US1-US3 question.

@Whackamatt:

In Europe, the US fleet can’t move, except one SZ east.

Not quite true.  You can move to Greenland.  A naval base there will at least then get you to SZ 119 when you’re allowed to move out, which is probably only going to be helpful if Germany does Sea Lion.

You can ‘annex’ Brazil giving you +2 IPC’s.

@Munck:

You can ‘annex’ Brazil giving you +2 IPC’s.

I thought it wasn’t allowed to take neutrals, pro allies or not, since the US isn’t even a part of the “Allies” yet.

You can do so only in continental America

Not true. While not at war, US is neutral, and therefore cannot move into any tt’s other than there own.

@Larrie:

Not true. While not at war, US is neutral, and therefore cannot move into any tt’s other than there own.

Yes.  The US owns Greenland.

Quoting from the 2e Europe '40 rulebook, page 37:

“While not at war with Germany or Italy, the United States may end the movement of its sea units on the
Europe map only in sea zones that are adjacent to U.S. territories”.

Since Greenland is a US territory, you are not prohibited from moving any of your units there.  I offer no opinions on the utility of such a move, but it is allowed.  There are no restrictions there on Continental or not.  If there were, this would also prohibit placing units in the West Indies.

As a possibility, in addition to the Naval Base I discussed earlier, you could also dump an Air Base on Greenland and load it with Air units which could then reach the UK in one turn.

America can not take any neutrals when not at war.  Brazil early can’t happen.

Greenland is not any closer and has no airbase. Does not seem to help.

I’ve found newer players try to keep the US out of the war until the US can declare.

When that is the case, just build enough of a fleet (probably US1 is 1 battleship, 2 carriers) and move every aircraft to Hawaii.

After that Japan has probably lost itself the game in the Pacific and you just need to plan on convoying her out of the game and destroying her ships so she cannot expand.

The rest of your IPC should go towards your first landing fleet in Europe.  Remember you want to protect your transports, so make sure your fleet, combined with a UK one is enough to deter Germany from attacking your fleets (generally if each side has a carrier with aircraft, a battleship or two and a handful of DD Germany won’t have enough firepower to make it a tasty target to attack).  The rest of your IPC should be spent to get yourself 3 rounds of 4-5 TT flowing - one from the US to Gib, one from Gib to Italy, Norway or Europe somewhere, and a third returning from Gib to the US to pick up  more units.

Thats a general outline, its not very specific because the US is more of a reactive play type - as you have to react to and anticipate the Axis moves.  Once the US is dictating the tempo, the Axis are on their way to losing barring a lucky roll of the dice.

@Omega1759:

Greenland is not any closer and has no airbase. Does not seem to help.

I (basically) said earlier that you will need to buy an Air base or Naval base for Greenland in order to make it remotely useful.  It will help in that you start your shucks to Europe 1 turn earlier than you will going the Gibraltar-England route, however, since Greenland shucks units into Scotland, this means that direct attacks on London are still going to happen on the same turn no matter which way you went.  The Greenland-Scotland shuck also keeps you from having to worry about Italian attacks on poorly defended TTs; conversely, Italy doesn’t have to worry about you either.  If Germany took Scotland before hitting London, then the Scotland shuck could put Scotland under direct US control which will enable them to put an IC there.  Is this better or worse than your other Sea Lion recovery options?  Shrug… I could be convinced either way.

I can think of one scenario where a Greenland airbase might be a good idea:

1. No declaration of war against USA until J4.
2. Germany taking a very slow walk into Russia starting G3 into East Poland and not Baltic states.
3. UK fighters deployed to some task other than defending Moscow

Under those circumstances, putting fighters and an airbase in Greenland while USA is still neutral could get the planes to Scotland then Nenetsia a turn sooner than they could by going to London/Scotland/Nenetsia/Moscow.  That’s a lot of “ifs”.  I can’t really imagine actually doing it.

