@SuperbattleshipYamato I have played a few games and though the Axis can initially worry the Allies , (I thought I would lose ), I have always been able to keep the income gap and , as the game progresses, it opens up much more .
I don’t believe , The Allies don’t need help in this game, if the players are equal ability.
San Francisco (ruleset for 1942.2 and Global)
-
Idk I’d call it a downside but one thing I noticed. Brits put an AB in Egypt they can shuttle to India. Also UKP 1, they can have air reach E Africa. Have to be careful though, because it takes two turns to get back w/o an AB.
-
Sorry, I’m not very purvey on other house rule aspects that have been discussed surrounding the SF suggestions, I’m only thinking about BEs 1 role bomber idea and the +2M from airbase idea.
-
Idk I’d call it a downside but one thing I noticed. Brits put an AB in Egypt they can shuttle to India. Also UKP 1, they can have air reach E Africa. Have to be careful though, because it takes two turns to get back w/o an AB.
You can reach West India with M5, anyway.
You can reach Karelia or Archangel from UK (M6). Otherwise, it was only possible from Scotland.
It allows a 1 turn flight from Eastern USA to England.
No need to buy a Carrier as a staging point of departure to reach UK.
It allows to reach and land (M6) from WUSA to Marshall and Gilbert Islands.From Hawaii to Australia (M5) it doesn’t too much.
It allows to use Midway for long range unescorted SBR (M8) on Japan. -
Well I think part of the issue is just that the Air Base unit itself is so gamey to begin with. It’s hard to make it too realistic, before the house of cards just collapses altogether under the weight of rational examination.
:-DIn reality an Airbase doesn’t really increase operational range, it’s just a necessity to launch and land aircraft effectively at all. Every fighter unit in any territory implies some kind of airbase. So the actual AB unit in A&A is something rather different. It doesn’t really have a ready analog you can point to, at least for the movement advantage. For the scramble I think the analogy is easier to imagine, but even there we are in pretty gamey territory.
I suppose I’m just being less conservative here with the AB+2 than others might wish. The way I see it, if I can get closer to the desired gameplay, with less rules overhead, then I prefer this to something that is only somewhat more realistic, but a lot more complicated to implement rules-wise.
I admit this is a general inclination on my part, to favor gameplay simplicity over strict realism. I tend to privilege the former, pretty much any time issues like these come up haha. Perhaps to a fault… but there is just so much of A&A that seems to fall apart under close scrutiny, that I tend to always take the wider view, “will such and such give us the desired play patterns?” If so, then I’m more willing to suspend my disbelief when it comes to the nitty gritty.
Is it realistic for fighters or tacBs to move 6 from an Airbase? To which I would reply, well, it’s at least as realistic as the OOB Strategic Bomber at M7 with a combat hit @ A4/D1, strafing a tank column on the ground, or dive bombing enemy destroyers at sea, or defending against an artillery assault at the gates of Moscow hehe. All things broadly accepted in this game under OOB conditions.
Not trying to make light of the desire for a more historically accurate representation, just that the foundation we’re building on takes quite a few liberties already in this regard.
Probably the simplest solution for those who don’t dig the AB change, is just to ignore that HR suggestion. The defenseless bomber doesn’t require it to work. Just means that you have 1 fewer combat air unit in the mix, and the two that remain can’t be used the way OOB strat bombers were in regular combat esp. for coastal defense vs fleets. That might not be such a bad thing, just requires players to adapt their strategies away from any heavy hitting M6 combat air unit.
-
Is it realistic for fighters or tacBs to move 6 from an Airbase? To which I would reply, well, it’s at least as realistic as the OOB Strategic Bomber at M7 with a combat hit @ A4/D1, strafing a tank column on the ground, or dive bombing enemy destroyers at sea, or defending against an artillery assault at the gates of Moscow hehe. All things broadly accepted in this game under OOB conditions.
Airbases (in the real world) don’t change how much fuel a plane carries, so strictly speaking an AB shouldn’t affect the range of any aircraft. I’d frame the question differently as two questions: is it realistic for a strategic bomber to move 6 from anywhere (AB or not) and is it realistic for a fighter to move 6 from anywhere (AB or not)? I’d say: yes for a strategic bomber but nor for a fighter. WWII fighters generally had short ranges: they were mostly small planes, which means a small fuel tank, and in active combat they burned up fuel very quickly. A few long-range fighters did develop during the war, via such innovations as auxiliary drop tanks and innovative airframe/powerplant combinations, but airbases had nothing to do with those innovations.
