In fact, the auto-turn based war has more sense in Europe than in Pacific. Since USA entered in war after attacks on Pearl and Pearl is off-map in AAE40, is a good way of simulating the Pearl Harbour sneaky attack: just imagine Japan attacked USA in the other part of the world and Hitler made his crazy DOW on USA. In Pacific map has less sense historically (no sneaky german attacks on Puerto Rico or such), but is a mechanic needed for gameplay reasons I fear, since there is not a real diplomatic engine for the game (simulating inner politics that prevented a early DOW by USA)
The stuff I don’t like with this is being turn 3, it seems too few having 2 turns of peace, at least for Pacific. Of course, we would need a weaker Japan and a stronger China to prevent Japan toasting China too early in a long “peace” rules, and Larry seems wanting underpower the poor chinamen as default basis. I’d prefer round 4 or 5, and USA player could anyway play China and Free France until USA enters war