The UK raid on 37

@DoManMacgee Hi DMM & thanks for the response… Really appreciate that these forums have experienced players who weigh in on things. It was OOB with a 12 bid.
That’s pretty much what Japan did - eliminate the threats and take back the 2 islands as advantageously as possible while still consolidating the fleet. I was just surprised how long it then took for Japan to have any pressure westward. India, in spite of losing 2 men on the initial Kwangtung foray, stayed around for quite a while (minimal investment for a KGF).
What helped, no doubt, was that Russia traded unfavourably in the initial Caucasus strafe (dice game, lost 3 inf to Germany’s 2, and took W Russia at odds) and the Germans (rather than push hard back immediately), decided to save the Med fleet with a carrier. This made the Egypt / Africa game interesting, but maybe a different buy on G1 and the Germans win sooner. Always tough to say.
But, as many have pointed out here, the Axis have such a strong start in this game it was nice to have a hotly contested battle!

Apologies for the late reply, been a hectic last few days. Thank you Black Elk for the explanation on bidding. We did in fact use this tactic on our last game. It’s a very good idea if the allied winner knows how to spend it.

It’s not exactly related to any strafe, but a move I sometimes enjoy is to hit sz61 and sink the destroyer there, then send your Aussie sub to sz37 and dive immediately (no combat). This can be annoying for Japan, especially if you put your bomber in range, and kept your fighters at the ready for a UK2 attack.

It’s not as painful as trying to kill a Japanese carrier in the first round, and it gives you some naval flexibility against the IJN in the second round, without requiring you to risk the destruction your own navy in the process. If no good attacks vs Japan present themselves, then your sub can bounce towards Suez and just hang out there until more British aircraft arrive to make it effective.
;)

If the Japanese destroyer in sz61 is sunk on UK1, there is no way for Japan to attack this sub, so it’s safe camped out in sz37 by the Japanese battleship/carrier group (going anywhere the Japanese can go) at least until J2, when it can either attack a target of opportunity or withdraw towards Africa.

I’m very wary of an opening move that leaves the second Japanese transport alive, because it allows Japan to bring their ground units into the fray much sooner. Not attacking sz61 would seem to be a requirement of the sz37 attack, whether you’re going all out or just trying some kind of strafe move. A British bid can change my outlook, another sub or destroyer or fighter bid to UK can make the sz37 trade much better, but OOB it still seems real dicey to me.

@Black_Elk:

For Japan the most important route in a KGF oriented game is probably the sz 61 to Yunnan shuck. This is the shortest route from Tokyo to Moscow. With 4 transports you can shuck 8 ground to Yunnan every round, overland to Szechwan, then Kazakh. Basically if you can do this three rounds in a row, you’ll have enough fodder to start making the Russians sweat their capital. Just like the W. Allies on Berlin, the trick is not to move your Japanese ground forward too quickly and expose them in poor trades for 1 ipc territories, instead hold them back another round until they are stacked deep enough to defend themselves from Russian counter attacks. Szechwan is the optimal convergence spot for the main advance, and the push comes out of Yunnan via 61. This is to allow you to threaten India and Burma without having to put yourself out of position on Moscow. Later if you can launch into Africa or India uncontested thats great, but the main line is out of sz61 Szech push. Otherwise you leave the back door open to wiley Zhukov moves, with Russians running amock in Asia.

Because sz61 is such a clutch zone for Japan, most Allies I see will consider hitting the starting Japenese transport here a top priority, more important than the warships in sz37. You can cut the Japanese transport capacity in half during the opening round if you take your hit on sz61, and it can be done at relatively low risk for the payoff. I see most people jet out of Australia towards Brazil. The transport makes a less attractive target if you don’t fully load it. Just nabbing the dude off New Zealand for the ride. But again, I just don’t see the sz37 attack all that much on the bid lately. Even with a sub, or an extra Egypt fighter, it gets pretty dicey. I think the Allies are better served by keeping their forces in tact. You can still give Japan headaches, although full Pacific press is very hard if Japan has all their capital ships. Probably easier to face them in the med, if you don’t want to hammer 37 on a gambit. But KJF Pacific style games seem to always have a gambit of some sort, going all the way back (some risk you take as Allies to open up the game against Japan) and for that I like that sz37 exists. I just don’t use it as much, once the novelty wore off, and when you see that Europe is still the more attractive endgame on this map.

