Order of Battle: WWII Guide For Dummies

Be warned that this guide is for those having problems on Ensign i.e. the lowest difficulty. Or at least, having problems with getting all the secondaries.

General rules:
1. Always elite repair for core units and normal for non-core.
2. If you shoot a unit you think you can kill this turn and IT SHOOTS BACK FIRST, it is OFTEN dead. You may not want to push into that grid, but see what happens anyhow.
3. Click the date to show objective list if you need, then click on the question mark to highlight targets.
4. I will NEVER play Japanese.
Hirohito should have been hanged like a dog for all his gas and biological attacks in Asia. And if that means the Japanese collectively lose their minds even further, then we oblige them go from Bushido Delenda Est to Nihonjin Delenda Est if (when) they insist.

To quote a respected member of AlternateHistory.com:

Originally posted by Stafford1068:

Dear All,

A number of things - firstly, there was no law forbidding aerial bombardment of combatants or non-combatants at the time - You could do it and it was legal. The only thing that regulated it was the Law of Reprisal ("You gas London and we feed Berlin the Vegetarian Option". - answers on a postcard for those who got that).

Secondly the Chrysanthemum Throne did not care if we slaughtered all the Japanese POWs or reduced Nihon to radioactive rubble. Did not care. The Chrysanthemum Throne did not care about the brutal murderous mistreatment of non-Japanese civilians and combatants taken prisoner by its forces, even when contrary to Japanese Law! It did not care. Even when it actions resulted in that Court of Last Resort: War, it refused to modify its behaviour or its armed forces behaviour: The Chrysanthemum Throne refused to abide by the Customs, Laws and Usages of War - rendering the even the Enforcement of the Laws of War by Act of Reprisal a nullity: The Chrysanthemum Throne was known to commit atrocities as Imperial policy, whether Nanking, Bataan, Singapore or HK, it meant that the ability of the custom and usage of Reprisal to restrain the Japanese Army and Navy was nil.

It made for a bloodier war than need be. A war of the Chrysanthemum Throne that was untrammelled by Law domestic, international or any of the practical Laws, Customs, and Usages of War - No Truth Speaking to Power. The Allied combatants knew the kind of enemy they were fighting, where words such as "murderous", "cannibalistic", "sadistic", "vile" were merely signposts on the road to Hell that was endured by millions in chains in Asia during the Japanese Occupation.

I suggest the Allied fliers buckets of goodwill regarding the Imperial combatants who bailed from the Bismarck Sea Marus had possibly been drained by 1943, or perhaps earlier in Nanking or Bataan or Singapore or HK. Though I could be wrong.

Yours
Stafford1068

...My opinion on modern Japan on the other hand, besides the war crimes denialists (Osaka's mayor ended its twin city relationship with IIRC San Francisco in 2017 over a comfort woman statue) who still rate a DEUS VULT, is "great anime, mangas, and most importantly, doujins", aka DESU VULT.

5. I am almost certainly never going to play Germans unless I feel like raving about how denazification demonstrates the true glory and righteousness that cultural genocide can embody (because that's what denazification was, and good riddance!).

Boot Camp

You will be importing these units into your US Pacific campaign, and can ONLY import into that campaign. In hindsight, I should have bought only MARINES in these missions as Marines are flat out better than Infantry when you get to 44, and are only marginally worse versus mechanical units before then, while being better vs other infantry.

I must let you figure this campaign out on your own for now, to let you learn on your own, except some minor hints:

In Mission 2: Island Hopping, the enemy Light Cruiser is in the northeast corner. Also you must make sure your landing on the paratrooper island has a supply ship feeding them supplies, or they can't beat the defenders.

In Mission 3, the air/sea battle simulation, the enemy carriers are center top and directly east of the initial shield of islands. There are a ton of mines between the center top enemy CV and the BB to the far northeast though.

US Pacific Mission 1-5

US Pacific Mission 1: Pearl Harbour
1st turn: Park your DD near the BBs early on either north of the eastern one, or south of it, that's some AA support from that boat.
In the first turn go to the town next to the harbour with your medical jeep. Then use that AA unit to activate the southern airfield.
2nd turn: Move that first AA unit near the western two battleships, notice the center battleship is on a Port grid. Send the jeep running off to the eastern airstrip.
NOTES: First priority for fighters is to maim inbound Kanko units i.e. get them before they drop torpedoes. It's very possible to keep all 3 battleships alive, even though AA units will mostly be running around the map until very late.
NOTES: DO NOT park your fighters over top of battleships. Somehow the IJN bombers can muscle them out of the way. Park them in a shield across the tops of the BBs.
3rd turn: Your AA is now a boat right next to Ford Island's airfield. The jeep keeps running. When the B-17 shows up move it somewhere north of Peark Harbour to maintain continual radar coverage on enemy exit vector. But you don't have the fighters to pursue yet usually.
4th turn: Your AA has activated the Ford Island airfield. Jeep continues.
5th turn: Your AA is re-embarked because units can do that immediately after landing.
6th turn: Your 1st AA is sailing west and is next to a bit of forest next to the road.
...I forget when the wildcat from Enterprise shows up. But when it does, send it to join the air screen.
Your 1st AA should run all the way down to the southwest airfield and village. The AA from that village comes with a truck and should be sent to the north to get that airfield and village, then onto the northwest corner village.
Once your jeep gets to the eastern airfield, make it run to the eastern villages. Unlike the AA units packed into trucks, the jeep can go over difficult terrain.

US Pacific Mission 2: Philippines
Make sure you spend 5 Spec points on Infantry Training and flood the field with US Infantry '41s. However do not begin by putting any on river grids at the top if you can help it. MAYBE trade two of those for your Australian Commandos and a Stuart.
DO NOT BUY HEAVY INFANTRY! I did... and they were utterly useless for the missions to come, ugh.
If you really want to troll around, buy a wildcat and put that and the P40 from the first mission on the western airfield. Gang up on the Japanese planes and you'll eventually beat them back.
Philippine Recruits aren't great but they can finish off enemies after your main units batter them to low HP. It saves your main units' attacks. It's actually quite possible to occupy all the initial Japanese supply points and keep beating off their reinforcements until the very last wave which comes in the sides quite far down the map. If you particularly want to, you can probably beat that wave off too if you keep track of the turn the last top-entry wave comes in (somewhere around turn 10-11 IIIRC), massacre those in one stroke, and then march south ASAP.

If you're concerned, you can just hold the line at the top rivers (where the initial line is) and station some Philippine Recruits in the northernmost line of secondary VPs (silver spear tip on the flagpoles, you may have to zoom in) as insurance. However, this would let the Japanese build up to become more overwhelming and likely actually force you to fall back over time.

US Pacific Mission 3: Bataan
I for one got War Economy Spec. It was basically irrelevant.
The hard part is knowing to retreat on Turn 5 after nabbing that 2ndary, as long as you're not at risk of losing any 2ndary VP i.e. enemey is still bogged down on river away from the VPs OR on other side of unbridged rivers. Your PT boats should also be hovering around the middle of the west side of the map waiting for the attempted landings to torpedo the supply ships, then shoot up the transports. If you don't fall back quickly enough... or know to save scum if the accursed fortress RNG isn't cooperating, you won't get the 10 damage from the fortress gun.
Take free advantage of the discounted upgrade to US Infantry '42 and hold the line just south of/around the fortress in the east, and the bunker-side town in the west (the 2nd enemy landing comes south of that). On Ensign, the 2ndaries are really pretty easy.
If you feel uneasy, use your Philippine Recruits to snooze in the primary VPs (gold star on staff).

US Pacific Mission 4: Marshall/Gilberts Raids
Get 2 radar upgrades for Specs.
Buy a Lex, to save some money, dump it and your PT boat as far southwest as possible, then pop in a wildcat (could be from mission 2), an SBD, and a Devastator (carrying bombs). Later in the match buy another Lexington as soon as you can afford, and Devastators too unless you aren't as cheap as I am. Move your fleet southwest and attack the middle island, then south, then go northwest. The PT boat is great at shooting up the things you'll find on land in this match except perhaps the shore guns and the Japanese engineers.
NOTES:The's a shore gun in the middle island and another on the island south of the westernmost airbase. These and planes are the main dangers to your carriers. Blow them up with your bombers and if need be your ships.
You can ignore the enemy AA guns and just focus on their planes, ships and fuel tanks.
The 3 fuel tanks are on the south, north, and northwest islands. I for one spotted no submarines even though my carriers and support ship were blundering around on their own for most of the mission.

US Pacific Mission 5: Coral Sea
I recommend getting the aircrew training spec before this one as you'll be buying some Wildcats in the next two matches. I went with female factory labour instead and ended up affording myself a SoDak after sinking Shoho and Shokaku... then found Zuikaku the next turn and engaged it with my ships so the SoDak ended up useless..
Spawn your 2 Lexingtons in the west with as many planes as you can (2 of which are Wildcats) around them. Escort them with 2 cruisers and the affordable destroyers. Do not use your Tambor or PT boat.
To save the oiler only requires you move the non-core Lex northwest, launch fighters after that, then on turn 2 move fighters northwest, the enemy bomber shows up on radar and you can start killing it from turn 3 onward.
Make sure to converge your fleets ASAP. 2 DD + 1 CA are enough to take care of Tulagi if you don't mind losing non-core ships (though for me they managed to survive air attack for long enough to have the enemy bombers beeline off toward my carriers, who were then south of Shoho's sinking--Shoho didn't even get far enough south to pass the island chain.
Make sure your Devastators use bombs as the torpedo reload is too long for the DPS problems to be worth it.
I was done slaughtering all the non-submarine enemies by Turn 21. My great regret here is not knowing Zuikaku was directly northeast of my carriers' spawn site. I could have killed it on turn 2 or 3 if I'd known.

US Pacific Mission 6-7

US Pacific Mission 6: Midway
I'm going into this without aircrew training spec, or naval for that matter, based on how many squadrons I had to buy already likely being enough in my opinion.
Make sure all your Core devastators are carrying bombs, because being able to whack a carrier in consecutive turns instead of once per 3 turns is much more damage over time. It's against battleships that the torpedoes are sometimes needed to put them down hard and fast.
Deploy your 2 core Lexingtons right up front to the west, surrounded by your planes. The three planes that show up on radar on start have the zero in the east, kill it immediately with 3 Wildcats (spawn your wildcats on the north fringe of your available spawn area in the far west after you forward deploy your Lexingtons.
The P40 from the Pearl Harbour mission can be deployed rather gainfully here if you are careful with its fuel.
Once the first couple enemy fighters are down, wade into the enemy fleet with your strike planes, escorted by wildcats to rip apart anything they can see flying, while your northern fleet is rushing southwest.
The enemy invasion fleet can be handled by your 3 cruisers, 1 battleship, and something like 3 core destroyers (so might want to consider naval spec for the XP star). You can use your core PT boat and Tambor if you like on these guys but I found them absolutely useless...
I got so close to the Japanese fleet that I triggered the Kantai Kessen event, but in the same turn the Japanese fleet's fleeing event triggered as I'd killed all their carriers, then sank both of their starting BBs and been running amok through their fleet oilers with my Wildcats (nothing else good for them to shoot at).
Unlike Coral Sea, when it was just Japanese submarines left on the map, the game immediately ended. This was on I think turn 16 or so.

For some reason, the "Do not lose a carrier" secondary mission appears to be bugged if the mission ends early in your total victory.


US Pacific Mission 7: Guadalcanal

REVISED because the first time I tried this mission I only got 4/5 plane kills and had to reboot from the savegame I had from the deployment phase (instead of say the campaign map, which meant I couldn't nab the naval training spec for the many new South Dakotas I bought for this match)

DEPLOYMENT:
DDs seem relatively useless in this game, as they can't do much against CAs unless using torpedoes, which do far too little damage even from point blank and take too long to reload, and submarine torpedoes rarely do damage at all if you keep all your ships steaming around at full speed.
Therefore, to counter the massed enemy cruisers, buy another South Dakota and deploy both of them as far northwest as you can, accompany them with your New Orleans and Wichita (you lack the funds to field 3 SoDaks to start).
Deploy as many Infantry '42 units as you can in the east, and start pushing down to the south ASAP with one unit detached to go take the enemy supply base to the east. A Heavy Infantry '42 is also viable for the initial heavy fighting in the east, but you can use an extra Australian Commando if you want (and have Burma Road).

