Balancing Cruiser (CL) and Battleship (BB) units with other A&A units

The Waffen-SS Panzer Jäger unit is available for production from Early 1944.

The number of Waffen-SS Panzer Jäger units is limited to 2 units.

Further play testing is still ongoing.

We expect to be able to release the Waffen-SS Panzer Jäger rulebook no later than 16th December 2024.

To follow up on this, here’s the interpretation I’d put on the concept of fast versus slow groupings of capital ships (battleships and battlecruisers) with other ships.  The concept did exist in both WWI and WWII, but it took different forms.

In WWI (and the decade leading up to it), naval technology such as turbine engines and face-hardened armour, plus ship design philosophy in general, had progressed to the point where the dreadnought-type capital ship (uniform-caliber main battery in more than two twin turrets, good protection, and fairly high speed) had become feasible, but it had not progressed to the point where all three features (firepower, protection and speed) could be optimized at the same time.  That would have to wait for WWII, when the true “fast battleship” type emerged.  (The same thing happened with tanks, but with a one-war difference: in WWII, tanks could be optimized for two of three features, or have medium performance in all three areas, but it was only during the Cold War that technology allowed a tank to have excellent performance in all three areas.)

During WWI, technological limitations (plus the considerable influence of Admiral John Fisher, who was a visionary in both the good and the bad sense of the concept) led to the emergence of two varieties of dreadnought-type capital ships: the battleship and the battlecruiser.  Basically, dreadnought battleships were reasonably fast (but not as fast as cruisers), and had both heavyweight firepower and heavyweight armour that allowed them to slug it out with anything afloat; the rule of thumb was that a balanced battleship design had “proportional” armour capable of dealing with an enemy ship carrying the same caliber of main guns as it itself carried.  Battlecruisers were similar to dreadnought battleships (the British, in fact, tended to create a parallel class of battlecruiser for its respective battleship classes), but they carried fewer main gun turrets and had less armour so that they could achieve higher speed than a battleship; they were roughly as fast as a normal cruiser, considerably better-armed, and somewhat (but not always by much) better protected.  Battlecruisers, according to British doctrine, were operated as part of what could be called “fast heavy scouting divisions,” in advance of the main formation of the more powerful but slower battleships.  For a classic example of this, have a look at the two main British formations at the Battle of Jutland: Jellicoe’s slower battleship force, and Beatty’s faster battlecruiser force.

In WWII, the picture becomes more complicated.  There were relatively few battlecruisers at that time, and they were a strange mixture of British and Japanese WWI hold-overs, weird German designs reflecting (or intended to cheat) treaty limitations, clear-headed French and Italian modern evolutions of the battlecruiser concept, plus the well-made but rather pointless American Alaska class (which the Americans denied were battlecruisers).  To me, these odd ships muddy the picture more than anything else.  In my opinion, the real fast-versus-slow capital ship distinction in WWII wasn’t between battlships and battlecruisers, it was between the modern 1930s- and 1940s-era “fast battleships” on the one hand and the surviving WWI-era battleships (some of hwich had been modernized between the wars) on the other hand.  The classic example of that distinction can be found at Leyte Gulf, where the Americans assigned their old slow battleships (plus some escort carriers) to support the amphibious invasion directly (I think they were officially under McArthur’s command), and assigned their fast battleships and their fleet carriers (under Halsey) to fight the main Japanese fleet if it showed up.  Halsey’s carrier pilots did take a substantial crack at the IJN during the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea (they sank the Musashi, notably), but Halsey later took the bait of a Japanese decoy operation and charged off to the north with his fast battleships and his fleet carriers to engage Japan’s remaining fleet carriers (which actually had few or no planes left aboard, and were simply meant to draw him away from Leyte Gulf).  As a result, the Japanese surface-combat forces (in two groups, operating well away from the decoy force) had a clear shot at Leyte – and the American forces which ended up stopping them were, respectively, the US Navy’s older battleships at the Battle of Surigao Strait and a force of escort carriers and light surface-combat vessels at the Battle off Samar.  In the latter engagement, the hopelessly outclassed (if you go by the raw ship types and numbers) Americans engaged the Japanese battle fleet so aggressively that the Japanese commander, Admiral Kurita, ended up retreating because, in his mind, the tiny American forces couldn’t possibly be attacking him so energetically unless they were expecting massive US Navy reinforcements to arrive at any moment.  In fact, Admiral Sprague, the US commander on the spot, knew perfectly well that Halsey was nowhere near him; he dealt with a hopeless situation by going on the offensive because that was he was a leader in the tradition of WWI’s Ferdinand Foch (who at the Battle of the Marne reputedly signaled to his superiors: “My left flank is driven in; my centre is giving way; the situation is excellent: I attack!”)

