150 IPCs - Built the best fleet possible…

My thinking was that more airplanes would provide better striking power.

@Imperious:

Darth i feel that the best combination for land units is Infantry and artillery at specific ratios of say 1.5 to one or 2 to 1 Infantry. The idea is to never get into the kill zone involving artillery and use the extra infantry beyond artillery as fodder. Financially this i feel is the best buys all around.

Tanks, not artillery, are what US and Japan need.  US needs tanks because tanks can run through Africa quickly after an initial landing in Algeria.  Japan needs tanks so it can change the direction of its attack from Burytia/Yakut, China, and India, before the Allies can respond.

Infantry/artillery combos are good for when the enemy is next to one of your territories with an industrial complex, or when you can set up a transport chain to get artillery in quickly.  Otherwise, tanks.

New,

You are massively underestimating the power of Japan sending INF/ART walls against Moscow.

2 to 1 ratios coming out of your mainland IC’s
1 to 1 ratios being TRN’d from Japan

And you use your FIGs and BOM to provide aerial ARM to support that solid wave.

I agree with newpaintbrush that Japan needs tanks they are very powerful and the allies can’t get enough to the Japanese front that can beat the Japanese tanks without sacrificing the German/Russian Front

@ncscswitch:

New,

You are massively underestimating the power of Japan sending INF/ART walls against Moscow.

2 to 1 ratios coming out of your mainland IC’s
1 to 1 ratios being TRN’d from Japan

And you use your FIGs and BOM to provide aerial ARM to support that solid wave.

I can see my post was badly worded.  I actually meant “infantry and tanks”, because to me, infantry is just a given for ANY ground attack.  But I can see that I did not write it.

Let me explain what I meant a bit better.

There are three points of attack; Yakut, China, and India.  If the Allies let any one of those go, Japan can grab additional territory quickly.  For India, this is a problem because a Jap/German-held Caucasus is a major problem.  For China, this is a problem because the valuable territories of Kazakh and Novosibirsk are adjacent.  For Yakut, this is a problem because once Yakut is lost, Soviet Far East and Burytia are also sealed off, and Evenki and Novosibirsk are threatened.  If Japan makes a dual push on Yakut AND China, a strong Japanese force can unite at Novosibirsk.

So the Allies can’t really let any one of those territories go, but once one of those territories DOES go, the rest collapses.  If Japan is staging heavily in Novosibirsk, a heavy defense in India is a bad idea (those units are needed at Moscow).  If Japan is staging heavily in China, a heavy defense of Yakut doesn’t work because Japan can attack Kazakh, which is not adjacent to Yakut.  If Japan is staging heavily at India, defense of China and Yakut will not be as important.

So what happens if Japan neglects one of those points to attack another?  NOTHING.  If the Allies attack a “weak” Japan holding, the Allies are moving away from the Allied lines of reinforcement.  Furthermore, as soon as the Allies they take a coastal territory, they open themselves to 4+ transports of ground from Japan plus air, plus the units that were running away.

Now, what do you get if you build infantry and artillery with Japan?  Not much.  You can stage at China, Yakut, and India to some extent (put units in Ssinkiang, Burytia, and French Indochina), but if you build infantry and artillery, you CANNOT MOVE FROM ONE ATTACK TO ANOTHER QUiCKLY.  The only way to get from one coastal territory to another is by transports, which you will be short on anyways (because Japan should be using all the transports it has to pull infantry off the isolated islands) - AND, if you move between coastal territories, you are only moving laterally and NOT progressing towards Moscow.  So double whammy; transports used to reallocate distribution of forces, but if transports are used for that, transports are not moving in new reinforcement - and you are not progressing to Moscow, which gives USSR more time to build.

So instead, what I do is I put just INFANTRY in those countries and build tanks like mad.  If the Allies have a strong force at one of those places, I retreat the infantry and move the tanks to attack another place.  The Allies CANNOT move cheap ground units from one of those three fronts to another without taking a LONG time.  If the Allies push towards Japan, I just wait until they get close and keep dumping transported infantry and tanks on the coast - all the Allies are doing by attacking Japanese territory is to solve Japan’s logistical problem for them; now Japan can get its infantry into battle faster.

