USA Sub Spam Counter?

Thats why the opening move could start with 10- 15 subs against sz 6. Even on a 1. Thats still a hard battle with dds plus 3 scrambles.

Those 10 can cost japan a stack of ipcs and still be fairly safe.

@sjelso:

If Japan is buying destroyers, planes and airbases to counter all these subs then there is no expansion on land.  It is not affordable.

Quick point on this one. Japan doesn’t need to buy planes. It starts with 21. It only starts with 4DDs IIRC. It also doesn’t need airbases. Floating airbases (CVs) and DDs are what it does need. A few subs help but they are far less critical for Japan.

If you do the math, if you have a CV group with 1CV, ftr, tac, DD and 24IPCs to spend, you might think that buying 3DDs would give you a better defence but actually 4 subs work better against a mixed attack (ftr/tac/3DD/3sub) because of the extra hit soak. The 4subs also give a much better attack so long as you aren’t shooting at a scramble only.

You have to consider the dynamic of how the subs move and some of the other rules.  The subs are very intimidating in a pack with a mixed fleet.  They are not at all intimidating by themselves, they can be picked off or ignored.

We played a game recently (G42) where Dave had to keep falling back, I took SZ 6.  Japan was well turtled.  SZ 6 is a dangerous place to be, since he can kami your carriers there.    The only way the subs can get past is if these zones are clear, which they are only during noncom.  And now we are away from our NBs, so they are crawling around.

Even with like 10 subs sitting on his income, the randomness of the rolling meant he still had like 50+ a turn, and Sydney.  Once the subs all split up, they are no longer available to soak regular hits in the defense so your fleet defensive security drops.

We ended up fighting over the VC win and without strategic bombers (I had subs, then mostly transports), I had him in a chokehold but couldn’t finish him.  Japan had 28+ infantry and 4 fighters at game end (T10), taking it over was never an option because again, I didnt’ have things like air and support shots, as long as Japan buys 1 DD per turn, you cant.

Eventually Germany took my Iraq node, like 45 units to 25, and Egypt was next, VC vic on the other board.

My two IPCs…

If the US is dropping 12 subs per turn into the Pacific, Japan is will essentially have no coastal income. The solution for this would be building multiple ICs on the continent (no more than your income can feed of course) and acquiring as much territory as possible. If you know your opponent likes to do sub spam in advance, you can build an IC on J1 and plan on doing a Crussia strategy (which gives you interior income that cannot be convoyed away and frees your navy to contest the Dutch East Indies. Not only does the additional interior income help you, but it also helps Germany (which should be going whole hog on Russia now because the US is ignoring Europe) by taking money away from Russia.

On the other hand if the US is spending only a minimal amount of subs per turn in the Pacific (say, 3-4 subs per turn) you can fight this with one destroyer purchase each round and using strategic bombers in combination with your destroyers to clear subs.  Since the US player is so kindly not building up Hawaii defenses, you can reward that by taking Hawaii and India (which more than counter the income loss from the sub dribble). This approach does limit Japan to going on J4 (but it is possible to bait UK and ANZAC into an early attack sometimes).

Marsh

@sjelso:

Well, lots of things to consider…I will try some different things.  I think the subs are a threat in a pack or spread out.  If spread out, then one has to hunt them down one by one and they just keep coming.  Take one out, then 2 or 3 come from 2 spaces and sink destroyer.  Losing IPC$ battle for the Japanese.  Depletes precious $ on destroyers and prevents lightly defended transports from taking crucial islands.

A pack of subs is pretty vulnerable unless they’ve got some other fleet to defend them.

Sounds like you don’t have enough destroyers. Generally, Japan can split its fleet into two or even three and still counter the USN in the early rounds. I guess if the USA have a main fleet at the Carolines and 10 subs with it, they could be hard to stop but fleets at SZ35 and SZ6 will generally make life for USA pretty difficult. Airbases help at both locations.

On your point about the losing IPC battles. Say that USA puts a sub on SZ19 which is killed by 1DD+planes. Japan’s expected value is a bit under 5. If USA attacks with 2 subs and they both live, they still die on the retaliation for the cost of 1DD. If they only attack with 1 sub, that’s a coin flip which is about 2/3IPC in USA’s favour. Not positive in the long term. I guess that was a long winded way of saying that so long as you can counter attack their attack, sub spam isn’t positive IPC for USA unless they get to do some actual convoying.

There are some situations where this strategy can turn the tide but the game has to be pretty finely balanced in the Pacific for that to occur.

Here is the issue with the USA going all in on a sub tactic against Japan.