@Eggman:

@Larrie:

Not true. While not at war, US is neutral, and therefore cannot move into any tt’s other than there own.

Yes.  The US owns Greenland.

Quoting from the 2e Europe '40 rulebook, page 37:

“While not at war with Germany or Italy, the United States may end the movement of its sea units on the
Europe map only in sea zones that are adjacent to U.S. territories”.

Since Greenland is a US territory, you are not prohibited from moving any of your units there.  I offer no opinions on the utility of such a move, but it is allowed.  There are no restrictions there on Continental or not.  If there were, this would also prohibit placing units in the West Indies.

As a possibility, in addition to the Naval Base I discussed earlier, you could also dump an Air Base on Greenland and load it with Air units which could then reach the UK in one turn.

I was referring to the statement concerning Baszil

Sorry, that should have read Brazil

@Jeff28:

A lot of players will attack the US by Japan 3 so you’re already fighting then. But if not, in the meantime…

Really basic ideas:

1. You can build an entire US Fleet and park it off the coast of Queensland, Austraila. Move you Phillipines units there to join up. Park a destroyer at Midway to block Japan from taking Pearl Harbor and you’re in business.

This allows you to attack the big money Dutch Islands and the Philippines J4 and keep Japan from killing Anzac.

2. You could also build a fleet ready to take Gibralter/Morocco r4 and attack Norway or Italy rd 5.

3. If the Germans are threatening sea lion by buying transports G2 building a stack of bombers in the Eastern US could allow you to sink their fleet after the invasion of London.

Plan for a 10 round game at least. The US gets into action well before halftime.

This is a really good post.

Preparing for war by buying stuff with a lot of cash, is harder than most think, and takes practice. If it’s round 3 and you’re finally able to move towards Gibraltar, there will be no excuse for not having enough land units in your transports.

Use those turns to position yourself for your goal.

I usually move subs into positions for the next round interdiction’s and destroyers into positions to SLOW the JPN fleet.

@Glendel:

Concerned that J will bring his fleet down on my Pearl fleet but I think loss or marginal win I, the US, will win due to IPC superiority. Japan sitting at roughly 44 and US at 75. These next couple turns later today will determine. India is not threatened to heavily as his fleet does not have enough ground troops to do anything.

Be sure to pay attention to the Japanese Air Force.  You might think you can handle the navy, forgetting that they can scoop up a score of planes to throw in, landing them on all the various islands.  It’s very common to have Carrier Air attack and land on an island while land-based planes join the battle and then take their place on the Carriers.

@Glendel:

Yes, moved and positioned like a few have mentioned. Now at turn 5 two main fleets, J in Philippines and US in Pearl are poised. So I suppose the next move is upon Japan. Europe side as some have mentioned, I have a few transports and cover at Gibraltar, not enough to take and hold but enough to redirect Germany off of USSR a bit. So I think by happenstance its panning out sort-of textbook in nature.
Concerned that J will bring his fleet down on my Pearl fleet but I think loss or marginal win I, the US, will win due to IPC superiority. Japan sitting at roughly 44 and US at 75. These next couple turns later today will determine. India is not threatened to heavily as his fleet does not have enough ground troops to do anything.

If you are playing face to face, you might offer up some table talk that you don’t think your fleet in Hawaii would survive a Japanese attack.

The reason I say that is as follows:  You are much better off as a defender in a naval battle than the aggressor.  Japan sacrifices much in attacking a large US fleet with that considered.  So acting like you don’t expect to win may encourage the Japanese player to attack you in Pearl - which is exactly what you want.

Why?  The US can replace her fleet much easier than Japan can.  And generally, if Japan loses her fleets, the war in the Pacific results at worst in a stalemate, and at best Japan convoyed out of the game and isolated on her little island chain.

So, act like there’s no way you can win and mention offhand that you’re going to have to figure out what to do when you lose Pearl.

Just my thoughts, let us know how it goes.