This specific point should be notice by all players.
This shortest road is truly a good pincer strategy against Russia.

Yes, #1 is the optimal move in most games. Destroying the sz61 transport is essential for delaying Japan’s take of India. With the sz61 sunk, UK can hold out in India until R6 even with optimized Japan pressure. The carrier and transport can be reliably brought to UK by round 4 to start pressuring Germany.

#2 is very risky. The main problem with #2 is that it uses the entire UK pacific fleet to destroy some of Japan’s naval fleet. Unless the US follows up with a full pacific commitment, japan can use the extra transport and absence of UK naval pressure to aggressively pressure and take India by round 4-5.

A third option to consider is to move the india fleet into the Med if germany failed to deadzone the seazone next to egypt. This allows UK to destroy the med fleet R2 and allows the UK fleet to travel to UK as early as R3. Often, germany will sacrifice air to sink the UK ships in the Med which is also a good outcome for the allies. Overall, this provides the most possible pressure against germany. This is probably the best of the 3 options in my view, but is contingent on a Germany mistake of failing to deadzone sz15.

80+% of my games against good axis players, I do #1.

@empulliam:

New on the forum, just curious as to what you all think about an opening move I use with UK pretty often. On the first turn, build a factory in India. I consider the UK pacific fleet pretty much useless against Japan, I say let US deal with it since they have the money, so i abandon it in favor of a land based strategy. I’ve seen people try building a factory in India where they move the one inf over from persia and pull the plane in from the carrier and try and defend it. The problem with that strategy is that if Japan wants India bad enough on the first turn, the math says they can take it. (They will lose some fighters, but having a factory on the mainland seems like a worthwhile trade). Here are my moves (only on the Pacific side) for turn one.

1. send the carrier in India to get the unprotected transport by Kwangtung.
2. Send the Australian sub to get the Japanese sub
3. Put 2 inf from Australia onto a transport and attack New Guinea (Not a huge part of the plan, but technically the math is in my favor)
4. Move inf from Persia into India
5. (here’s where things get dicey) send everything in India, plus the fighter from the carrier, into southeast Asia. Unless the Japan player catches on to what I’m doing, the first two units he allows to be killed will be the infantry there. I don’t really care so much about getting the plane, so unless i’m doing really well I just retreat after I destroy the ground units. This way, Japan has no ground units in range to capture the factory, and next turn I can reinforce it with 3 tanks, and from there just send ground units up the coast until Japan is kicked out of mainland Asia. Then I would use the factory to reinforce Russia from the East.

On the 1st Edition of 1942 this is almost suicidal because the Japanese player should focus everything on preparing to attack India from J2 onwards and he’ll be able to do so unless you commit the Soviets to defend the IC. Which is almost suicidal as well because Germany should also be pushing hard into Russia and it will usually mean that the Soviets will lose Caucasus.
You’re also leaving Africa to Germany if you follow this.

Hi Hobbes. Not heard from uou in a while. Hope you have been well.
Thanks for that. With the capture of Moscow( imminentG5) the Axiz score will be 85.
Was very confident of Allied victory, until I set up game where we left it. Not sure now.
Hope yo finish on 11th Nov.

UK has to attack the Jap fleet to reduce their Navy. Japan, like Italy(Anniversary or 1940), is dead once it’s fleet is sunk. Leaving the fleet on UK1 gives Japan two taskforces: one for conquest and a second for defence: Philippines and Japan.
UK come before Japan for a reason: to weaken Japan. (Same reason in 1940 they come before Italy: to weaken them!)