Who thinks there should be an official Atomic Bomb rule????

Ideally I think that the Atomic Bomb should be a special and advanced hard to get technology. But not going to worry about it too much since we don’t even have normal technology right now

Atomic bomb won’t destroy the entire army of a territory.
They were used for different reasons (ultimate civilian bombing to force the country into a surrender for the safety of the civilians).

I don’t think it’s a good idea…

@Noll:

Atomic bomb won’t destroy the entire army of a territory.
They were used for different reasons (ultimate civilian bombing to force the country into a surrender for the safety of the civilians).

So as a house rule an atom bomb could for example destroy an IC (actually remove it from the board)

@special:

@Noll:

Atomic bomb won’t destroy the entire army of a territory.
They were used for different reasons (ultimate civilian bombing to force the country into a surrender for the safety of the civilians).

So as a house rule an atom bomb could for example destroy an IC (actually remove it from the board)

That could work. Maybe giving the chance to develope it for Germany too.

cool subject matter

I like the idea… after all, the first edition/Nova included them.  I have A-bomb rules for AA50th, in some gaming groups we don’t use them (or any tech for that matter, or NO’s), but it has provided an interesting and fun game or two when we have.  A lot of the time it was ignored or just didn’t happen in time to matter. I’ve never tried any atom bomb variants for global.

Strange… talking about splitting the atom as a weapon for ‘fun’…  :|  eh eh eh

edit: Well… the atom bomb rules in the Nova edition were “official optional rules”, not standard official…

I didn’t think the original game that the A-bomb was optional, or was it technology in general that was optional?  From what I remember, you could build one and only one A-bomb for 5 IPC (I think it was in 100’s of IPC?) the turn after you obtained the a-bomb technology.  The the following turn you load the A-Bomb unit onto a bomber and could use it, but of course it was a single bomber run and the AA units fired at one plane and hit on a 1-3.  Now did it take out the IC as well or just all units on that territory including the AA gun?

@special:

So as a house rule an atom bomb could for example destroy an IC (actually remove it from the board)

I am not sure who that would benefit ?

Lets say US bombs the major IC in Germany for a full 20 damage every turn, so Germany must spend more than 11 IPC to build one unit (unless the rules are changed again). Now Germany dont need a major IC there, but there are no way to remove it, so they must pay.

Next turn US drop the A-bomb and the whole major IC is removed from the board. So Germany buy a minor IC, that can only take 6 damage. Unless US nuke Germany every turn, the nazies now pay 4 IPC’s extra for the first unit and not 11 IPC’s extra like when they had a major there.

So who does the A-bomb benefit ?

In terms of damage, I saw a post suggested where an A-Bomb would totally remove an air base, a naval base or a minor IC.  For major ICs, it would reduce them to a fully damaged minor.
I don’t remember the rules on how to obtain an A-Bomb or A-Bomb technology.
As far as military terms go, I don’t think we could really use it in this game because the scale is too large.  For example:  The USA gets an A-Bomb and decided to use it on Japan.  The territory of “Japan” is literally the entire country of Japan.  An atomic bomb only destroyes 1 city within a country, not the entire country or all of it’s military units.
If we wanted to use A-Bombs tactically, perhaps you could say a country using the A-Bomb could pick any 1 unit of the attacker’s choice on the bombed territory and remove it from play.  For example:  Say the USA has A-Bomb tech and attacks Japan.  Japan has 10 inf and 3 fighters.  The USA calls an A-Bomb strike and removes 1 fighter.  That would be more realistic as on the scale of this game, 1 fighter piece would be like an entire fighter wing, which could be destroyed by an A-Bomb.  Of course, you would then have to set rules as to how many A-Bombs could be used in any turn.  Or maybe the USA would have to pay so much for each A-Bomb used.  This would be needed to keep the USA from using 13 A-Bombs and just walking into Japan with 1 infantry.
Another consideration:  do you want to consider the effects of radiation on a territory hit by one or more A-Bombs?  Like perhaps after an A-Bomb strike, no one can enter that territory for 1 round.  Would that also mean that Japan could not build there for that 1 round?  If they could, that would make USA’s A-Bomb almost useless because Japan would simply replace the units destroyed in last round’s A-Bomb strike.  If not, assuming this is the only IC Japan has, are they simply not allowed to build for that round?  If that were the case, when USA did invade Japan, assuming they win, they would plunder 2 rounds of income instead of just 1.  Perhaps that would be a bonus to compensate for the expense of A-Bombs?

@Razor:

@special:

So as a house rule an atom bomb could for example destroy an IC (actually remove it from the board)

I am not sure who that would benefit ?

Lets say US bombs the major IC in Germany for a full 20 damage every turn, so Germany must spend more than 11 IPC to build one unit (unless the rules are changed again). Now Germany dont need a major IC there, but there are no way to remove it, so they must pay.

Next turn US drop the A-bomb and the whole major IC is removed from the board. So Germany buy a minor IC, that can only take 6 damage. Unless US nuke Germany every turn, the nazies now pay 4 IPC’s extra for the first unit and not 11 IPC’s extra like when they had a major there.

So who does the A-bomb benefit ?

If you bomb a major into desolation, Germany has to pay 11 IPC to build that first unit. If you nuke a major, Germany has to pay at least 12 IPC to build that first unit. After that initial turn, you are right that Germany will be better suited to have a minor and pay a penalty of 4 instead of a major paying a penalty of 11. But it doesn’t end there. Rebuilding a IC means that penalty ends at 12. Bombing a major means 11 IPC penalty, plus 1 for each additional unit.
Clearly SBRs have the greater potential for economic damage.

