esteban
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Joined: 7/21/2004
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Japan:
1. You have 5 possible axis of advance. (Through Burma/Bay of Bengal to India, against China, across the Pacific to Pearl Harbor, against the U.S./Oz supply line, or against Australia) Decide what your target is early on, and base make your moves accordingly. If you are going after the South Pacific isles, start stockpiling fuel and supplies in forward bases like Kwajelain, or at least Truk. If you are going after India, you might consider throwing KB at Singapore on turn one, to get the PoW and Repulse and reduce the . They are worth as many VPs as the U.S. BBs at Pearl Harbor, and their better speed makes them more useful to the Allies. If you want to hit the South Pacific, hit Pearl Harbor to weaken the Pacific Fleet and take out the U.S. Catalinas (in particular) on the ground.
2. Start pressing in China ASAP. Yenen and Changsha are the early targets, Wuchow is also useful. Decide if you are going for the knockout blow here or not. If you are, grab airfields to bomb Chinese resource centers that you do not control, to wear out his supply base. At the very least, move low assault value engineering and artillery units out of Manchuria to reinforce the Chinese war.
3. Do not commit KB except against juicy naval targets (lots of low defense shipping or the Allied carriers) or must-win invasions. Keep KB in reserve otherwise
4. Institute a convoy/ASW system early. When moving resources and oil, it's better to use a few heavily escorted large convoys rather than many lightly escorted small ones. Don't try for a just-in-time delivery system of oil and supplies, rather, try to keep your early stockpiles somewhat intact as a buffer for the more infrequent arrival of large resource convoys. You might save a lot of merchant shipping with a turn one port attack on Manila, putting the Allied submarine war behind the 8-ball until they can replace losses in 1943/1944.
5. Clean up your production system. Lots has been written about factories that need to be expanded and converted. Don't hesitate to shut down capacity that you are not using, especially in your shipyards, where you cannot save the shipbuilding points.
6. For your units that are in reserve, like your home defense divisions, have them start preparing for assaults on key targets that you want to capture, while they are in Japan. You have several divisions of moderate-quality troops there, and they can build up prep points while you complete your initial operations and build up political points to reassign these divisions to their new theater HQs.
7. Hoard your units with special abilities. I-boats w/ float planes for example, are incredibly useful for long range recon of patches of ocean/distant allied bases. Use them occasionally as advance scouts for KB, and after awhile the Allied player will freak out every time one of his convoys is spotted by a Glenn. Your parachute units should not be used in stand-up fights against large enemy LCUs, but as a reserve to threaten lightly defended Allied rear area bases and supply lines. Preserve your long-range air transport squadrons to further increase the striking range of your parachutists. Your mine-laying subs are very useful if saved for minelaying, as over time they can attrit a lot of Allied shipping and lay good-sized fields where he doesn't expect them.
8. Save your trained naval air replacements for your carrier-based units. You'll need them there. Start the "Mogami method" of training early on for all your other naval air units. You might want to drain your IJA pilot pool early, by topping off all your IJA combat squadrons, and then start the Mogami method on your IJA other IJA units.
Allies:
1. Bend but don't break has already been said. Don't commit yourself too heavily, too far forward. You can trade space for time. Determine what bases you really need to keep, and preserve those. If a forward base is nice to keep, but not strictly necessary, then don't commit lots of force to keeping it.
2. Evacuate all unneeded shipping from combat areas ASAP at the start of the game. For example, most of the APs and AKs in the SRA can leave ASAP. Your old U.S. flush-deck DDs are worth much more converted to APDs and such, rather than as poor surface combatants. Your weaker British DDs and CLs are worth more as withdrawl fodder (to save your better Brit ships from withdrawl) than as poor surface combatants. You don't have the political points to save lots of ground units in the SRA, so get the uneeded ships out of there, so they can be used for other operations later.
3. Figure out what you want to do in China. I would send most of the SE Asia command Chinese units into Burma and India, to protect your southern supply line and India. Even if China falls, they will still draw replacements through the SEAC HQ. The Chinese replacements do not disappear if China itself falls. There are a lot of different ideas on what to do in China proper, so I won't suggest one particular method. But find one that you like and stick with it. Keep your rear area bases garrisoned against parachute drops. For theChinese, it is devastating to lose key industrial and supply line bases, you don't have a lot of excess supply capacity in the first place.
3. Once the Japanese offensive has stalled, you should decide on what your main thrust will be. You have 4 obvious choices (central Pacific, Solomons/New Guinea, north from Darwin, and west from India. Possibly you can go down the Kuriles from the North, but the size of the Kurile bases are pretty poor, the weather can be very nasty, the Japanese homeland bases are huge, and his supply line is inches long. The Darwin offensive may be affected by suggested, more historical map changes. Pick one, two at most, and stick with them.
4. Run oil from the U.S. to Australia or India, depending on where you major offensive/defensive needs are, and run the U.S. heavy industry below capacity. It's easier to transfer oil rather than the supplies and fuel that the oil is made into. You have more heavy industry than you can keep going, so shut down inland HI centers first, since they do not produce fuel as well as supplies.
5. Save your B-29 squadrons from all but the most vital bombing missions until the replacements start arriving. The early-arriving B-29 squadrons have tremendous value as search and recon aircraft, use them mostly in those roles until you can get a really large and sustainable B-29 fleet. Then start taking out Japanese bases and convoys or bombing industrial targets.
Both sides:
1. Save your political points to change HQs for restricted units to unrestricted HQs, rather than moving around units between unrestricted HQs.
2. Remember that in the Pacific, there is a long lag between when you start sending supplies and fuel, and when it will get where it is going. Build up large stockpiles behind your major combat theaters. Don't get left high and dry.
3. Keep an eye on the commanders of your units/TFs, they can have a big impact and are the most easily changed variable in your units' performance.
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