Need Atom bomb input…

The United States built an industrial infrastructure equal in size to its entire automobile industry in order to conduct research and more crucially refine enough radioactive isotopes to build just the three atomic bombs. This was while recapturing imperial possessions in Africa and across the pacific, managing the biggest amphibious operation in history, sinking the powerful Japanese Imperial Navy, winning the immensely research-intensive Battle of the Atlantic, running their own highly effective submarine campaign against Japanese supply, and maintaining two strategic bombing campaigns of enormous scale.

Axis and Allies doesn’t have the atom bomb because researching it would have to be so goddamn expensive that only a historically accurate United States could afford it. And, If the United States has 120 IPCs every turn they’re not going to bother spending the necessary 200 IPCs over 5 turns or whatever developing the atomic bomb because Axis and Allies players have no regard for the lives of their little plastic soldiers.

It wasn’t a matter of research so much as production of the needed isotopes, the Germans knew how to build a bomb, but how were they supposed to match the kind of expenditure the United States made, particularly when all of their production areas were subject to strategic bombing?

So as a house rule I’d have to say the atomic bomb only really makes sense as
“If the game reaches round n without victory conditions being met, then the Allies win.”
Which is both a major buzzkill and pretty much already how it shakes out…

@Dybbuk:

The United States built an industrial infrastructure equal in size to its entire automobile industry in order to conduct research and more crucially refine enough radioactive isotopes to build just the three atomic bombs. This was while recapturing imperial possessions in Africa and across the pacific, managing the biggest amphibious operation in history, sinking the powerful Japanese Imperial Navy, winning the immensely research-intensive Battle of the Atlantic, running their own highly effective submarine campaign against Japanese supply, and maintaining two strategic bombing campaigns of enormous scale.

Axis and Allies doesn’t have the atom bomb because researching it would have to be so goddamn expensive that only a historically accurate United States could afford it. And, If the United States has 120 IPCs every turn they’re not going to bother spending the necessary 200 IPCs over 5 turns or whatever developing the atomic bomb because Axis and Allies players have no regard for the lives of their little plastic soldiers.

It wasn’t a matter of research so much as production of the needed isotopes, the Germans knew how to build a bomb, but how were they supposed to match the kind of expenditure the United States made, particularly when all of their production areas were subject to strategic bombing?

So as a house rule I’d have to say the atomic bomb only really makes sense as
“If the game reaches round n without victory conditions being met, then the Allies win.”
Which is both a major buzzkill and pretty much already how it shakes out…

I want to print this and frame it for the wall in my house.

Excellent point of view!

@Gargantua:

Excellent point of view!

Yes indeed.  The British showed an early interest in developing atomic weapons (which they code named “tube alloys”), but they also soon wisely realized that only the U.S. had the industrial and economic resources to carry out such a massive program.  And even with all the resources and talent that the Americans allocated to the Manhattan Project, it didn’t manage to produce a functional bomb until after the war in Europe had already ended.  As for Germany, it operated under additional constraints which, along with the factors already cited by Dybbuk, caused its atomic research program to go nowhere.  One constraint was Germany’s fixation on using heavy water as a moderator in its nuclear reactor designs.  Deuterium oxide is highly effective in this role, but it’s very difficult to produce in large quantities, and Germany’s single source (the output of the Norsk Hydro plant in Norway) was the target of several Allied sabotage operations.  The Americans bypassed the problem by using ultra-pure graphite in their own reactors.  A second constraint was that Germany had driven into exile several talented physicists who ended up working for the other side.  And another problem was that Hitler – never renowned for his ability to judge which weapon development programs served the military interests of Germany rather than his personal fantasies – never gave much priority to atomic research, an area of which he had little conceptual grasp.

Another problem that the Germans had was they had several different teams working on atomic research, like 4 or 5, and each was kept separate from the others and not allowed to compare notes.
As a result, they all were basically competing against each other and whatever breakthroughs they did have usually ended up being redundant.

@Der:

We are all fans of a “historical” game that has no supply system, no weather, no fog of war, no measurable scale, no leadership influence, no retreating (I could go on) and now you guys want to all “realistic” on the use of the A-bomb? C’mon man!

My system allows the bomb only after round 12, which is a way of saying, “if you haven’t won by then and you opponent gets lucky and gets the bomb, you deserve to lose.”

