Actually - move your carriers down to sea zone 45 and the US can only attack with 1 bomber, 1 fighter and 1 destroyer. Fighters from the Carolines which attacked the Battleship (along with the destroyer) can land either on your third carrier (which moved to the Carolines through the Phillipines after you won that battle) or top up losses on your orignial Pearl carriers.
Either ways - with a bit of fighter-shuffling you should be able to keep those carriers covered.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Kreighund.
It’s a bit different from what happened with Germany and Italy though. Italy only starts on 10 IPCs! And Germany has less income on both 41 and 42.
Of course it all got complicated by NOs.
Just to update: I tried it experimentally with Triple A and a US retaliation with 1 bmbr, 1 ftr and the dd wiped out japan’s 2 AC’s and 4 ftrs.
Apparently an 0.01% chance or something according to the battle calculator!
How many people attack the US Aircraft Carrier group in Rnd 1 in the Pacific (sz 44)?
How successful is this in overall terms of strategy later in the game?
If I have a loaded aircraft carrier and battleship in the caroline islands SZ and want to use my Ftrs on board to clear the India SZ then the Ftrs can fly 3 spaces - NG sz, EI sz, Ind sz. My carrier can move two spaces to the EI sz and pick them up after the mission…
Can my opponent block me from doing this - by placing a Cruiser in the NG sz?
In this event I would be tempted to launch my air attack against the Indian sz and use my battleship to attack the cruiser in the NG sea zone. Assuming the battleship sinks the cruiser then in non-combat my AC can proceed to East Indies and pick up the Ftrs.
Is this allowed? As in - I understand that (for instance) even if the NG Sea zone was empty but my opponent had 3 battleships and 6 subs in the East Indies, I could still send my Ftrs to the indian sz and also send my Carrier to E.I sz to ‘pick them up’ afterward knowing there wasn’t an ice cube’s hope in hell of the carrier actually surviving combat. But the ‘intention’ is enough.
In the case I’m asking about I cannot directly get my Carrier to E.I. but can promise that if I win the battle in New Guinea (with good odds) that I will send it there for my planes during non combat.
Equally if this were allowed then the Japanese can attack the US AC in 41 on round 1 I believe by guaranteeing to send carriers through the hawaii sea zone after the BB is ‘cleared out’. A further question then arising from this is - if my preference was to launch a suicide attack against the US carrier in rnd 1, I could send a lone destroyer against the battleship ‘on faith’ that should it win (?!) my carriers will sally through and collect the planes during non combat.
What do people think on this?
The only barrier to this tactic I can come up with is that the first non-combat move most people make is to land aircraft. Hence - you need to have a carrier there already as your planes will have to land straight after battle… but is this actually a rule?
The only problem with the first rnd transport + TJ invasion is how do you then split your Italian forces to cover both transports. After all if you leave Egypt alone the UK can get a Fighter and a Bomber into central or eastern med SZs. The options seem to be to leave BB, CA, Trn in Central Med, which leaves CA, trn in the e med. The UK can take those out easy enough. Or you can have 2 CA, trn, and 1 BB, trn split. Then the BB is vulnerable.
Then again. I guess if you played totally conservatively you’d never risk anything!
And of course there is gametable online - if you have the time to waste! (no game save feature :oops:)
Chose the UK - in '41 with all those IPCs you can make a great navy! Especially with new units and cheaper units.
In '42 you have more opprortunity to fight across Asia/Australia with ICs and as Captain Kiwi said play in both theatres.
Your numbers on the Aircraft carriers are inaccurate.
At the outset right before Pearl Harbor, America had 8 Fleet Carriers (1 in atlantic) and 11+ Escort Carriers (some in atl), and by Axis high water mark in 1942 (before midway?), had 6 Fleet Carriers (1 in Atlantic) 21+ Escort Carriers (some in atl) and 23+ more Fleet Carriers under construction.
That’s a lot of info there! Where was it sourced?
I must say though that for the US carrier figures I’m here quoting more than three sources (one wiki), but also Eagle Against the Sun (Spector, 1985) and The Oxford Companion to WWII (articles ‘Pearl Harbour’ & ‘Pacific War’) and web info.
I think it is undeniable that the Japanese had a naval advantage in 1941 - that was one of the important considerations, the US was planning to expand their navy massively leaving Japan in the shade with or without war.
