Practical Counter to Pearl II

@ponef In regards to what? This thread kind of wound up diverting itself in like 3 different directions:

Whether UK should retake Egypt B1 Vs. send the FTR from the India Carrier over to the US Pearl Harbor Fleet. Whether Japan should attack the Pearl Harbor Fleet, the UK India Fleet, or both on J1. Whether UK should attack Borneo B1 or not.

The answer to basically all of these boiled down to some combination of “it depends on how the dice went G1” and “are you playing under WBC Rules or not”. Seeing as WBC no longer runs tournaments for Revised (or any A&A, for that matter), we’re left to assume all games being played will be OOB rules (or at least LHTR), in which case Egypt suddenly becomes much less of a priority in the grand scheme of things.

Personally, I got to try the strategy out at the 2018 WBC in one of my games. It worked well for me, as Japan was routinely baited into attacking the USN, losing the TT and the DD in the process. This allowed me to wipe out the remaining IJN Fleet A1 (Bomber from East USA + FTR from West USA + Navy from US West Coast + FTR from Hawaii). This crippled the IJN and let me rapidly come to dominate the Pacific.

that is a pretty bad plan

On R1, I usually buy 3 inf 3 tanks

on R2 I usually 4 inf + art + ftr

if he buys 16 tanks on G2, the game should be over, as long as you create stacks, and dont lose battles (you should never lose battles, if you do, then you placed your units wrong, or are in a no retreat scenario)

just buy like 8 inf + 1 tank or so, you should be fine on R3

@Ranor:

From the avalon hill FAQ for revised edition:

Map

Does sea zone 14 connect to the Balkans? Does sea zone 35 connect to French Indochina?
No in both cases.

Alright… I concede - I can’t argue with Avalon Hill.  (But for the record, I think AH did a poor job of drawing that sea zone line!) 
Thanks guys - Sorry for the trouble!

@Woodstock:

In this thread, the G1 AC + 3 TRN buy seems to put quite a load on both UK and USA, right to RND2 at least.

If you know what you are doing, then AC+3T can be a very good buy.

If you dont, you can be defeated much easier.

Because a destroyer is cheaper.

You cannot buy 2 transports and a carrier on Japan 1.  That means trading in a transport to get a carrier, not a trade I want, or getting two transports (3 or 4 total available on Japan 2) and a destroyer thus not tying up your fleet on such non-sense as transport protection duty.

Not to mention, when I go after the American fleet with Japan, I always wish I had another destroyer.  I never wish I had another transport.  (Talking rounds 12+ when Japan goes after the Allied fleet to protect S. Germany)

Generally speaking, if allies let G have afr then in most cases axis win.

The UK sub and trans in Australia have no place in my overall strat, so might as well use it to weaken Jap a little bit.
The Borneo attack is a tricky one, 4 ipc is very tempting, and leaving the AC in Philli to block for Jap retake on J1.
Afr is much more important so one has to look at the map, if G didn’t attack Anglo then Afr is secure, but in most
cases allies should land in Afr with both US+UK. rnd 1.
Sometimes, to take 2 inf from Aus+NZ and move the trans to Afr can be a smart move.
I won’t do this if the sub attack went wrong…

As Jap I don’t care if UK got NG, I wanna kill those trans, but the 1 ipc is no big deal.
Landing the India ftr on the US AC is not a good move imo. I use it in Afr, or with DD in sz59, sometimes I land
that ftr in Bury. The India ftr can land in Cauc together with UK bmr, and 2 ftr from london, (UK1 to WRU) might do a 4 air units
attack to the G med fleet in UK2/UK3, before axis merge their fleets, this is something I usually hate as allies.
If all 3 ftrs land in WRU then they’re set for a baltic wipeout UK2, presuming G didn’t buy any naval units in sz5.  :wink:

To have the US trade Italy and UK trading WE means birdy for allies  :-)

I guess the reason I have always taken the back door approach to attacking Germany via Russia is b/c from my experience US and/or UK can take WE but Germany just reallocates forces to WE instead of sending them to the Russian front. In the end I see it as Germany is going to buy those troops any way whats it matter where they are fought? So I pick the Russian front another reason being lets just say Russia and Germany are going one for one (not likely but for sake of debate lets just say its so) any UK or US forces are just icing on the cake to repel Germany. Then I tend to be bi-est to my Allied 1, 2, 3 punch. It also works when the Axis are taking down Moscow, lead with Germany and mop up with Japan before Russia gets their turn. I don’t think I would rather Japan have the capital I think Germany should take it in order to deal with Great Britain on their door step, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  :evil:

Sealion is not the way to go.

1. Odds not in your favor: A. survives: 22%  D. survives: 73%
2. If you fail, you have just lost the game.
3. If you succeed, you will have lost more units than the money you will get from UK, while letting Russia get ahead in the builds.
4. You will lose Gbr against the UK or US counterattacks. If you retake it, you will lose it again.

According to odds and some of my calculations, this strategy will win you the game less than 20% of the time.