-
This is just to follow up on something I said a few days ago about the island/airbase relationship, which is that in the Pacific in WWII islands increased the value of strategic bombers and strategic bombers increased the value of islands. I didn’t mean to imply (if that’s how it was interpreted) that an airbase on an island increases the distance that a SB can fly from its point of takeoff; what I meant was that the island itself, as the point of takeoff, determines how close a SB is to its target. Therefore, an island that’s close to Japan (for example) makes possible a bombing run on Japan, whereas an island that’s far from Japan does not.
To be even more precise, a SBR against Japan from an island in the Pacific (to be tolerably modeled on reality) would need three things if we were indeed trying to reflect reality. (I’m not saying we should be trying to model reality; I’m just illustrating how the components worked together historcally in WWII). The requirements are:
-
A SB with a long range – the longer the better. The B-29 Superfortress was longed-legged enough to reach Japan and return (the 2-way trip requirement obviously being important, especially to the crew) on a single fuel load from the Marianas. The B-17 (the mainstay of the SB campaign in Europe) was not.
-
An island close enough to the target to be reachable by the long-range SBs on your side, but ideally far enough to be beyond the range of the enemy’s SBs – something which is achievable if (as was the case for the US vis a vis Japan) there’s a significant difference in aircraft technology. The Marianas were close enough for use by B-29s as a takeoff point for strikes against Japan. The Central Pacific islands further east were not.
-
An airbase to provide fuel, runways, repair facilities, bombs and so forth. A bare island by itself is useless if planes can’t land on it and be serviced…and a huge bomber like the B-29 required some pretty serious infrastructure to operate. (The emergency landing site that the US built on Iwo Jima wasn’t designed to be a mission launch point; it was simply a place where crippled B-29s could land and be patched up, as an alternative to crashing before they could reach the Marianas, so its facilities were less complex.)
-
-
Totally, granted.
But from a gameplay standpoint, does the map even work if you eliminate the movement bonus for the AB?
The tension I feel is between allowing an AB movement bonus that is clearly kind of silly, or removing it and breaking the game, with the fear that nobody would want to play under such conditions because it takes too long to get your aircraft where it needs to go in gameplay terms.
The way I’m looking at it, G40 without the AB movement bonus just lays bare some major issues with the core map design. The play pace in many regions might grind to a halt. The Pacific where most of the true islands are located is already a chore for fighter movement, even with the OOB airbase bases already in place. Moving a fighter from an island into a sz costs 1 move, so it only has 1 more move (into an adjacent zone) before its range is spent.
There is a similar issue with strategic bombers (whether defenseless or not). Under OOB rules, even with an AB, a strategic bomber cannot take off from Marianas, bomb Japan and return. I suppose technically it could take off from Marianas, bomb Japan, and land at Iwo which is exactly 7 moves (as mentioned in the fail safe emergency landing example CWOMarc described). But you have to ask yourself, will such a thing ever happen in game? I mean it already requires the purchase of an expensive AB at Marianas, with no hope of an escort, even if you do manage to take Iwo and put an Airbase there too.
Sans AB movement, the only workaround I can think of is something like the Island Movement bonus we talked about way back when. Tried to summarize it more recently in the HR master list…
Island Movement Bonus:
for 1942.2Rule: If an island is completely contained by a single sea zone, and under friendly control, then aircraft movement into or out of that sea zone from the island is not counted towards the total.
In other words, the owner treats the island like a stationary or permanent aircraft carrier inside the sea zone, for the purposes of movement. On defense however (if attacked by the enemy), the island aircraft is still considered to be parked “on the island,” so not hovering in the sea zone at all times, only when moving on the player’s own turn.
This works for true islands, but does nothing for other key territories like Japan or UK, W. Germany or Moscow, W. US, E. US, Italy, India, Australia etc. I don’t know maybe those territories don’t need a movement bonus, since they already have other income and production advantages?
Landlocked territories with a starting AB like France or Moscow would lose out big time, without a movement bonus, since those ABs have no sea zone to scramble into. They’d be meaningless except as a target for SBR.
Compromise solution might be OOB AB+1 and the Island Movement Bonus idea together. This would give fighters at island ABs the desired range.
Perhaps the island rule should be revised, only granting the bonus at take off (not landing) only +1 to the total. So they get an effective range of 5 from the island, and this can be raised to 6 with an AB. But it only works if you are departing from the island at the start of your movement turn.
This would make a territory like say Iwo or Iceland or Sicily more attractive, without messing up the situation in other parts of the map, like the skies over continental Europe.
Any thoughts?
ps. again with the Marianas example. Under this island movement rule, even without an AB, a player departing Marianas could reach Japan with a stratB, bomb it, and return to Marianas, in exactly 7 moves.
-
This would make a territory like say Iwo or Iceland or Sicily more attractive, without messing up the situation in other parts of the map, like the skies over continental Europe.