It is also important to remeber that a lot of the carriers were built on the hulls of older broad beam vessels like oilers. For instance - the Sangamon Class were oilers built before pearl harbour but converted to carriers afterwards (operational ‘late 1942’).
Another aspect to note is that many of the Bogue carriers (including Atlantic ones) were laid down in Spring/Summer 1941, (prior to Pearl) but then launched Spring 1942 (after Pearl) and many only commissioned into service by Autumn 1942. I know next to nothing about naval engineering (correction: I know NOTHING about naval engineering!) but it doesn’t surprise me that uphostering, arming, crewing and dispatching an aircraft carrier is a lenghty process - even when under pressure.
Because of this - I’m pretty sure that Japan confidently was facing just the 3 carriers in 1941. It is mistakenly assumed that had her surprise attack been discovered Japan’s carriers would have turned back. However, according to Spector who used Japanese navy archived material their orders were to destroy the Pearl Harbour based battleships and carriers even if they had to fight their way in (the task force had a hefty escort group consisting of 2 battleships, 2 heavy cruisers, 1 light cruiser, 9 destroyers, and 23 fleet submarines). Would they really have been that confident had the Americans been fielding 10+ aircraft carriers?
As far as I can ascertain there were 3 carriers in the Pacific on 7th December 1941:
The USS Lexington was transporting planes to Midway.
The USS Saratoga was in harbour at San Diego.
The USS Enterprise was returning to Pearl after delivering aircraft to Wake Island.
The USS Hornet (famed for the Doolittle raid) was in Norfolk, Virginia on the Atlantic seaboard.
Similarly ships like the Yorktown and Wasp were only sent to the pacific to plug holes in carrier fleet (Yorktown straight away, Wasp after Midway).
References:
List of pre WWII US aircraft carriers
http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/us_prewa.htm#cv1
Location of Hornet outside Pacific Theatre in 1941
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hornet_(CV-8)
Sangamon class - the oiler/carrier issue
http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/us_esc3.htm#sang-cl
Bogue class - the laid down/launched/commissioned date issue
http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/us_esc1.htm#cve9
USS Wasp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wasp_(CV-7)
http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/w3/wasp-viii.htm
Books for general figures
The Oxford Companion to World War II, General Editor: I. C. B. Dear; Consultant Editor: M. R. D. Foot (1995).
Eagle Against the Sun: The American War against Japan, Ronald Spector (1985).
Websites:
World Aircraft Carrier Lists: http://www.hazegray.org/navhist/carriers/
Dictionary of American Fighting Naval Ships: http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/index.html
As for the UK NO. Japan can usually take that Rnd 2 via Australia if they want. So I would tend to agree. Egypt can wait. Except for the Italians, chasing their NO.
The figures for sunk ships above refer to Pearl Harbour.
Also - I had forgotten those extra boats in the Phillipines! So the US has three times as many destroyers as Japan - instead of half as many.
I found these figures on Wikipedia. I couldn’t find any info elsewhere about the US Pacific Fleet strength at the time - but the Japan figures tally well with those also quoted in the Oxford Companion to WWII.
IJN/US Pacific Fleet at time of Pearl Harbor Attack in December 1941:
Battleships: Japan -10…… USA - 9
Aircraft Carriers: Japan - 6 heavy and 4 light… USA - 3
Heavy cruisers Japan - 18…USA - 12
Light cruisers Japan - 20… USA - 8
Destroyers Japan - 108… USA- 50
Fleet submarines Japan - 68… 33
Midget submarines - 50… USA n/a
Additionally I found that Japan had…
90 patrol ships, gunboats, armed merchantships, and submarine chasers
6 minelayers
Itsukushima
42 minesweepers
55 auxiliaries
So it seems that Japan did have parity with the US in terms of battleships - which was wiped temporarily by the Pearl Harbour attack. She did have about 3 times as many carriers (as in the 41 set up)
The rest doesn’t work so well - as in the US has twice as many destroyers as Japan (2) in the 41 set up and the US has not cruisers to start whereas they had two thirds the number of cruiser (total=30) as destroyers (50).
Finally - we can ask how well does Japan’s round 1 sweep of the board reflect the actual damage to US fighting ability from Jan 1942 onwards:
4 battleships sunk,
4 battleships damaged including 1 run aground
2 destroyers sunk, 1 damaged
1 other ship sunk, 3 damaged
3 cruisers damaged
So we see that 80% of the Battleships were put out of action for some time. Destroyer casualties amounted to 1.5% of the available total. Cruiser casualties to 10% of those available.
