How do I take advantage of the Japanese Anti-American offense?

Question

I tried the shuck-shuck approach while playing US and moved my Pacific fleet to the Atlantic (Japan didn't attack Pearl Harbor). However, Japan then used its entire fleet to invade Western United States. I quickly fell (due to a blunder), which decided the game.

How could the Allies have maximized on Japan's abandonment of the mainland? The UK lost its Indian Ocean fleet and didn't have resources to build a new one. Mainland Asia eventually came under British control, but there wasn't a chance to take Japan itself.

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Some other information about the board state:

Germany destroyed the UK fleet on its first turn, then immediately followed the Japanese invasion of the US by destroying the entire American navy. Japan's navy sailed through the Panama Canal and captured London. Russia was still barely holding off Germany.

Answer 1

One thing that you could do would be attacking anything in the Japanese sea zone with the American fleet. The British would then advance on Japanese controlled Asia and with the Americans keeping the Japanese from building ships, it will make it a lot easier as the game continues. The US will still need to build a slightly bigger navy in order to destroy the rest of the Japanese. Try not to break up your navy into several smaller armadas. Just hold off the Germans the your British in Europe and the Russians. Once Japan is relatively helpless, you can take all but one ship from the Pacific and then, if you can keep Japan at bay, you can start to creep into Europe to help your allies. Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Shuck-shuck is usually a good American strategy. But there are always exceptions to the rule, stone-scissors-paper style. This game is an exception.

Japan vs. US is seldom played by the Axis, because it is the least promising (as discussed in the next paragraph). Instead, the Axis typically concentrate on either the UK or Russia, to make use of their advantage on the Eurasian continent, and hope that the US remains isolated. To counter this, theorists like Don Rae developed the shuck-shuck strategy for the US.

Ordinarily, Japan vs. US is the least favorable to the Axis, because Japan starts with 25 IPCs, versus 36 for the US. (I'm using the strengths of the Classic edition.) This will change to 29 for Japan vs. 32 for the US after Japan captures the two US-controlled Chinese territories. That's a pretty even match that should lead to a stalemate. Then the UK (30 IPCs) and Russia (24 IPCs) have a decided advantage in Europe against Germany's 32 IPCs. (If Japan focused on Eurasia, the Axis would have an advantage of 57 to 54 IPCs.)

In this case, the UK should run shuck-shuck, or build a factory in South Africa, anything to divert the Germans from Russia, and let the U.S. fight Japan. Instead, the U.S. soldiers involved in shuck-shuck would have done better to defend their homeland. In essence, the allies lost because they traded the whole US for Japanese Asia.

It is noteworthy that in axis and allies, America is at a fraction of its historical strength (more like 90 than 36). In the "real war," America had the potential of pursuing a European-based strategy, shuck-shuck or another one, and a Pacific war against Japan. In the game, it has to be a choice of one or the other, and America made the wrong choice in the game.