OPENING:
I already covered what to do on land above.
Upon starting the game you find yourself at -14 Naval Capacity if you used the 2BB 2CA setup I recommend. But this doesn't hamper your units' fighting efficiency. When you are close enough a BB's main battery will SLAG a cruiser on Ensign hard enough at close range (4+ out of 6 HP) that it only takes another cruiser starting at relatively close range to finish it. Unfortunately it's more likely you'll have to spend 2 BB primaries on a cruiser due to positioning and spacing problems.
Of course, it'll take a couple turns to get close enough, so burn your first broadsides on the Tone between your two forces (which should be dead by the end of Turn 1), and also use your DD torps if needed. Your DDs are basically useless against anything heavier than other DDs, unless they start a turn in melee range of the light cruiser that comes along soon from the west, so make sure all heavier ships focus on heavier enemies except perhaps turns where you are forced to resort to BB secondaries.
Your torpedoes will not reload in time to be used again before your ships get magicked away, so make sure to make them count.
Don't worry about losing the non-core ships. Focus on gaining XP for your core ships (and not losing them, very easy if you only brought BBs and CAs and keep them manoeuvring) and getting the transport away safely. Only DDs should ever shoot at DDs, as there are too many cruisers that need to die and DD torp reload is SLOW enough to not matter. Go for kills whenever you can (besides wasting non-DD shots on DDs when you know you can hurt something heavier) and it's entirely possible to destroy the entire enemy navy before yours gets poofed out of existence. However, RNG may decide it doesn't like you and that means you will be chasing down a 1 HP cruiser or two with the Wichita you have to pop back in at the harbour after your initial navy gets poofed, at the start of Turn 6.
Camp your west marines at your bridgehead village 2 grids back from where they started), your middle non-core infantry can stand guard where it is. Your eastern Marines however will be doing a LOT of work in the push south.
Now if those two cowardly Marine Transports had landed and put 2 more units in your hands...

IN GENERAL:
Keep a close eye on your land, naval and air capacity and keep on fielding units as you can. Don't use your old P40 Warhawk though, as its endurance is too low. Use Wildcats instead.
Every once in a while, let your front line be leapfrogged so you can rest them and recover Efficiency.

SPECIAL NOTES:
Too bad the game's so strict about not going far enough into alternate history, or my fleet would have ruled the waves north of the island and my Wildcat could have gotten him.
...Thank goodness another wave of 3 planes shows up on your radar coming from the west around Turn 25 as you're likely to only get 2 kills before then. Kill the light fighter, then the heavy fighter, then the bomber, your 2 Wildcats should suffice, but beware that the fighters have higher speed than your Wildcats, so always engage him from the west to reduce his retreat advantage (your 3rd plane could have been an SBD, but if you have 3 Wildcats this becomes easier, and your 4th and 5th planes should be Devastators so you can torp the battleships when they show up). The G4M1 Hamaki can't get away though if you have both radar specs.
Somehow, I got the new commander but no check mark on the 2ndary objective list, still a ? despite showing 5/5 planes killed.

LOL at my having 4 SoDaks at sea at a time to meet the enemy battleships showing up on Turn 37 (I erred in sending the damaged one to port to repair but it made no real difference)... you did remember to send your Devastators to be rearmed with torpedoes, right? Since you have few DDs, optimize damage output instead of the "cruisers focus cruisers" of before.
Be warned the game ends after you reach the northern tip of the island so kill 2 BBs before then!

US Pacific Mission 8-10

US Pacific Mission 8: New Georgia
Before you start this mission, get Infantry Landing Craft spec because it'll be very useful in New Georgia.
You'll want to deploy a mix of Infantry and Marines. IN hindsight, maybe you should have started off buying a ton of Marines in the Philippines... oh well too late now!
If you got both the unit cap boosters, you should be able to afford a BB and a CV for support i.e. bombardment and forward airbase on this map. Deploy them in the far west with 4 infantry units and your two aircraft (I used 2 Corsairs), and... let's see if that's enough to get the secondary island.
You'll also be able to afford up to 2 Catalinas in addition to your two other planes. I only deployed one over the east island to keep an eye on what was coming.
Once you capture the east airstrip you get 2 more planes of unit cap to use, since after the initial fighter in the west, the rest are advanced enemy fighter types, you'll likely want 3 carrier fighters i.e. Corsairs and a Helldiver (upgrade your old SBD) when you're able to field the 3rd Corsair. Thankfully 2 Corsairs with one of them with an AA combat bonus commander will be able to put down that initial fighter with minimal save scumming.
This does imply you'll be using your Lexington as a supply ship on the west island, but the village north of the port has no Japanese troops there so can be occupied for supplies easily...
...And turns out Lex doesn't work as a supply ship. Oh well. Just send one supply ship west to start off and/or squat on the unguarded village north of the port while your battleship and aircraft blast everything blocking your way, I suppose.

After seizing the southeast quarter of the main island or so, re-embark all but 4 units--enough to keep a guard line across the island diagonally running just northwest of the mountain and rush the coast east of the Japanese airfield.

Don't forget to use your PT boat in the east to help clear the Japanese troops around the harbour! It's VERY good if it starts off in range.
Keep your Catalina flying back and forth for max coverage. Even if it cant see into jungle.

Note that if you are going straight for the west airfield once you take the southwest island, there are mines present at least between the two "cliffs" grids due east of the airfield. So land a bit east of the airfield and push. Sadly getting into the landing area is a bit choked (the west is passable if you stick next to the east-west barrier islands but 2 cliff grids in a row is... meh) so... it'll cost a couple turns during which your planes are mauling the enemies and your PT boat is shooting up stuff by the inner area.
Remember to rotate your troops so they can rest, unless you have tons of Marines and not much Infantry in which case jungle grids don't bleed efficiency so bad.

This mission should not last past Turn 35 unless you really kludged up your 2nd landing or actually fought across the island (but why tho?).


US Pacific Mission 9: Philippine Sea
Get Advanced Aeronautics because you use planes a lot in this campaign apparently.

The enemy is in the west (duh) though only a line of DDs is there to start the match. I recommend using 4 Corsairs for air superiority, while 5 SBC dive bombers follow up to smash the enemy destroyer line right off the bat much like Midway but with more advanced planes... and with their carriers and such absent for a while, hmm... Use Lexingtons in the forward deployment positions (then pull them back after deploying the planes around them) for this.
The non-core CVs can have their planes employed suppressing the Japanese islands or as a second strike, this time with torpedoes to mop up the battleships.

For your 3rd CV, get a cheap Lex 43 instead of Essex 44 at the start if you had to repair plenty of other ships. Remember to deploy your CVs with the real fleet once you've got the planes in place!

You'll end up slaying 2 Suiseis (maybe 1 on 1 HP) as soon as you start if you put the planes all in the middle of the line, which I recommend. Send your dive bombers and slay their DD line immediately, then send your bombers home and just run wild with your fighters until the Japanese carriers start showing up.

I did this with 4 Corsairs, how irritating to chase all those planes around...

Turn 14 now and the IJN is still AWOL except for some submarines harassing my fleet around Guam. IJN torpedo ranges are SO irritating!
Turns it it's probably because after the Turky Shoot event, IJN strike aircraft just hang around their spawn points and do nothing for a while. Methinks I might have to clear them out for the IJN fleet to appear.
...Never mind the IJN carriers appear on Turn 15. And their subs around Guam are suiciding into my cruisers which were trolling the seas trying to run them over, hmm...

Having only 4 Corsairs and 5 strike planes sure made finishing things easier. Now if only I knew they'd show up there on Turn 15, I could have ended this right then and there by SBC-bombing the carriers right off the bat and thus "repelling" the Japanese as of maybe a turn later.


US Pacific Mission 10: Leyte
I recommend upgrading all the infantry to the 44 versions. Sadly you can't afford all Marine 44s even with your starting budget, and can't use more Naval units. How irritating. Oh well lots of air units blooded from the Philippine Sea should cut it.
A full line of infantry, Marines and a few tanks (mostly your old, tired Stuarts and the non-core LVTs, but perhaps 1 Sherman can be afforded) storming ashore with maximum amounts of air support (6 dive bombers, 4 fighters) will achieve the 2ndaries with little trouble. Just make sure you actually know where the Secondary VPs ARE.
Oh, and DO NOT BLOW UP THE BAYUNG HANGAR (Buri on the map)! I had to restart due to gleefully blowing it up with my dive bombers LOL.

Warning: It seems IJA troops can now hide in towns from aerial or distant observation. It may take a few turns to get your supply situation up to speed since the supply ships you have are far from sufficient. there are also Lunge Miners out and about.

An enemy fleet shows up in the SW around turn 3 and sails toward their portals at the bottom of the map. The Japanese air units show up attacking you in the north or center of your advance around turn 7-8 or so. Send your 6 bombers SW and fighters around mountains. You'll need to move your Essexes as far southwest as possible. And be careful who lands on the closer carrier too!

You can't intercept the Japanese reinforcement ships that show up from the west on Turn 12 with DBs due to need to refuel (save a non-autosave file around now). Your captured enemy bomber and Corsairs may be able to do them in (The bomber does 1 and Corsairs do 2). Your Corsairs are also useful in the west a little later.

Advance in both north and south, and get the central route mountain village too!

The IJN showed up northeast on Turn 17 for me while I was pushing past the western defences at Ormoc and north of Ormoc with my two main attacks. Southern force didn't appear since I'd sunk all of them when they were still on the other side of Leyte, as far as I could tell. Have your CVEs run as fast as they can and use the planes there to blast the enemy destroyers ASAP.
As soon as you refuel and repair from your first anti-naval strike with your dive bombers, you should send them northeast.

Smack down all your reserve South Dakotas and other warships with your 40 new Naval points near the CVEs, main-gun-kite away until DBs arrive or just fight. Focus fire (BB main batteries on cruisers). DO NOT lose any ships or planes (CVe refuel cycles are hairy if you haven't won yet)! Reload that save around Turn 11 if you must. It's possible to win before you can blow up the whole IJN if your DBs weren't waiting there for them.

I won on Turn 22, could have been faster, ugh.

US Pacific Mission 11-12

US Pacific Mission 11: Okinawa

I couldn't think of anything more useful to spend my 15 Sepcializaiton Points on than the nuclear bomb for Ensign difficulty, since I'd deploy an overwhelming navy and air force anyhow, never risk a ship or plane, etc..

A mass of Infantry 45 to the south, maybe a few Chaffees to do manoeuvring.
A mass of Marine 44 to the north. NOT in the "deploy over enemy" lolwtf that's up there, mind you.
4 bombers, 4 corsaires in south, 2 corsairs north until that AF is taken (I have a bad feeling about it).
You should have enough money left after deploying to limits to upgrade your Helldivers to the newer Destroyer bombers, which are much faster (10 vs 8) and more powerful than older Heldiver models. Also upgrade the Corsairs to F4U-4s.
East side should have 3 DDs or so for fire support.
Note that Shinyos have a hard time hitting and damaging DDs.

A mass of battleships doing shore bombardment is always hilarious, but beware the suicide boats in the harbours and inlets (The inlet by Naha got me good there, 2 hits on a SoDak... (Quick repaired to full HP by upgrading to SoDak 44 LMAO)
Be advised that enemy infantry line in south is backed by anti-tank guns. Attack using infantry first, in leapfrogging fashion (do not pursue fleeing enemy unless next unit cannot leapfrog further up due to, say, a bunker or pillbox control zone), then wrap it up with your Chaffees. This is standard unless you have bombers overhead to spot that there are no enemy AT guns.