Note that only (I think) 3 US ships were total write offs. So overall the amazing success of Japan in Round 1 in AA50-41 is a great exaggeration on the actual damage done. Nonetheless - it is clear that Japan did have a significant quantative and qualitative advantage in 1941. Of course over the course of the war - both of these advantages were eroded and eventually overturned.
France, in your strategy…
No, Russia can’t hit France. Caucasus can be hit Japan, Italy and German on consecutive turns without a Russian counter. I’m sure that’s why Larry Harris introduced the Dardanelles rule.
Well to be honest Lynxes Russia is closer to France than Japan is to the Caucasus. The Karelian IC is one Sea Zone and one land territory away from France. Obviously due to material shortages it is EXTREMELY unlikely - but a Russian transport in the Baltic could (in theory - close to the end of the game) take France - allowing it to be bolstered by UK and US Ftrs and troops. I’m half joking - I can’t REALLY see it happening against a competent axis player.
But the point still stands Japan is not NEXT to the Caucasus - she is not really even close. But she is so powerful - that (This is what I think you are getting at)… to Japan it doesn’t matter - she is powerful enough to project her forces that far.
I tend to agree Flying Tiger. And after all - it’s a steep struggle for the US to support both theatres in AA50. If Japan is doing well with NOs then she’s soon getting 60+ IPCs herself anyway.
Though I’d rather see a half way solution - make the US a bit stronger AND Japan a bit weaker. That you don’t risk the US choosing tho through 70 IPCs odd across the Atlantic at europe!
I guess we no longer count transports as military units though do we?
Did you include transports - because Japan has 35 IPCs of transports which don’t count.
Though I agree Veqryn - it still is pushing it slightly - I’ve not been able to match the Japanese yet - though get excited when I read about others claiming to have ‘whittled them down’.
However that is done. Whenever I play my mate - she just periodically adds cruisers and destroyers - keeping pace with any ‘whittling’ I might be attempting!
:-o :lol:
People have rightly pointed out that the IJN was the most powerful navy in the Pacific at the outbreak of the Pacific war. This is reflected in the A&A initial set up.
The problem is that the Japanese simply were not able to quadruple their pre-war industrial power the way they almost effortlessly do in this game. Neither were they in practice able to reduce US industrial production by 20% simply by invading the Solomons, Phillipines and Wake Island! Maybe to reflect the absolutely massive industrial response of the US they should drop the US NO for wake etc. and increase the mainland (E USA, C USA, W USA) NO to 10 IPCs. Leave the Phillipines NO because it really was a US priority (Well a McArthurite priority anyway!).
Then, instead of the E Indies NO for Japan, give the Japanese the (currently US) Wake/Midway/Hawaii/Solomons NO. Force them to fight the Americans on unfavourable terms if they want that extra 5 IPCs. Because in the end that was what the Japanese never managed - they over stretched their defensive perimeter in the Pacific and the US were able to puncture and eventually collapse it.
Does this mean the Japanese will ahistorically ignore the E.Indies and Borneo? Well both the islands are worth 8 IPCs between them, 10 with the easily conquered Phillipines thrown in. So no of course they won’t.
But it will mean that if they want to play with fire and get within US air force/navy range for 5 IPCs extra then they’d better make sure they know what they’re doing…
But what I’m imagining is a UK IC in Norway giving 3 extra units. So you can start threatening to dump 5 transports worth of material instead of just the four per turn.
Also I am becoming increasingly dubious of preserving the Russian NO. For a start, I think it hamstrings attempts for the allies to support Russia while she is really weak. I mean, is it really worth forgoing massive UK support maybe worth 10-15 IPCs and preventing the German Karelia NO just so Russia can get an extra tank?
These days I envisage both Russian NOs coming through toward the end game…
Has anyone built and IC in Scandinavia (Finland but more likely Norway) and how well did it work?
I was having fantasies of building both and taking aggressive early control of the Baltic…
I2 flattop is awesome, even if only for the allied reaction :lol:
I did that yesterday and the med was completely ignored the rest of the game
Good point critmonster, we are dealing with people’s psychology as well as optimum strategy. An AC can act as enough of a deterrent to keep the med axis, which with an IC in France can foster some German sub building.