Iam going to look at it from the Japan POV

Sea Zone 6 and 13 are the two big IPC sea zones.

The money islands are areas they need to defend also.

So, Japan really has 7 sea zones to defend against subs.

IF the USA goes all in on subs, that naturally means they are very light on surface ships besides their starting fleet. The USA starting fleet is inferior to the IJN starting navy so iam not very concerned.

Japan needs to only engage the subs in Japan, Caroline Islands and Phillipines, this is the reason. All three SZ have a harbor and a Air Filed. So they can scramble 3 FTR and any capital ships like BB can repair for free. This is one of the scenarios where it might be a good plan for the IJN to build up some BB.

IJN DD are built not for defense but offense and you do not need that many. Any USA sub off the coast of China or money islands gets a DD + air power to kill them.

USN subs going into your fleet which has air base and naval base, well, the BB take the hits which are free, they repair at the start of you next turn. You can even use your CV to soak up some hits because the planes can land and then the CV repair.

The flip side of using subs is that Japan can ignore them and just move through any SZ they are in. As long as you have a DD and FTR protection Japan can stave off a counter attack in the USA turn.

Japan only takes interdiction on the convoys in their turn. You can look at the board and determine the best places to stop the USA subs. Having 2 USA subs in SZ 6 or 13 is no need to go crazy on how to stop them.

All you need to do is build one dd and place in SZ6 against 5 USA subs on your build turn. USA on their turn decides to attack……Japan defends on a 2 and 3X4. They will destroy the USN sub fleet in short order if they continue to engage your sole DD.

As a Japan player you want the USA to plan on a all in sub plan because it is easily � countered.

Japan needs to be careful if considering sitting on the Carolines. They can be hit from both Queensland and Hawaii. It also doesn’t protect the money islands.

Convoy raiding Japan to death is indeed a very effective plan.  People underestimate the difficulty of holding off a distributed group of US+ANZAC subs that get supported by other surface ships and a few bombers.  It becomes virtually impossible to build new destroyers in SZ6, even with the option to scramble three fighters.  The US can easily match with three or more bombers from Hawaii or Carolines; straight-up trades of planes for planes is not a winning outcome for the Axis.

Very quickly the only option is for Japan to build destroyers in mainland Asia.  With limited capacity, that takes away from their ability to march on India.  Japan will come out slightly ahead in the fleet exchanges, but America and ANZAC usually willing to accept a minor loss of TUV.  The key part is having the air support to properly retaliate against Japanese destroyers.

The only real counter of the USA sub spam plan is for Germany to march down into the Middle East and threaten to capture Egypt.  That will force the Americans to spend more heavily in the Atlantic, giving Japan a bit of breathing room.

^ Sounds like you aren’t holding SZ6. I always try to do so, or at least build several DDs in a turn that I am holding it if it looks like I’m going to leave it.

If the USA destroys everything in SZ 6, that’s like a direct punch to the nose, takes power
If they force Japan to abandon SZ 6, that’s more like getting behind him and now you have him in a chokehold

That’s why the ‘sumo wrestler’ of Japan can’t get knocked off balance.  Once Uncle Sam destabilizes him with a slap and Japan is backpedaling and reacting, he can’t focus on lazering your little buddies.

Just protect SZ 6 and he can’t even begin the choke.  Its harder than it sounds I suppose…

SZ6 is a horrible place for the main Japanese Navy to deploy:  The US can easily project massive attack power into this space, ships cannot support the Money Islands, and the carrier-based planes cannot aid key battles in mainland Asia, and ANZAC can build without threat.  You are handing the game to the Allies if you are playing Japan too defensively.

I often have my Japanese fleet next to FIC with a navy base to allow ships to redeploy to SZ6 if the Allies decide to head that way.  The sea zone next to the Philippines is another common choice if I want to project more power into the Pacific and provide a bit less support to the land battles.  As a result, it becomes impossible to build new destroyers in SZ6 if the US continues to funnel new subs into the Pacific every round.

You are giving the game away if you don’t protect it.  Its a now vs later analysis.

Since its your only factory, where else could you deploy your fleet?    I understand that you don’t want to be sitting there the whole game, but that’s the USA plan–to force you to either protect it and blow your other objectives, or refuse to protect it and let me put Japan in the chokehold without it even resisting it.

And if you J1 or J2 and you still don’t protect SZ 6, its an invitation to do it.  Better to hide behind the diplomacy

I build two factories on the mainland, allowing me to add six units per round.  Tokyo’s factory makes a few planes plus a sub or two a round.  If the US really wants to spend heavily to kill those subs, they can win the battle but often at a heavy positional price and so little TUV swing.