For some reason the Japanese don't have any planes in hangars on their westernmost AFs. Oh well, go bomb something else then!

This is one long slog both north and south. I really hope none of the caves are on the minor islands...

Lunge mines, Shinyos, and Kamikazes abound. I wonder if we get to play Operation Downfall... and I get to splurge on cash to buy enough nuclear bombers to EXORCISE this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ death cult.

Move your supply ships southward along the coastline, so your fighters can ward off kamikazes.
I advise a leapfrog advance running into the enemy is EXTREMELY damaging and you do almost no damage in such attacks.

The random enemy transports that show up on both east and west on Turn 5 can be sunk on west side by your Lexingtons with a bit of help from other units. This saves 2 other ships from having to shoot at things not on shore for the turn.

I'm not sure I can actually find all the cave entrances, but that's not a 2ndary relevant to the campaign overall... AHA, you only need to have an infantry unit stop NEXT to one (or run it over with any ground unit)! That's easy then.
One is northwest of Hyakuna.
One is northeast of that big plot of land north of Tamuri (the plot of land is wound around by the railway and road, the tunnel is right in that alcove of the road).
One is southwest of Onaga.
One is north of Komesu

The last Primary VP you'll get is ♥♥♥♥ in the northeast unless you forward deployed a lot of troops there.
By that point the rest of Okinawa would be fully cleared and Yamato's fleet sunk (maybe not Yamato itself though, depending on how fast your Marines were triapsing through the jungle in the NE). Some Shinyo boats will be coming around the north coast, but in open sea they can be spotted easily and Corsairs can 3-shot them... and you have 6 Corsairs... hmm... slay them if you wish. Sadly units don't get bonus XP for quickly completing missions, to incentivize against dragging them out.
I finished this at turn 17/40, the south has been idle except for repairing and upgrading (hey, I have the money to make almost everyone Marines, which is superbly useful for all-terrain combat!) units since the end of Turn 15. How baffling that you get non-core Marine 45s, but can only get core Marine 44s, oh well...

US Pacific Mission 12: Tokyo.
This should really be called CORONET? And why didn't we have to fight ashore in OLYMPIC first, as the first stage of DOWNFALL?
Contemplating whether I can even be bothered to use that nuke, and whether it's worth the in-game funds to nuke both Tokyo and Kyoto.

Oh... OHHHHHH Okay... Welp, I know where I'm dropping the nuke. Goodbye, Imperial Palace, and may your end prompt your death cult to continue fighting until the last being infected with your memetic hazard is put down.

Alright, for bloodthirsty maniacs out there, you might want to just straight up KILL EVERYTHING YOU CAN FIND, but the 2ndary for cutting off the peninsula is actually eminently practical since the map is somehow this big in number of grids and keeping the lines intact would be a real chore.

Hold on a second, am I to believe Yokosuka doesn't qualify as a major harbour facility? Wel I suppose if the Japanese demolished it well enough... Meh.

This map actually isn't so hard on Infantry, compared to Marines. So time to buy Infantry to fill out the ranks if you must! As for planes...3 Corsairs to each side, 2 Lexes per side (being cheap here, they also have significant gun power unlike later CVs)... well can't afford to upgrade the last 3 Helldivers if I want 4 new Destroyers for the bombing force. Can't be helped. Split your navy too... Huh turns out splitting half my battleships to the east are pretty useless. Shoulda put them west, oh well, still good enough to do the job.
I assigned more bombers to the west as the push on the harbours was time-sensitive.

Too bad the nuclear bomber costs 3 Command Points, and I can't be bothered to spend those on a single-use unit.

If you have an extra Air CP, a Catalina in the east may be advised to keep an eye out on sallies from the peninsula until the 2ndary is done.

Run your DDs and patrol boat (what I spent my last 2 Naval CP on) right up next to ports and towns to spot the enemy troops inside for your aircraft to bomb.

It seems that the enemy aircraft mainly come in the west. Oh well 3 Corsairs can still fend them off... and there ARE a few in east, so... yeah be careful there.

For these couple missions your Australian Commandos, if you still have them, can actually inflict significant damage, to say finish off or prep for killing a Volunteer or Lunge Mine unit.
However, once you get into Tokyo's built-up area, it's all Marines all the time, and bombers whenever tanks show up.

I finished the objectives in turn 19.
To atone for the dire sin of not slaughtering as many Japanese units as I possibly could have, nor nuking the Imperial Palace (it's a good idea in-game as Imperial Guard units are quite powerful unless you have half a dozen dive bombers giving them a pounding first, not just as a moral stance), I proceeded to put down as many Japanese units as possible after capturing the Palace.

Bushido Delenda Est

If the price of "peace in our time" is the continued existence of a diabolical regime such as Hirohito's Imperial Japan, it wasn't worth it. Remember, compassion to those who are guilty beyond all doubt is monumental cruelty to the innocent. And the Japanese were basically Khornate cultists. The peace with Japan was testament to the racism of the time toward the Asian victims of the war and American laziness to carry an EXORCISM through to the end.

Because the Allies were too lazy to starve Japan out (and invade Sakhalin, Hokkaido, and Korea if need be), we have these ABOMINATIONS:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/04/osaka-drops-san-francisco-as-sister-city-over-comfort-women-statue
Asia remembers its past, unlike much of the West, and will remember the deniers.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2164034/japanese-nationalist-group-apologises-member-who-kicked-taiwan
Not surprised that animal only dared do it in Taiwan, which was treated slightly less subhumanly than the other regions of Asia, as it was supposed to be an assimilation-oriented model colony instead of exploitation/extermination. It would at the very least have had its foot broken by an angry mob in literally any other East Asian country, if not outright lynched.

US Marines Mission 1-2

US Marines Mission 1: Solomon Islands/Taking the Initiative

HOLD ON A SECOND!
Boot Camp Core Units should really go HERE, instead of US Pacific! I mean it's even stated in Boot Camp that they're Marines!

Well I guess it's because the US Pacific campaign was in the original game before the campaigns all became DLC.

So we get Marines 42 as core units, but can only buy new Marines 41. LOGIC!

New Dauntless in east (Seaplane isn't near the Seaplane base lolwut), new Wildcat in west, 2 supply ships west, 1 east...
Hm, so you get 2nd wave almost immediately, that changes things a lot. If you decided to spend more on infantry than on a Wildcat (thanks to my advice on where to find and kill the floatplane) don't bother deploying the Marine Raiders, to make CP for a 4th Marine unit in the 2nd wave.

Western deployment zone for transports is initially right up to beach, and later isn't, while eastern is never, but I advise 3 Marines initially in east, east of the seaplane base, and 1 in west as you can deploy 2nd wave to the west, and it's landing that triggers the 2nd wave anyhow.

Bomb the AA gun on the Seaplane Base with your Dauntless in 1st turn. When your Marines are just getting ashore in 2nd turn, penalty to efficiency from landing in Jungle is halved for Marines and can be dealt with by resting for a turn if needed, but you should already find Japanese troops and the SBD can bomb them on 2nd turn, leave the AA gun for the infantry.

Seaplane appears to be northwest of the western tip of Tulagi. It then flies northeast, and once attack tries to run for top of map... you may need to save scum on the first move it makes to guess its position well enough to attack several times in a row, as you don't have great radar yet.

Always only recruit Marines. 1 less unit for a few turns won't kill you if you're doing it correctly. But unless this campaign has a final mission that's as nice and flat as Tokyo... infantry are going to be a pain to use later on.

Once you take the seaplane base, the Japanese on that island will be on low supplies, so become VASTLY easier to kill. Not to mention you can flank the heavy infantry in the jungle two turns later, via going into the marshes past the road, to cut them off fully from supply.

Use your bomber to attack enemy units, not bunkers, as bunkers are weaker to infantry, and the Dauntless can disrupt the enemy.

Wildcats might be pretty bleh in ground attack, but can finish off badly damaged units, or harass and disrupt the enemy before an attack. They're also great scouts.

Remember to Elite Repair your marines as possible, and to not run into fog of war lest you be ambushed. Field more marines as possible too.

If you positioned Wasp correctly (in the alcove of deep water northwest of its start point) all your planes should be racing back toward it beginning about Turn 10, as 11 is cutting it too close IMHO.

When DD reinforcements show up, send them to aid the eastern island with its western half's defences.
Remember to feed kils, if at all possible, to CORE units.

It's a good idea to put your units to sleep for a turn (2 if need be) to get them to full efficiency on Tulagi and let the DDs cross over to give support sometime around turn 13, and of course to let your Dauntless (repaired if need be) bomb the Japanese and soften them up... and for the other island's 3 Marines to start making their way over if they're somehow needed.

If you want to maximize unit XP gain, don't chase the AA gun off the eastern VP on Tulagi until after you've killed everything else, as a way to avoid a unit accidentally walking on the VP on its way to kill something else. I did this, and it was not optimal.
It would also give you time to milk more cash out of the scenario and buy more units of Marines. But oh well, at least if you end this quick you can go get Specialized Training spec right after.

Make sure to repair your units as/if possible before you end the turn.


US Marines Mission 2: Guadalcanal (Not to be confused with the US Pacific version)
...Only 4 spec points? are you kidding me? Fine... infantry training it is then!

Suddenly wishing I didn't buy so many new Marines in the last mission as they don't have the XP stars they would if I bought them now...

STARTS MISSION...
I got a question, why are we stuck with US Marines '41 if it's already SEPTEMBER 1942?

Start with 4 Marines west, 1 squat on mountain, 3 Marine 42 raiding east.
Use your 2 Wildcats to bomb the enemy units in case that actually does anything. Do not push into retreating enemies' grids here with first attacks, let troops leapfrog forward!

Target the Ki-44 ASAP from the 2 grids west of it, when it shows up near your fuel tanks on Turn 2. When it tries to run, it's not fast enough vs your wildcats to fully escape. KILL IT!
Tenaru has a pillbox right in front of it. Do not get ambushed by it!

Beware Japanese pillboxes are all over the roads, ugh. Save scum FTW. Oh, and the eastern Japanese flag on the road, where it's labelled an escape point for the Japanese? That's a pillbox there too.

...Why does raiding Tenaru not increase my Land CP limit??? Bugs...
There are far greater Japanese forces shielding Matanikau in the west, 2 grids before the river even (see that copse of trees on north side of road? yeah some are in there), so finish your eastern business, kill that Rikko, and mass up the troops before heading west much.

Beware Japanese troops are scattered all over the jungle. On Turn 5 you should get an Imminent Attack warning which means very little. You can also now upgrade to Marines 42.

Recall the Wildcats and repair. Do not repair any Marine about to get upgraded unless to survive, as upgrading repairs too (cheaply while keeping XP)

Once reinforcements are allowed on Turn 11 you can pretty much go wild as Marine 42 just outclasses all the Japanese units if you give them reasonable rest to recover efficiency. Cut off the supply point in the south next, it's significantly defended but you can get it with about 5 Marines (including the one that was sitting on the mountain earlier. Then clear the southwest and go west at the same time, leaving your perimeter lines to tell you when enemies are coming.

Remember, you auto-capture territory surrounded by yours without enemy units and supply points! That includes surrounded by yours and the map boundary! It's a great way to figure out if there are enemies.

At least the western "supply raid" actually works as advertised.. And on Turn 17 I got more CP again for "Breaking Out" event.

I'm baffled as to how to get 5 plane kills though, as I've kileld all 4 I've seen so far, yet I'm almost wiping the Japanese off the map by Turn 18, and still no 5th plane? I suppose I'll just have to surround the last 2 Japanese VP flags and wait.

