ORIGINAL: PaxMondo
a lot of it was it was that this was an accident. if you prepare for this, you do much better. 7/42-10/42 if you have managed to take out CK, then turning against the Bear is something to see .... it means no india or aus ... would be very interesting to see ... again, it is about being ready, not having 70% of your forces aimed for the DEI ....
he's doing great considering the starting point.
Some thoughts... I've played a few games with active Soviets, albeit with the Focus Pacific mod. If Lowpe can lodge some troops on a good, defensible position on the rail line, he can slowly starve Vladivostok and the rest of the southern Soviet bases, forcing the allied player's hand - he'll have to either try and break out from Vladivostok, move to dislodge the rail line forces, or try and relieve Vladivostok by punching through from the north.
Harbin is extremely vulnerable to industry bombing in an active Soviets game, so it doesn't hurt to beef up day and night CAP over that hex.
The Mig has good high speed and is a great sweeper, but is similar to the P-38 in that it lacks maneuverability, making it vulnerable to sweeps itself. None of the Soviet fighters have a good gun value at this point in the game, so they often get less kills than you would expect. A couple of crack Zero squadrons can do a lot to deplete the Soviet fighter force, and with the Soviets only receiving 50 pilots a month in replacements, you have a good shot of running the allied player out of pilots.
Okha produces a small but not insignificant amount of oil, which, if captured, is a convenient source of oil much closer to the Home Islands than the DEI.
Vladivostok and other coastal hexes are VERY vulnerable to naval bombardment. Besides laying some mines and flooding the approach with subs, there is next to nothing the allied player can do to prevent regular bombardments, which can decimate the allied player's primary port and airfield. Threats to your battleships by air are minimal, but do exist, in the form of the DB-3T, the Soviet twin-engine torpedo bomber, so LRCAPing the bombardment group is important.