Axis and Allies is only a game with WWII flavor. It is by no means an accurate WWII simulation, and never will be. So why not throw the bomb in there, too? It WAS in WWII, after all.  Â

A lot of good points here from a lot of good posters. However I have to go along with DK on POV and the spirit of HRs. As much as I love A&A it really is not in any way an “exact” simulation of WWII. I concur with the historical observations. I must say though I see the need for the “fun” factor, and I think this is a fun idea. Call me a martyr to nostalgia, but I find sometimes that the fun of A&A gets lost in trying to make it too historical compared to the original intent of Classic. In other words, I agree A&A featuring “WWII Space Marines” is laughable. However I think we need to suspend our disbelief with this game at times to keep it “FUN”.

Der Kuenstler and toblerone77 are right. I think a lot of us (myself included) keep forgetting that while this game has the flavor of WW2 with the nations involved and types of weaponry used, it really doesn’t represent the actual conflict. I keep getting reminded of that watching WW2 documentaries. Take the Battle for Italy for example: just getting from the “toe” of Italy to Rome took the Allies a really long time with numerous set backs and a lot of casualties. In our games, it’s one battle and done and you have just conquered the entire southern half of Italy and captured the Italian capital.
As for A bombs, I keep thinking it wouldn’t be practical in this game since we would use it on whole territories (Japan) and the actual A bomb could only wipe out 1 city. But to keep the fun in the game and since we are really suspending disbelief just by playing this game anyway, perhaps an atom bomb should be able to wipe out all the units in a given territory. Or max out the facilities. Or you could choose any amount of damage in between. It is going to be a house rule after all.
I have seen some suggestions that using an A bomb would kill just one or two enemy units. If that is the limit of impact, then perhaps you can make it fairly easy to get, like any of the other techs. If you can wipe out a whole territory, then it should definitely be a lot harder to get.

@knp7765:

Der Kuenstler and toblerone77 are right. I think a lot of us (myself included) keep forgetting that while this game has the flavor of WW2 with the nations involved and types of weaponry used, it really doesn’t represent the actual conflict. I keep getting reminded of that watching WW2 documentaries.

Yes, these posts have made good points.  In order for A&A to be a true simulation of WWII (as opposed to being a WWII-themed board game), it would have to be much more complex and probably also quite different in some of its fundamental mechanics – notably as regards to the fact that, under the OOB rules, players take turns rather than acting simultaneously, and all the players can always see where the opponent’s forces are and what their composition is.  I like rules (both OOB and house) which reflect history accurately, but I also like alternate-history scenarios which allow us to break out of the strict straightjacket of what actually happened in WWII.  After all, if the only acceptable direction for an A&A game to take would be to replicate the actual events of the war, there would be no point in playing it because every game would always follow a predictable course.  To me, the important criterion is whether a particular rule or scenario is reasonably plausible, given the assumption of somewhat different decisions or events happening in the alternate timeline as compared with the historical one.  And I’m also fine with the idea of stretching to some countries (within reasonable limits) some capabilities that they didn’t actually have, in order to make the game more interesting and to provide some balance.  The Global 1940 OOB game itself reflects this principle by providing a full range of sculpt unit types to every country (except China), even though – to pick carriers as an example – only Japan, the US and the UK had any credible fleet carrier components in their navies at the time.

Midnight Express,
I am curious about these Nova A Bomb rules. Specifically, the results after a nuclear attack. I am assuming a nuclear attack counts as a combat move, which would mean if you are using a nuclear attack on a territory, the only units you are moving in is the strategic bomber carrying the nuke, and perhaps escort fighters.
So the nuclear attack wipes out all enemy units in the territory. Can your units move into that territory the next round?
This result is the same if the territory in question is an enemy capital?
What about the treasury (IPCs on hand)? Do they get destroyed in the nuclear attack or are they handed over to you next round when you move into that territory?

@MidnightExpress:

Here are the old A&A Nova Games rules for the bomb:

“(14.12) THE ATOMIC BOMB: In addition to the capability of producing the atomic bomb, players must pay 10 in production certificates to produce one. The atomic bomb enters the game like any other new unit – at provinces containing industrial complex units.
(14.121) Atomic bombs, like anti-aircraft and industrial complex units can be captured.
(14.122) Atomic bombs must be loaded on bombers (using one movement point) and moved to the province where they will be used.
(14.123) If a player has the special weapon rockets and he also has an atomic bomb in a province containing one of this anti-aircraft units, he may nuclear attack a province or sea zone up to two provinces away instead of using his strategic attack with the rockets capability. He does not need to use a bomber for delivery.
(14.124) Players are limited to one atomic bomb(plus any they capture) on the gameboard at any one time.
(14.125) Nuclear attacks eliminate the atomic bomb plus all units in the province or sea zone (including anti-aircraft and industrial complex units).
(14.126) Atomic bombs may be transported by bombers as well as used for nuclear attack – no more than one bomb per bomber.”