But nukes should be thought of differently. They should have the potential to change a game. Say, lower the IPC value of a territory in addition to severe damage to ICs or units?

@MacNaughton:

But nukes should be thought of differently. They should have the potential to change a game. Say, lower the IPC value of a territory in addition to severe damage to ICs or units?

Not sure that I would like that idea.  Eventually, you will want to attack and capture that territory.  Wouldn’t you want to get the full value?

Then again, that could be looked at as a sort of penalty for using A-Bombs in the first place.  Yeah you hurt the enemy and yeah you get the territory, but you don’t get as much for it now.

Atomic bomb rules = boring!!!

@Rammstein:

A special Bomber is to be produced that is the Atomic Bomb carrier. It must come from the continental US.

Just a question to clarify something.  By “It must come from the continental US” I assume you mean that it must be manufactured at an industrial complex in the U.S., and that it must take a number of turns to get within striking range of its targets (to represent refuelling stops along the way)?  I don’t imagine that “It must come from the continental US” means that the bomber flies an SBR mission directly from the continental U.S. to (let’s say) Japan in a single game turn – the equivalent of flying halfway around the world in a single mission.  The B-29, whose range was enormous by WWI standards, could reach Japan from the Mariana Islands (and fly back to its base), but that was pretty much as far as it could go.

For atomic explosion markers, by the way, these would work nicely:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/108844/sushi-jalapeno-war?size=large

I don’t know that an A-Bomb should destroy military targets directly. I think if a country gets A-Bomb tech, they could somehow use it to permanently reduce the IPC value of a territory. Maybe a straight 1 or 2 points or maybe a die roll. That way you destroy the workforce and infrastructure producing the units. Reducing Japan to 0 IPCs means they would have to transport reinforcements in to defend the capital.

Well we have to ask FIRST. What was the biggest effect from the nuclear blasts?

Economic distruption, Morale disruption, and Civilian DEATH.

Nuclear weapons at the time were much smaller in scale than the things that were available 10 years to come.

Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, were targets to BREAK Japanese Morale.  And they did exactly that.

An A-Bomb rule should do 2 things. 
1. Massive economic Damage OR Facility removal.
2. Score whats called a MORALE point.  If you recieve 6 moral points, you LOSE. 
3. Morale points should be included in major defeats, IE you lose 100 IPC’s MORE equipment in a single battle than your opponent, or something.

A bombs need to add another scale to the game,  OR just be used as an economic weapon.

A-BOMB’s:  Your nuclear bomber(s) always do the maximum amount of strategic damage - no dice (6+2 = 8 damage).  It can also do damage above and beyond typical limits (Like airbases have a limit of 6)  If you can do more damage than the value of a facility, said facility is destroyed immediately and permanently.

Just to follow up on my earlier post about the atomic explosion markers (black mushroom cloud sculpts) made by Xeno Games, the best sculpts I’ve ever found for use as unexploded atomic bombs are the missile sculpts from the Superpowers game, laid on their sides rather than positioned vertically:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/455412/superpowers

The missile piece is the big one on the left side of the picture, not the little one on a wheeled undercarriage at the bottom.  The colours in the picture are a bit misleading; the missile sculpts look beige, but they’re actually white.

I bought Superpowers as a game in itself, so the redeployment of its missiles as A-bombs in an A&A context is just a bonus use.  I suppose, though, that if somebody were to buy the Superpowers game just for those missile sculpts, this would fit nicely with rules that would make A-bombs very expensive to purchase: there are just 8 such sculpts in the game, out of 440 pieces.

The main problem with A Bomb rules for this game is that 1) Whoever develops this tech will ultimately win the game. so do the “Hail Mary” dump all iPCs into research and you will most likely win.
2) The only country that has the resources to do this is the U.S. Even thou Germany and Japan can build their economy up to compete with the U.S. with comprable IPCs. They must use it all up to feed their war machine. Russia will not sit quietly at peace with Germany while Germany is spending all income on a A Bomb.
Ultimately both these senarios reflect what can and did play out in the real war but will unbalance the game into an unplayable situation.

A - bomb not for me. Leave it up to strategy and die rolls and if you need to change up game, play with some NO and Tech. But not A-bomb.

ATOMIC BOMB
Germany and the United States can build A-bombs.  The first A-bomb that is developed by a power costs 500IPCs, and each subsequent A-bomb costs 50IPCs.  An A-bomb is paid for at the Purchase & Repair phase and must be mobilized at a major industrial complex at the Mobilize Units phase.  A-bombs can be moved like artillery (i.e. 1 space per turn on land; 1 infantry and 1 A-bomb can be moved on a transport).  An A-bomb must be delivered by a strategic bomber that takes off from the same territory where the A-bomb was located at the beginning of Combat Movement.  The procedure for delivering an A-bomb is the same as a strategic bombing raid (i.e. bomber and escorts fire, interceptors fire, AA fires, then bomb is dropped).  When the A-bomb is delivered, the attacker rolls 1 die and if the roll is 4 or less the A-bomb detonates successfully.  Any minor industrial complex, naval base or air base in a territory that is hit with an A-bomb is permanently removed and cannot be rebuilt. A major industrial complex that is hit with an A-bomb is reduced to a minor IC with 6 damage points.  The damage points may be repaired for 1IPC each, but the IC can never be upgraded into a major IC.  In addition, the power that receives an A-bomb attack loses 20IPCs to represent the loss of military and civilian morale.