I should mention one more thing, though.  If it’s a dedicated KJF game, Japan should probably get transports, fighters, infantry, and a few artillery, not tanks.

As Japan you need punch on attack.  You need massed units (nothing different from any other nation here).

As for speed… Japan also cannot outrun their INF, or their tanks are chewed to shreds by Russian counter-attacks, trading INF for Japan ARM in a trade that Russia can and will take all day long.

So your speed of advance is reduced to the speed of your INF screen… 1 territory per round max.

Which means you don;t need the ARM for speed, just for punch on attack.
1 INF, 1 ARM has an attack valule of 4 and costs 8 IPCs
1 INF, 1 ART has an attack value of 4 and costs 7 IPCs

Japan builds 2 new IC’s, and starts producing 2 INF, 1 ART at each, sneding 3 units per round toward the front with an attack value of 5 and spending only 20 IPC to do it (once the IC’s are built).
With the remaining 20 IPCs (Japan hits $40 pretty quickly) Japan loads up TRNs from Japan dropping those units in Bury.  2 more ART, 4 INF fillign 3 TRNs.

Now you have 12 divisions per turn being poured into Asia with a total attack value of 20.  You have cheap fodder for your attacks, and your main punch is suppled by 4 “aerial tanks” and a BOM.  That brings the punch of your 12 divisions up to 36, 6 kills per round of combat.

If you are buying ARM and INF, you spen more money, losing 2-3 divisions of units per turn, in exchange for NO increase in hit value, and no increase in speed since you are limitted by your INF fodder for forward movement.

Once you ahve a solid wall of INF/ART combos lined up from Novo to the coast, THEN you start adding ARM to race forward through your already captured territorie to increase the punch for your final drives on Moscow.

Conservation of force and economy :-)

@ncscswitch:

As Japan you need punch on attack.  You need massed units (nothing different from any other nation here).

As for speed… Japan also cannot outrun their INF, or their tanks are chewed to shreds by Russian counter-attacks, trading INF for Japan ARM in a trade that Russia can and will take all day long.

So your speed of advance is reduced to the speed of your INF screen… 1 territory per round max.

Which means you don;t need the ARM for speed, just for punch on attack.
1 INF, 1 ARM has an attack valule of 4 and costs 8 IPCs
1 INF, 1 ART has an attack value of 4 and costs 7 IPCs

Japan builds 2 new IC’s, and starts producing 2 INF, 1 ART at each, sneding 3 units per round toward the front with an attack value of 5 and spending only 20 IPC to do it (once the IC’s are built).
With the remaining 20 IPCs (Japan hits $40 pretty quickly) Japan loads up TRNs from Japan dropping those units in Bury.  2 more ART, 4 INF fillign 3 TRNs.

Now you have 12 divisions per turn being poured into Asia with a total attack value of 20.  You have cheap fodder for your attacks, and your main punch is suppled by 4 “aerial tanks” and a BOM.  That brings the punch of your 12 divisions up to 36, 6 kills per round of combat.

If you are buying ARM and INF, you spen more money, losing 2-3 divisions of units per turn, in exchange for NO increase in hit value, and no increase in speed since you are limitted by your INF fodder for forward movement.

Once you ahve a solid wall of INF/ART combos lined up from Novo to the coast, THEN you start adding ARM to race forward through your already captured territorie to increase the punch for your final drives on Moscow.

Conservation of force and economy :-)

1.  I do not build 2 new ICs with Japan.  I might build 1 IC and 2 transports on J1 if I had a leftover IPC from a bid.  But never 2 ICs; I believe 2 ICs on J1 is too slow.  You can upgrade 15 artillery to 15 tanks with what you spend on a single industrial complex.