These are fairly simple and straight forward. Regarding the original question, I think the bomber should endure a round of AA fire just like any other plane. This at least gives the victim a slight chance of surviving the attack. However, my own opinion on A-Bombs in A&A is that they’re too powerful and devastating, but if you weaken them to the point that they eliminate only a handful of units, what’s the point in trying to obtain one rather than another technology such as heavy bombers? I did like the idea I saw earlier in the thread that it eliminates a victory city.

Being a game, I’d rather build up an invasion force and attempt to invade the Japanese home island rather than drop one bomb and then game over. That being said, for house rules I’d use the old Nova A-Bomb rules since it has a connection to A&A’s creator.

If you’re going to make the A-bomb destroy or remove a victory city the Allied victory conditions need to be reworded. As it stands now the Allies have to take and hold, Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo. With an A-bomb that destroys a victory city then if the Allies destroy Tokyo then they can’t capture Tokyo and thus can’t win by loop hole. I say reword it so the Allies win if the Axis don’t control Berlin, Rome, and Tokyo. So if it’s not there anymore you don’t control it.

That said I think the nightmare scenario  is that the Allies doing something off the wall like destroying every VC it can because the Axis can’t win without capturing X VCs and if that number of VCs don’t exist anymore then well you can’t win by loop hole.

The way I’ve looked at it during the days of Classic was Heavy Bombers was code for nuclear bombers. They were a game changer, game breaker, and once someone got them the game was basically decided. Now-a-days Heavy Bombers have been weakened to the point that it’s not a stand-in for nukes.

@Yavid:

That said I think the nightmare scenario  is that the Allies doing something off the wall like destroying every VC it can because the Axis can’t win without capturing X VCs and if that number of VCs don’t exist anymore then well you can’t win by loop hole.

Do you mean the Allies destroying their own VCs to prevent an Axis victory?  That’s impressively imaginative and impressively ruthless.  It would be a little hard to justify to the civilian population, but full points for creativity.  (I’ve just found myself wondering: would Churchill broadcast from London the announcement that London is going to be self-nuked in one minute, or would he escape the blast – though not the criticism – by traveling to Birmingham first?)

I think the original idea was not that it would destroy a VC, but that it would permanently award the VC to the opposite side. This would render the “scorched earth” loophole pointless.

@CWO:

@Yavid:

That said I think the nightmare scenario�  is that the Allies doing something off the wall like destroying every VC it can because the Axis can’t win without capturing X VCs and if that number of VCs don’t exist anymore then well you can’t win by loop hole.

Do you mean the Allies destroying their own VCs to prevent an Axis victory?  That’s impressively imaginative and impressively ruthless.  It would be a little hard to justify to the civilian population, but full points for creativity.  (I’ve just found myself wondering: would Churchill broadcast from London the announcement that London is going to be self-nuked in one minute, or would he escape the blast – though not the criticism – by traveling to Birmingham first?)

yes that’s what I’m talking about. the Allies nuking VC for no other reason than to take them away from the Axis to prevent victory. “oh crap German has 7 VC better nuke Paris.” Or Italy has just taken Egypt better nuke Cairo. It would be the big giant middle finger of a strategy and not anywhere close to what we as A&A players are looking for.

You know I liked the idea of it destroying a VC when it was first brought up but the more I think about it the more I see how gamey the idea is and the more I don’t like it.

Yeah, if destroying a victory city is how the A bomb works, I would say it first has to be captured by the enemy. Say the Germans/Italians have 7 cities and were about to capture Cairo for their 8th city. The Allies couldn’t simply nuke Cairo as a preventative measure. But once the Axis capture Cairo, then nuking is allowed.
So, assuming the US is the one who develops nukes, it would be up to them to simply have a nuclear bomber within range of an Axis held victory city ready to go. It would be up to the Axis to guard all victory cities with lots of AA guns and interceptors.

Again, just permanently award the VC to the enemy, or if you don’t like that language, say “lower the number of VC’s needed for victory by 1”. This means that if Germany has 7 VC’s and the Allies nuke Cairo, the Axis win by default.

I think the loophole is indeed gamey and an important one to close if you use this houserule, but closing it is quite simple.