Any thoughts?Here’s a thought about a general concept that might be useful, both for this bomber thing and for (potentially) other aspects of the game. The idea would be that different movement rules might apply to the Pacific and Europe sides of the map (at least as far as movement over water is concerned) because the two maps distort the geography of the real world to very different degrees. The Pacific map massively compresses the size of the Pacific Ocean, and on top of that leaves out a large section of the southeast Pacific. So in principle, a ship or a plane moving a distance of x SZs on the Pacific map is actually covering a much greater distance than a ship or plane moving an equal number of SZs on the Europe side, even though the number of SZs is identical. The Movement figures given for units in the rulebook don’t account for that difference; they’re identical for the whole map. I’m not sure what can be done with this concept in terms of specific numbers, but it might (for example) justify different movement bonuses on the two sides of the map.
-
@Marc,
Do you know if, in Pacific, there was some air combat and/or attack on ABs from Fgs and TcBs starting from airfield of other islands?
IDK enough about Rabaul and Guadalcanal campaign.
I believe there was an old TV Series about F4U-Corsair and a “Papy Boyington”.
I cannot remember precisely. -
@Baron:
@Marc,
Do you know if, in Pacific, there was some air combat and/or attack on ABs from Fgs and TcBs starting from airfield of other islands?
IDK enough about Rabaul and Guadalcanal campaign.
I believe there was an old TV Series about F4U-Corsair and a “Papy Boyington”.
I cannot remember precisely.I’m not sure I understand the question. There were airfields and airbases (of various sizes) in many, many places in the Central Pacific and in the Southwest Pacific and in Southeast Asia during WWII, controlled by either Japan or Allied powers, and all sorts of missions against all sorts of targets from flown from them. That’s the whole point of having airpower.
-
@Baron:
@Marc,
Do you know if, in Pacific, there was some air combat and/or attack on ABs from Fgs and TcBs starting from airfield of other islands?
IDK enough about Rabaul and Guadalcanal campaign.
I believe there was an old TV Series about F4U-Corsair and a “Papy Boyington”.
I cannot remember precisely.You mean BA BA Blacksheep show ?
-
It’s seems sound in principle, but in practice I would have no idea how to implement different movement rates for the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the map. I can imagine problems arising at the intersections, when a unit moves from one side of the border to the other. What to do with aircraft when such happens… round the movement rate round up or down mid flight? I suppose its possible, but likely out of the question for tripleA, so there’s that too. Also, such a scheme would seem to recommend either a movement penalty for the Pacific, or a movement bonus for the Atlantic, whereas the game-play seems to recommend the opposite approach, so it’s kind of a bind. Part of me likes the idea of a rule that can give some purpose to the Atlantic islands too.
In G40, for true islands…
On the Atlantic side we have: West Indies, Greenland, Iceland, Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, Crete, Cypress and Madagascar. At least some of these might prove more interesting with an island movement bonus.
One the Pacific side, there are 20+ islands that fit the bill. Some of these are so far away from the action its hard to imagine them ever coming into play, but others would clearly benefit from the island movement bonus.
In 1942.2 there a fewer true islands, but still enough to have an impact.
It tripleA for 1942.2 the Island Movement Bonus could be accomplished by giving all such islands an invisible Air Base (with no scramble, unless you wanted to make that a standard feature of islands too). In TripleA global, you might be able to do the same, and have the invisible AB stack with the regular AB for a cumulative movement bonus.
-
@CWO:
@Baron:
@Marc,
Do you know if, in Pacific, there was some air combat and/or attack on ABs from Fgs and TcBs starting from airfield of other islands?
IDK enough about Rabaul and Guadalcanal campaign.
I believe there was an old TV Series about F4U-Corsair and a “Papy Boyington”.
I cannot remember precisely.I’m not sure I understand the question.� There were airfields and airbases (of various sizes) in many, many places in the Central Pacific and in the Southwest Pacific and in Southeast Asia during WWII, controlled by either Japan or Allied powers, and all sorts of missions against all sorts of targets from flown from them.� That’s the whole point of having airpower.
Sorry,
I was trying to inquire about non-carrier aircrafts attack on enemy’s Airbase/airfield or islands bases.
Obviously neither Pear Harbor nor Midway work this case.
Said otherwise, was it possible for Fighters and TcBs from AirForce or Marines corp land base to attack other ground targets from different islands? -
@SS:
@Baron:
@Marc,
Do you know if, in Pacific, there was some air combat and/or attack on ABs from Fgs and TcBs starting from airfield of other islands?
IDK enough about Rabaul and Guadalcanal campaign.
I believe there was an old TV Series about F4U-Corsair and a “Papy Boyington”.
I cannot remember precisely.You mean BA BA Blacksheep show ?
Yes. That one. Baa Baa Black Sheep or Black Sheep squadron staring Robert Conrad.
Thanks.
