A&A Variant that adds a twist to the game

I had a few ideas on this too, since HBG and CCM 3D print various pieces:

light cruisers 2/3/2/10
heavy cruisers 4/3/2/14
light aircraft carriers: 1/2/2/12 one AC
tank destroyers: 3/2/2/5
med tank: 2/2/2/4
heavy tank: 4/3/2/8
self propelled artillery: 3/2/2/5 can blitz
medium bombers 3/1/4/10 can strat bomb

Feel free to add ideas, or comment / modify mine

Add German CA in SZ26
Change RU CA to SS in SZ21.
Change OE CA to TR is SZ20.
Russian cannot attack OE on turn 1, and not subject to mines in SZ20.
Allow TR to absorb a mine hit by loss of a load.
Add German SS to SZ18.
Germany can mobilize infantry in Munich.
Switzerland is IMPASSABLE.

I personally have more than one way to “win” the game for each side.

Axis -

Economic Victory - The Axis powers make 150 IPC’s combined
Total Victory - The Axis powers control all Allied Capitals
Victory Objectives - The Axis powers have 5 Victory Objectives
VC Victory - The Axis powers control 12 Victory Cities or the OOB rules

Allies -

Economic Victory - The Allied powers make 200 IPC’s combined
Total Victory - OOB Rules
Victory Objectives - The Allied powers have 5 Victory Objectives
VC Victory - The Allied powers control 16 Victory Cities

World Domination is also a possibility, one we play when we have time.

I think you could just announce that it’s a recon force and which ships would be passing through if it succeeds… maybe put the recon force into the territory for combat and the rest of the fleet could be put on the line between the territories until combat is resolved.  If the recon force takes out the blockers in the first round of combat, the ships on the line could then pass through the territory or use their shore bombardment in the territory: but the recon force could not pass through with them and could not bombard with them (they would be out of position, expended munitions, etc.).  If the recon force fails to take out the blockers, then the remaining ships may join the combat or they could stay in the previous zone and either way can’t pass through or bombard the shore.  The recon force would then have to continue to engage in regular combat or retreat.

@Black_Elk:

Japan’s starting IC violates the island prohibition, even in the OOB game, which always struck me as inconsistent.

Japan is not an island, its a continent like Europe, Africa, Greenland or Australia.

Did some real brief digging around on the wiki and found this…

The last part seems to confirm those speculations in Reason 2 Marc mentioned aboved. Though I think there might still be enough in here to justify a starting Strat B for the Russians.

The fact that the Russians are unlikely to ever be able to afford another one would put a ceiling on it, and give a nod to the fact that the Soviet strategic bombing campaigns in WW2 were dwarfed by those of the Western Allies. The logic there I guess would be that Britain and America can readily expand their bomber arsenal through purchasing, whereas the Soviets are basically stuck using what they start out with, or risk just getting crushed in the land war haha.

Anyhow, here’s quick copy paster…

"Soviet strategic bombing
See also: Shuttle bombing and Operation Frantic
The first Soviet offensive bomber campaign was directed against the Romanian oilfields in the summer of 1941.[185] In response to a German raid on Moscow on the night of 21�22 July 1941, Soviet Naval Aviation launched a series of seven raids against Germany, primarily Berlin, between the night of 7�8 August and 3�4 September. These attacks were undertaken by between four and fifteen aircraft�beginning on 11 August the new Tupolev TB-7�from the island of Saaremaa, base of the 1st Torpedo Air Regiment.[185] (At least one raid of the 81st Air Division took off from Pushkin.) Besides thirty tonnes of bombs, they also dropped leaflets with Joseph Stalin’s defiant speech of 3 July. The Soviets sent a total of 549 long-range bombers over German territory in all of 1941.[185]

In March 1942 the strategic bombing arm of the Soviet Union was reorganized as the Long Range Air Force (ADD). It raided Berlin from 26�29 August and again on the night of 9�10 September with 212 planes.[185] It raided Helsinki for the first time on 24 August, Budapest on 4�5 and 9�10 September and Bucharest on 13�14 September. The German-occupied Polish cities of Krakow and Warsaw were not exempt, but the bombers concentrated primarily on military targets.[185] There were 1,114 sorties over Germany in 1942. In March 1943 there was a strategic shift: in preparation for the Kursk Offensive, the bombers were directed against the German railroads behind the front.[185] In April the Long Range Air Force expanded to eight air corps and eleven independent divisions containing 700 planes. After the Kursk preparations, the Soviets turned their attention to administrative and industrial targets in East Prussia in April. With 920 aircraft taking part, they dropped 700 tonnes of bombs there. The largest Soviet bomb of the war, an 11,000-pound weapon, was dropped on Konigsberg during one of these raids.[185]