2.  I do not try to match mass for mass with the Allies.  Instead, I deliberately allow the Allies to press in on one of the three aforementioned territories, and use tanks to hit one or two of the other places.  If the Allies press too far, they will lose what they pressed with, or will at the least either be cut off from reinforcements, or not be able to reach Moscow in time for the crucial battle.

Let me give you an example.

Say it is early game, and that USSR has 2 infantry in Yakut and Ssinkiang, while Japan has 2 infantry in China and Burytia.  USSR puts three tanks and two infantry in Novosibirsk.  Now if Japan has tanks at Manchuria, no matter where the USSR attacks, Japan can counter.  But if Japan only has infantry and artillery in Manchuria, then Japan cannot threaten any attack that USSR does towards China.  Note that I do not say that Japan has artillery at China, because it takes TIME to get artillery from the coast to China.

So instead of threatening to take and hold, Japan must now pull back, giving USSR more time to build up.

The same thing is true later in the game, but with larger forces.  Say Japan has a good-sized force of infantry and artillery at Yakut.  Then it is BOUND to be weak at Ssinkiang and probably India.  The Allies can push there, and there is not much Japan can do because it can’t move its forces to counterattack quickly.

If you start early with tanks, at the midpoint of the game, you have a gigantic mobile threat.  If the Allies don’t send enough to any of the three key territories, you storm in through there.  If the Allies send TOO MUCH to any of the three key territories, you RETREAT with your infantry and use your tanks to hit another point - by the time the Allies can make any serious headway, you have mass tanks plus infantry and artillery from Japan plus air.  The Allies cannot destroy your infantry at the threatened country because you run away before they attack, and because most of their defending/attacking force will be made up of infantry.

Sorry if I implied 2 on J1.

They buy one J1, one J2.

Why not two ICs? You don’t even need a bid to do it - especially if the tran in SZ59 survives.

You build 1, and do 2 TRN.

Then on J2 you add another IC.

This lets Japan send 12 divisions per turn into Asia, 6 built there, 6 TRN’d in.

And that is enough to finish off any remaining UK and US presence in asia, and to also out-build Russia.

If Japan is sending THAT kind of volume at Moscow, the Allies have to be concerned with protecting msocow, since the Russians cannot defend against THAT level of force alone.  And when the Allies break to defense of moscow instead of crushing Berlin, THAT is when the Axis moves to win the game.

And that is exactly what is happenign in my current game… once the Allies “blink” and move to defend Moscow, the box that Germany was in in broken, and Germany rises to play total havoc with the Allies

@ncscswitch:

… once the Allies “blink” and move to defend Moscow, the box that Germany was in in broken, and Germany rises to play total havoc with the Allies

The Allies should in any case either be able to reinforce Moscow through Archangel (if Germany has the Caucasus), or contain Germany at Eastern Europe using only UK and US (allowing USSR to redirect its full attention against Japan).

I think your opponent was either unskilled or unlucky, to allow Japanese infantry/artillery to win the day against Moscow, particularly with 2 ICs - as well as allowing the containment of Berlin to collpase.

There is only ONE situation in which the Japanese should even consider getting a second IC on J2, and that’s when Japan managed to get a secure hold on India in J1.  I am quite sure I can crush any 2-complex building Japan player if neither of the ICs is in India.

I do it almost every game… 2 IC’s in 2 turns.  And my win rate with the Axis is currently 11 wins in 13 games…

@ncscswitch:

I do it almost every game… 2 IC’s in 2 turns.  And my win rate with the Axis is currently 11 wins in 13 games…

Manchuria and Kwang?

Usually Manch and FIC.  But sometimes I will do FIC then India, depending on how the Allies open, and where my opennings are are Japan :-)

@ncscswitch:

I do it almost every game… 2 IC’s in 2 turns.  And my win rate with the Axis is currently 11 wins in 13 games…

lol srsly?

That is what my DAAK record shows…

@ncscswitch:

That is what my DAAK record shows…

lol srsly?