For those who like history,
this article explained the significance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing against the heavy bomber cities attack (66 cities vs 2 cities). Some cities were more damaged by conventional bombing (Tokyo for instance), other have more casualties (Hiroshima was only second, Tokyo was first with 120 000 deaths), a conventional intensive bombardment was around 4-5 kilotons vs 16.5 and 20 kilotons for the two nuclear bombing:

Hairuo Guo, a temporary congregation of wandering atoms

Japan didn’t surrender because we obliterated two of their cities with atomic weapons.
They surrendered because Russia declared war on them.

Rather than typing out a long-winded explanation, here is a well-written and well-supported article: The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan… Stalin Did - By Ward Wilson

http://www.quora.com/World-War-II/What-are-some-common-misconceptions-about-World-War-II?share=1

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_didnt_beat_japan_nuclear_world_war_ii

It really change the way of seeing USSR. :-o

Someone has made a summary:

Rohit Shinde, Swimmer, Avid Reader, Computer Engineer

The biggest misconception surrounding the second World War is that bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a nuclear bomb led to the surrender of the Japanese.

While this may sound outlandish, there is evidence to show that nuclear bombing had little to do with Japan’s unconditional surrender.

Hiroshima was bombed on 6 August. Three days later, Japan’s Supreme Council to decide whether to surrender or not. Incidentally, just after Japan’s Supreme Council meet finished(which ended in a stalemate), Nagasaki was bombed.(August 9)

The question is, why didn’t they discuss surrendering earlier? I mean, if the Hiroshima bombing was intense, why wait three days for a meeting? And they met before the Nagasaki was dropped. So it doesn’t add up.

The USA had bombed 66 of Japan’s cities with conventional methods. Taking into consideration the fact that a conventional bomb spreads more energy than a nuclear bomb because in a nuclear bomb energy is concentrated to be released all at once, I think we can state that a conventional did more damage(obviously the nuclear weapons do more long-term damage, but the fact is, conventional weapons rained more destruction than their nuclear counterparts).
 
  The bombs dropped weighed around 4-5 Kilotons. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs weighed around 15 Kiltotons.

Coming to the damage, Hirsohima came 2nd in the number of deaths caused due to the war. It came 4th in the number of square miles destroyed and 17th in percentage of city destroyed.
(Hirsoshima is compared to other Japanese cities which had been bombed before). So, the nuclear bomb did not damage as much as we think it did.

If, according to Japan’s leaders, the damage done to Hiroshima was nothing abnormal, why was a meeting of the Supreme Council convened? That too before Nagasaki had been bombed?
   
The reason was that although the Japanese wanted to surrender, they did not want to surrender unconditionally. They wanted to keep their present form of government and their leaders didn’t want to be tried for war crimes.

Japan had signed a five-year neutrality pact with the USSR. They would use Stalin to negotiate light surrender terms. Something, which Stalin would agree to since he wouldn’t want the US increasing its power in Asia. Also, they wanted to inflict heavy casualties on the US with their army. These were the two options which Japan was contemplating.

But the USSR decided to attack Japan, so now, Japan was being attacked by two superpowers in two directions. The USSR diplomacy option was closed and even the army option was closed since it would be foolhardy to fight two powers invading in different directions.

Owing to this, Japan surrendered unconditionally.

Why were the nuclear bombs made the reason for Japan’s surrender?
This was so because the US wanted to increase its reputation of power. Also, since Japan’s leaders did not want to be tried for war crimes, it stands to reason that they would not object to the US glorifying nuclear power as the reason for surrender.

@Baron:

For those who like history,
this article explained the significance of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing against the heavy bomber cities attack (66 cities vs 2 cities). Some cities were more damaged by conventional bombing (Tokyo for instance), other have more casualties (Hiroshima was only second, Tokyo was first with 120 000 deaths), a conventional intensive bombardment was around 4-5 kilotons vs 16.5 and 20 kilotons for the two nuclear bombing:

Hairuo Guo, a temporary congregation of wandering atoms

Japan didn’t surrender because we obliterated two of their cities with atomic weapons.
They surrendered because Russia declared war on them.

Rather than typing out a long-winded explanation, here is a well-written and well-supported article: The Bomb Didn’t Beat Japan… Stalin Did - By Ward Wilson

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/05/29/the_bomb_didnt_beat_japan_nuclear_world_war_ii

It really change the way of seeing USSR. :-o

part of the point of the bomb was it was one bomb. Look at what we can do with just this one bomb. Imagine what we’ll do to you when we fully load our fleet of bombers with them.

It was a diplomatic poker game threat. (There was no more atomic bomb in the hands of the US player.)

@Baron:

It was a diplomatic poker game threat. (There was no more atomic bomb in the hands of the US player.)

ssshhh… don’t say that to loud they might hear you.