Turn ~20 the enemy shells Henderson Field and kills your fuel tank and knocks your planes down to 5 max efficiency.
Now if the CBs would work faster and let me field dive bombers that would be great. Well, looks like I'll have to bomb the transports that showed up on Turn 23 with just two Wildcats.... Now where's that last enemy plane.. AHA it showed up on Turn 24! (Another appears Turn ~32)
...Hmm maybe I should have waited to intercept it as it just fled after being whacked to 3 HP. I caught up, and they have to be on the exit grid at start of a turn to disappear... I'll get it, then take the last Japanese VPs and see what happens then. Meanwhile, prep a hot reception for Tokyo Express! (Sadly they aren't dumb enough)
Japan reinforces in S, SW and W on Turn 28.
On Turn 30 you get 3 more Air CP.
Last few turns have nothing happening so stock up on bombers and Marines for the future, and make sure everyone's at full HP!

US Marines Mission 3-5

US Marines Mission 3: New Georgia/Munda Point
Sadly the 4 spec points per mission isn't enough to buy anything useful at this point.

My first thoguhts:
3 Marines to Vila with the New Orleans, Gleaves, and a supply ship.
3 Marines for North landing aiding them
4 Marines for South with the Fletcher
2 Dauntlesses and 2 Wildcats south right off the bat. They have only 12 turns of fuel, so best hurry to Munda's airstrip!

You get a second wave of 15 CP, or 5 Marines. I'm going with 3 south and 1 each to Vila and North.
Those 3 in south are going to land near Laiana as enemy forces converge on your initial landing, to not have any chance of risking the planes.
Fly a Dauntless over one of the infantry on the road to spot the flak gun, which should have been shot at by the Fletcher last turn. Then use the Fletcher and other Dauntless to make sure it can't aid the infantry while you're bombing them.
Down the enemy fighters to the west with your Wildcats ASAP, focus fire a lot.

Turn 5 enemy reinforcement convoy of 4 ships (2 transports, a DD and a gunboat) should just about T-bone your own force going to Vila.

Consider bypassing MG foxholes instead of blowing them up if you feel pressured. Unlike bunkers they have no control zone, but make sure your supply lines are wide enough, for they WILL capture adjacent uncontested land!

Turns out Vila has a shore gun. How unexpected and irksome. Keep your transports moving as fast as they can and it won't hurt too badly... that Rikko won't either.

Wait a second... if I'm looking at this right (and the fuel limit indicator on the planes isn't wrong) you can undeploy your troops with those lifting symbols! INTERESTING! However, I didn't need it as I captured the airstrip and got my infantry's boots off when my planes had 1 turn of fuel left.
The supply ship at Vila will get hurt bad (as in require a repair race in the port... wait... what does it mean supply ships can't be repaired???) even if you let the shore gun attack your transports first instead.
In that turn where you would repair your aircraft, you should upgrade them instead.

The hard part of this mission seems (as of turn 16) to be surviving landing on Vila, then making it last long enough to sink 6 ships? AHA they showed up around turn 24-25 just south of Vila!

Remember to spend your spare change at the end buying more Marines!


US Marines Mission 4: Solomon Islands/Blissful & Goodtime
I would suggest perhaps Flight School for your new spec. In case you need to buy lots more planes in the near future. War Economy can wait!

I choose to put 3 Marine units going straight east for Stirling Island, 1 Core marine north, and 2 Core Marines east. Since I have 2 CP left, Marine Raiders north just to make sure I have enough firepower to actually do the mosh-pit focus-fire blitz I prefer.

You have command of your allies' units, use them carefully.
Don't try to land right on an enemy VP even if there's no bunker there, as MG foxholes are kind of a thing.

A Marine Raider can 1-shot a fuel tank, so that non-core Marine Raider in north is enough for the fuel tank there, the Marine Raiders can just assist and finish off units as I have tons of cash in this map. The problem is killing 10 enemy troops on Choiseul without risk. This is better done at the northern landing while the southern just ups and leaves after each descent... though if the enemy doesn't take the bait it's fine, as bunkers count and 2 PT boats are great at killing coastal bunkers.

Note that the port on Stirling island is capable of embarking ships straight to its north, so no need to loop around... but this seems to only apply when a gunboat is parked next to it in the north. Strange.

Your 2nd wave should land in the north end of Mono Island. You will have to honeycomb the northern half of the island to find all the Japanese units before time runs out.

I finished on Turn 20.

US Marines Mission 5: Bougainville

I got Landing Craft Infantry and Flight School with my 12 spec points.

I recommend 2 Corsairs and 1 Helldiver, basically in case enemy planes show up. Pop down 10 units of upgraded Marine '43 by the shores around where you're meant to land, out of the range of the bunker if you want (it usually doesn't do any damage when it fires before your first turn). Put one supply ship per side, and put the Fletcher somewhere in the middle.

Use your riches during deployment phase to upgrade ALL your reserve Marines to '43 before the battle begins.
Irritatingly, to capture the small island you actually have to put a Marine unit on it, but they can just get right back on the boats the turn after landing, so... no problem really...
...It seems to not work unless another ship is siting next to the grid in question. Also, you actually need a unit of Marines squatting on the island in this mission if you want to hold onto it for amusement's sake. Don't bother. It's not required.

When your fleet appears move it due north as the IJN is coming from the northwest. Your planes can scout with their radar. Try to leave kills for your planes when possible.
IJN planes appear on turn 5 and come in sight on Turn 6 over your fleet battle. Focus the Zero first with your Corsairs. The bomber will get away by retreating, but that can't be helped.

There are lots of enemy around Piva AF, so don't push your 2nd construction squad up too quickly! The 2ndary mission is 20 turns, which is a lot!

Somehow, more enemy ships appear to the south of the IJN western exit point on their Turn 8, but your navy will vanish... Your first airfield should be up, so refuel/repair your planes now! These are transports. An enemy aircraft (a Zero) will come over your base around turn 13, so kill that with Corsairs!

A Japanese supply ship shows up west of your base area around Turn 15. So after damaging the Zero and driving it off you may use your Corsairs for anti-shipping if you want to dispose of it... and catch a plane (a bomber) that comes in near the supply ship on Turn 16.

The perimeter to defend is pretty obvious, including everything but Evansville and defined by two major rivers. One Marine on each bridgehead will ensure full vision of the perimeter except for one grid east of the north airfield. So put a certain obvious marine (from bridge north of Piva No. 1) in the forest and you'll see the whole road! Pushing Evansville makes sure that road is secure.

There are many Japanese units in the mountains north of Evansville. Kill them if you wish. Or Evansville can just be a raid... though Japanese supply points are all on the north edge of the map, so you can secure the east quite well by cutting across via the road through Evansville...

Japanese aircraft show up sporadically, don't engage them too close to the map limits (unless they're fighters you need to kill ASAP) or they may escape. Using your extra plane CPs from early airstrip setup for 1 more Helldiver and 1 more Corsair is possibly a good idea depending on how many planes you want to kill.

I decided to be lazy and let the Japanese fail instead of aggressively persecuting them.
Japanese push from north circa Turn 31. Annoying they run into forest cover as soon as your bombers show up.

US Marines Mission 6-9

US Marines Mission 6: Gilbert Islands

I went with 4 Marines east of Betio's leg, 5 Marines west of it, 3 west of Ukiangong, 4 facing the neck of Makin, where I can cut off supply to a large part of the island as soon as Ukiangong falls... damn, turns out concrete bunkers generate their own supplies. Also turns out there's very little on the west end of Makin, none of the concrete bunkers for example.

Each group got 1 supply ship except the Ukiangong group where one was already given to us.

On Betio cut straight across the middle of the island, then roll them up to either side, with DD fire support. Due to lack of enemy ships, you don't need to move your DDs around much once any shore guns able to fire on them are down. Helldivers will one-shot shore guns here.

No idea how to keep Liscome Bay alive, but hopefully the "no reinforcements" from 2ndaries earlier in the campaign should help. Let's see if enemy planes show up (AKA save deployment phase, play through to see)
Betio east and west airfields have planes. BOMB THE HANGARS!

...Should have brought 4 Helldivers instead, could have finished perhaps 1 turn earlier. Oh well, the DDs are great vs hangars too. And there's only one shore gun on Betio that matters, in the west end. The eastern gun is way out at the tip and basically useless.

Thankfully, Concrete Bunkers are still VERY weak to infantry assault.
Betio cleared on Turn 10.
North bunkers done on Turn 10.
Could have been faster if I didn't insist on feeding my Core units as much as possible.

I moved my CVE escort DD south of it on a hunch on Turn 9. DD was torpedoed just before Turn 10. Thank God the enemy sub was either badly coded or too slow.


US Marines Mission 7: Marshall Islands

Did not choose a new spec as I wanted advanced aeronautics for next mission.

It looks like you can splurge all your CP in Phase 1 and then redeploy for Phase 2? Since I SEVERELY doubt I need 10 Marines to squash each island, I'll play it safe and deploy 6 each in case the CPs don't refresh. However, I'll spend all the plane CPs on 2 Helldivers North and 3 South.
Turn 1: Fly Heldivers over hangars to spot them, shoot with ships until your bomber is sure to kill it (if possible), then bomb to milk XP.
Upper left airstrip cannot be killed right away, upper center is parked on by an AA gun... I hope there are no planes in that upper left one...

On Ensign, it should take you no more than 7 turns to clear Phase 1 IF you, like me, didn't deploy the full forces. If you deployed 10 Marines per side, 5 turns should be it.

...As expected, I could have deployed half the CP each side and ended it quick. Oh well.
2nd State I put 10 Marines per side, 3 Helldivers south, 2 North. This should be quick...
I ended it on Turn 12. If I had maxed out my deployment limit in Phase 1, I think I could have done it by the end of Turn 10.

Buy some more Marines, Corsairs and Helldivers with your spare cash before you end this scenario.


US Marines Mission 8: Saipan

Obtained Advanced Aeronautics and War Economy. This allows use of our excessive funds on plane upgrades, and deploy 42 CP of land units AKA 14 Marines instead of 13.
Enemy has airfield in north. HOWEVER I can't spot any enemy aircraft.

Save scum back to deployment phase, 4 Helldivers it is then! And the Catalina in the northern single spawn slot near the decoy landing.

...The zone for deployment is 14 units long. How unsubtle of the devs. Don't forget that you need THREE supply ships though for 42 CP of Marines!

Not everyone will get ashore in 1st turn, but whatever.

You get a 20-CP 2nd wave on Turn 3. What a stomp... Remember to leapfrog instead of pursue when possible. In ohter words, attack with foremost row, move the LAST row that can move into the newly opened grids to attack again, etc.

Fleet leaves at some point, but by then they'd run out of targets. They returned on Turn 11, but would have to sail up to north end of island as I'm almost done...

I upgraded the captured Shinhoto Chi-Ha to a M4A3 105mm for infantry support tank purposes, it was cheaper than buying a new M4 and it's not like I have Tank Training active anyhow.

If you want the match to end FAST, instead of feeding your core units as much as possible, use your decoy landing fleet, once they become real and under your control, to nab the north airfield.

Finished on Turn 17/45. Curious to not see the mass Japanese civilian suicides depicted.


US Marines Mission 9: Guam

Not enough Spec Points for anything, too bad.

Imma try this with 2 dive bombers (UPGRADE TO LATEST HELLDIVER) and 10 Marines per side, and hope to hell there's no enemy planes. A Catalina for scouting is also useful. There's no hangar at Orote OR Tiyan Airfield, so no fighters needed. Nor do your bombers need to bumrush the airfields, so they can support the landings right off the bat.
Leapfrog though, as blundering over Japanese snipers will not result in your units attacking back.
Soften enemy infantry with your bombers before storming them with your Marines. Bunkers, mines and snipers are easy though as long as you leapfrog whenever possible instead of pursue.

After your two formations link up and you land a 2nd wave on the eastern beaches, you should nab the west peninsula airfield well in time for all your bombers to land and refuel. After that point, it's back to "repeatedly attack their entire line with your entire line" grinding forward. Once again, DO NOT PURSUE IF YOU CAN LEAPFROG!

Ended mission on Turn 20/60, and at the start of Turn 21 an event said B-25s showed up from Saipan to support... LOL

US Marines Mission 10-11

US Marines Mission 10: Peleliu & Angaur

Obtained Female Factory Labour as I couldn't think of anything else I would rather get.

