Taranto question

The Germans have no destroyer present, therefore the defending air units can not hit the sub, and of course the sub can never hit planes. Think of it in terms of the combined arms rule, air units can only hit subs if they are combined with at least 1 participating destroyer, the difference with this particular combined arms is that it works while attacking and defending. In the scenario that you described, the sub would destroy the remaining transport without rolling and the defending fighters can do nothing.

Ah never mind my previous comments, Kriegshund has it correct. There’s a special rule just for this scenario:

“An attacking land unit can assault a coastal territory
from an ally’s transport, but only on the turn of
the attacking land unit’s owner.  All of the normal
requirements for transports offloading in a sea
zone must still be met by the attacking power (see
“Special Combat Movement, Transports”, page 16),
and any scrambled air units will prevent the landing
if they cannot be destroyed”

http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/ah/AA_europe_1940_rules.pdf (page 21)

On page 16 it permits a scramble to resist amphibious attacks:

“They can also be scrambled to resist amphibious
assaults from adjacent sea zones”

Perhaps my explanation in the video was confusing in that sense, my goal was to help people use the rule properly, but yes… the hits are applied to the convoy zone, and it’s the total value of the adjacent territories that cap the damage.

The strength of the Taranto attack as Britain is that you have to basically bring as many planes to the fight as Italy has eligible to scramble in order to ensure “mutual destruction” odds.

Assuming you always destroy the Italian transport off of Malta, you will leave Italy with only a handful of boats and one lone transport. With only one transport it is very unlikely that Italy can effectively take Greece and Gibraltar on the first turn, meaning that you can deny them a valuable objective early on. Sending one transport either way means it will take at least another two turns to get to the other side. (The solution to this for the Axis is Germany taking Gibraltar for Italy).

With only one transport, Italy cannot effectively threaten Egypt, which gives Britain much-needed time to fortify it with troops from either India or S. Africa.

Even though the UK’s navy in the med faces almost assured destruction (if the Italian counterattack doesn’t finish it off somehow, German planes will), you are banking on the fact that you make almost triple Italy’s economy. Italy’s paltry 10 IPCs mean that rebuilding transports will take a huge portion of their income. Until Italy achieves it’s NO’s, building anything larger than destroyers and submarines will be impossible without saving up IPCs for 1-2 turns.

The other advantage of this strategy is that by destroying most of Italy’s navy early the US does not have to build as large a navy in the Atlantic, which is a massive benefit given the task of facing Japan in the Pacific.

The other popular UK opener is to pull your navy back into SZ81 and possibly join with the India navy (that might be running away from Japan) and build up a force too great for even Italy’s combined navy to defend against. Then the US and UK both hit the med on turn 4 in a 1-2 punch.

calcutta is supposed to fall anyway, who cares.

Also, You may want to look into getting more gray chips, Japanese Tac Bombers, and the proper battle board to replace the defective one in the Pacific game. contact wizards of the coast, tell them the issue, and they will send you a replacement order free of charge.

@onetthome:

So I’m playing A&A global for the 2nd time and I am noticing a lot of inconsistencies with the rules between both books and even what is written on the board’s mobilization chart. Is there an updated/ revised rulebook I can download?

Use the Europe Rulebook.  The only rules from the Pacific Rulebook that apply to the Global game are the rules on China and kamikazes.  I’m not aware of any problems with the mobilization charts on the boards.  What are you referring to?

@onetthome:

Also, how much does USA collect before it goes into wartime? Europe book says it makes 35 during war so does that mean it makes 5 IPCs and then gets +30? is it +30 for Europe and +40 for global?

In the Europe game, the US collects 35 IPCs when not at war.  In the Global game, the US collects 52 IPCs when not at war (see page 32 of the Europe Rulebook).  Note that the politics rules and National Objectives in the Global game are completely different from those in the Europe game (see pages 33-35 of the Europe Rulebook).

@calvinhobbesliker:

Actually, they will die. The procedure for aircraft retreat is different from sea or land retreat: the air units break off and land anywhere withing their remaining range. Since the plane had zero movement points left, it dies if you retreat

Correct.