@ncscswitch:

To limit the Yamato Class Battlehips by reducign their defensive fire against air to a 4, then you also would need to increase them to THREE hits to sink.

Marianas Turkey Shoot.  It was 200 and what hits to sink that single BB?

The Mushashi was sunk during the Sibuyan Sea phase of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, on October 24, 1944.  It is estimated that the ship took 20 torpedo hits, 17 direct bomb hits, and 18 near-misses by bombs prior to sinking.  After Action analysis by the US Navy and the post-war report done by the US Naval Technical Mission to Japan analyzing the loss of major Japanese warships (I have my own copy and also a complete set of the reports on microfilm) indicated that one of the reasons for the survival of the ship following so many hits was the relatively even distribution of them on both the port and starboard sides, in effect counterflooding the ship and preventing it from capsizing.  Extremely heavy damage forward from both bombs and torpedoes resulted in the ship sinking by the head, and capsizing in the process of sinking.

The Yamato was sunk on April 7, 1945 during the attempt to sortie to the Okinawa invasion in an effort to attack the transport fleet. The ship was hit by an estimated 13 torpedoes, and at least 8 comfirmed bombs.  I suspect that there were more unreported bomb hits, and no count was made of near misses.  The US torpedo plane pilots had been briefed to concentrate their attacks on one side, and all but 2 torpedo hits were on the port side.  The two on the starboard side were assessed at prolonging the process of sinking.  The Yamato did capsize to port, and the after magazines exploded when she sank.

In neither case did the ships have fighter cover, so they were totally dependent on anti-aircraft fire from themselves and the rest of the task force.  In neither case did the losses of US Navy aircraft attacking the ships exceed 10%.  In comparable attacks on US battleships, Japanese attacking aircraft losses started at 50% and at times reached 90%.  That is my basis for reducing the Yamato-class defensive fire against aircraft.

I am also very familiar with the protective schemes of both the Yamato and the Iowa class.  The Yamato class did have a major flaw with its torpedo protection system that left it highly vulnerable to flooding from a shallow torpedo hit, to some extent compensated by the depth of the side protection system.  There is also a problem with the torpedo protection system on the Iowa, which required modifying the liquid-loading scheme to restore full effectiveness.  Overall, I would rate the Yamato and Iowa equal in damage resistance.

I guess that I am looking at it more from the standpoint of a naval tactical gamer where individual ship characteristics can be easily factored in, verses a strategic game, where that is hard to do so, unless you have a pronounced disparity.  Also, keeping track of Three hits verses Two is much more difficult.  I will have to come up with another way of factoring in poor Japanese AA fire.  Two hits, and 5 attack and 5 defend it is.

The loser drinks…  That keeps the winner on top!  :-)

Or give all 5 nations 2 NA’s each, but let the Axis have ONE random technology, and once selected the option to determine which nation (Japan or Germany) would receive that technology.

That would pretty much even out the NA issue.

@Corbeau:

@timerover51:

Your shore bombardment idea has been picked up in the Anniversary Edition rules, evidently.

Ya, i saw that, that’s great news :)
I can only wish i was the one to propose it to the game designer but it really is a coincidence. That was a house rule we used way back then. Still great to see he thought of it too. :)

I like the also th idea of BB acting as artillery support. Good thinking there too. I would not allow it for planes too, i find them already too flexible as a unit acting both in land and sea. I’d rather have them seperated in 2 classes, Land based fighters and CV based fighters. They already have the different molds for some nations, german stuka and Bf-109 for exemple. anyways, that’s another discussion.

For the BB acting like an AA, that’s exactly what i meant. Would give a reason to have one in a fleet.

You need to remember that roughly 2/3 of a carrier’s aircraft were attack planes, dive bombers and torpedo bombers, that would be used in support of ground troops.  This is the basis for the flexibility in fighters in A&A.  If you had a dedicated attack plane, like the Stuka, you could reduce the fighter’s role by a little bit, but by the end of the war, the US Navy’s Corsair fighter was carrying a bombload heavier than that of the Stuka, and delivering it with comparable accuracy.

