Invasion of USA with Japan

[Steve.Joe]

HoI 3 - TFH 4.02: I am playing HoI3 first time with Japan. Beginning of the game worked fine.

1937: First Defeat of National China
1938: All of China conquered
1938: War with Allies (UK, USA); Japans Navy Rules
1939: India, Indonesia
1940: Persia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, East Africa
1941: Gibraltar, England, Estonia
1942: Attack on Russia together with Germany; Russia gets Puppet of Japan
1943: Africa and Panama Canal

Naval: about 25 carriers, approx. 40 DD & CL; 60 Transports
Army: approx. 700 Brigades, approx. 20% Mountain, 10% Marines, 5% Airborne, 25% Infantry, 20% Cavalery, 20% Armoured
Airforce: 8 TAC, 8 Multi Role, 8 Interceptor, 10 Transport, 50 CAG
Technology and Strategy is completely updated.
Sufficient Supply: approx 300 Transports in reserve

Now it is Beginning of 1944 and any attemps to assault on USA are failing.
Always if I try to establish a spearhead (e.g. in New York) my units get crushed; even if I manage to bring in my Tanks and Infantry in. I even tried with multiple landing areas, but I don ot manage to break out and to encircle the US-troops; I rather get encircled myself and I am stuck in the landing zones until my troops are defeated or I do retreat.

How can I bring Germany, Italy and Russia (Puppet of Japan) to participate in the assault on the USA Main-Land?

Alternatively I am considering to conquer all countries between panama and Mexico; but it probably would take another years to get sufficient infrastructure.

Any Advice?

 

[Traks]

Land in Mexico and move from there. Also use multiple landings at the same time, or landing with units behind USA defensive line to encircle.

 

[Ai Shizuka]

In the last game I landed at each port on the west coast and gradually moved inland with a homogeneous front.
I don't know if they are coded in this specific way, but I noticed they seem to have two separate theatres: east and west coast. Once you break the first defense on the west coast you can move inland with little to no opposition, but you get zerged again when you cross the line between the two theatres. At this point you land with the second wave in Florida and the gulf of Mexico.

To make it easier:
- Sit for a while on Colon. They will send wave after wave to recapture it. Destroy all transports with NAVs or your navy and they'll lose a lot of manpower. Each marine brigade is 4 points of manpower, and they don't have a whole lot to begin with. Keep watching on them with spies and you'll often see them with zero manpower.
- Lower national unity with spies. I conquered them without touching the north-east. Pacific islands ,west coast and Florida/gulf of Mexico are enough if you focus espionage on their national unity.

 

[unmerged(245758)]

1937: First Defeat of National China
1938: All of China conquered
1938: War with Allies (UK, USA); Japans Navy Rules
1939: India, Indonesia
1940: Persia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, East Africa
1941: Gibraltar, England, Estonia
1942: Attack on Russia together with Germany; Russia gets Puppet of Japan
1943: Africa and Panama Canal

Naval: about 25 carriers, approx. 40 DD & CL; 60 Transports
Army: approx. 700 Brigades, approx. 20% Mountain, 10% Marines, 5% Airborne, 25% Infantry, 20% Cavalery, 20% Armoured
Airforce: 8 TAC, 8 Multi Role, 8 Interceptor, 10 Transport, 50 CAG
Technology and Strategy is completely updated.
Sufficient Supply: approx 300 Transports in reserve

----------------------------------

Any Advice?

Wow.


You have all that and having trouble? I'm defeating the Soviet Union and Axis (neutral to each other) with no more than the starting navy (ok I did built some Subs, DD and Transports) and half your number of brigades on my home brewed 'uber difficulty'.


The US is a difficult nut to crack, a west coast invasion is a great way to pull the American forces from across the continent, but can also go horribly wrong with you loosing whole armies when you transport too many units, or don't take enough ground to give you 'retreat space'. The easy way to defeat the US is to create two separate landings one around 'San Fran' and the other near Seattle. This helps spread your logistics issues.

These groups really need to maximise fire-power against US divisions, and the southern group should defo. include mountaineers. These divisions need to be high on defensiveness and organisation, since in principle you want to take ground, then hold it. The better you can hold a fairly small front, the more divisions the US will have to send west.

This opens up your marines and fast divisions to go on a VP rush off the gulf and east coast. Much like defeating China by tricking the AI to deploying north, then coming in along the coast, you are using the same strategy again.



Trying to push across the Midwest is a waste of time unless you invested in lots of TACs and ARM/MOT which I don't think you have. It's also a not that fun since logistics will keep frustrating you. Even more than going from Vladivostok to Moscow, because you have to keep opening up new ports and the front is so long it will eat all your divisions since the infra is high, and you cannot leave 'gaps'.



Going for the A Bomb / strategic bombing can also be a valid strategy, and I don't consider it that gamey to finish off a game. It's also a good way to not have to increase the game length when getting close to the hard coded end.


The US AI tends to build solid high strength single divisions, you can exploit this with many many binary divisions, and play the 'swamping game'. However this is not good, if you've got experienced commanders, because typically your army will have run out of leaders by this point.

Consider deassigning some from corps and army level to put directly into army group and division level, and run your army 'command light', you can offset the US airpower as well by the AI will tend to target the HQs rather than battles in some circumstances, but don't rely on it. Other gamey approaches are to land, fortify, wait for the AI to send in enough forces to attack, then pull out to one of the Caribbean islands, or another port. This keeps the AI 'screwed over' with trying to redeploy constantly and thus can turn a lot of their tough divisions into little more than running around on a wild goose chase.

Those units are also high on supply, log bombing can be effective, but with the US infrastructure it might take a good year or two to factor. It also slows your advance down considerably, even if you can maintain momentum, so long as you have air superiority.

Spoiler

 

[Steve.Joe]

Thanks for the advice. Just an Update; a Little belated o

I invated Mexico with infantry supported by some armoured Forces and mountain divisions. Once the attack was stopped I have defended the mountain regions at mexico and west coast.
Once USA turned to this front I started an assault with my tanks and infantry supported by cvalary and infantry on the east coast.
It was very difficult, but finally I have managed to encircle the enimy at some points, using air-borne divisions to cose the pockets. After some successful encirclemenst the resistance finally collapsed.

 

[ShadowWarrior23]

yeah i have the issue of lack of supplies going through to about about 20% of my divisions on the west coast and not being able to advance with such divisions as a result

 

[mike-kt]

Capturing Washington will capture all of their supplies and Fuel. It's a little Gamey, but that'll teach em

 

[Rybeck]

I'm currently invading US as Japan. I invaded LA in a diversionary attack to draw them to the west, then invaded Washington DC with my main force. When I was about halfway through the US, with my line stretching from Chicago to New Orleans, I opened a second front in Mexico again to divert units from my main front. Attacking through Mexico is difficult because of the terrain, but for a defensive campaign it is excellent. I used nukes in Mexico.

I should mention though that it was 1949 when I attacked the US. I had air and naval superiority and am well ahead in techs. In addition I was Axis leader for most of the war and conquered/puppeted all of Europe and USSR for myself. So my game is probably much easier than yours. If you are not ready in 1944, build up your forces for a couple more years and try again.