Not permitting AAA to participate in the attack makes no sense to me. As enemy aircraft circulate the battlefield, attacking units always want their anti-air capabilities up front to provide protection.
Anti-aircraft units are/were embedded with combat commands at varying levels and always go “forward” with the command they fall under during offensive operations. In the US Army today; Air Defense Artillery is mostly a Corp level asset in which various companies or battalions are attached to brigades or other commands as needed.
I think it would be ok if the rules from the get go permitted an “attack” with AAA whether land or sea. Regarding amphibious assaults, remember, the units’ representation in this abstract game do not always represent an actual size or number. Also an amphibious assault is still that even when the invading army has gained a few miles inland of the beachhead. It’s not a forgone conclusion that the invading Army can’t be pushed off the beachhead within a day or so. The initially gained beachhead is part of the same operation and that’s when the invading Army attempts to gain as much capability as possible: supplies, equipment (tanks and AAA), and retrograde for wounded.
So, just like the defending AAA, the attacking AAA would roll dice under the same OOB dice rules. Then normal combat would proceed.
I started this poll based upon a G40 question from the below thread.
Anti-aircraft units are/were embedded with combat commands at varying levels and always go “forward” with the command they fall under during offensive operations. In the US Army today; Air Defense Artillery is mostly a Corp level asset in which various companies or battalions are attached to brigades or other commands as needed.
Just as a point of background (since I don’t have any particular preferences about the proposed HR itself), not all WWII AAA units were intended to be mobile support units for advancing ground forces. Some were, some weren’t. Speaking very generally, light WWII AAA weapons were sufficiently transportable that they could, in principle, alternate quickly between moving and shooting (or even do both simultaneously in the case of vehicle-mounted light autocannons or heavy machine guns). Heavy WWII AAA weapons could be towed to their place of operation, but then had to be set up before they could operate and could not move while doing so. The heavier the weapon, the more it tended to be used for the fixed defense of fixed installations (like cities and military bases), not for mobile battlefield support. Keep in mind that US Army practice today, 70 years after WWII, doesn’t provide an accurate picture of what US Army practice was during WWII, when armies were far less motorized (especially when you consider the situation of other WWII armies, which by and large were even less motorized than US forces).
@CWO:
Heavy WWII AAA weapons could be towed to their place of operation, but then had to be set up before they could operate and could not move while doing so.
Yes. Exactly. They’re still being moved forward.
Most of the US Army/Marine Corp artillery even today is NOT self-propelled, it’s pulled. They go forward to their respective place on the battlefield and move forward as needed. Yes, they’re not at the exact front lines where Soldiers are firing rifles. But they move forward on offensive operations once the forward positions of the enemy are out of range. Same thing with AAA.
I think in WW2, the US military and maybe the UK/Commonwealth countries were the only militaries that didn’t need horses to pull supplies or artillery. I’m certain at least that the US military didn’t.
However, the US military like all forces now is much more mechanized. Yes, the military today is not the same as 70 years ago. In my opinion, it’s close enough for like comparisons when considering basic equipment. I’m not an expert on anything military. Please don’t take me the wrong way here. Based upon my experiences; modern warfare conventionally is not a lot different. Artillery might launch a shell farther, but it’s still the same. The M16 is better than the M1 Garand, but I bet a well-trained US Army Soldier with it today would do just fine against enemies firing blindly with their AK and not taking well aimed shots.
Thanks for taking part in my poll!
Unfortunately, in G40, where each nation has their own AA guns, you can clearly see they are fixed AA guns. Now you could always lie and say they are mobile AA guns how some nations experimented with the idea of putting AA guns on half tracks.
@Caesar:
Unfortunately, in G40, where each nation has their own AA guns, you can clearly see they are fixed AA guns.
The AAA units can be seen in the unit identification chart titled “WW2-Land-AntiAircraft Artillery.jpg” over here:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31982.0
The Bofors 40mm autocannon appears to be the only mobile unit in the group.
Caesar,
The artillery in axis and allies are “fixed” too. Most artillery is pulled even today.
I like this video cause it shows a badass Marine Corp gun section in operation doing their trade effectively…this artillery crew is just practicing. If on offense, they’d be moving forward, setting up and re-setting up. In the foreground 15-20 seconds in, you can see a ladder that’s attached to a vehicle. That’s probably the vehicle which tows it.
@CWO:
The Bofors 40mm autocannon appears to be the only mobile unit in the group.