Japan absolutely must have their fleet down in the Money Islands on J2 and J3 or else the transports will get cut to pieces with no cost to the Allies.  That means that SZ6 cannot have much defense until J5 at the earliest.  If the Allies do a KJF-type strategy, I can never afford to bring a significant number of ships back up to SZ6 until late in the game when I must abandon the South Pacific.

I would much rather lose control of SZ6 and have the Allies convoy raid the adjacent territories, compared with having either a single Money Island fall firmly into Allied control.  The economic and strategic swing is significantly bigger.

Another of looking at this is this way.

As with all spam X unit plan of attack that leaves that nation weak in a lot of areas…Attack those areas.

So USA goes all in on a spam sub campaign. Lets say USA is at war and spending 60 IPC a turn for 4 turns in a row on the West Coast. Well, USA now has 40 subs and nothing else in the Pacific. Sure they have their starting fleet but nothing else. No threat to take back islands, no threat to take Japan or Korea. They have no surface fleet, no airforce, no land units…nothing. All they have are subs.

IME anytime you face a foe who goes all in on a singular path of attack, subs, bombers and so forth leave themselves open for so many ways to counter them.

@Arthur:

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I would much rather lose control of SZ6 and have the Allies convoy raid the adjacent territories, compared with having either a single Money Island fall firmly into Allied control.�  The economic and strategic swing is significantly bigger.� Â

I totally agree with this.

Lets just say this is the scenario.

Japan holds the money islands and USA has subs parked in SZ6 and SZ19, those two SZ are worth 20 IPC to Japan. So, the worst case scenario is that the USA hits Japan for 20 which results in a wash for the money islands.

note this is a dice game…Variance of dice rolls could only result in a loss of 14 IPC for both SZ…Japan nets a +6 gain then in IPC on that turn for the USA all sub plan.

As long as the USA cannot threaten to take out the Japan homeland with a naval invasion they are still in the game.

If you want to really hurt Japan the Allies need to focus totally on the money islands early and deny them not just the 5 NO bonus but also the IPC for the islands themselves.

Knocking out the money islands and then hit SZ 6 and 19, well that is the death of Japan. Subs alone cannot achieve this goal.

This is why i think a better US strat combines the sub blockade with a shuck into SFE. And anzac pressure on Indonesia and phillipines. US trannies are safe up north and dropping 8 units a turn into russia.  These head down to Manch/ korea. Us subs are dropping japans ipc count. And anzacs are grabbing any islands left weak.

US in a typical turn might buy 3-4 subs for pacific. 8 ground units for asia and 6 ground units for Africa spain.

@Arthur:

I build two factories on the mainland, allowing me to add six units per round.  Tokyo’s factory makes a few planes plus a sub or two a round.  If the US really wants to spend heavily to kill those subs, they can win the battle but often at a heavy positional price and so little TUV swing.

Japan absolutely must have their fleet down in the Money Islands on J2 and J3 or else the transports will get cut to pieces with no cost to the Allies.  That means that SZ6 cannot have much defense until J5 at the earliest.  If the Allies do a KJF-type strategy, I can never afford to bring a significant number of ships back up to SZ6 until late in the game when I must abandon the South Pacific.

I would much rather lose control of SZ6 and have the Allies convoy raid the adjacent territories, compared with having either a single Money Island fall firmly into Allied control.  The economic and strategic swing is significantly bigger.

Japan needs to do both things. Unless the USN main fleet is in SZ25, SZ26 or SZ33 the whole IJN isn’t needed to defend SZ6. SZ33 is an awesome location for the USN because it can hit all but one of the money islands as well as SZ6 and most of the Japanese coastal territories. The problem is that planes from SZ35 and the Philippines can hit it and land on land, assuming one of the three surrounding islands is still in Japanese hands. Japan shouldn’t be allowing the USN to hold this space! That leaves the main fleet in SZ54 and transiting ships/planes in SZ26/Hawaii.

What happens when you play?

I can certainly see the need to move planes in an India threatening place on the turn that you are planning to take that. On that turn, you may need to abandon SZ6.

Is it possible the counter to the USA sub spam is that Japan then starts spamming 5 subs a turn in response?

As many have said, for this to work US has to spend all ipcs against Japan to replace the destroyed subs and destroyers.  US fleet has to be in range of Japan fleet to do this so they also need blocking ships which you can use a sub backed by planes to defeat.  So, the net gain for US is pretty low.  Also, Germany and Italy should be rolling against USSR and GB.  I’ve won many games where US under-spent on the Europe side of the board.