Naval Base in Alaska wins the game

@Col:

@RJL518:

nice idea but what if Japan invades Alaska on its first turn of attacking? :evil:

Yeah, that’s is a great move by Japan.  Turn 10 sees about 12 tanks and plenty of aircraft putting an end to that… which just help stage those tanks in Alaska for the boat ride over.

@jim010:

Tried it.  Only works if japan doesn’t chase your navy down.

In all of the games where the Japanese have engaged the US navy that we have played, the Japanese win but the surviving ships only last another 1-2 turns before the US bombers finish them off.  Japan does not have the cash to go head to head against the US navy.

Japanese bombers can’t reach your ships in Alaska, so all the US has to do is make it where you do not want to bring ships in to attack that sea zone.  Time is against you in this.  Once they do have ships, transports and tanks there, they can land in Korea in one turn and you can’t really stop them.

quite true Colonel….remember though…a smart japan player will not try to conquer the USA…he will go after the other cities and use his strong navy as a defense

I’ll take that challenge.  Hawaii can be taken, and the US Fleet destroyed the turn after.  You will then be rushing to build to kick me out of Hawaii.

_Quote from: Stoney229 on December 20, 2009, 03:09:02 pm
Is Korea adjacent to SZ5?

Answered by Krieghund
Yes._

Looks like its a legal move for now.

Unless J sinks the entire US transports fleet off SZ5, uses 1 inf in Manchuria to block the path of those 5 inf and 5 arm and on its next turn proceeds to blow up the US Army in Korea or Manchuria with its airforce and land units brought in from J…

Most likely in the Global game R is forbidden to attack J (or Allies to move units there) unless J attacks R

Harbour in Alaska wins game?

The japanese home-fleet-carrier goup will always go for the US-Fleet.

If it’s not possible to hit US-fleet at Pearl Habour, it will be hit at the coast of Alaska. A habour without ships does not work.

The alaska-habour strategy could work if the Japs concentrate on Australia.

This manuever is easily blocked by retaining 4 jap inf in Manchuria.

Everyone at some point will have a swarm of fighters sitting in Japan.  Even if you did land say 4-8 American ground units, they would be slaughtered in the counter attack.

The Alaska Naval Base, is a good US investment, but Japan can see the attack coming a turn, or turns before it actually occurs.  3 or 4 inf maintained in Manchuria is NOT going to stop the Japanese offensive on the rest of the board.

This is a sneaky move to use on newer, or inexperienced players, but you’re not going to handsdown beat anyone who has a few games under thier belt, with one simple move.

There is NO Silver Bullet in Axis and Allies, STOP looking for it please. :P

I admit that I havent studied this issue extremely closely (or seen it in use) but my sense of it is that as the Japanese player, I’m not all that worried about it. I mean you are going to have to fight the US forces SOMEWHERE. And if the US has 5 TRs + 5 tanks + 5 inf and enough navy to not make this be a one-time suicide force up North then that mean that the US has nothing harassing me in the SoPac/DEI areas. And honestly I’d rather take them on in my own front yard than all the way down away from my production and massed airpower.

Yes, the image of US tanks blitzing through China and liberating Chinese lands to spring up troops is somewhat disturbing, but I still think I would prefer that to having the US continually taking away my bonuses down south and occupying high-value islands. Also, having the US up north is keeping them out of support range from the Aussies and any surviving UK air/navy. That will deprive them of mutual support and threat potential.

And as was said above, it’s not like this is a surprise maneuver. The US has to built the Naval Base (giving 1 turn of warning) and then the TRs with all the associated troops etc have to be on hand to be there as well. If the US is massing that kind of invasion power in San Fran, believe me, I’m going to take counter-measures along the home front. :) The US may cause a bit of a mess up north, but I dont see it as being any ‘insta-win’ or anything close to it at this point.

All that said, I’ll give it a closer look in my next game as the US (and again as Japan) and see if this is something I think would be a worthy diversion of forces from what I consider the primary battle area of the DEI.

Since the naval base from Hawaii has the same reach as Alaska would, it’s completely useless to build a naval base there. Just protect Hawaii, and it’ll be the same number of turns to get to Tokyo. Plus you don’t have to spend an extra 15 IPCs to invest in a useless base in an area of low strategic value / importance.

That being said, in my second game I played the Allies: bought all naval units for the US, and fronted them to Pearl. Soon Japan attacked and sunk the fleet straight off, with little difficulty. This turnabout left me with 22 IPCs to spend on infantry build to defend the mainland against his 3 transports worth of men and air support from the carriers. I thought that the US itself was untouchable due to distance and superior economy, but San Francisco fell (with NO possibility of recovery; obviously Japan won that game)… so sometimes the smart Japan player SHOULD go for the Americans’ throat. Correspondingly, the US player should never be complacent, and waste their IPCs on pointless facilities.

@Col:

From reading most of your responses, I’d like to know what happens to your Japanese fleet when you attack the US one at the start of the game (or even mid game)?  I’ve always won with mine, but what I have left is pathtic at best and normally wiped out the next turn by US bombers.