Nice work on putting all of those charts together!
Do you think mobile matters?
Do you think mobile matters?
I was responding to Caesar Seriona’s post which said that “in G40, where each nation has their own AA guns, you can clearly see they are fixed AA guns.” Most are, but one isn’t. But anyway, the sculpts used in A&A are more “illustrative” than anything else, from the point of view of historical accuracy. As A&A units, they’re uniform in type and performance; in real life, the models and classes on which the sculpts are based had a very wide diversity of performance, and in some cases were different types of weapons.
I like the idea. I use the white AA guns for defend at 2 in my game if you get radar tech. Also have tech were an AAA gun can shoot up to 3 spaces away from any territory at a factory. Also have tried using as a tank destroyer and had it fire 1 territory away and pick the tank target.
So using it as a attack piece with ground troops I would give AAA a shot at a defending plane 1 round only and no return fire. Or use it to attack a plane or a ground piece. Same rule.
Need a mech, truck or spa to tow.
1 AAA gun per territory only.
Even the ANZAC AA gun is fixed by definition, just because it continues to sit on tires doesn’t mean it self propelled.
@Caesar:
Even the ANZAC AA gun is fixed by definition, just because it continues to sit on tires doesn’t mean it self propelled.
Caesar, please explain why that matters? What’s the correlation to this post?
Not being smart or anything. Being sincere.
I am responding to someone who respond to me having the idea of using half tracks for AA guns if you’re going to try to use AA guns offensively. All the AA guns in this game are fixed and not self propelled in anyway.
What do you mean by fixed? It’s not an inanimate object. They represent a “unit” of AAA that would have self-internal vehicles to pull the equipment (or horses if German Army, lol) from position to position, Soldiers to operate it, cooks to make their food, supply sergeants to maintain their Class V…ect.
I find it kind of hard to believe on an offensive move that the power that be can have time to set up an AA gun.
From my point of view, it doesn’t matter. Even the symbolized “artillery” in the game represents a “unit” which has organic vehicles to tow it, maintain it’s supply, and Soldiers to crew it. Sure, some AAA would actually be “fixed” in place and not moved about the battlefield. I do understand your point.
However, it’s really easy for me to visualize a gun crew setting up an Anti-Air Artillery tube or like equipment. The various guns have ranges; and would be moved forward, setup, used, then re-hitched. Not as fast as tanks, but could keep up with the leg infantry. They might never get closer than 1000 yards of the front lines where Soldiers are firing machine guns at a max range like that. But what is the range of these AAA? Some of them I think was like 7000 meters which means some protection for tanks a long ways ahead of them without having to move to a new position for a time being. Often the infantry walking would be far behind the tanks. But we don’t rule out infantry being able to attack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Flak_18/36/37/41
Most famous German AAA of the war. This artillery tube would be towed about the battlefield on offense and defense. It would be setup and re-setup as needed. Takes a trained crew about 10 minutes to un-hitch, setup and operate a fire mission.
In this special poll and case, I don’t think such AAA would unbalanced things even if you give it an offensive capacity similar to OOB defense. For 5 IPCs, a clumsy unit became functional in both NCM or CM and it is still a single opening round shots. Will become more popular probably but you cannot win a battle with this alone.
Maybe attacking AAA get no preemptive rolls, just regular?
About how you rationalize this AAA unit, is up to you.
But we can assume each regular ground unit can shot down planes, so includes Anti-aircraft weapons.
Since facilities had immobile AAgun, you get to decide what kind of heavy AAA weapon is this unit.
Old AAguns were undestructible, so seem to be heavily protected with concrete and defensive hard points.
The new 2nd ed AAA seems heavier than other Anti-air capacity of ground units but lighter and maybe more mobile than IC’s AAA kind of.
Honestly, offensive AA wouldn’t really break the game, it will be there to annoy defensive aircraft but I think the bigger pro is that you can take loses from your AA rather than your infantry as an example.
Since 5 IPCs is a much costlier fodder than Inf, it would be a desperate use of AAA.
But, it is a way to increase your skew in battle by taking a no attack unit as casualty.
Yeah, your operation cost goes up however in a desperate attack, you will increase your odds throwing your AA guns over combat units.
You would only be allowed 1 AA gun per territory attack. AA gets only 1 shot at a plane before battle begins. Can take AA gun as casualty. So the most you gain for that is 1 inf.
Just imagine that AA gun is on wheeled trailer.