So I start with 44 CP huh? That's 14 units of Marines and 2 left over.

I'm putting 6 units of Marines in the south, 3 per beach. The north island gets everyone in the west initially as I intend to nab 2 VPs and get more forces to take the north minor island very quickly.
4 Helldivers and a Catalina all in the north will eat up your Air CP well enough. Make sure the Catalina is either just south of the coastal gun or another grid down, so it can spot if there's a hangar on that airfield on Turn 1.

...And there isn't. Great, your planes have free reign.

One-shot the coastal gun with a Helldiver as you don't want your non-core DDs to steal much XP.

Seriously damage enemy infantry units and if you like destroy AA units with your bombers.
Attack in order of Naval-> Bomber-> Assault

...And you get 30 more CP to throw at them when you get 2 of the 2ndary VPs. Another stomp... 6 in the northern landing zone to nab that small island in far north, 2 more for the southwest island if you feel like it, 2 (or 4 if you feel SW doesn't need reinforcement) on your central landing. GG.

Oh, and remember to rest your units for a turn in the back if efficiency isn't high enough for you.

Word of warning: The northern little island 2ndary mission? The enemy has arty, a bunker, and a Heavy Infantry dug in watching the bottleneck. You may want to use your bombers to dispose of the enemy arty or at least the heavy infantry.

If you need, exploit the trick that a unit standing next to a ship (i.e. a DD) will be able to embark just fine. This will make the eastern VP on Peleliu faster. I only had that one left after Turn 14 and no visible Japanese units...
By Turn 15 I could upgrade to Marines 44. As I'm overflowing with cash, I did so.

Ended game Turn 18/45 since I had to re-land some of my troops to upgrade everyone to Marines '44.


US Marines Mission 11: Iwo Jima

Obviously you are meant to go for Airfield #1 and Mount Suribachi ASAP. As for the 30 damage with Engineers, I think it's absurd, but if damage to Minefields count... ohohohohoho...
Anyhow, your veteran Engineer unit from Guam, upgraded to the new model, plus 62 CP of Marines or 20 units...

Why are all the supply ships damaged??? Oh well whatever. It just means west landing has 20 supply units i.e. 6 Marines + Engineer and the south landing has 10 Marines and 3 supply ships.

Now, I'm sure there'll be fighters on this island. But the enemy airfields are in strike range of your spawn areas. 2x SB2C-4 bombers with 3.5+ stars will one-shot a 6-HP hangar. However as you get 25 air CP with the two CP specs... 8 bombers it will be (Let's hope they don't have anything airborne to start)... and a Catalina with that last CP, of course.

You can deploy the rest of your 14+whatever Surbachi gives you in CP of Marines later once you have more supply seized on the island.
Catalina flies over and... nope, no enemy hangars. Very well!

If concerned, use 2 Engineer units, this fills up your CP nicely once you get the max initial CP's worth of Marine count plus those 2 units on the ground. I for one did (I had too much money lying around)

The first thing your bombers should exterminate are enemy AA guns near the enemy units they want to bomb. Next is enemy fortified infantry, and then artillery.

Note that clearing the surroundings of the airfield instantly captures the airfield for you fully, so you can deploy your 14 extra CP of units after the event fires giving you a mustang, if spacebar supply vision mode is honest. Otherwise your 1 unit of Engineers might not get enough damage, lmao.

Thankfully clearing mines DOES count as Engineers doing damage. Make sure to Elite Repair in between though.

As a side note, the Engineers going toward Mount Suribachi is a TERRIBLE idea as Engineers are hampered by terrain far more than Marines are!

...And on Turn 5 you get even MORE CP. 15 more in fact. What the hell I don't even.

Well, at least Engineers are perfectly fine at putting down Snipers.
10 more CP (and 2 very useless landing craft of Infantry '45 east of the mountain) after nabbing Suribachi. The Marines can now leave the tunnels and pillbox for the Engineer unit I sent there (which was a bit of a mistake) to finish off. 3 more units of Marines going to the front after being newly deployed, plus whatever was sent to aid the Engineers initially taking Suribachi.

On Turn 7 a Kamikazi Zero showed up to the north, gave me a right scare too, ugh.

I may actually have to restart this mission because the Engineers didn't do enough damage... thankfully my allied ships didn't go beyond 109/110 kills, just because I accidentally nabbed the last airstrip site...

110 kills is absurd, there's clearly at least 130 Japanese units on the island! Why don't we have to root them all out? I finished on Turn 13/40 for heavens' sake! Could have done it on Turn 11 if not for the Engineer damage problem.
Well I suppose the Grand Admiral difficulty players have to have SOME chance of getting the 2ndaries... but I swear the Easy mode players should have a lower time limit.

Wait what? That's it? No need to invade Kyushu as part of Operation Olympic (as the subsequent Operation Coronet landing on the Kanto Plain was the last mission in the US Pacific campaign)?

Burma Road Mission 1

Burma Road Mission 1: Operation Krohcol, Thailand

Time to punish some more of these honorless curs.
I've learnt my lessons: Always buy Marines instead of Infantry if possible. And don't bother with tanks because they don't actually have better attack values than Marines and thus are way worse in bang for buck on Ensign difficulty.

...British don't get Marines. I'm not going to ever field any Gurkhas because I'm not a fan of the "Slave Race" trope. So what's the British unit for high mobility with some reserve supplies?

...Paratroopers? Way too expensive!
Never mind, Infantry it is then! (Heavy Infantry is too slow!)

Hmm, you know, I'm reasonably sure you can field only 2 Infantry and still be alright, and bring an Oerlikon Portee to shoot down the Japanese planes harassing your allies' column.

Let's do that and see what happens :D This is Ensign Difficulty after all. The 20mm Oerlikon goes in the westernmost deployment grid so it can race north without running into jungle.

WARNING: details may vary slightly.

There's a Thai Police 2 grids north of your little VP-marked eastern camp. Don't run straight into him or he will hurt you significantly, whereas in a normal battle you'd stomp him. Attack with the rear infantry you deploy there first, he'll withdraw 1 grid, then follow with your infantry that starts on that flag and kill him. If he doesn't, do the following, then...

After clearing the mines with engineer minesweeping, your Heavy Infantry racing up the road will stop next to some Thai Police. ATTACK and push him one grid north! Now your western infantry can cross jungle into clearing and kill it, then pursue into the grid, as you don't have enough numbers to leapfrog this early in a campaign (and don't buy extra units unless strictly required because they don't get special training yet due to no spec points yet) and in this case there's no need to not pursue.

Your southernmost non-purchased infantry can clear the Thai Police from that forest if he didn't flee to be cut down by your eastern infantry, by running along the road, making it retreat (DO NOT PURSUE), and letting your eastern flag-start infantry enter the forest and kill the Thai Police that ran to a neighbouring grid. Pursue this time to get max advancing milage.

It's pretty obvious where you should park the Oerlikon Portee given its movement range limitations. It'll be on the grass next to the Indian base.
Next turn you can move it up into position by the road to murder that Japanese bomber in 1 hit. Ha!

TURN 2:
Move Heavy Infantry up to face Thai Heavy Police on the first Thai flag and you'll spot a veteran Thai POlice unit to the north. Attack the Thai Heavy Police with your Heavy Infantry to clear the way for another unit to pursue it as it flees (if it flees) as other units would lose HP attacking it.

Move the infantry to envelope these units. Your Infantry on the road moves 1 grid north and will spot another Thai Police unit in the forest just north of that, your Infantry next to the Thai Heavy POlice moves 1 grid northeast and spots more Thai Police, since the infantry to the south behind the trees can ONLY move up to its grid, use that guy at the limit of his range to chase the Heavy POlice off the VP, while your other just-moved infantry there hits the police to the east. Your more western 2 infantry should engage opposite numbers and chase them off if possible.

...INDIANS. WHY IS YOUR MATILDA RUNNING AWAY FROM STOMPING THE TAR OUT OF THE THAI POLICE???? I DON'T EVEN.

TURN 3:
At least you can control the Australians that show up. Thank God!

Chase the Thai cops out of that jungle tile with your Heavy Infantry. Then move the more southern Infantry as far along road as it can get, try to kill Thai cops in river without pursuing (never chase into river unless you're planning to cross). Kill the plain you can see with the Bofors.
IF the Thai cops don't die, move your other AUS infantry as far along road as you can before the kink in the road and you'll see more Thai Police squatting in river and some Thai Heavy Police on that kink in the road. The Mk VI light tank can finish the 1 HP Thai Police if applicable, moving between the two AUS Infantry on the road.
...Or you could leave those Thai units to slow the Japanese down if you like and not attack them, if they are even there as their presence seems variable...

Oerlikon should prepare to cross the forest stretch between the jungle stretches. Send the northwesternmost Infantry north around the mines it spotted last turn when pursuing to help it if you think it necessary. Move the 2nd infantry unit from the northwest 1 grid up and your Heavy Inf 1 grid up and you should be able to Attack Opposite Numbers again. In this case DO pursue.
Rush Engineers up road and attack a Thai Police unit on the road with them. They'll make it run away, but do not pursue. Leapfrog an infantry up. Meanwhile your last infantry off the road near the VP on a forest tile has to dispose of its opposing Thai Police.
Aim to kill whenever feasible, though the Thai Police are remarkably good at running away on 1 HP, and are hard to kill starting at even 2 HP, ugh.

The AUS infantry furthest up the road should attack the only target it has left, the Thai Police in the river. Do not pursue.

You get 4 more CP this turn, so put another Infantry into play!

TURN 4:
Depending on what they do, send your Oerlikon to kill that floatplane.

Apparently the Japanese are also fighting the Thai. Interesting. Your AUS Heavy Infantry will be fighting on the eastern side of the river.

Hit the Type 94 with your HI first before using Infantry to finish it.
Hit the eastern JApanese infantry coming down the road with your tank first, then try to finish it with your AUS infantry. Sadly it's almost impossible to finish a land unit with more than 1 HP in 1 hit, oh well.
Try to make enemies retreat so your tailing units can leapfrog up. For example, don't accidentally shoot that 6 HP Thai Police unit you spot after chasing the Type 94 into retreating, at least until after you kill the Type 94.

After this turn, just keep attacking as a cohesive mass, you should know what to do if you've done the tutorial and US Pacific correctly. There are lots of Japanese units by the crossroads ahead, for example. Don't push them until your army is ready to make a grand offensive.

The Indian AI's incompetence is astonishing. They seem utterly unable to use their Matilda.

Finished on Turn 10 by infiltrating the Mk VI through the mountains to kill the far rock and noticing my infantry could kill the nearer one, while having cut down a 3rd Japanese tank that turn and nabbed both Thai checkpoints rather earlier.

...And I only get 4 spec points. Not enough to start recruiting a carpet of improved infantry. WHY???? Does this mean if I didn't nab both Thai checkpoints I'd only get 3 spec points per mission? RIDICULOUS!

Burma Road Mission 2

Burma Road Mission 2: Force Z, South China Sea

Sadly Lend Lease doesn't let you buy American carrier planes, so don't bother with any specs.

If you look at the diagram of Phillips' route in this historical mission, it's LEEROY JENKINS followed by utter cowardice.

Well, this might actually take some effort as we don't have radar services yet. Remember that enemy bombers can elbow your fighters if you park them atop a ship, but can't push through them to attack a ship if you have it ringed with planes or are otherwise sufficiently in the way at the limit of their range.

It would be nice if you could actually move the ships to more sensible positions i.e. a huddle by the shore...

Unfortunately Repulse auto-dies on Turn 1, so your job is rather harder than it looks at first.

Send your Buffalos after that floatplane, reload Auto Save until you kill it on the first turn from north and northeast of it. Sadly you can't upgrade the non-Core Buffalos. Buy a Spitfire and put it over the harbour.

On Turn 2 you get 9 more Air CP. Wonderful, that's 3 more Spitfires since I see Japanese fighters...

