Pacific 1940 Strategies 1/4: ANZAC and UK

Turn 3:
Japan will generally be able to complete the conquest of the Indies this turn. You, of course, need to make this temporary. Japan will wipe out the main part of the UK navy, leaving behind only the newly-built cruiser. It will push back into Shan, although it will be another turn before the units built on the Kiangsu IC will make it south. Japan builds a second minor IC on Kwangtung.  It takes Yunan and looks to be able to hold it. It will probably leave a large navy and air force to defend the Philippines.  It will SBR you again for an average of 10 damage.

Since the Philippines are heavily defended the United States captures Iwo Jima this turn and begins to crank out ships at its usual enormous rate, preparing to eliminate the IJN and save you. If you are lucky China will take Yunnan one final time, keeping the flow of money from India. If not, it hunkers down and prepares for the Japanese to slowly finish it off.

UK Turn three:
Japan has reduced you to 9 IPCs of income. Fortunately you can strike back, and Australia can as well. You are in grave danger and must suceed quickly to survive.
Purchases: Nothing. You will be near the cap for IPC damage. Its to your advantage to wait, since you will have more leverage to buy things next turn.
Movement: Your final proactive movement should be to take the cruiser and transport and try to take whichever island in the Indies is least defended. Use your airforce to help clear the way. However, if everything is well defended then its more important to leave your airforce alive.

After this point attacking is rarely worth it, except for orphaned transports. Your forces are much more useful on the defensive. That airforce in Malaysia forces the Japanese to group together and to protect their transports, since you can strike at any time. If you attack but lose a lot of the air force, you may have done some damage, but the Japanese now do not need to protect their forces from a potential attack.
Placement: Nothing to place.

ANZAC Turn Three:
Australia is now ready to hop into the war like a kangaroo. Or some other marsupial. Celebes will be your first target, probably. But Java is also a nice target if its available.
Purchases: Buy an aircraft carrier if you built a transport turn 1. If you built a DD turn 1, you will not be able to afford this. In such a case, buy a cruiser instead. You need a navy to defend transports as you try to liberate Indonesia.
Movement: Move your transport to Celebes, using the fighters to clear the IJN from the area. You now will have increased your income and denied the Japanese an objective.
Placement: Put whichever ship you built on Queensland. It can get to Celebes next turn without issue.

Turn 4:
Japan re-completes its conquest of the Indies and has a major naval battle with the United States. The US offensive is blunted, for now, but they will be back. Japan will probably not be able to afford such a naval presence ever again. They SBR India for another 8 damage, reaching the damage cap. Things get especially dire for China as the Japanese factories on the mainland gear up, and the units they built start to penetrate into China. Japan upgrades its factory on Kwangtung to a major complex.

The United States continues to crank out ships. China whimpers.

UK Turn Four:
Its time to prepare to defend India. That’s your only thought at this point.
Purchases: Buy off the damage and buy as many infantry as you can afford, which may not be very many. The good news is you probably have shot down at least one bomber by this point, if not two.
Movement:  If India looks secure for the time being, keep those planes on Malaysia and threatening the Japanese. If not, bring them to India to help defend.
Placement: Place the infantry on India.

ANZAC Turn Four:
Keep up the pressure on Japan in the Indies.
Purchases: Build 1 transport, 1 infantry, and 1 artillery.
Movement:  Take Celebes or Java, whichever is easier. If the Indies are too defended, snatch Palau for an easy one-time 5 IPCs.  Use the planes to support any attack by sea. Bring in the carrier to this attack, and land two of the planes on the carrier.
Placement: Place all three units on Queensland.

Turn 5:
Japanese units are starting to move into South-East asia. Japan is preparing to take India, but you have another time before they strike, perhaps even two. Japan may take Malaysia, but it is likely that it will be too busy defending against the United States. Japan will not have yet finished off China, but there will be little left.

The US amasses enough force west of Hawaii to start to be a very real threat to Japan. China sits backs and waits for the pain.

UK Turn Five:
Keep up the defense.
Purchases: Don’t buy units this turn. Save your money and plunk down a bunch next turn.
Movement:  If you haven’t brought those planes back to India, now is the time. Other than that, there’s not much for you to do.
Placement: Place nothing.

