Making Airbases Required for Flight/Landing

[Krieghund]

@trackmagic:

Krieghund, if you read this at all I would be interested if you guys thought about doing something like this and what the reason was you ended up not going this route. (When I originally heard you were adding airbase tokens I thought this would be the rule)

It was considered.  I can’t say why it wasn’t done.

[oztea]

you cant say why, or you cant remember why

I think why is because it limits air power immensely, you would either have to start the game with 100 airbases to it fair. It would almost make the rest of airbases abillities irrelevent, and just standard powers of air units

[Omega]

This would push realism into the right direction. At the same time, lowering Planes use on the ground and probably making Bomber all godly (since they have huge range)

This would definately make Japan weaker in the current Pacific game, no doubt about this. Maybe UK and Anzac too

Robert

[Zieleniuk]

Advanced Island Airbase Rules
For AAP40
Version 1.0
Created By Jeff Zieleniuk 03/09/2010

Here are some additional Island Airbase rules, to simulate a more realistic airbase structure, and air war scenario. During WW2 capturing islands was important strategy to move closer to objectives, many of these islands were under developed, and not suitable for landing aircraft until improvements were made. Capturing these island to extend the ability to position aircraft was imperative, as this reduces the need for a huge carrier fleet, and gave both sides the ability to more effectively protect shipping lanes, and launch sorties without putting carriers in harm’s way of enemy fleets.
Airbases still provide all the normal functions as per the Base rules found in the rule book, these are in addition to the existing rules. Please feel free to use only part of these to fit your taste of game play.

1. Airbases are required to land on an island. Continental Territories; N. America, Asia, Australia, and Japan ignore these rules. In effect you can land planes on any friendly controlled territory that is on a continent as per normal rules.  If you wish to land aircraft on an Island it must have a friendly airbase for you to be able to land on. During Setup if you have aircraft stationed on an island (example Formosa) simply place an airbase on that island. Remember continental territories such as Manchuria are exempt from this rule.
2. Basing Limits.  Island Airbases have a limited capacity to hold planes, at the start of the game island airbases can base 9 aircraft (Exception: Continental Territories; N. America, Asia, Australia, and Japan ignore these rules.)
3. Upgrading an Airbase. During your Purchase Phase you can upgrade an existing Island airbase facility, for Every 5 IPC you spend on Upgrade you can base an Additional 3 planes. Use some sort of marking mechanism to show the facility has been upgraded. Each upgrade bought will also increase the amount of damage the Island airbase is capable of taking. For every upgrade applied increase the damage capacity by 1. ( Example, In normal rules an airbase take 3 hits of damage it is inoperative until repaired, so Say the airbase on the Philippines is upgrade one time it can now house 12 aircraft, and takes 4 points of damage to make it inoperative).
4. Island Airbase Damage.  Island Airbases may be bombed during an SBR to make them inoperative, and negate the effect it confers to units and the map. For every one point of damage applied the base losses the capability to land, or launch 3 aircraft until repaired, this includes scramble ability and SBR Defense. This does not affecting basing rules, aircraft in excess of the aircraft limit are considered grounded do to runway cratering, damage to facilities, and decreased logistical support.
   • If planes are launched in defense of an SBR against an Island Airbase, and enough damage is done to the airbase to restrict some or all of the defending planes from landing, they are allowed to immediately take their full movement to either find another island airbase , continental territory, or aircraft carrier to land on, if none are in range the plane is lost.
   • If an Island airbase is made inoperative, it cannot launch or land aircraft, it cannot be used to scramble, SBR Defense, or confer movement bonus. Also in addition to this, if an island airbase is made inoperative the planes on it are effectively grounded, they cannot be launched. (Example Bombers can’t be used in SBR defense, they could become stuck on the airbase, or if you decided to not use fighter aircraft in defense of an SBR.) If an island airbase is reduced to 0 points, any further bombing runs made against the facility, will instead destroy grounded aircraft. This is accomplished by rolling one dice for every bomber than makes a run against an inoperative facility, for every roll that comes up a 1 destroy one grounded aircraft, all other rolls are considered misses.

Please feel free to use this in your game; also please let me know if you have any other ideas that could be merged into this. Above all please comment.
PM me and i can send this to you in .doc format.

[Gharen]

This is probably one of the most inventive house rules I have ever read.  It is the most real one as well because what do planes have to do in real life?  Take off and land at airbases.  This would severally limit EVERYONE in the game and thus I think, balance the game out tremendously.  Having to build forward bases makes the game take longer and I think could make it more interesting.  Carriers would be bought quite more often and this would turn the Pacific into what it truly was, several nations jockeying for position and having to take islands, build air fields, and move on.  I really like this.

[Zieleniuk]

Thnaks for the feedback has anyone tried these out yet.  Unfortunately i havent been able to get a group together since i wrote these.

[lnmajor]

well done!
been trying to think this one out for awhile. one idea i had was you have to purchese airbases for pacific islands, then you have to pay extra to upgrade them to accept bombers. islands with airbases were crucial to the bombing campain against japan. we lost thousands of men invading okanawa just to secure it as an airbase. allways think of islands as unsinkable aircraft carriers

[spartan solider]

I love this idea :-D, it is very accurate historic wise and also adds a lot of new tactics and limitations to the game :-), I endorse the upgrading idea mentioned by the guy who posted before me and would like to hear his stats and such  8-)but I battle tested this rule yesterday :-) and it worked great, I will be using this rule from now on for sure  :-D :mrgreen:

[Wilson2]

@Omega:

At the same time, lowering Planes use on the ground and probably making Bomber all godly (since they have huge range)

Really? I would think that it would make the bomber worse. All this rule would do would be to make all planes have to be carrier based.  That pretty much kills the bomber. Also, due to the limited range of fighters/tac bombers, they are already not very effective on islands (unless there is an air base). So implementing this rule would hurt bombers more because they are the ones that actually use the islands.

[crusaderiv]

_I love this idea , it is very accurate historic wise and also adds a lot of new tactics and limitations to the game , I endorse the upgrading idea mentioned by the guy who posted before me and would like to hear his stats and such  8-)but I battle tested this rule yesterday  and it worked great, I will be using this rule from now on for sure _

It only takes a few days to build airfield so why pay extra cost for that?
There was already airbase everywhere in the pacific (Except Guadacanal and New Guinea island)
so it’s useless.