Throughout 1943, the Soviets attempted to give the impression of cooperation between their bombers and those of the West.[185] In February 1944 they again shifted priority, this time towards terror bombing, with the goal of knocking Finland and Hungary out of the war.[185] Helsinki was struck by 733 bombers on the night of 6�7 February, by 367 on the 15�16th and 850 on the 25�26th. A total of 2,386 tonnes of bombs were dropped.[185] Budapest was hit four straight nights from 13�20 September with a total of 8,000 tonnes by 1,129 bombers. The Soviets flew 4,466 sorties into enemy territory in the year 1944. In December the Long Range Air Force was reorganized as the 18th Air Army.[185]

The main task of the 18th Air Army was to support the final offensive against Germany, but it also undertook raids against Berlin, Breslau, Danzig and Konigsberg.[185] In total, 7,158 Soviet aircraft dropped 6,700 tonnes of bombs on Germany during the war, a modest 3.1% of Soviet bomber sorties, a mere 0.5% of all Allied “strategic” sorties against German-occupied territory and a measly 0.2% of all bombs dropped on it.[185]

After the war, Marxist historians in the Soviet Union and East Germany claimed that the Soviet strategic bombing campaign was limited by moral qualms over bombing civilian centres.[185] One early bombing theorist, Vasili Chripin, whose theories influenced the Soviet Union’s first strategic bombing guidelines (1936) and the service regulations of 26 January 1940, drew back from terror bombing as advocated by Western theorists.[185] The Spanish Civil War also convinced Soviet war planners that the air force was most effective when used in close cooperation with ground forces. Nonetheless, after the war, Marshal Vasili Sokolovsky admitted that the Soviets would have gladly launched a strategic bombing offensive had they the capability.[185] In reality, the Soviets never geared aircraft production towards long-range bombers, and so never had enough to mount an effective campaign. The land-based nature of warfare on the Eastern Front also required closer cooperation between the air forces and ground troops than did, for example, the defence of Great Britain.[185]"

That note 185 heavily referenced above shows the following as its main/only source… so there’s that too I guess. Little lackluster, but you know what they say about beggers lol

Horst Boog; Derry Cook-Radmore, trans., “Part I: The Strategic Air War in Europe and Air Defence of the Reich, 1943�44”, in Germany and the Second World War, Volume VII: The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943�44/5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 [Stuttgart: Deutsche Veralgs-Anstalt GmbH, 2005]), 153�58.

Hello all,
I just decided to make this account to ask these questions:

I get together with my dad, my cousins, my uncle and myself every year on vacation, and we play A&A Spring 1942. Honestly, myself and my uncle are better players than my cousins and my dad. I was thinking that it might be fun if we can get a “challenge” setup. Does anyone have any different setups that might give a large advantage to the allies? It would be more fun for myself and my uncle to team up, because we always play on opposite sides.

Also, does anyone have any extra rules we can add to limit the time games take? We added a timer, and a max time limit of 2 hours to our last game, and it worked out very well.

Also, these have to be for the Spring 1942 version. (Not sure what edition, think its second.)

Thank you for any help ;)

Back when all we had was Classic, I tried out a game where Germany and Russia were pals and they fought against USA, UK and Japan.  The Germany/Russia combo was pretty devastating.  They rather quickly over ran the rest of the Asian continent and most of Africa, although Russia had some problems with Japan because Japan kept using their transports to drop off troops all along the coast and Russia didn’t yet have enought to put garrisons in each coastal territory. 
As powerful as Germany got by taking most of the Middle-East and Africa, they had a hard time trying to get at England because the Brits kept buying aircraft and sinking all the German ships.  So while Germany had lots of troops and tanks, they couldn’t keep ships to take them to England.  Also, Germany had put so many men along the coasts that America had to build a really huge invasion fleet to get over there.  They also had to be careful about staging their ships because Germany had a lot of Luftwaffe too.
It took a while, but Germany and Russia eventually won.  Russia finally got some planes over to sink the Japanese ships and Germany eventually whittled down the RAF enough that they started to keep and build a decent navy.  They also used lots of subs for fodder (remember back then planes could hit subs anytime).  The big American invasion took too long building and ended up being used to liberate England instead of attacking somewhere in Europe.  Germany had enough guys and transports to re-take England and after a couple of large naval battles, managed to reach North America and had enough transports to keep shuttling men and tanks from Europe to England to Canada, with even a few Russian troops sent over by their puny navy to take defense hits by US counterattacks.  Eventually, they even overwhelmed Eastern US.  Japan couldn’t help because every time they put ships in the water, Russian planes would sink them.