Jap attack turn 2 example :

The Pearl Habour Operation against a concentrated US-Fleet starts from the CVs at SZ 31 with  6 FTs/TacBombers, supported by 6 FTs/TacBombers from Caroline Islands and 1 or 2 Bombers, 1 BB and 1 - 2 DDs.

You take the Aircrafts from SZ 31 as casualties (or land them later on Marshall Islands if enough of them survive) and place the Caroline Island Aircrafts on the carriers.

At the end the battle, US has no ships left over. All scrambled Aircrafts from Hawaii are shot down.

Ther is a dammaged Jap BB and three full Jap CVs in SZ 26.

How many US-Bombers left? Max.!3! plus the production from 22 IPCs of turn US-Turn 1 at the west coast.

This will be a funny Doolittle Run. :-D

I think this may work against a J1 that focuses heavily in the DEI area, but if they come at the US with any significant force you will be hard pressed to pull it off.

The real kicker though would be if the US could hold Korea for 2 turns, long enough to put a major factory on it and pump out a crapton of ground units.

The only real advantage in using Alaska would be to allow you to build a small factory there (which you cannot do in Hawaii).  you would then need a naval base there to reach Japan in one turn.  I did this as U.S. during the first few turns while JN was mopping up china.  My plan was to build 3 transports or destroyers a turn in Alaska (you get to pick from 2 different sea zones to deploy in, which is nice)  and shuttle mech infantry and tanks from Western USA to invade Japan with.  The strategy was sound, but as was mentioned early in this thread, its a dead giveaway and not a surprise to the Japanese player at all.  He can easily put pressure on the U.S. by having a large invading fleet near the home islands up north and you might end up loosing and having to reconquer the factory and port you spent so much money on.  I think that it would help to have an airfield on the Aleutians so you could lodge your fleet there for some Scramble defense help from airpower, but you can do the same thing in Hawaii.  It does require Japan to divert forces from the south (Sydney) and block another sea zone to keep the homeland for being invaded.  Next time I do this strategy I will want to wait until the U.S. has the wartime economy and can plop everything down at once without having to worry about only having enough fleet to cover Hawaii/Western US or Alaska but not both.

Ok, so it takes 4 US turns to setup, and requires 2 full turns Income and starting income for US. without adding a single combat naval combat vessel on the board, or threatening anything BUT Japan.

All to take Korea, which, ok if 4 inf is too little, keep 6,in MAN to counter.

Or, even better, since the US has not added a single combat ship, reserve a few of your own ships to JUST defend the Japan Sz.

As long as the US is committed to this, inf in Man, or a small navy supported by air, with a transport or 2.  inf,lOBLITERATE the landed tanks and inf, Expose the US fleet which is 2 turns away from even getting Back to Alaska, and detrimentally slow down the Allies.

Genious.

So the US takes Korea.  Then what?  I guess my question is what’s the end objective here?  A landing in Japan? Or a diversion?

The move is clearly telegraphed with the placement of the navy base in Alaska.  Plenty of time for the Japanese player to redeploy significant air (and also presumably) naval forces to within striking range to eradicate the landing forces and/or fleet.

And maybe Im missing the point, but why the need for the naval base?  You can get from SF to Alaska in one move, and then Alaska to SZ 5 in one move without the base.  The fleet movement telegraphs the move less than the naval purchase assuming the end point is SZ 5 and not SZ 6.

Is the base simply for reaching SZ 6?  Or is this move centered on a Korean landing? If the latter, then you don’t need the naval base.

Sounds interesting in theory, but I wonder what the practical effects would be in the South Pacific and Hawaii.  Seems like you’d be leaving Hawaii fairly vulnerable, and ANZAC on their own - not exactly the best scenario.

I admit, I only have a few AAP40 games under my belt at this point, but this seems a little too “novel” to actually work.

Though I could see the merit in an AK naval base intended solely for harassment purposes.

I think you would be much better served by just building up US fleet and if a Korea drop looks like it would work well just move said fleet to SZ 3.  It is still 3 away from Japan so land based fighters/tacs cannot hit your fleet, but only 2 spaces from SZ 5 and landing in Korea.  The only way a landing would be a good idea is if you could get a major factory purchased and producing units in Man.  This could easily be done with an additional pair of carriers for your starting planes and an additional 2 transports, with a sprinkling of DDs for extra support.  This would only require 1 turn of wartime purchase.  For Japan to counter this, though, would simply require 2 Inf in Manchuria along with land based planes in Japan to retake Korea before you can do anything with it.

We started our first game last saturday night but was not able to play this weekend. I am Japan and during my turn I took some Chinese territories, attacked and took the Philippines, and moved a fleet and some land units to Alaska. My oldest son is the US. On his turn he took out all of my Japanese fleet at Alaska and all but 2 of my land units in Alaska. He also moved all of his aircraft to Midway from Hawaii. The dice were not very friendly to me that night. My 2 remaining land units will be gone on the next US turn since I will not be able to move any other land units up there since my transports are gone. I could keep him busy in Alaska while I take some of my fleet from the Philippines and go after Hawaii. He will (I hope) focus on Alaska and move all of his fleet to Alaska since he won’t be expecting the Hawaii attack.

Has anyone tried this and did it work?