Managing US manpower between 1939 and 1941

[ncc1701e]

What are you doing with all this manpower? I am at 99% every turn.

I am building infantry division when I can to prevent losing it but does it worth it or not?
Is it possible to have manpower shortage with the US?

Thanks

[Flaviusx]

Letting it go to waste. The US just doesn't have the production early on to fully take advantage of its manpower pool. And I've never seen it go short on manpower, either. For all practical purposes, US manpower is infinite.

My early US builds tend to be air units and amphibious points (the lack of naval building capacity is a major constraint for the US early on.) Indeed, this naval constraint is much more serious than manpower.

[ncc1701e]

Thanks for the tip, I tend to build lot of shipyards during this period.

[Flaviusx]

Building more shipyards is not a bad idea, but I tend not to do this. It's definitely a valid choice. I'd have to forego buying aircraft to do that. I like to put in an ASW strat bomber into the queue ASAP, and that is a big ticket item. 400 points. Just in case and just one. Even if subs are not an issue, it has nice range and can strike targets of opportunity. In my next allied game I might try to build up shipyard capacity, but it's easy to overdo this because once the new construction US naval units arrive the US has pretty good shipyard capacity even with the base figure, but in the early game it is all tied up.

[sveint]

I actually tested spending all the US manpower, but it was a terrible idea. Ended up with lots of infantry and not enough elite or air units.