak at Ssinkiang and probably India. The Allies can push there, and there is not much Japan can do because it can’t move its forces to counterattack quickly.
If you start early with tanks, at the midpoint of the game, you have a gigantic mobile threat. If the Allies don’t send enough to any of the three key territories, you storm in through there. If the Allies send TOO MUCH to any of the three key territories, you RETREAT with your infantry and use your tanks to hit another point - by the time the Allies can make any serious headway, you have mass tanks plus infantry and artillery from Japan plus air. The Allies cannot destroy your infantry at the threatened country because you run away before they attack, and because most of their defending/attacking force will be made up of infantry.
