What to do with Russian fleet units

@LewisClark The UK is split into two economies, not two powers. The UK player, if I understand your predicament correctly, can still move ALL their pieces on both sides of the board. They simply cannot purchase/collect income on the Europe side. There is no Europe/Pacific control of the pieces as all UK pieces are moved at the same time since they share a turn.

@Pinch1

Thanks for the advice. I’ll look into it.

@flyingbadger said in Loading units onto allied transports in the same round that the ally unloaded them:

… even though the US transports have already loaded/unloaded on that round?

During US turn rules concerning movement and loading/unloading transports apply to the US. So restrictions apply to US turn, see rulebook’s Transport rules. They do not apply to the entire round. In your scenario it is France’s / UK’s turn.

This is why the rules that you quoted say “You (as French or as UK) move land units aboard”, and “You (as French or as UK) offload your units.”. The US transport has no active role here, as it is not US’ turn.

Yes, a Japanese destroyer in SZ 16.

You’ve got three responses available to the US that I am aware of:

1: Move your entire fleet into SZ 16 to kill the blocker. Units can also come directly from the US west coast to SZ 15, meaning everything can converge on SZ 6 in the following round (or to Wake/Hawaii if you somehow scare them away (or perhaps midway if they put a naval base there)). If nothing else, you know for sure they’re coming.

And:

2: Sending planes to kill it. 1/3 chance they lose a 10 IPC plane. Basically a 3/3 chance Japan loses an 8 IPC destroyer.

3: Actually sending a submarine or destroyer to kill it along with planes. (This is not a very smart play if America has enough planes for #2 alone to be viable, but some people don’t realize this.)

(4: Staging on Midway on a new naval base instead, but like I said, this is kinda silly for America and great for Japan unless they weren’t able to hit your destroyer block on the turn before for some reason.)

#'s 2 and 3 are very annoying, and not great for Japan, and are obviously not very sustainable, so this is why the destroyer block is something you should only do when necessary.

This is why I like to keep 1-3 fighters (usually 3) on Japan proper and build, or at least keep, one or two boats there per turn. If America does want to come swooping in to SZ 6, they are going to need enough to get through 1-2 boats and fighters. This means they must either over-invest (because you didn’t scramble), or they under-invest and then you kill them for (hopefully) a decent ratio when you do scramble. If they over-invest, kamikazes are an option (see edit), but maybe more importantly it means that whatever they sent to stand up to your boats/planes is now within range for a super nice counterattack with subs/planes.

Obvious times when the destroyer block is worth it:
-America has enough transports on Hawaii to make Japan worry about its capital, or potentially Korea.
-Japan built a lot of navy (more than one or two boats) on SZ 6 and wants to keep it alive.

Moreover, buying 1-2 boats a round off of Japan and keeping planes there means that if america tries to pre-block you in SZ 16 (moving in, say, some amount of destroyers to SZ 16 and SZ 25 while his fleet is coming from Panama/Sydney, to in effect block your attempts to block him with only a simple destroyer of your own), you have boats and planes available to you to destroy his block-blocker in SZ 16 and remain able to delay him for a round.

I keep 1-3 fighters there starting from J1, and begin building 1-2 boats there J3+ in most instances.

edit-
Last bit of advice: If you think there’s a good chance America is going to bring in a lot of navy on its noncom to SZ 6 after attacking it with a smaller force (or they telegraph this intention by bringing a lot of planes to the fight in SZ6), and Japan is sitting on FIC/Philipines with all of its navy/air in range to attack on the very next round, do not be stingy with your Kamikazes. If you can destroy even one more destroyer before the big navy clash, that can swing the probability by something like 5 (+/- 2)%. The entire Pacific depends on a massive fight such as this. 1% would be worth it, let alone more, and you might even hit multiple boats if you’re a lucky b��t��d. When it’s crunch time, smoke 'em if you got 'em.

I take this idea further and use my bid to add 3 artilleries to the Russian stack.

It makes it a serious offensive force and a harder defensive force to deal with.

It allows US to project more power in the Atlantic because it shows Japan down.

While it can be expensive to send just air units against ground units, sometimes it is warranted.
In a recent game of 1942 2nd edition, Germany was really giving Russia a hard time and Russia was having trouble having enough troops and tanks to retake their own territories. The US and UK had built up sizable air forces so they took turns attacking the German infantry and tanks so on Russia’s turn, they could simply move in and take the territories thus improving their income.
While the US/UK did lose some expensive air units, it worked out very well as Russia was able to roll up a lot of territory and Germany just couldn’t produce enough to reverse the tide. Russian tanks would blitz 2 territories while Germany could only take the 2nd territory back in combat. Then here would come those dang Brit or American planes again.

Hello  AA  community…… Can  anyone tell me  if China  can place it’s  new units  in newly captured  territories that it takes  on  it’s  turn?  I  believe  this was the rule  in AA 50.

@oztea:

Dooming moscow is not a gamebreaker in this edition
It opens the possibility of getting france back in the game, if the Allies can push past normandy

At 17 if it controls all but FIC, it is a power that is near Russia’s IPC stockpile when it fell.

This is interesting, trade Russia for France (at some point). The axis strengthen would be way out of range unless most of it was lost in the battle for Moscow (make them pay). The US swoops in to destroy Italy and you now have 3 allies all in western Europe (knocking at Germany’s front door), instead of two coming from the west, and Russia in the east. If Italy does fall the 3 allied powers will have back to back turns (ooch).