It said they were stationed in Solomon Islands.I wonder if they were able to make air raid on other islands enemy’s airfields or port.
-
@Baron:
Said otherwise, was it possible for Fighters and TcBs from AirForce or Marines corp land base to attack other ground targets from different islands?
If they’re close enough, yes. If they’re too far away, no. It depends on the range of a specific aircraft, and on the distance between the takeoff point and the target. There’s no general answer, other than “it depends”. It’s the same answer as for the question “Can a car drive from one city to another on a single tank of gas?” It depends on the car, it depends on how far apart the two cities are, it depends on the route you take and it depends on how fast you drive.
-
@CWO:
@Baron:
Said otherwise, was it possible for Fighters and TcBs from AirForce or Marines corp land base to attack other ground targets from different islands?
If they’re close enough, yes. If they’re too far away, no. It depends on the range of a specific aircraft, and on the distance between the takeoff point and the target. There’s no general answer, other than “it depends”. It’s the same answer as for the question “Can a car drive from one city to another on a single tank of gas?” It depends on the car, it depends on how far apart the two cities are, it depends on the route you take and it depends on how fast you drive.
There is no famous air to air combat or air to ground combat in which both side were islands based?
-
I can’t see a fig only getting M4 from a non airbase but a M6 from a base.
Just make it Fig M5
Tac M5
Stg bomber M7. +1 for all three from airbase and island baseI also agree with CWO that there shouldn’t be bases in game at all. But Black Elk is probably right about messing up the game mechanics.
Be something like this. Fig A3 D3 M4 If it wanted to move 5 then -1 on the attack like YG mentioned to that affect and Baron. And the other one is the Japan A3 D3 tank D12 A6 D6. But that’s another topic . -
It’s seems sound in principle, but in practice I would have no idea how to implement different movement rates for the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the map. I can imagine problems arising at the intersections, when a unit moves from one side of the border to the other. What to do with aircraft when such happens… round the movement rate round up or down mid flight? I suppose its possible, but likely out of the question for tripleA, so there’s that too. Also, such a scheme would seem to recommend either a movement penalty for the Pacific, or a movement bonus for the Atlantic, whereas the game-play seems to recommend the opposite approach, so it’s kind of a bind. Part of me likes the idea of a rule that can give some purpose to the Atlantic islands too.
In G40, for true islands…
On the Atlantic side we have: West Indies, Greenland, Iceland, Sicily, Sardinia, Malta, Crete, Cypress and Madagascar. At least some of these might prove more interesting with an island movement bonus.
One the Pacific side, there are 20+ islands that fit the bill. Some of these are so far away from the action its hard to imagine them ever coming into play, but others would clearly benefit from the island movement bonus.
In 1942.2 there a fewer true islands, but still enough to have an impact.
It tripleA for 1942.2 the Island Movement Bonus could be accomplished by giving all such islands an invisible Air Base (with no scramble, unless you wanted to make that a standard feature of islands too). In TripleA global, you might be able to do the same, and have the invisible AB stack with the regular AB for a cumulative movement bonus.
It seems there is a geographical accuracy issue: such Fg or TcB were not able to move from UK to Germany and turn back home. Or moving from Scotland to Karelia, or cross Atlantic from Nova Scotia to UK in a single flight. Covering all SZs in Atlantic from UK and Canada to harass Subs, etc.
AB+2 is making difficult suspension of disbelief.The other is tactical depiction of escort, air combat and ground support.
AB+2 helps depicts what kind of mission was possible from UK, for instance: unescorted deep in Germany or escorted closer from West European North Coast, or plainly unescorted even when it is possible to allocate units and within range.
It allows more room on players option increasing an otherwise feeble aspect. -
But from a gameplay standpoint, does the map even work if you eliminate the movement bonus for the AB?
I think it would; but we’d have to accept and understand that the game mechanics would be significantly changed. What if OOB AB’s never increased the movement range, but had other OOB advantages already in place; like for instance, ABs automatically gave you the paratroop tech…ect, as well as the already important ability to scramble.
On a historical note, a range of 4 spaces is probably longer than the historical distance as represented in the game for most fighters. It wasn’t until the later war periods that newer technology was invented by the US and Canada/UK which increased a fighter’s range significantly. But were playing Global 1940, not 1943!
So, for a historical example, BF 109 fighter squadrons had to be stationed in Norman airfields in order to have the range to escort medium bombers to UK airfields located within a 50 mile vicinity of London. For game mechanics, that translates to a range of 3 spaces for fighters / tac. bombers. If we “grew” up playing axis and allies where fighters had a range of 3 spaces (meaning accepted norm), then if the new cool “airbase” extended the movement range by +2, adding Air bases would become even more valuable!
-
So hard to keep up… Where are we with the range vs. damage?
Suggested Topics
