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

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

1-1.png

My map isn’t heavily distorted to fit too many kind of units. I am favour to add new units if only absolutely needed. But Italy and China have units with similar Mech stats to diversify their options.

@Pitt79 please elaborate the usa russia scenario thanx

@barney:

yea I’m a little concerned this would boost the defensive values of fleets even more. I also added DK’s cruiser gets one AA shot which is another defensive bonus.
I wonder how much super subs would counter that? I’m trying not to tweak things price wise at the moment but I may eventually incorporate your entire cost structure.

Good explanation on the destroyers vs EC’s. Having a fighter that hits at 4 could be appealing though.

Good stuff Baron

If I introduced AAA Naval capacity at such low cost (Advanced Shipyard) it would be in a combined arms bonus and not for a single unit.
Maybe just up to 2 AAA preemptive shots against 2 planes when 1 Battleship and 1 Cruiser are protecting a Fleet Carrier, and only this kind of unit, not any Escort Carrier.
Each have their specific mission, Fleet Carrier have a more consistent AA batteries and CAP (Carrier Air Patrol) while Escort Carrier groups were assign Anti-Sub Mission.
So, to get Naval AAA buy all the three warships: Battleship, Cruiser, Aircraft (Fleet) Carrier.
In counterpart, these costlier warships units would still be vulnerable against Subs while Escort Carriers and Destroyers will be vulnerable against planes but much able to defend against Submarines.

@Black_Elk:

@Baron:

I’m more inclined to treat it exactly as an AAA unit: @1 against up to three planes.
After all, it is a known concept in ground combat adapted to Naval Battle and it requires 3 warships type, the number 3 is obviously on the board.
IC’s AAA seems too powerful and unrealistic: a defense @1 against infinite number of planes.
Defending Carriers are already much better than offensive ones. Anti-Air is providing an additional defense.

@Black_Elk:

Well the anti air for battlegroup concept seems cool. I think the hope was that we could find a combined arms that just had units pairing 1:1. That one requires a pairing of 3 different units 1:1:1, but seems like it could encourage Cruiser purchases.

Not only Cruiser but also Battleship buying incentive.
Another reason to not give IC’s AAA capacity: you want to defend against more than 3 planes, buy another Cruiser and BB to join another Carrier.
I’m pretty sure it can change some buying from Destroyers and Subs to Cruiser and Battleship.

It still cost 12+16+20= at least 48 IPCs (68 with 2 Fgs) to get this additional defensive abilities.

Maybe this concept can be simply extended to each combo of BB+Cruiser gives 1 AAA capacity as long as there is a Carrier to protect.

So 2 BBs + 2 Cruisers + 1 Carrrier will provides an AAA against up to 6 planes.

All this!  :-D

I think something along these lines could potentially bring both Cruisers and Battleships back into the mix as a purchasing consideration, and is relatively simple.

Of the combined arms proposed thus far, this one doesn’t bust the opening round combats. It would increase the swing on fleet defense making all out air assaults against a stacked battle group more risky. Right now the all air option is pretty powerful vs navies, this would give at least some way to counter that, but only at the cost of more expensive warship units, and somewhat diminished flexibility in other ways, since you have to keep the ships together to get the boost.
I still think a different bombardment bonus or marine concept could work for cruisers and battleships, or a maneuverability bonus for cruisers specifically, but both of those would surely have an influence on the opening balance.

@Gargantua:

Isn’t the president “theoretically” a 6 star general?  Because he out ranks the 5 stars? And is in command of the military?

No, because the US Constitution (if I recall correctly) requires the President to be a civilian.  Eisenhower had to resign his five-star rank (which is a lifetime rank) in order to run as President.  I think his rank was re-instated after his term of office ended.

I like the BOTB syle mech infantry with the truck peice. A Truck unit can be bought for 4IPC. It than can carry 2inf or 1inf and 1Art or just 1Art Like a “land” transport. It has know attack or defense value itself. We already have them for U.S. and Germany if you have BOTB. That only leaves USSR and U.K. and Japan. Just paint the U.S. truck U.K. and Russia colors because the U.S. provided many trucks to those countries anyway. Japan never really had much mech inf anyway but you could paint the German one Jap Orange or Jap Red whatever you prefer.

In AARHE we plan to make the AA piece represent infrastructure defence.

This is much needed as the game do not model any of that (defences). Amphibious assault against German fortifications (eg. Western Europe) should be a very different story to a casual landing on one of the Pacific islands, or Africa.

Infrastructure defence would consist of coastal batteries, anti-air guns, etc.

As for balancing in this case, a modest study of historic specifications leading to a a good model would avoid any strange/funny situations.

@dezrtfish:

So, you take a bad odds chance of loosing 12 IPCs worth of equipment for an average of 3IPCs loss to your enemy.

1/61 + 1/62 + 1/63 + 1/64 + 1/65 + 1/66 = 3.5

About the odds! If one uses one fighter to escort the bomber and the enemy has one fighter in the target area, then one has the odds of loosing units to a cost of 8.5 I.P.C.'s (3/6 * 12 + 1/6 * 15). On the other hand the enemy has the odds of loosing 11.5 I.P.C.'s (4/6 * 12 + 3.5)!!! The question is if the enemy chooses to use his fighter to intercept the escort??

If one chooses to perform a SBR whithout fighter cover, then one has the odds of loosing units to a cost of 10 I.P.C.'s (3/6 * 15 + 1/6 * 15), where as the enemy has the odds of loosing 5.5 I.P.C.'s (1/6 * 12 + 3.5)!!! :wink:

What we have learned here is that this rule pracrtically reduceses the bombers range to 4! But there is another thing that is very interesting with this rule, and that is when one player has developed Heavy Bombers. Then it’s worth building a stock pile of fighters in all IC territories, except new or captured ones (se rules for ‘New Complexes’)!

B.Andersson, Game Master