Stupid A&A G40 Rules

Just for fun, I tried to imagine what an air-defense network would look like in the real world if it replicated the OOB rules.  The result goes like this.

The network would consist of one or more AAA guns.  Each gun would have an ammunition allowance of just three shells.  The guns would all be tied to (and remotely operated by) a centralized fire-control system.  The system would be coupled to a radar surveillance system that would track an enemy formation of planes as it arrives over the network’s territory.  The network would assign a unique identification number to each plane, and would attach to each ID number an initial status code of 0 indicating that the plane it identifies has not yet been fired upon.

Now the battle begins.  The network fire-control system targets one of the planes with one of the AAA guns and fires one shot.  If the plane is hit, it’s detsroyed.  If the plane isn’t hit, the network changes the status code of the lucky plane (identified by its unique ID number) from 0 to 1, indicating that it’s been fired on.  The centralized fire-control system then orders the fired AAA  gun (which now has only two shells left in its ammunition load) to stop tracking the lucky plane (in whose direction the AAA gun’s barrel is conveniently still more or less pointing) and to point itself at a completely different plane whose status code still reads 0.  The firing-and-retargeting process is repeated until the first AAA gun runs out of ammunition.  The network then orders a new AAA gun (if there’s more than one gun in the network) to go through the same routine, making sure that it scrupulously fires only at planes whose status code still reads 0.

This process continues until one of two things happens: the last AAA gun fires its last shell, or all the surviving planes overhead have been fired upon once and therefore now all have a status of 1.  If, at the point where all the surviving planes overhead now have a status of 1, any of the AAA guns on the ground still have shells left in their ammunition supply, they are ordered to cease fire at the available targets overhead.  Why they would be ordered to cease fire is beyond me.  Perhaps it’s considered unsportsmanlike conduct for an entire air defense network to fire at any single enemy plane more than once.  Perhaps the battle is being treated similarly to (one-half of) a pistol duel in which the two opponents – each armed with a pistol containing only one bullet – stand back to back, walk ten paces apart, turn and fire the single shot they’re allowed; if they miss, they call it a day and go home.

I find it funny that we went from discussing ridiculous rules for the game, to which AA gun rule is better.

Anyway, I found capital rules in each game to be more and more lackluster.

I’d prefer instead, if you lose your capital, for just that one round you may not make any movement of sorts, including scrambles. After that, you may produce only infantry, but on any territory you control, but up to 3 only. China has a capital now, Shanghai, their situation regarding it, is that their “paralised” round has already gone by. If your capital is liberated, you produce up to 12 IPCs of non-Infantry units if you’re an allied power, if you’re an axis power, it is 20 IPCs worth, this is for the first time only when this particular capital is liberated. The French objective is disabled and replaced with a +10 IPC objective for controlling all of their original territories on the Europe side (in case France survives round 1, to allow Germany to save face). National Objectives may still activate even if your capital is occupied. The country that takes your capital may still plunder your IPCs for the same round they took it.

@Ryuzaki_Lawliet:

Alternate victory conditions:

Allies win the game by either:

Control Paris, London, Moscow, and 1 originally European Axis victory city territory (Europe Allied Victory)
or
Control Calcutta, Sydney, Manila, and Shanghai/Tokyo (Pacific Allied Victory)

Have either of these completed, at the end of Italy’s turn, to win the game as the Allies.

Obviously, it should be for one full turn. Surely you did not mean to deprive Germany and Japan a chance to recapture a victory city (unless you were counting on the Italians liberating Shanghai and saving a Pacific victory!).

But more fundamentally, with Allied victory conditions like this the Axis will need a bid – Rome is far too vulnerable to the US. The US will throw its entire economy at Italy, and Italy will fall. Forget any chance of the Axis winning in the Med, because Italy will need full defensive builds for the entire game (and it will still not make a difference). Once Rome falls, the fall of Paris is certain.

Marsh

@Marshmallow:

@Ryuzaki_Lawliet:

Alternate victory conditions:

Allies win the game by either:

Control Paris, London, Moscow, and 1 originally European Axis victory city territory (Europe Allied Victory)
or
Control Calcutta, Sydney, Manila, and Shanghai/Tokyo (Pacific Allied Victory)

Have either of these completed, at the end of Italy’s turn, to win the game as the Allies.

Obviously, it should be for one full turn. Surely you did not mean to deprive Germany and Japan a chance to recapture a victory city (unless you were counting on the Italians liberating Shanghai and saving a Pacific victory!).

But more fundamentally, with Allied victory conditions like this the Axis will need a bid – Rome is far too vulnerable to the US. The US will throw its entire economy at Italy, and Italy will fall. Forget any chance of the Axis winning in the Med, because Italy will need full defensive builds for the entire game (and it will still not make a difference). Once Rome falls, the fall of Paris is certain.

Marsh

Yeah I meant to say that, I’m not really good at expressing ideas.