As for BB getting an AA roll, that makes a fair amount of sense, and is pretty historically accurate.  Quite simply, BBs normally acted as a magnet for air attacks, even if a carrier was around.  The US South Dakato shot down 26 Japanese aircraft while escorting the carrier US Enterprise at the Battle off Santa Cruz in October of 1942, while Adm. Raymond Spruance deployed his battleline in advance of his carriers at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June of 1944 to deliberately absorb Japanese carrier plane attacks.  However, the US did have the best naval AA fire control systems of the entire war, so what holds true for the US does not hold true for everyone else.  The Bismarck had major problems with defending against a limited number of British Swordfish, while the Italian BBs had similar problems.  The British were so-so, and the Japanese were close to hopeless until late in the war.  You could make it a National Advantage for the US, but I suspect that would not be acceptable to a majority of Axis players.  Making it universal is a bit of a stretch.  It would be up to you.

LOL! I’m famous ! :mrgreen:

hi,

if you are still interested i am willing to introduce you to triplea lobby play in real time?

bye
ole

@ncscswitch:

To get THAT much Japan hardware in range of the US for J2 would mandate that Japan was effectively going KUSA, with commensurate loss of income in Asia.

Not really.

7 Infantry, 2 Fighters attack China with the two fighters coming from Manchuria and FIC.  These fighters can land in Japan.
3 Fighters, Battleship, Carrier, Destroyer, Submarine, Bomber attack SZ 52
Fighter, Infantry, Armor attack Hawaii

2 Fighters from the SZ 52 battle can land in SZ 45 on the carrier and battleship from SZ 37

now, without building a darn thing you already have:

2 Battleships
2 Carriers
6 Fighters
1 Transport
1 Destroyer
1 Submarine* (If it was not lost)

vs

1 Battleship
1 Transport
1 Destroyer
3 Fighters (Assumes the fighter was lost in Hawaii)
2 Aircraft Carriers

I did not give up anything in Asia, but I did station everything in range of America.  The transport in SZ 52 can easily pick up units in Solomons to attack Australia with two bombardments if I don’t need them.

Or, don’t attack Hawaii and add 1 fighter to the defensive forces, but don’t risk losing your infantry and armor in the process.

Odds:

Attacker: 2 Battleships, 2 Carriers, Transport, Submarine, Destroyer, 6 Fighters (2 Fighters in SZ 52 can attack and land back on Wake), Bomber (assumed stationed at Wake where it can again land)

Defender: Battleship, 2 Carriers, Transport, Destroyer, 4 Fighters

(note, this does not take into account any builds for Japan that may or may not be in range of SZ 55.)

I have the Japanese winning over 99% of the time with losses of transport, submarine, 2 fighters.  I believe that is a rather good trading position for Japan.

@uffishbongo:

Re the 1 art 4 tank purchase on R1, it looks really unbalanced.  But, if you move the inf in Eve+Kaz+Nov west on your first turn, you basically get 6 inf free, so it becomes a 6 inf 1 art 4 tanks purchase, which doesn’t look quite as unreasonable.  I still gravitate toward either 4 inf 3 art or 3 inf 3 tanks, but I wouldn’t rule out 1 art 4 tanks.

Kind of my thoughts.  I just wondered if anyone did it?

I think if you were ultra conservative with Russia and only attacked W. Russia with everything you had, you might be able to pull of this buy.  It would result in more cash going to Germany on G1, but that could be survivable I think.

That’s kind of the point though.  I don’t do a Russian build of 8 infantry on Round 1 for that exact reason, having the extra tanks helps throughout the entire game in keeping Germany boxed in a little.

And if I am not hitting Ukraine, and sometimes I don’t, it’s because I am hitting Belorussia and W. Russia or just stacking W. Russia like a mad woman (expect 9 infantry, 2 artillery, 4 armor, AA Gun in W. Russia with Russia having lost 2 infantry in the attack) with 3 armor in Moscow to back them up. (This of course results in Caucasus being taken by Germany on G1, but that’s a minor nuisance in the game I think.)

That means Germany has to be able to repel 9 Infantry, 2 Artillery, 7 Armor, 2 Fighters in Karelia and I just don’t see them being able to do so.  I’m assuming 9 Infantry, 1 Artillery, 6 Armor (with none lost taking Karelia and two units transported from W. Europe to Karelia).

I have Russia surviving that attack with a 93% chance (6 Armor, 2 Fighters left.)  Now sure, Germany will have 8 Armor and their fighters to attack that, but do you really want to trade 8 Armor and some fighters against 6 armor, aa gun if England’s dumping troops into Norway (which you have to leave abandoned) or worse, invaded W. Europe with Americans ready to land next round again?

For the record, that assumes neither Ukraine nor Belorussia were taking on Russia 1 meeting Switch’s points 2 and 3 I am also assuming the Battleship off Gibraltar died with the loss of one German submarine (safe assumption) and that Egypt fell on Germany 1 leaving 1 armor behind (taking Infantry/Armor from S. Europe for the assault.)  That meets all 4 of Switch’s points.

