Tripper wrote:PS - I was on the phone when the next posts happened ... my response above assumes leaving the pacific completely unchallenged ... although another idea to piss off SA would be to send a 24 ships + c. 6 subs strike force west in to the middle of the pacific at DEFCON 5 (to try to outflank any "picket line"), then rush it towards Mexico at DEFCON 3 - that's something that the Russian can't do vs the Star!
Leaving the Pacific unchallenged is only wise if you keep your ground units out of fighter range. Cause you'll need 90m+ kills win for sure.
Trying to outflank won't work usually because you'll be sending bb's into carrier radar and they'll see you coming. Also, players like me always send scout bb's to those areas to get a general idea of fleet placement. Even if none of that happens, a single fighter could uncover such a plan and by the time your fleet arrived, SA could be positioned against it already.
In my opinion, if you want to take full control of the pacific, you must do one of two things. A. Place moments before Defcon 3 and then rush forward surprising the other player. B. Place at defcon 5 and rush forward. However, in this case you run the risk of him/her placing bb's on top of your carriers. Any other way will (in most cases I'd assume) just end up being a good old naval fight.
Lastly, the key to a harassment fleet would be to keep them alive and strong enough to pose a possible threat (even if it's a fake one) to launching subs. That is, keep your bombers alive till then. If you're attacking SA from *west, north, and east all at the same time, you'd might be surprised at how long you can hold off a launch. At the very least disrupt it. It's like naval nuking, you don't have to actually kill ships to be successful.
West, small harassment fleet arrives/engages in combat just before defcon 1
North, let SA spend a bunch of fighters trying to scout, hold yours back and then use your larger number to your advantage when the harassment fleet kicks in
East, come defcon 3, large fleet engages and counter scouts SA.
In case you missed it, you don't always have to be strong, just appear strong to confuse, delay, and/or disrupt enemy plans/movements.
I don't feel any need to prrove my skills to low-skill players: simple logic works here Hyperion couldn't do it (even more than once) => you have no chance, knowing that your's and Hyp's skills can't be even compared.