I have a question about the carrier as a capital ship, taking two hits to kill.
Imagine there is a carrier with two planes on it. They all belong to the same nation, and are the only pices this nation has in this very sea zone. Then the carrier is attacked, let’s say by an enemy destroyer. The destroyer scores one hit, and the carrier or the planes scores a hit as well. So the destroyer is gone and combat is over.
However, the defending player choose to let the carrier take the hit, since it is a capital ship. So she flips it over on it’s side. From what I understand, the carrier is now damaged.
And damaged carriers cannot conduct air operations? Which means the planes, if they cannot land on a different friendly carrier in the same sea zone, can move 1 space in order to land, right? But if they still have no place to land, they are considered lost?
If your fighters take off to battle an enemy and you choose to take the carrier hit, because the planes are in the air, they cannot land until repaired so you need to send them to land and if you cannot, they crash due to lack of fuel so as crappy as the situation is, logic seems you should take the hits on the fighters and let the carrier die last otherwise taking the single hit on the carrier becomes three hits overall. Now, if you choose not to send the fighters into battle, if the carrier gets hit, the fighters are now trapped inside the ship like cargo and cannot leave until the carrier is fixed.
I hope this helps.
Also, from my understanding, the same logic applies to allied fighters.
Thank you guys, that was very helpful.
But when will this “trapped cargo” situation the rule book mentions occur? Only if the carrier had one friendly plane from another nation, and the owner of the carrier moved it into an attack, in order to use the one free space for his own fighter, coming from somewhere else? But he got two hits, so his own fighter is gone and the carrier is damaged? Then the friendly fighter cannot do anything until the carrier is fixed next round or so?
That’s correct. It can only happen when an attacking carrier has a fighter belonging to an ally on it.
Then I get it. Cheers.
@krieghund
There seems to be a contradiction in the instructions and there is no actual way a plane can become trapped on a carrier it seems:
Axis-Allies-Europe-1940-Second-Edition states:
“Any guest air units that were on board the carrier as cargo at the time when it was damaged are trapped onboard and can’t leave, attack, or defend until the carrier is repaired.”
But it then says:
“Air Defense: Whenever an undamaged carrier is attacked, its aircraft (even those belonging to friendly powers) are considered to be defending in the air and fight normally, even if only submarines are attacking and the air units cannot hit them because there is no defending destroyer”
Source: page P31 https://www.axisandallies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Axis-Allies-Europe-1940-Second-Edition.pdf
There is no contradiction.
Your first quote says that planes on a (to be) damaged carrier can’t do anything until the carrier will be repaired. An attacking carrier can’t ‘release’ friendly fighters before, as friendly units never attack together. So those planes are not “in the air” but cargo. And in case a damaged carrier is attacked, no plane can be in the air at all.
Your second quote addresses the attack of an undamaged carrier. As friendly powers defend together the planes are in the air, when the carrier might be damaged, what would prevent the planes to land there in that case.
So these are completely different situations.
@generalmalaise Yes, as @Panther noted, and as can be found on page 15 of the AAE40 Rulebook, guest fighters on attacking carriers are cargo, and can therefore become trapped if a carrier is damaged in combat.
@krieghund :+1:
@panther
Ah yes, forgot about attacking with a friendly on board.