I am also assuming England landed and liberated Egypt on UK 1 and that England sunk the SZ 5 fleet with 2 fighters, bomber (since the original poster mentioned he was moving a ship to SZ 3 to block England from softening Germany) surviving with 1 Fighter, Bomber at least and that Norway was invaded iwth 2 Infantry, 2 Armor. (England’s buy would probably be Aircraft Carrier, Submarine, 2 Infantry if SZ 5 was not attacked, 2 artillery in place of the submarine if it was attacked and cleared.)

That’s good news - it would have been a shame to lose such a good online gaming site.

I believe this game exists.  It’s called East & West.

Aircrafts withdraw from battle remaining in the territories where the battle is fought, in this case Norway.
In the non combat move they have to land in the same way you do if you had won the battle. So they may come back to England, land on AC or in any other legal space they can reach.

Macro level people… remember that.  Axis & Allies utilizes a world map and there are references to some division level forces that were used in a small percentage of the battles during WWII.  That is a micro level.  You can not really mix the two very well, it just doesn’t work out, IMHO.

There are plenty of games that deal with the micro-level of battle if you want that sort of unit.

@Perry:

I find that people oftenly advocate that either US or UK should get Norway.
But I find it more advantageous if Russia can get Norway instead.

UK claims LEN on UK2 or UK3. Then on RUSSIA3 or RUSSIA4, Russia blitzes a tank WRU-LEN-NWY, and claims it.

Of course it only works if Germany empties NWY on G1-G2, but I find that they oftenly do so anyway.

I was actually just going to mention russia as a good alternative to own Norway. However, im not sure what your suggesting, as germany probably isnt swapping norway if their fleet is dead in sz 5, and Uk is landing in Karelia. But i guess if germans stack in karelia and/or you leave their baltic fleet alive, they can swap. But I like UK can opening karelia for russia to blitz a tank. Baltic fleet must be dead for that option.

As for a norway IC. For one, Is it useful pumping US tanks? I think id be building alot of infantry there as well. A stack of tanks can’t do a whole lot by itself, except increase the threat on dead zones. I like 2 Trans much better than an IC, anyway. As flexibility is the key to turtling germany. My prefered route with allies lately is a triple threat TWICE!! I secure sz5 for the British, and I like 5 tranports min. I can now threaten WE, GERMANY, and EE with 5 trans of units from the North. Now I have the USA having 8 -10 trans shuck in africa, with the tail end of the shuck in the med. Now I can threaten WE, SE, and BALKANS in the south the 4 -5 trans of US gear. When germany is facing that much pressure threatening 5 territoires in europe, due to the flexibilty of the allied shucking systems in both the north and the south, they are pretty much rendered ineffective in pushing toward moscow.

Another reason it isn’t a bad idea is b/c like on Gleemax you have time limits on turn movement.  As Japan most of the time I have a lot of logistics to move around and can’t do that as fast as other players.  I’m sure the US is in the same boat (ha ha  :lol: I made it funny).  So that balances it out.

The bad thing is if you want to undo that non-combat move you did in the combat phase you can’t.  So you should always try to make your moves in the correct order.

LT

Only one AA gun per territory can fire, no matter how many are there.

@LT04:

I don’t know as I would ever think to use ART how you are saying.  ART is an offensive unit.  It has the same defence as INF so why spend the extra IPC to have a glorified buffer unit?

ART pays for it self when its on the advance escorting INF.  When you employ it as a defensive unit you are making an econimic pit fall for your self.

LT

I agree 100% with you LT.  Jen, I also agree with you that art should be used as a “breakout manuver”.  Especially as Russia when I use art I usually hold it back a round or two to make sure I have plenty of inf to protect the art and arm with.  Then, about R3 or so I start taking some territory with it.  Even though its not a very costly offensive unit, I still want to protect it as much as possible.  Russia especially doesn’t have enough resources to waste even 1 IPC.  Just in my opinion.  Thanks.

Here’s another Triplea question… How do you find players and start a game in the Triplea “lobby”?  Thanks.

Then you should read up on the German Turtel.  It’s a passive-agressive strategy that has worked very well.

LT

Even then, it’s not really all that beneficial if you ask me.

It does work to get the Bomber back out of Egypt though.  Attack Egypt, land in Trans-Jordan and use Mid-East Oil to get 6 more movement out of the bomber for next round.