I have created an Axis & Allies variant inspired by the simultaneity mechanics of Diplomacy.  It is an online game with all the game state stored in the server, so the players use a simple web browser to play.  The manner of play I envision is each player or possibly each team uses a physical board to track the game, and the online game provides the interface to create orders for the units, shows the outcome of conflicts, and provides an interface to execute and settle multi-unit battles.  Having a physical board and pieces isn’t necessary, as the game is tracked on the server, but I expect it is more fun to play along with physical units.  The current user interface is crude, but I think it’s sophisticated enough to be effective.  I’m looking for someone to help me play-test the game and provide feedback.  I will likely create a new user interface to overlay the existing system, but I need to actually play it a bit with a real opponent to know what direction to go with that.  If you are interested, you can read the docs here:

coyotebones.org/concurrent_AA/docs

if you are further interested in seeing the interface and play-testing with me, send an email to concurrent-aa-play-request@coyotebones.org.  Please send from a real email address, as I will register the address for your login to use the system.  Include in the message a nickname you would like to have on the system so that your email address is not exposed to other players.

Never mind guys, I found it.

The only way I see to keep the defense against planes manifesto is to provide
the 1 AA roll per cruiser.

Cruiser
Attack 3
Defend 2
Move 2
Shore bombard  3
Special 1 defensive AA first shot @1 against up to 1 plane/per cruiser unit.
Cost 10

In such situation as above,
if Cruiser A3 D2 is added into the mix, 2 units (A6 D4) for example:
Attack 13 Defense 14, 5 units.

A. survives: 22.1% D. survives: 75.6% No one survives: 2.3%

http://calc.axisandallies.org/?mustland=0&abortratio=0&saveunits=0&strafeunits=0&AA=on&aInf=&aArt=&aArm=&aFig=2&aBom=&aTra=&aSub=&aDes=&aCru=2&aCar=1&aBat=&adBat=&dInf=&dArt=&dArm=&dFig=2&dBom=&dTra=&dSub=&dDes=2&dCru=&dCar=1&dBat=&ddBat=&ool_att=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Sub-SSub-Des-Fig-JFig-Cru-Bom-HBom-Car-dBat-Tra&ool_def=Bat-Inf-Art-AArt-Arm-Bom-HBom-Sub-SSub-Des-Car-Cru-Fig-JFig-dBat-Tra&battle=Run&rounds=&reps=10000&luck=pure&ruleset=AA1942&territory=&round=1&pbem=

That way, Cruiser is clearly not better than Destroyer against incoming Submarines.
But you still get a better Anti-Aircrafts platform while keeping his single offensive roll of Shore bombardment.

This can be balance with a 17-18 IPCs 2 hits Battleship.

Attached are the D12 Unit Rules and National Advantages I use for a 1941 set up of HBG’s 1939 MAP.

National Advantages are a combination of good ideas from this forum over the years.

Unit Stats Global Map D12.xls

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I am creating a revised verison 2.0 for AAG40 board (1941 timeframe) which will incl;ude the following updates

Alpha+.2 updates (Factory, AA Gun and Naval/Air base set up) (National Advantages that are applicable for '41), (etc.)

Add African Colonies as part of the UK Minors.  This will add some small set up additiona in North and East Afrcia to make it relavant.  These units are avaiable at coachofmany’s site!

Set up edits to the North African theatre (Germany, Italy and UK, UK Minors)

read the link above, it solves most of the bugs ive been working out since i posted this