ANZAC Turn Five:
Keep up the pressure on Japan in the Indies. As long as you keep attacking there the Japanese will have to split their forces, making it easier for the US to destroy them.
Purchases: Build 1 transport, 1 infantry, and 1 artillery again. The US should have you increasingly covered, and its your mission to provide the troops to land in the Indies.
Movement:  Keep taking the Indies as possible.
Placement: Place all three units on Queensland.

Long run:
India will not hold out very long. However, the US fleet is going to obliterate the Japanese navy and retake the Philippines. Australia will waltz Matilda into the Indies and supercharge is economy. The US and Australia will be able to land on the Asian mainland in Malaysia, Kwangtung, Korea, and other valuable locations to establish an industrial base on the mainland and push the Japanese back. Eventually Japan will become very income starved and the US will invade and win.Your efforts as the UK and ANZAC have slowed Japan down enough to allow the US to gain naval superiority, and the Rising Sun will set.

Alternative Strategies:

Mainland UK strategy: As the UK you can focus on mainland Asia. Ships are expensive, and it take awhile for the Japanese to gain momentum in Southeast Asia. You can really help China out this way, and a strong China gives the Japanese all sorts of headaches. The problem with this tactic is that without building a navy in the Indian ocean the Japanese can get the Indies very quickly and keep them. That means a lot of money for them and very little for you, so this tends to fizzle pretty quickly.

Invasion of Australia: If Japan forgoes an early attack on the Indies they can often instigate a devastating invasion of Australia. This is easy to discourage by defending Queensland. You can make it so expensive to do that it simply would not be worth their time. However, should Japan really dedicate itself to this goal it can wipe out Australia fairly quickly. This tends to be self-limiting. They will have used so much in this effort that the UK will take the Indies and have an enormous amount of money to resist them. Japan may not have to worry about the Aussies, but they will be crushed like a can by India from the west and the United States from the east. It tends to be a pretty interesting game, though. If you’ve never played a game where Japan attempt this, do.
Japan should move nearly everything it has to the Carolines on its first turn. Turn 2 it declares war and invades Queensland. Even if New Guinea is protected by a destroyer, the Japanese can use their naval base to sail around. Turn 3 they move south from Queensland and into New South Wales, using carrier born aircraft to support the attack. They can usually win this. Mopping up the rest of Australia is a breeze. While they do this, the UK should secure the Indies and will be able to build a very large fleet. American can then come to rescue Australia.

Early 1940 Declaration of War: This will covered in a separate article. My playgroup considers this unsporting. Never the less, its a reality and can be resisted with a bit of luck.

Average SBR damage:
Calculating the average damage from an SBR has only one variable now that all facilities have AA, which is number of planes. Now, you may claim that since each plane does 1D6 damage they will deal an average of 3.5 damage per plane. This is wrong. There is a chance each plane will be shot down before it gets a chance to deal damage, and this must be factored in. We have three factors.

IP = Initial Planes, a variable
SR = [Survival Rate] =  (Surviving Planes / Initial Planes) or 5/6
ADPP = [Average Damage Per Plane] = ( 1D6 Damage  / Surviving Plane) or 3.5
The units cancel out to damage.
Let’s do 4 planes. So  4 * (5/6) * (7/3) = 11 and 2/3. An average of slightly less than 12 damage with 4 planes.

For successive turns of SBR I assume 5 of 6 planes will survive to bomb again, allowing for fractions. Nobody in the history of the game has been bombed by 3.33 planes, but for averages, it works.

Abbreviations:
INF (Infantry)
ART (Artillery)
ARM (Tank/Armor)
MCH (Mechanized Infantry)
AA (Anti-air gun)
FGT (Fighter)
TBM (Tactical Bomber)
SBM (Strategic Bomber)
BB (Batleship)
CV (Aircraft Carrier)
CA (Cruiser)
DD (Destroyer)
SS (Submarine)
AP (Transport)

Note, all naval units are abbreviated by their standard US hull classification. CA (Cruiser, Armored) is used because CL or CH is not quite appropriate. CV (Carrier, heaVier than air) is the historically appropriate classification even if counter-intuitive. Same story for AP, that’s the US Navy classification for a transport vessel.