Your Buffalos can immediately go tag-team a Ki-27B, and your Spit can attack a fleeing enemy bomber, if one of the 2 bombing your oil tanks does flee (not guaranteed)

Enjoy your veteran Hurricanes from the 2ndary from the last mission (upgrade them to Spits the next time they land to refuel while needing repairs). Leave that Ki-48 bombing your oil tanks until your planes are on their way back to upgrade. You need your fighters over the fleet NOW!

Beware where enemy planes run flee to, save scum if you must to chase them down for the kill (or just "for the kill" in general). Save, probably over the Auto Save, after each plane you kill.

You won't be able to down ALL the bombers, such as how your Buffaloes need to run for home around turn 4 or so from well north of PoW, and they'll need to kill that bomber attacking the oil tanks before landing at Kuantan, that but that's alright.

PoW auto-dies on Turn 5. From full HP in my match's case. How irksome.
More Japanese planes (3 Ki-27B fighters I can see, at least 5 more I can't to their southeast) spawn on Turn 6 when your extra Buffalos show up. Those go straight into the fight, your two RTB Buffaloes should be attacking the bomber hitting your fuel tanks during this turn.

Since Beaufighters are pretty crap against dogfighters, I chose all Spitfires after I restarted this scenario for a 2nd playthrough that gave me a better core unit selection.
Japanese boat shows up north of your base around this time. A CL in the lead, a Kagero, and... a Fubuki in the middle that the Vildebeest can pick off over 3 turns, before 2 TRANSPORTS. Good.

Too bad the British have a terrible selection of bombers at this point in the campaign timeline. But at least for some reason the IJN doesn't seem to shoot at a DD that fires upon them, at least during their run to the south. Otherwise keeping the DDs alive would be FAR harder.

Don't let the Japanese catch your planes on the ground too badly please... Hmm they turned back circa Turn 10 for some reason.

Well from this point on you no longer need to play aggressively. So don't bother risking any planes if possible. However, you may still lose a non-core Buffalo or two. This doesn't matter. The problem is if one of the allied DDs attacks the Japanese convoy based on your information, that might be a problem with the light cruiser and other DD existing and turning back...

Around Turn 12 another attack wave starts coming, good luck keeping all the eastern DDs alive! The west may see a DD engaging the retreating Japanese convoy. Pray your Vildebeest did enough damage for it to survive 3 more turns... which if you sank a DD and knocked the 2nd down to 3 or less HP is pretty reliable.

Ugh, if I'd known I couldn't lol bomb the enemy airfields to snipe their planes for good, I'd have bought only Spitfires for air supremacy. In fact I did restart this mission just for Spitfire spam.

NOTE: Beaufighters have nominal ground attack power but they're pretty bad compared to dedicated bombers and most ground units have pretty good air defence ratings. Much better to just balance your air superiority fighters and bomber selection properly instead for given subsequent missions.

Before pressing your final End Turn button, Elite Repair all your damaged units from the first scenario. It'll make upgrading them to Infantry '42 for the next mission a tad cheaper. (I'm not sure money carries over between maps)

Due to doing the +2 spec points 2ndary, I got 5 spec points. It seems the baseline really IS 3 per mission in this campaign. How horrifying!

Burma Road Mission 3

Burma Road Mission 3: The Fall of Singapore

This mission is ridiculous.
The IJA logistics were so bad that the general thought Percival might be coming out to parley to demand the JAPANESE surrender. An alternate history defence of Malaya such as the initial Operation Matador pushing into Thailand succeeding would make Malaya a huge slog and have stopped Japanese expansion in its tracks.

Oh well let's see... I took Specialized Training for more Infantry fighting power. I suspect it will be the best deal to acquire ASAP as I'm likely to field a ton of infantry in this defence scenario.

Upgrade all your Infantry '41 to Infantry '42. Prepare to field a blanket of Infantry...
...WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN ONLY DEPLOY THE TROOPS WAY BACK FROM THE FRONT LINE? Well it'll be a race to the eastern town you are ordered to hold as the eastern part of the line is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ EMPTY of Australian units!

Upgrade ALL your fighters to Typhoons. It's got decent anti-ground punch without being TOO bad in AA. And if you encounter enemy fighters later in the campaign, do it over friendly AA if possible and gang up on them anyhow. Tried this mission with 3 Spits + 1 Typhoon and the anti-ground firepower was simply too awful.

You get 14 Air CP and 40 Ground CP. That's 13 Infantry (one of which can be Heavy Infantry) and 4 Air units (plus up to 2 Sunderlands for scouting as I did, cause I had the money to buy them), unless you picked War Economy in which case you get 14 Infantry and 5 Air.

I went for the XP star on my Infantry instead. The Heavy and 5 Infantry went in the western town, and the rest lined the roads going north from Singapore.

Save your Deployment Phase. You'll be save scumming a lot if you're more perfectionist than I am and don't want to lose any units besides that northeast AUS infantry that always gets surrounded.

In the east you WILL lose some Australian units. Do not suicide them into enemies if they're going to die for sure next turn, as you can waste enemy moves by being careful. However, one (or even both depending on how the dice fall in enemy movements) of the two Bofors in the east MAY be able to escape to your lines if you are lucky (realistically 40mm Bofors should eat armoured cars alive, but whatever...)
The key to the east Bofors surviving is the armored car not parking to the south of the airfield.
The key to the slightly less east Bofors surviving is not being focused and not fleeing into a river.

In Ensign it is possible to hold the line and then push the Japanese back.
Arty pieces at Kranji should all run south while the AUS infantry go for Nee Soon. the enemy generally does not push early in the center and even if they do it's just 5 supply points..

Remember to try to attack with AUS units before using UK units as finishers if possible. And move the AA units before moving others if space might be constrained in attacking a plane behind your lines.

When attacking (spot the enemy paratroopers with a Sunderland if you have one, otherwise it's quite obvious where they are by the convenient territory borders), LEAPFROG (and do not pursue until the leapfrog train ends)!

There are Japanese snipers behind your lines in the jungle, beware.
You should squat an Infantry unit on that VP you must hold all game on snooze mode.

Use your Sunderland to spot in west for Fort Pasir Laba to have an artillery duel if you like.

The devs really could have added more 2ndary missions to retake settlements, it's easy to nab Pulau Ubin in northeast on Ensign (i.e. easiest) difficulty.
Hmm, so you get supply problems if you abandon Tengah. Well, that changes things considerably. Defend the western river lines then. SO BE IT!

Make sure to keep your Sunderlands patrolling to see the enemy pushes when they come around turn 6/7 or so in northeast and southwest. It is possible to flank the southwest push, take the northwest airfield, starve the western Japanese of supplies, then slaughter them by this time.

In center, since the bridge has been blown, once the enemy probe around Turn 5 or so is booted back, withdraw from the river by 1 grid with your infantry units so you can head off any landings, but not be constantly bombarded by artillery.

You can around this time (Turn 7) push over the river in northeast and isolate that lot from supplies, then destroy them too.

On Turn 10 you get an evacuation objective. Lol what do you mean evaculate? I'm stomping these guys here!

On Ensign, this means sending all your surviving Bofors and the 25-pounder, maybe your VP-squatter Infantry, and as many AUS 2pdr AT guns away as needed, because they're quite useless. I hope AUS units count, because I'm going to see if I can kill everything Japanese on the map instead to farm XP for my core units, LOL.

On Turn 12 (or maybe when you seize the city north of the river) more Japanese planes show up. Purge the fighters ASAP and then go for the bombers!
In my case by Turn 12 the Japanese only had their northern middle force remaining. LOL.

Thankfully, Australian units DO count for the 5 unit evacuation thing.

By Turn 18 I had eliminated all Japanese units and the whole map was under my control. Still took Turn 20 to get enough Australian units away. This rush away from the front line is the part where the mission is in grave doubt.

Burma Road Mission 4-5

Burma Road Mission 4: Kawkareik Pass

This map has a rash of Japanese paratroopers near the front and far behind it to the northwest. The northwest paratroopers even have a supply source!

I recommend War Economy so you can field 5 Typhoons instead of 4 and 2 Sunderlands. The enmy are just too spread out.

Your old Engineer unit can go nab that Japanese supply point in the northwest and spot for the Typhoons if need be. You get 12 Infantry normally, that Engineer is from War Economy. 5 Infantry forward should hold the mouth of the Pass while the rest go rushing to contain the northern and southern incursions, with 2 for the eastern paratroopers.

Too bad the Indians are not under your actual command, ugh.

...Starts game... oh, containing the incursions fully may be impossible. However, you have to hold onto more than just the middle supply points or you will be in poor supply. South may be held at river line (I'm leaving WHICH river line up to your luck), north could be a bit more questionable.

Kill the enemy planes that show up ASAP.

Remember the enemy is also quite vulnerable to having their supply lines cut.

It would be great if this stupid Indian AI would stop moving its artilery around fruitlessly and just blast away until killed.

Oh so I only have to hold the mouth of the pass until Turn 3 and turn back the initial onslaught (the event fired)? LOLWUT DEVS??? And it's resources which I have plenty of, not units which I really need, as the reward? How irritating.

More enemy planes show up on turn 4 and in my case they all entered the southeast hangar. It would be nice if enough Typhoons were on hand to blow up the hangar, no?

On Turn 4 another primary mission shows up: Recapture Mayapadaing. Problem is that it's not been captured by the Japanese yet... so how long do I have to wait for that to happen? I hope the northwest landing of whatever the Japanese have there act soon!
Thankfully those 3 Paratroopers DO act soon and take it by turn 6, after which the event notes that it MUST be retaken even if you lose Kawkareik.

I dare say it should be fine to retreat from the pass now instead of massacring even more Japanese units in the pass.

It seems holding the south river is hopeless since more Japanese patroopers magically pop up in the west? Oh well I'll leave those 3 Infantry there.

The way the game is railroaded annoys me. It's like the US Pacific Guadalcanal mission where your ships retreat even if you're TRASHING the Japanese.

Somehow, the Indians retook Mayapadaing on their own on Turn 7. WTF I don't even. It says I have to recapture it. Not them... let's hope the nerfed Japanese of this difficulty can actually beat the Indians there or I can't finish the scenario!

Turns out when it's retaken and there are no Japanese within 1 grid of it, you win. The Indian infantry there won this mission for me on Turn 11. I should probably grind more XP at the front line for my Core units but this is Easiest (It's called 2nd Lieutenant for this campaign, interesting) so.... yeah whatever.


Burma Road Mission 5: Battle of Sittang Bridge

I don't imagine I'll need to buy any tanks or any more aircraft, so those specs are useless to me. And since it'll be a while before Centimetric Radar can be had or be useful, Female Factory Labour it is!

14 Air CP is 4 Typhoons and 2 Sunderlands.
41 Land CP is 13 Infantry and an Engineer. Or 12 Infantry and your old Oerlikon Portee as this map is plane-infested.

When leapfrogging, leave the enemy a way to flee your armies so you can continue leapfrogging forward instead of being tripped up!

I got a question... What does "1st Indian Unit" refer to? Just that one unit? Cause I'm quite sure I could wipe the whole map with this army I have on this difficulty level... so I doubt that's what it means...

Ah, so there's a 2nd Indian Unit. The infantry in this game really need to lose weight though, because they can't run across a RAILWAY BRIDGE...

Japanese troops come through jungle from Meyongyi during 2nd Indian Unit's movement. You should be defending in the jungle gap AND pushing Meyongyi while this happens. And grabbing the southeast airbase too.

Two A5M2s and a B5N2 Kanko flew out of the northeast at the start of Turn 15. Your Typhoons should be able to down the fighters in 1 turn if played remotely correctly.

3rd Indian Unit is the last one. Showed up on Turn 17, when I'd cleared the map except the Letawkhi garrison. Map cleared on 20, when 3rd Indian is on Sittang. Have to actually wait for them to get to the evac point, LMAO.

