I was thinking about ways to prevent unrealistically huge stacks of infantry being built up in a single territory, and I have thought up a way that is somewhat similar to Strategic bombing.
Here’s what the rule is: At the beginning of the combat phase of your turn, you can choose to perform a “strategic assault.” A strategic assault is a land-based attack against enemy industrial complexes. Any units within movement range of the targeted factory can participate. It works in a similar way to SBR in that only one round of combat would occur. The attacker chooses any number of artillery to participate in the strategic assault (designated artillery). After he/she has done so, one round of normal combat would occur with all land units, except the designated artillery chosen by the attacker. After one round of combat has been completed, for every one designated artillery remaining, roll a die. Add up the total value and divide it by 2, rounding up. Place that many damage markers under the factory.
Basically a ground SBR, I think it would add to the versatility of the game.
I like it!
A bit complicating, but really interesting.
I’ll try it next time.
It might improve if local artillery could just - SBR one zone over… on the flip side, artillery in the “bombed” zone could shoot back with a chance to hit at 1.
1. Choose artillery to bomb the factory.
2. Somehow calculate the damage
3. Defending artillery shoots back @1.
4. Remove attacking artillery casualties.
I would say every artillery inflicts a 1/3 of die rounded up. Basically (1-3 one damage, 4-6 two damage). Because there usually enormous stacks of artillery when a stalemate exist.
Plus the order should be as follows:
1. Choose artillery to bomb the factory.
2. Defending artillery shoots back @1.
3. Remove attacking artillery casualties.
4. Somehow calculate the damage
Which basically represents the cities defensive forces anticipating an assault and shooting as the attackers are setting up.
Interesting idea. I have a few questions:
1 - The artillery designated for the assault on the IC – do they move into the territory with the other land units or stay in the adjacent territorie(s)?
2 - You mentioned this involves 1 round of actual combat with other land units against the defending force in that territory. I understand this is to simulate diversion of the defending force. The attacking force would involve infantry, mechs, tanks and any artillery NOT designated to strike the factory, right? After that 1 round of combat, where do the surviving attacking land units go? For example, lets say the defending territory is Russia and there are German forces in Bryansk, Smolensk and Vologda. After the attack, which territory do the surviving German forces return to? Just one of the territories, like the regular retreat rules? Or all three?
3 - Can aircraft be involved in the ground assault (fighters & tac bombers)
4 - Can you perform an SBR along with this strategic assault?
5 - Are defending artillery units designated to fire at the assaulting artillery like interceptors in an SBR? In other words, if they fire at the assaulting artillery, can they ALSO be used to defend in the ground attack or are they done for this round?
I haven’t perfected the idea but here’s how I see it…@knp7765:
Interesting idea. I have a few questions:
1 - The artillery designated for the assault on the IC – do they move into the territory with the other land units or stay in the adjacent territorie(s)?
2 - You mentioned this involves 1 round of actual combat with other land units against the defending force in that territory. I understand this is to simulate diversion of the defending force. The attacking force would involve infantry, mechs, tanks and any artillery NOT designated to strike the factory, right? After that 1 round of combat, where do the surviving attacking land units go? For example, lets say the defending territory is Russia and there are German forces in Bryansk, Smolensk and Vologda. After the attack, which territory do the surviving German forces return to? Just one of the territories, like the regular retreat rules? Or all three?
3 - Can aircraft be involved in the ground assault (fighters & tac bombers)
4 - Can you perform an SBR along with this strategic assault?
5 - Are defending artillery units designated to fire at the assaulting artillery like interceptors in an SBR? In other words, if they fire at the assaulting artillery, can they ALSO be used to defend in the ground attack or are they done for this round?
I haven’t perfected the idea but here’s how I see it…
1 and 2. I think any units should be able to retreat to any adjacent friendly territory at the attacker’s discretion. So this would mean the designated artillery would be able to move wherever they are able to after the SA.
3. Yes, why not?
4. Yes, as long as the rules for interceptors were worked out. (I.e. are they defending against the SA or the SBR)
5. I don’t know if there should be any “defending artillery,” becuase the way I see it, the one round of normal combat would result in having all defending units involved with the battle, including artillery. The artillery would be more concerned with surviving and defending the territory then they would be with attacking the other artillery.
The game Rise and Decline of the Third Reich (a book shelf game, or whatever they called it) had rules for “attrition.”
To convert that rule into Axis and Allies terms one could do the following:
Add up all the attack values of your pieces that bordered the enemy on that front (for instance Baltic States, E. Poland and Bessarabia border the front created by Poland, Hungary and Romania; Amur borders Manchuria and Korea, etc) divide that number by 20 (I was going to say 18 due to the D6 nature of the game, but that requires a calculator for those not strong in mathematical skills, 20 is easier to do in your head). Your opponent then removes that much attack value from the territories bordering the front you are doing attrition on.