Honestly, I need to research that one a bit more. I have some ideas for how to fight back, but I need to actually use them to see how they work out.

1: If the Japanese do this, it will take a lot of force and will cost them dearly. Its certainly possible, but it will take quite a lot for them to succeed, which are resources that aren’t going elsewhere. This will generally weaken their ability to stand against the US or capture the Indies. They can only do so much, and you can make it such that attacking Malaya will take a disproportionate amount of their resources to accomplish. If they really send in the Strat Bombers, that means those strat bombers aren’t bombing India.

2: You loose one turn, true. But you gain one turn several times over. You aren’t just using that factory once, you are using it for the rest of the game. This adds up - your forces get their quicker, and your builds are more responsive. You can get what you need quicker, for the rest of the game. Plus, the naval base means your radius of operations is much larger. If the Japanese take Hawaii, your builds from last turn are able to get their immediately. If you had to sail from New South Wales, you would not have that luxury.

In conclusion, your point #1 is valid although it must be take in context of limited Japanese resources. Point #2 I’ll stick to staunchly, it makes ANZAC loads more flexible and swifter.

By that logic America doesn’t have any trouble getting to Indies, but that’s not how it works in practice. If nothing else, realize that now that your builds get there in half the time, your reinforcements are built closer to the present, and thus with more information. The stuff you move to the target this turn was built with the information you had last turn, not the information you had two turns ago.

Also, the newly built units are near Australia, far from the Japanese. Without an IC on Queensland, you have the awkward in-between turn where they aren’t at the target yet, but also aren’t on Australia. With the IC, its bam, straight from Australia to the target.

Also, as said before, it allows you to be a lot more flexible by making the decision of where to send the fleet later on.

Finally, it allows you to build a fleet for multiple turns if need be, and then send the combined stack out in one push. You’d lose more time doing this without the Queensland IC.

US/China is next. Have been real busy moving in to my new apartment, but I think within a week I should have it written.
Japan will come soon after.

If these articles were to be posted on the website itself, it would be very encouraging to me to write more.

True. I’m putting my focus away from J1, though, because I think its going to transfer through less, and I think J1 is kind of an unsporting move.

@Make_It_Round:

Your article made a couple of interesting points. I agree that the main game will be Europe, although I’m almost glad that Pacific was released first if it means that they got the bugs out of the system in time for the real centerpiece. Also, there are actually fewer rules issues in Pacific–no straits, canals, or pro-allegience neutrals–so in terms of complexity Pacific is a better jumping-off point.

I do think, however, that by limiting your article’s scope to games of Pacific that employ an obscure house rule (No J1 attack… what? Who plays that??) makes the work much less relevant that it could have been.

Alternately, I also take issue with the main points of the strategy that you seem to advocate:

1. “…put all 5 [UK] planes on Malaysia…”

This is suicidal. Your fighters are both your best defensive units and the only units you start the game with that threaten flexible counterattacks. Putting them in easy reach of the Japan player is like putting your nose directly in the mousetrap. You need to drop these in the deep infantry stacks that you push forward from India, with AA gun cover (see #2).

2. “…as India you will want to focus on holding the Indies as long as possible, and that means a focus on naval power rather than land power…”

Also suicidal. As India you will want to focus on holding India as long as possible, which means all infantry / artillery builds from UK1, until the US eventually comes to save the day. To do otherwise is to squander resources that are needed for causing the maximum number of Japanese casualties, while keeping China in the game, and thus staving off a push to Calcutta for as long as possible. Let ANZAC do those dick moves like landing fighters in the East Indies and producing naval units… they’ve got nothing better to do, and can actually recover from losses more safely than the UK, due to their remote location at the bottom of the board (see #3) and their relative proximity to Big Daddy USA’s protective base in Hawaii.

3. “A minor complex on Queensland would be great…”

Yeah, great… Great for the Japan player to take. Queensland is exposed to attack from the Phillipines and the Carolines, and ANZAC doesn’t have the on-board units to defend a new IC build. Say what you like about the inconvenience of New South Wales: at least it’s sheltered! And even if ANZAC did have the money to spare open up a new factory (it seriously doesn’t), it should spend it on high-quality units instead of infrastructure. As Japan, I like to build an IC in Queensland if it’s not possible to take Sydney directly, because Japan can afford 3 tanks a turn while ANZAC can only afford 3 infantry a turn… it’s not long before they’re overrun by my more powerful units. You’d really make me smile as the Axis player if you went through the trouble to set up my supply line for me.