Burma Road Mission 6

Burma Road Mission 6: Rangoon

Once again, the campaign shoehorning is total fantasy. Oh well.
Next spec priorities are Centimetric Radar so your planes can pursue enemy planes better and Advanced Aeronautics whenever that becomes available. Nothing else matters. Tanks are irrelevant on Easiest difficulty.

Put down as many Infantry as you can, fill in a 2-CP gap with Engineer if you have such a gap.
5 Typhoons and 2 Sunderlands here if you took both CP increasing specs.

Deploy everythign as far forward as possible on the road grid, then send 4 INF + 1 ENG north via Kalawe, and everyone else makes a run northward by the western road through Syriam.

If you fly your Sunderlands north, one from spawning just north of your airfield and one from west of your Typhoons (3 spawning northeast, 2 northwest ahead of your ground force line), you'll spot the enemy forces, including planes near enemy airfield. They have two fighters there and a bomber just east of them. Fly your typhoons up with careful thought of placement so everyone gets to shoot at those Ki-10s (this is possible if you make sure the westernmost Typhoon gets to hit the Ki-10 it can actually reach). In fact you should be able to two-shot each of those fighters.

The enemy 25mm AA gun by the airfield is just out of range to support their planes when you attack them. Heh.

Your P-40Ks to the west should damage those G4M1s they can reach as much as they can before your Typhoons show up to finish them off.

Enemy armour counterattacks your eastern thrust. It appears I should have invested in some anti-tank units as I came dangerously close to losing a Core Infantry unit... but whatever, some of my Typhoons can do the job while my P-40Ks chase the enemy G4M1s until they die.
DO NOT SEND YOU ANTI-GROUND TYPHOON COMMANDER NORTH AFTER THE PLANES!
One Typhoon finishing for the P-40Ks in west is enough. The eastern pursuit though... throw 2 at it, 3 if need be, to down it quickly and return to ground attack quickly...

More G3M Rikkos coming from the north, huh? SO BE IT! Eastern Typhoons go north to the nearest enemy airfield which is stuill launching planes, Western Typhoon (preferably with the air defence aura commander) cooperate with the P40Ks (to reduce P40K repair fees as their income is LOW). after them to attrite them on their way in.

Lol that Ki-43 Hayabusa just taking off got blapped hard.

...I got a question. How does ABANDONED EQUIPMENT IN RANGOON manage to RETREAT after being attacked?

Be warned aircraft fuel indicators are NOT RELIABLE in this mission because the nearest airfield to the west is about to get overrun by the Japanese. You'll need to fly probably for Kanhla in the SW of the map or your original home base with your P-40Ks on Turn 5 depending on how the fighting has progressed. Also be very careful about the fuel state of your Typhoons around this time!

There's a huge blob of Japanese infantry and armour just northeast of Kyanigon. I sent 2 Infantry up the west to contain the incursion toward Deikkon (curiously the enemy hunkered down in the town to the north so I made those troops nap for a while), 2 east to Thabyegon, and 3 up the middle against Mingaladon, the rest of my army is all here... Dis gunna be gud, cause the IJA is on orange supplies already, heh.

I count (at least, cause forests) 3 Infantry 42, 5 Heavy Infantry 42, 2 Shinhoto Chi-Has, 2 Type 90 75mm, 2 of those Flamethrower tanks, and 2 Ha-Gos.

If I had say 4 paratroopers (which would have been useful in Singapore or for a more advanced version of this guide in terms of cheesing the Easiest difficulty more) I would land them just east of Okpo and isntantly cut this whole lot off from supplies, then smash them. However, I must withdraw my forces for a turn to let them break their own entrenchments and so I can regain efficiency/heal up. The JApanese may also split up their force, which would be convenient.

The turn after I spotted them, Turn 13, 5 enemy aircraft show up in upper right corner. Two A5M4s, and A6M2 Zero, and to the east of them are two D3A Kanbakus. It's possible to kill all the fighters in one turn if your 8 fighters are all in position, you hold Mingaladon airfield, and enough fo your Typhoons have more than 3 XP stars (somehow I have one with 5 and all the rest have 2), but it's likely your P-40Ks will all have to run for Mingaladon airfield immediately after the first attack turn.

Coincidentally, nabbing Mingaladon makes air support for countering this attack much easier. And that's assuming you didn't decide to form a line at Kyanigon (only really feasible if you have paratroopers to cut them off from supplies from the west). Hurrah!

...Oh crap my Flying Tigers might have been too far northeast to actually reach Mingaladon. Gotta counterattack Kyanigon IMMEDIATELY then and push the JApanese back from being near the airfield, then make sure the airfield is clear for them to land... DEUS VULT!

...Managed to clear all but 1 grid near the hangar and am not going to risk an Infantry at 5 HP to potentially 3 attacks, even if the neighbouring units are weak in theory. The Flying Tigers can refuel under a little fire and fly elsewhere to heal.
Gotta withdraw some of the Typhoons to Mingaladon to refuel as the Tigers are taking off again.

Enemy appears to be fleeing northward on Turn 16. Why? There are no Exit hexes? they must be running off to heal. Well that gives me more ability to dogpile their front line units... and LOL the airfield was held.

...DO NOT try to defend this far forward on any difficulty but Easy! Let the Japanese string themselves out on the roads on harder difficulties, if you want to bother defending at all that is. I for one was just angry at not milking enough XP at the K-whatever Pass.

Once the main force is dead, and your Typhoons area ready to show up in the west, consider ATTACKING there with your 2 Infantry while sweeping west along the top of the map with your eastern troops.

Even if you didn't upgrade your Flying Tigers to another Typhoon unit, having 5 Typhoons and a P-40K in air support is no joke! By the time 2 of your Mid units get there to help, you'll have finished the Japanese off and your eastern force will be reaching the exit hexes.

Burma Road Mission 7

Burma Road Mission 7: Bombay GANDHI!

This moron should be sent to the Japanese by being booted out of a bomber sans parachute if he thinks Britain leaving India to be raped and pillaged by Japan is a good idea.

He's a religious nut too, and I got ZERO sympathy for Hindu radicals since to this day they got a caste segregation problem. This lot DESERVE a good taste of Japanese occupation, unfortunately their lands hold too much in resources for that to be acceptable.

Got Magnetron Radar since I had nothing else better to buy, and can go for Centimetric Radar soon, and that'll be useful for my air support.

9 units of Infantry deployed, I dunno how to disperse these workers, but I THINK it's supposed to be using the Military Police (tested... nope)? And what's a minimum of civilian casualties? Walking around them? What about my supply lines if they walk on them?

It seems actually destroying their units fails the 2ndary mission. Thankfully the game doesn't let me one-shot their units even if my Infantry SAYS it should be a one-shot kill. AS long as the workers get driven into their housing areas, they disappear magically once I end turn. Wonderful.

I'm not sure if you have to attack them from the right direction to make them retreat into their housing areas, but if you do, to clear them quickly, you may not want to pursue them as that next grid could be used by another unit to pinball another group of workers away.

Split off about half your forces to go west when the highway bends southward.
...I sure hope these bandits attacking the admin buildings don't count for "keep civilian casualties to a minimum".

The south bunkers are being attacked by Gurkhas with actual artillery support... See THIS is why I believe "Slave Race" troops are incredibly inefficient and just a dumb idea in general.

On Turn 6 more units arrive by the Causeway and you can deploy 3 more Infantry and an Engineer.

Ah, okay, I see the Rioters now. They are very different from the Bandits such as a different flag icon.

GANDHI YOU COWARD, HIDING BEHIND YOUR FOLLOWERS AND USING THEM AS MEAT SHIELDS! And this is why the Soviets lost Afghanistan: Not willing to go full Stalinist repression.

At least the Rioters have Fleeting Presence i.e. can't stop your supply lines.

I suspect this is a map where Ghandi could be in either end of the map, or maybe is even in the one your main force isn't going down. In my case he was in the east at the Mint. Typical, after all he needs funds for his movement...
...You must move at least 3 units around him to arrest him. Killing him is a lolfail...
...I hope Ghandi doesn't personally attack my troops. Or this is going to go bad real fast.

Still had to push a Rioter unit away from him. At least he's not at Malabar Point where I'd likely have to KILL a Rioter to corner him...

Finished on Turn 17 because I wanted to farm XP hunting bandits, heh.

Burma Road Mission 8

Burma Road Mission 8: Operation Cannibal (Arakan)

Got Centimetric Radar because I don't need anything else in the near future AFAIK and my Typhoons could really use it for pursuit.

What an auspicious operational name...

It turns out money carries over in this campaign. Very well. After repairing yet-unhealed damage from the last mission, I have over 2400 in funds.

44 Land CP here... that's 14 Infantry and an Engineer (upgrade to Engineer '42). 17 Air CP is 5 Typhoons and 2 Sunderlands.

I could literally buy myself a whole army of Paratroopers with money to spare. Do you want to know why I'm not buying the much more powerful Paratroopers or upgrading my Infantry to that?

Paratroopers don't have "Light Tread" and will lose 2 Efficiency going through 1 Jungle hex. Also they cost more CP. So they're not worth bothering with except in niche applications, and I can't be arsed to cheese the game at this difficulty level.

Pack the eastern 9 spawn points full of infantry, everything else in west. Spawn the Sunderlands as far forward as possible, then the Typhoons cause they're fast.

Curiously in this game Mosquitoes are strictly inferior to Typhoons. So don't bother with any change in your plane roster as long as Flying Tigers are now Typhoons. And leave that 5-star Typhoon you surely have by now at home because you need to farm XP for the others.

Smite those two planes you can see on radar right now. There may be mines ahead of where you start in the west, so send your Engineers to clear them by the old fashioned way of direct attack... if they exist. It seems hit-or miss cause I save-scummed back to Deployment to upgrade my Engineers and when I started again they weren't there.

Send 2-3 Infantry down each shore of each river (the west side of the 2nd is optional, to Gonapara), with the bulk going down the far east side, though still west of the eastern mountains. Initially the bridge eastward to Panzai Bazar is a chokepoint so either cross the river or send some of your center spawn group west to help clear those bunkers while the concrete bunker is being taken care of.

Somehow, the Japanese can run into their own minefields here, interesting.
By now you should be familiar with leapfrogging, the overwhelming use of air support, occasionally pausing your advance to recover efficiency, focusing fire, etc.

On your Turn 14 more Japanese aircraft show up to the southeast. Do not let them bomb your Typhoons while they are refuelling at the mid-map airfield! You may lose a Sunderland to their fighters if they caught you in the wrong spot when they spawned, but that's basically irrelevant unless you have OCD like me.

You'll want your Sunderlands and Typhoons to all RUN AWAY to the northwest unless you really haven't been using Typhoon ground attack as much as you should, or got Drop Tanks.
(Yes, I had to restart mission from the very beginning cause of this)

Alternatively, if you are lucky you can make the Japanese fighters fly back to base for repairs, then set your own planes down to refuel and (as needed) repair at the mid-map airfield with 1 turn fuel remaining (not 0 i.e. must return) depending on what flies where and if the Japanese bombers are headed for your southern force pushing the peninsula.

Apparently when you grab that southern tip VP on the peninsula you get a supply ship... with all of 3 HP (6 supply units, 12 in a port). Obviously it's to support a cross-channel jump, but since I did it in a turn when I had NO air support available, it generates all of 4 Supply as a fighter strafed it once (though if the Japanese had tried with their 3 nearby planes, it would have died outright).

Pretty useless in the near future as it can't be repaired, ugh... unless I dedicate ALL my fighters to helping it force the crossing for a turn by killing that infantry on the opposing port. And that port makes 15 supply, so... yeah, this crossing in a 3-pronged attack on the enemy base area is doable.

By the end of Turn 29/42, everything Japanese on the map is dead save a sniper or pillbox in the area between Panzai Bazar and Gonapara, and I have Akyab. I hope I don't have to go root that lurker out...
...Turns out this mission cannot be ended prematurely, presumably to let the Japanese counterattack a few times.
Went and dug that foxhole out, it was guarding the T-junction of jungle dividing the north-south open terrain passage from Panzai Bazar to Gonapara.
Turn 38-42 was just having my Typhoons parked in an airfield and clicking Next Turn repeatedly. LOL.