Now, the Rise and Decline game limited this by stating that if you choose attrition, you could not conduct combat moves. To convert to the game, just state that if you do attrition in Europe you cannot do any combat there, Africa no combat in Africa, Middle East, Asia, etc. (This would include all ground and air combat on or over land territories, it would not effect naval combat as attrition does not apply there.)
Benefits:
Limitations:
I would assume that if your regular units die, the rest of the hits go to the designated artillery, right? That would make more sense, so people don’t just send 1 inf with 20 arty to get free shots at the IC.
KillOFzee,
Okay, I misread here. I though you were mentioning “defending artillery” but it was some of the other guys. So the designated artillery actually go INTO the territory with the other land units? During the 1 round of combat, they are left on the board and not placed on the Battle Strip, right? This might be an interesting way to stall your enemy and not let him build as much for defense while your reserves make it up to the front for the final invasion.
Oh yeah, I don’t think there would be a problem with interceptors and SBRs. Any defending fighters would have to choose to either fight in the ground combat or intercept the SBR bombers, just like in regular attacks where the factory is also getting SBRed.
Commander Jennifer,
I read your post a few times but I’m not quite sure I’m getting the point. Here is my take, tell me if I’m right.
Take the 3 German territories bordering the 3 Soviet territories on the Eastern Front. For the sake of simplicity, say the Germans have 20 tanks along that front and the Russians have 20 infantry along that front. You take 20 (# of tanks) X 3 (attack value of tanks) = 60. You then divide that number by 20 for a result of 3. Then the Russians have to remove a total of 3 infantry pieces along that front since Infantry have an attack value of 1. Is this right?
If so, which of the 3 territories do the infantry get taken from? One from each, Russia’s choice, Germany’s choice?
Also, do the Russians get to do the same thing to Germany?
If so, then I think in this example the Russian number would be a 1. If Germany has just tanks on that front, and tanks have an attack value of 3, how do you take out 1 attack value worth of units? You can’t take 1/3 of a tank off.
If NOT, then isn’t this kind of thing totally unfair to Russia? Germany could stack the Eastern Front with tanks and just sit there destroying Russian infantry and losing nothing of their own forces. After a few rounds, Russia would be weak enough that Germany could easily attack and end up going into Russia with much more than they would with normal combat.
Am I understanding this concept right?
Tanks don’t count. Only infantry and artillery.
Germany has 40 Infantry, 10 Artillery in Hungary, Romania and Poland.
Total: 70 Punch.
70/20 = 3.5. Russia must remove 3 punch worth of units (attacking) ~ 3 infantry
(Germany loses nothing for this action, but cannot make any combat moves along that entire front line.)
Yeah, I think a strategic assualt would be a little more effective than attrition. I understand the concept, and it’s defineitly a good one, but the problem is, attrition would not be as effective in Axis and allies, where three infantry is minimal loss to anyone.
I was thinking about ways to prevent unrealistically huge stacks of infantry being built up in a single territory, and I have thought up a way that is somewhat similar to Strategic bombing.
The strategic assault sounds really cool, but how would it prevent unrealistically huge stacks of infantry being built up in a defending territory? If one round of normal combat occurs during the strategic assault, it plays to the defender’s advantage to have as many defending units as he can–including “fodder units” like infantry.
Just because the attacker isn’t trying to take the defender’s territory doesn’t mean the defender doesn’t still want to kill as many attacking units as he can.
I was thinking about ways to prevent unrealistically huge stacks of infantry being built up in a single territory, and I have thought up a way that is somewhat similar to Strategic bombing.
The strategic assault sounds really cool, but how would it prevent unrealistically huge stacks of infantry being built up in a defending territory? If one round of normal combat occurs during the strategic assault, it plays to the defender’s advantage to have as many defending units as he can–including “fodder units” like infantry.
Just because the attacker isn’t trying to take the defender’s territory doesn’t mean the defender doesn’t still want to kill as many attacking units as he can.
I guess I should’ve picked better words but what I mean was that since there would be heavily damaged factories in defender’s territories, units could not be built as quickly and in such great number. I suppose it would be just as effective as SBR in terms of preventing build up.
OK, that makes a lot more sense now. One other thing I do see is someone abusing this rule to get an extra move for some of their units–if I owned a territory that was inaccessible from the territory my army was in, but my enemy owned a territory (with a factory in it) that bordered both of my territories, I could launch a strategic assault against my enemy’s factory and then “retreat” my forces into the inaccessible territory.
For example, a German army could launch a strategic assault against Karelia S.S.R with the sole objective of moving an army from the Baltic States to Finland, or launch a strategic assault from the Eastern Ukraine into Russia, and then “retreat” their forces into the Urals or Novosibirsk once the first round of combat was done (assuming the Urals or Novosibirsk were controlled by an axis power). In each instance, the assaulting nation could attack with a force much too small to actually take the territory, yet still get the advantage of moving through the territory as though they had actually conquered it.
I like the idea of strategic assaults, but if I was going to play a game with them I would require all assaulting land units to retreat back into the territory they had originated in once the assault was over.