Give Italy 1 cruiser and 1 destroyer in the Taranto sea zone, and add 1 more infantry in Tobruk.

Eliminates the Taranto raid, and allows Italy some options in Africa.

@CWO:

Just for fun, I tried to imagine what an air-defense network would look like in the real world if it replicated the OOB rules.  The result goes like this.

The network would consist of one or more AAA guns.  Each gun would have an ammunition allowance of just three shells.  The guns would all be tied to (and remotely operated by) a centralized fire-control system.  The system would be coupled to a radar surveillance system that would track an enemy formation of planes as it arrives over the network’s territory.  The network would assign a unique identification number to each plane, and would attach to each ID number an initial status code of 0 indicating that the plane it identifies has not yet been fired upon.

Now the battle begins.  The network fire-control system targets one of the planes with one of the AAA guns and fires one shot.  If the plane is hit, it’s detsroyed.  If the plane isn’t hit, the network changes the status code of the lucky plane (identified by its unique ID number) from 0 to 1, indicating that it’s been fired on.  The centralized fire-control system then orders the fired AAA  gun (which now has only two shells left in its ammunition load) to stop tracking the lucky plane (in whose direction the AAA gun’s barrel is conveniently still more or less pointing) and to point itself at a completely different plane whose status code still reads 0.  The firing-and-retargeting process is repeated until the first AAA gun runs out of ammunition.  The network then orders a new AAA gun (if there’s more than one gun in the network) to go through the same routine, making sure that it scrupulously fires only at planes whose status code still reads 0.

This process continues until one of two things happens: the last AAA gun fires its last shell, or all the surviving planes overhead have been fired upon once and therefore now all have a status of 1.  If, at the point where all the surviving planes overhead now have a status of 1, any of the AAA guns on the ground still have shells left in their ammunition supply, they are ordered to cease fire at the available targets overhead.  Why they would be ordered to cease fire is beyond me.  Perhaps it’s considered unsportsmanlike conduct for an entire air defense network to fire at any single enemy plane more than once.  Perhaps the battle is being treated similarly to (one-half of) a pistol duel in which the two opponents – each armed with a pistol containing only one bullet – stand back to back, walk ten paces apart, turn and fire the single shot they’re allowed; if they miss, they call it a day and go home.

Or you could say, that AA guns take up space. one AAA in the game might represent one cluster of AA-Guns and one Plane ingame might represent one squadron of planes:
Then we could say that planes can “stack” on top of each other up to 3 times, whereas AA guns cant (no 3d-arrangement possible).
So now when they enter the territory, they can be shot by those aa installations.
The reason the next AA-installation can’t fire upon them is because the range of those AAguns isnt big enough to shoot at targets that much further away.
So the only reason why BOTH aa installations would fire is because the invading airforce is so big, they are spread over a bigger surface-area.
And that is why i find it quite convincing :-D

Problem I see with those new allied victory conditions is that it would now be possible for Japan to win in the Pacific on the same round that the Allies win in Europe.

I agree,  We made it a house rule that you can fly over the Sahara and the Himalayas.

@ShadowHAwk:

Another stupid Rule.

You cannot fly planes over impassable terrain, Sure the pipet marches and the sahara are impossible for ground forces but a plane isnt really bothered by forest or sand.
If you can fly over the atlantic ( which has about as much features as the sahara ) then you should be able to fly over the sahara right.

I agree with you about the Pripet Marshes – the German army avoided it for a very good reason, but the Luftwaffe had no reason to do so. However, from a historical perspective, it was very risky to fly over the Sahara and most of the aircraft used in WW2 were not capable of handling the altitude and weather conditions in the Himalayas. While an individual aircraft might actually make it through, operations in force would have been extremely risky.

Marsh

@ShadowHAwk:

The himalayas is pretty plausible planes of the era had a lot of issues getting over it, though they actualy used it to supply china with weapons.
The sahara desert the only reason why they could not get past it was because of the range of the planes of the day, but since we already have planes with insane ranges ( you can fly accros the atlantic ) why not the sahara desert. Just a compas and fly away in a straight line you sure to get to the other side.

Good points.  The width of a terrain only affects the ability of aircraft to traverse it if the width exceeds the aircraft’s range, and the height of a terrain only affects the ability of aircraft to traverse it if the height exceeds the aircraft’s service ceiling.  The Himalayas (a.k.a. “The Hump”) were tough to cross, but some planes managed it.  Crossing the Sahara east-to west (or west-to east) would involve a good deal of flying, though hardly an impossible amount, but a north-south / south-north crossing would be much shorter.  As for the Pripet Marshes: given that they have a surface area smaller than the state of Virginia, the only kind of airplane which would have difficulty crossing them would be one that tried to drive across them with its landing gear still on the ground.

I don’t see a flight path on the map that would be shortened by being able to fly over the Pripet Marshes, so I suppose that it’s not particularly relevant from an A&A perspective whether or not planes can fly over them.