Burma Road Mission 9

Burma Road Mission 9: Operation Longcloth

I literally have nothing better to get spec in than Drop Tanks because I could really use having 2 more turns of fuel per sortie on my Typhoons while already having all the recruited units I think I'll need and just waiting around for Advanced Aeronautics.

Then I learnt only Chindits or Commandos could be deployed in this mission.

Turns out Chindits are stronger than SAS/SBS '43 by a long shot in attack vs Mechanical and a bit better vs infantry, but a lot weaker in defence vs mechanical. Well that makes getting the SAS/SBS spec a waste.

So don't bother getting Special Forces. Just use Chindits.

Send at least 3, maybe 4 units across the river to the northwest right off the bat.

It takes until your Turn 4 for the two aircraft to actualyl ground themselves at the airfield so don't take it too early

You can't repair your non-Core Chindits with Elite Repairs because it's unaffordable here. But your Core Chindits should always get Elite Repair.

After putting down 4 Chindits you go to -10 Land CP on starting the game for some reason.

There are Japanese Infantry units around the rail yards, so don't Pursue too much with your 2pdr if you use it to help kill some trains.

Japanese tanks will show up in northwest eventually, but on Easy your Chindits can stomp them well enough. The Japanese may grab Aberdeen LZ shortly after you pass it though. Best hope that trainyard VP supplies you well enough...

Word of advice: blow up the rail bridges AFTER you've finished that section of map and have finished moving your units over them by train.

They're taking your spawn area from the west. Hmm I wonder if the Japanese HQ is over there... let's return from killing east bridge to fight it out at our spawn, cause why not.

...Turns out that no, the Japanese HQ is not over there as far as I can determine, though I only looked at the supply-providing villages and wasn't wandering the jungles to the south where there are no roads... oh, that huge area suddenly fell into my control once I nabbed the southwest town. Alright then the Japanese HQ is not there...

FOUND IT NEXT TO LASHIO ON TURN 30!

At this point I have 4 forces, one in southwest, one just west of center, one northeast, and one assaulting Lashio. This isn't a raid by any means but a pitched battle, which I am winning by dint of EZMode :P

Finished on Turn 37/40 due to lots of flailing about blindly and being stupid enough to blow up bridges BEFORE I was going to cross...

Burma Road Mission 10: Ledo Road

Burma Road Mission 10: Ledo Road

As usual, no specializations of interest yet, but I got so many spec points I might as well grab Flight School in case I need to buy more planes for whatever reason.

50 Ground CP and 17 Air CP? That's 16 Infantry + 1 Engineer, 5 Typhoons + 2 Sunderlands. Very well.

You'll need to buy 2 more Infantry for this. So be it. Maybe upgrade one of your more experienced Chindits to infantry for the better initial XP than buying new?

A side note, the "Construction Groups will be sent once the construction zones are taken" thing sounds like a euphemism for "KILL EVERYTHING ELSE ON MAP ASAP THEN BLITZ THE CONSTRUCTION ZONES, DEUS VULT!" to me.
Those two Japanese planes at the airfield to the south are 1 turn kills for your 5 Typhoons if you do it reasonably correctly. Kill the fighter first of course.

There are mines just north of the bunker you can see to your south. I recommend the Soviet approach of killing them with a unit that can't quite reach the enemy this turn.

Very Importantly, your Chinese allies are UNDER YOUR COMMAND.

Now, if I was a Zerg Rush type I'd consider an All-Chindit Army, as I like their all-terrain capability and supply stash, basically cheaper US Marines with a bigger supply stash, but since Chindits can't upgrade to follow the increasing power of other units... they just aren't good enough.

If you want your Chinese Sherman to do as well as it can against that infantry in front of it, drive away the AT gun behind that Infantry first with your own Infantry.

Keep your western Sunderland flying south and you'll spot 2 more planes coming, you'll get one down to 1 or 2 HP and kill the other in this turn, and see a hint of more planes to the east. Always pursue the enemy to their destruction if you can.

CONSTRUCTION GROUPS APPEAR ON THE CONSTRUCTION ZONE RIGHT AFTER YOU CAPTURE THEM, AND ARE INSANELY FRAGILE! DO NOT CAPTURE CONSTRUCTION ZONES UNLESS YOU ARE TOTALLY READY AND HAVE CLEARED THE AREA! (I managed to swarm the enemy under but it was a nasty shock regardless)
...It also happens if you just nab the town next to the zone, apparently, ugh.

Fortunately, it doesn't happen until you move your men off the Zone.

Game ended on Turn 20/40, I accidentally failed to kill ONE Japanese infantry unit, sigh. Shoulda planned my moves better to not accidentally nab the last Primary VP so soon.

Oh well by now you should have gotten to the point where it's one big steamroller, so hurrah!

Burma Road Mission 11: Imphal '44

Burma Road Mission 11: Imphal '44

Operation U-Go? Really? Well got Advanced Aeronautics, hope Typhoons can be upgraded to a better ground attack plane...

59 Ground and 23 Air CP? Well I guess I can actually buy a Fairey Barracuda for finishing off weakened ground targets after my Typhoons have had their turns (or when my Typhoons are occupied slaughtering enemy planes)!

And Infantry '44 is now available, so UPGRADE! (and buy more as needed!)

There are two villages you can actually deploy deathblobs of 6 Infantry apiece to, both favour pinching off the northern enemy advance first if one exists, the northeast one cutting down along the road, and the central force blasting their way to Gambai and cutting the supply road north of that.

That leaves you with 3 INF on the road east out of Senapati (one will squat there all game to make sure it's secure), 1 INF jsut north of Imphal (as insurance), and 3 INF + 1 ENG at Churachandpur, the ENG will squat there all game in case of paratroopers.

Your 6 Typhoons and 1 Barracuda are going to be deployed over and around the airfield at Imphal, and your Sunderlands will be deployed on Turn 1 there because the other fields are way too far back to be worth bothering with.

Sadly your Barracuda lacks the speed to reach the Japanese in a single turn unless they advance from their spawns, but that just means the Japanese planes at the front line are even deader.

YOU ACTUALLY GET CONTROL OF THE INDIAN TROOPS THIS MISSION???? WOW! Okay this will be easy then. Everyone to the front cept a few garrison troops! Tout le monde a la bataille!

Use that 3.7-inch AA gun near the front on the enemy fighter (move the infantry ahead of it forward into that jungle grid before sending in your own fighters. You may get to down all 3 enemy planes initially near the front in 1 turn this way, but probably not. And there are at least 2 more planes in the south where your first attack column should run into enemies almost right away.

The IJA northern force has a huge amount of armour you'll be pushing through the center of from the north. Be careful, focus fire and do not get cut off from supplies!

Colonial Infantry is REALLY weak, ugh. Expect to lose a few.

Enemy southern force will attempt to flank your southwest thrust by the west road.

I suspect technically possible to finish this scenario before your Typhoons need to refuel. However, I don't advise it and would say there's no rush...

...It turns out that after I capture the two supply depots the mission auto-ends as long as I managed to hold the 3 cities for the primary mission.
Ended on Turn 10/30, lolwut devs Y U no let me milk XP by slaughtering these fools?

Burma Road Mission 12-13

Burma Road Mission 12: Irrawaddy River

No specializations of interest as far as I can tell.

What do you mean, Mr Briefing, "We do not want to repeat the Arakan disaster"??? It was a roflstomp!

It's the usual Infantry Carpet tactic, 6 in west, rest in east in battle lines and with 1 spare along the road plus an Engineer whose job is to squat on Kaleiwa all game in case of infiltrators.

You can deploy your 6 Typhoons, 1 Barracuda (if you chose to get a Barracuda instead of another Typhoon at Imphal), and 2 Sunderlands right away. Good hunting and watch the fuel meters carefully!

Kill those two planes you see instantly, as usual. On turn 2 you can see planes near Myinmu if a Sunderland has been going southeast. Sadly your Typhoons are fast, but not THAT fast, so you can't instagib them.

Another fighter is coming up from south of Kani.

Later, when breaking past Mandalay, a frontal assault can be difficult or at least very annoying in terms of dislodging the Japanese infantry at the bridgehead without use of artillery, so consider flanking from north and west at the same time, while using lots of air support.

At some point you'll notice you can upgrad your Infantry to Infantry '45, I noticed around Turn 11 while my planes were repairing/refuelling at the airfields. Not sure it's worth bothering, but did it anyhow after breaching the defences around Mandalay.

Once you get all 4 Primary VPs along the river the Japanese will launch a final attack against you. Stomp them flat, then go on and take the final towns and cities. By this point you know how to deathball the enemy and have more than enough forces to do so.


Burma Road Mission 13: Race for Rangoon.

Still no specializations of interest IMHO.

Oh look we can get 7 Typhoons, 1 Barracuda (or just 8 Typhoons) now!
I have 64 Ground CP with both CP-boosting specs, I must remember each side can initially only support 40 supply, so I can only dump 12 infantry and either a 13th or the Oerlikon Portee on the east side (A LOT of planes are going to show up relatively early). Also remember that rice paddies are like jungles, terrible to walk through (forests are equal to open terrain though).

Stomp the Japanese under a carpet of Infantry. Good luck!

Banzai Marines are to your east. Neither airfield to your east nor at Mingaladon has planes present at first.

Expect to have to intentionally step on a lot of landmines (i.e. move next to them and attack them, which does some damage to your troops) in villages. In the west resistance begins at Kyuchuang and is notable at Deikkon. In the middle it's at Mingaladon, and in the east they counterattack immediately.
On Turn 3, 4 fighters including a jet (HOW???) show up near Dawegyaung, and 4 bombers on Turn 4, so best have your Typhoons ready to meet them! Don't meet them piecemeal, make sure you go full deathball!

Chase the fleeing enemy fighters down once you damage them, leave their bombers until after you've dealt with the fighters for good.

Rest up your troops before rushing their main fortification line please. That's assuming you don't decide to jsut park 1-2 units per main road into Rangoon and then get the flanks. The enemy has a big army in southeast, while Southwest is much weaker but still significant.

Pick off enemy artillery pieces with your mass of attack aircraft one by one, this will help the final push after you mop up the enemy in east.

O hey, 4 enemy fighters and 3 bombers showed up on turn 24/70 for them from south of Padongyaung in the southeast. Interesting...

Well, you know what to do by this point in stomping the enemy. I would caution you to not make a push from ANY one side toward Rangoon until you have at least 8 units on that side ready to go. If you're going at it from several neighbouring fronts however, 10 units total is adequate if air support is ready to go and has already taken out most of the Japanese artillery.

Once I find time, I think I will make a "For Normies" guide for this game, at Normal difficulty, and perhaps a "For Crazies" version at Hardest.

[HACKFRESSE]

a ww2 strategy game is ALWAYS onboth sides --- and not like Wolfenstein games where you play only one side ;)

[Aeon Zero]

Can someone do a proper guide (less-step-by-step for the missions and more things-you-need-to-know, units descriptions, tactics and all that), possibly without too many personal opinions?
I just got started on OOB and it's something this game needs desperately

[Sergeant Soap]

Good guide. Also if you don't want to play Germany or Japan because of warcrimes that's fine.

[clausbohm]

I love the German war equipment. Their Tech was bad ass so when I am in the Desert I WILL play as Rommel! In Russia I will play as Manstein! Sorry ... Not!

[fatjill]

So when you gonna play Japan boyo?

[Octav]

What an odd and ranty guide lmao

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

If you're gonna rant about war atrocities and crimes then you shouldn't even be playing this game, or any WWII game for that matter lmao

[Ravenscar]

Oooh, with the Red trilogy coming out I hope we get some scathing opinions on the death camps, gang rape, scorched earth policies and a guide for the Soviets!

[Putrid]

Damn I can't wait to read the guide for Japan, this guy is good.

[Destoyer78901]

damn it the 1 guide i need is the german one