My question is about the order of declarations when scrambling comes into play.
Say the US holds Hawaii. It has one infantry and two fighters on Hawaii and a destroyer in SZ 26. There is an airbase on Hawaii.
Japan attacks with a cruiser, a transport carrying a tank and an infantry, and two fighters. The fighters can reach Hawaii (not just SZ 26). Japan’s goal is to kill the destroyer and then take Hawaii in an amphibious assault.
The US can choose to scramble to defend SZ 26 if it wants because it has an airbase.
My question is, when does the US have to declare its scrambling intentions? Is it as Japan makes the combat move into SZ 26 or only after Japan has fully declared all its combat intentions?
The order is a big deal in scenarios like this one.
If Japan has to declare everything first, it means the US can wait and see what is happening. If Japan sends its fighters to the SZ, the US can hold its fighters back on Hawaii thereby making it pretty sure that Japan won’t take the island. If Japan sends its fighters to Hawaii, the US can scramble and will likely annihilate the cruiser and transport in the SZ while the Japanese fighters continue futilely on to Hawaii.
On the other hand, if the US has to declare its scrambling intentions first, Japan can arrange for its fighters to match up against the US fighters thereby giving Japan a much better chance of carrying the day.
My friends and I find the scrambling rules hard to decipher on this point about the order of declaration.
The best reading we can give it appears to require the attacker to declare first. This strikes us as wrong for a number of reasons, however.
First, it basically means that the defender gets to decide where his aircraft were after the attacker makes his attack. “Your aircraft are attacking my island? Oh, well then my aircraft were actually over the SZ. Your aircraft are attacking my SZ? Oh, well then my aircraft were actually on the island.” In all other situations, the attacker gets to decide what he is attacking. Imagine attacking two adjacent land territories and the defender getting to decide after the attacks are announced which territory his infantry were in. Absurd!
Second, it doesn’t seem to match real life. If the Japanese commander in my scenario gave his pilots instructions to protect the attack, they wouldn’t stay out over the empty ocean while the US fighters pounded the Japanese troops attempting to take the beach. Nor would they obliviously let the US fighters fly past them toward the ships while they (the Japanese fighters) merrily continued inland.
Third, if the defender gets to declare last it basically turns any island with an airbase into an invulnerable fortress. The attacker essentially has to bring enough forces to defeat the defender’s air force in two battles, knowing that one of them won’t actually be fought.
How do you handle the question of when and how the defender has to declare his scrambling intentions?
Thanks.