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What do you think about a straight stroke going down Midway, Wake, Marcus, to Iwo Jima in 42? Each time have the islands heavily defended with a division each, heavy air cover, and base units from the North and West Coast(redesignated.) With B-17 and B-24 you can then already cover a part of Japan 2 years early...

I don't think you have the carrier strength to pull off even a Wake invasion prior to 43. Unless Japan suffers a midway type disaster you have at best carrier parity by end of 42. Wake is out off fighter and B17 range from midway so all air support has to come from carriers. You have to bomb the island, provide cap for the tranports and defend yourself for quite a while. The JP player just has to pick his moment to engage with his carriers. In the meantime he can attack you from marcus.

I think this can only work if Japan does not seriously defend the island, you find a very advantagous moment to attack (like Japan invading India with all carriers occupied there), or the JP carrier fleet has been seriously depleted.

Note: Key edit . I origionally said end of 43 above. I meant end of 42 as now written.

Try that against a human opponent and you will probably see why the Central Pacific Offensive didn't start untill November 1943 at Tarawa. Trying it without a Midway victory and the intense attrition of the South Pacfic and New Guinea offensives should lead to getting your head handed back to you. [:D]

As pointed out above, you will only have you r carriers for air support and they will have F4Fs on board. Meanwhile the IJN will have more CVs and gobs of LBA to throw at you. [8D]

I don't think you have the carrier strength to pull off even a Wake invasion prior to 43

I've taken Wake back from the Japanese in March 42.

The Wake/Marcus/Bonin axis is a decent idea, but it won't really work until 1944. Marcus is too far and the airfield there is too small for B-17/24 raids on the home Islands. Also, each step in that advance has a "moat" between it and the next target that takes you out of range of most of your land-based air. So you would have to commit your carriers to each operation. At any stage along the way, and especially the final hop to the Bonins, you could face significant land-based air ALONG with the Japanese carriers. Until late 43, thats usually a recipe for higher than expected to disasterous casualties. After late 1943, it really depends on the quantity and quality of remaining Japanese airpower that is left.

Also, there is a time factor associated with this axis of advance. If you can take and support the Bonins in early 1944, then you have ended the war half a year early, as you can turn your B-17s/24s loose on Japanese industry. If you don't arrive at the Bonins until late 1944, then you have not accelerated the end of the war, because by then, you have B-29s and their range is such that you might as well have taken the easier and more conventional approach to the Marianas, or established B-29 bases in China.

ORIGINAL: pad152

I don't think you have the carrier strength to pull off even a Wake invasion prior to 43

I've taken Wake back from the Japanese in March 42.

Against the AI or a human opponent?

Invasions based on carrier air should not take place before late 1943. You just don't have the air power for that. but, if sigint shows that Kido Butai is in the indian ocean, you may well try one assault. But beware. You are the underdog in CV-Battles until the Hellcat shows up.

My campaing is based on this. I took marcus then Iwo. I took Guam for points but thats it. It works. I have my subs and B24s based on Iwo and the Japanese war machine shows it. The Japs have lost just under 900 ships and several honshu cities are smoking ruins.

ORIGINAL: Nomad

ORIGINAL: pad152

I don't think you have the carrier strength to pull off even a Wake invasion prior to 43

I've taken Wake back from the Japanese in March 42.

Against the AI or a human opponent?

yes this is my thought. The AI lets you get away with a LOT of really outlandish stuff that a human would hand your head to. I sense the AI would do next to NOTHING to prevent a human player from doing that. I doubt the KB would ever even react at all. All you'd face would be air attacks once in range of the home islands. The Japanese AI is heavily scripted/hard coded to carrying out its plans in an historical fashion and is most likely programmed to only counter relatively historic human moves in a sensible fashion.

Bottom line, and I've stated the time and again, do "out-of-the-box" stuff against the AI, and the AI will probably "break" ( by that I mean, it will not react much at all ).

Well, I've taken Marcus and Iwo Jima in the same sweep. Marcus was not defended by my losses of transports at Iwo Jima lead me to about Bonin, especially after a bombardment TF lost all DDs... The AI is reacting pretty good with Betty's and Nell's and since I have only 3 carrier to cover the area, his bombers are having a lot of fun... Interestingly, it looks like that after the fall of Marcus, the AI tried to move some land units to Iwo and Bonin... which ran into my 3 carriers... so both sides have a ton of transports on the bottom of the sea...