In conclusion, for the reasons given above I disagree strongly with literally every strategic tip you’ve offered the UK/ANZAC player, which makes me question (i) how many games you’ve played, (ii) the calibre of your opponants, and (iii) why I should read the rest of your upcoming ‘strategy’ articles. No offense, but so far I’m unimpressed, and left with the impression that not enough (of the right kind of) field testing has gone into the construction of your article.

I take a bit of offense to your tone. I specifically wrote this article for non-J1, and if you don’t like that, don’t use them. Many users have complained how broken J1 is, and this is the source of the house rule. However, I do believe my article gives valid suggestions for the game, and I have played the game around 30 times. I don’t pretend what I wrote is infallible or perfect, but I do think it has more merit than you credit it.

Number 1 is the strongest of the three points you’ve selected. It works only if the Japanese spreads itself somewhat thin, and it can really backfire if the Japanese really dedicate themselves to stopping it. Its a risky move that only works under certain conditions. I’ll conceed you its far from perfect. My real intent there, though is that keeping planes in attack range of the Japanese fleet forces them to defend their transports much more than if the air power wasn’t there. IE, you get a big benefit from being able to attack even if you choose not too.

Number 2 is the weakest, in my opinion. I’ve played an all-land India and an all-naval India, and compared them. Now, granted, by late game India is forced to turtle and focus on land. No argument here. But focusing on land-only for the first few turns as India is actually pretty suicidal. It allows Japan to conquer the Indies too easily, which means India gets cash-starved very, very quickly and looses on land anyway. Delaying Japan in the Indies is actually vital to India. Trust me. I’ve played plenty of games both ways, and the extra cash India is able to get is a godsend. It really does pay off. Letting ANZAC do this work is all well in good late game, but early on, ANZAC just can’t get there is time and India needs to move quickly.

Number 3 is somewhere is the middle. I don’t think you quite understand how powerful the minor IC on Queensland can be. This strategy doesn’t work if Japan makes a push for Australia, and this is mentioned in the article. However, Japan usually doesn’t. The New Guinea/Solomons objective is usually a much lower priority to Japan than the Indies objective. The Indies objective has four spaces worth a sum of 15 + 5 for the objective for a total of 20 IPCs, or 5 per space. The New Guinea objective has four spaces worth a sum of 0 IPCs + 5 for the objective for a total of 5 IPCs, or 1.25 per space. This means its in Japan’s interest to conserve its resources by denying ANZAC the objective, taking one of the spaces, but dedicating enough force to take all four is rarely worth it. Attacking continental Australia can work out pretty well for Japan, but this needs to be a dedicate push, and this will be telegraphed the ANZAC. Like I said, more than one transport on the Carolines means that building the IC on Queensland is a bad idea. However, its worth it if Japan does not make a heavy push for Australia.
The IC itself is worth the cost, for sure. In Revised or Anniversary, Germany really wants to either capture a Russian IC or build one in the east. Why? One could argue that it doesn’t really make Germany stronger, since the tanks from Germany will arrive there in one turn anyway. But this isn’t how things really work. In actuality, reducing the travel time for newly built units is immensely powerful. It means that the IPCs Germany spends will pay off much more quickly. This is the same for ANZAC. Newly-built ships pay off in half the time. Also, you move from Queensland to a juicy target in the Indies in one turn. This means Japan has a harder time striking back before the fleet can move to the Indies. Japan either has to put planes close to Australia or have a fleet within Australia’s air power range, both pretty dangerous and vulnerable to American intervention. Plus, it means your builds are one turn more current. Perhaps the Japanese are running out of destroyers? You can build subs and have them in a position to cause damage in half the time it would take without an IC on Queensland. Also, you can shift your positioning much more quickly. Perhaps you need to move your fleet north or east rather than west, you can do that much faster if you have the IC. Your builds are more up-to-date, more flexible, and more protected. All together a good deal. If you guys want, I’ll post some graphics illustrating this to make the concept more clear.