Bombers transporting infantry

@Valladares
There’s been a lot of discussion on CAs. Two of the more popular opinions seem to be letting them transport 1 Marine/Elite type unit for amphibious attack. The other is giving it some sort of AA capability.

As far as Mech, their mobility is their worth imo. Combine them with Bombers for striking power and they can be quite effective. Some countries will use them more than others. Germany and JPN and UK coming up out of Africa probably the most. I tend to not as much with USA as I like Inf/Arty to establish a beachhead in Western Europe. Then some speed units out of the factories, especially if I’m in Norway. I don’t usually go into Africa with them, but you’d want speed there too imo.

It’s nice to have a small mechanized force with Russia if you can afford it. Just having the threat of a Quick Reaction Force can limit some moves by the enemy. Or at least make them think about it.

Usually like a 2:1 ratio with Armor. Especially Germany. Not sure how others do it. I should probably study some more games others have played. It seems I always get sidetracked doing other stuff though :)

Using BBs and CAs as bombers doing an SBR sounds pretty cool. I guess they would be impervious to interceptors though ? Maybe tacs could intercept ships only ?

Think it’s just a matter of finding the right numbers for your fortresses piscolar. You’ll just have to playtest it out. My concern would be that they’re not too powerful so they can’t be cracked. I like the idea of having a ground unit present to activate them.

We play with as a separate step not involving any units - it is just a die roll.

Strategic Bombing:

The K. u. K. Luftfahrtruppen, Deutsche Luftstreitkrafte, Group de Bombardment, Royal Naval Air Service, and Corpo Aeronautico Militare all participated in strategic bombing raids on the enemy during WW1.  
Procedure:  
1. At the beginning of each player’s turn, A-H, Germany, France, Britain, and Italy can roll 1 die to determine if they cause IPC loss to the enemy.  
2. A roll of 1 is a hit (Germany to France or Britain, AH to Italy, Italy to AH, and France and Britain to Germany), a roll of 2 thru 5 is a miss, and a roll of 6 is a miss and causes damage by your strategic campaign to be reduced by 1 for the remainder of the war.  
3. For a hit, roll another die for damage.  A 1, 2, or 3, and that is the IPC loss, a 4, 5, or 6 is 0 IPC loss.  The damage is assessed against the IPC count for the next turn. (If neutral Italy rule in use for turn 1, a hit by A-H will also cause Italy to enter the war.)
4. Damaged bombing capability (roll of 6 in step 2), can be repaired by spending 1 IPC per damage.

@Cmdr:

Yea, I always wished that ABs added 2 to fighters/TBmbs and 4 to Strat Bombs…but that isn’t how it is, so my wishes be danged. lol

You can still HR that an AB on island TTy is treated like an Aircraft Carrier.
That way, StB or Fg going out only received only +1M bonus, but any Fg or TcB taking off and landing on the same AB gets a +2  bonus move.
This allows TcB and Fg to attack an island in another SZ and be able to land on the island Air Base. .

@nerquen:

@Black_Elk:

Here is an example, say you are attacking with 1 ground unit, 1 fighter and 1 bomber. After the first round of combat the ground unit is destroyed, but the fighter and bomber remain. In the second round of combat, is the bomber allowed to participate as fodder for the fighter, even though the HR does not allow the bomber itself continue attacking? Or is the bomber considered no longer part of the fight, ie it is not longer involved in the combat cannot take any enemy hits?

For simplicity, I was thinking not to put any further restrictions on a combat once it started. The HR would really just restrict the number of bombers that one can bring into a battle, but once the battle started it would follow OOB rules. So bombers can be taken as casualties at any chosen time and can also continue battle even if all land units are dead already. This is mostly to allow game play with tripleA without any modifications.

But with little modifications to the game xml file, one can modify bombers such that their attack value is 0, but if they are combined with any land unit or a warship in 1:1 ratio they get +4 attack bonus. It is much more realistic this way and gives space for interesting tactical decisions. Suddenly taking fighters as casualties before last few armors and artilleries supported by bombers is better for maximizing attack power. One would still be allowed to take bombers as casualties at any chosen time, I think that is ok. I will attach an xml file here soon.

Here https://www.dropbox.com/s/2mbsptvi4jxi1ut/World War II Bombers HR.zip?dl=0 you can download the map with bombers having attack value of 0, but if paired with any land unit or a warship* in 1:1 ratio their attack increases to 4. Just unzip the downloaded zip file into maps subfolder of your tripleA installation. Once you launch tripleA select “World War II Global 1940 2nd Ed. - House Ruled Bombers” from the list of available games. I would be interested in any feedback if you try it. You can PM me or post here.

@Black_Elk:

This thread has too much good information to let it sit for an entire year without comment.
:-D

Right now my group doesn’t play with escort/intercept rules, because it just doesn’t seem worth the risk to the fighters (in either role). So when the rules are in effect it mainly serves to discourage bombing altogether.

With altered abilites, like the ones suggested here, I might be more inclined to play the Escort/intercept game.

I think you probably need 3 things to bring Air into balance:
a.  an improved SBR mechanic.

b. Better Anti-Aircraft Artillery units Abilities. Like one that can move in combat, with a normal attack defense value of 1, in addition to a one time opening shot vs air, or something along those lines.

c. Some form of naval AA-fire.

I think you have touched on all the essentials here. And have brought up the others before. In addition to working out a dogfight system. The stats in thread are compelling and demonstrate how the first aspect “improved sbr” might be approached.

Nice work, as always

Thank you very much.
I forgot this thread, I will probably use some stats into my Summary thread under construction about various SBRs.

Nonetheless, it needs full focus to really weight all the aspects of SBR with all these numbers.
I can easily understand you need to be in a certain “vibe” to read this kind of posts, hence it was quite dusty.

Besides, I agree on your analysis of these 3 points a, b, c. They need to be coordinate to get a better game.
I made a lot of posts on these points over months.
Need to find the good angle to get a fresh start on these.

So when they get dropped in an area with 1 enemy infantry, how do they fight anybody?

Didn’t think of this happening. :| I guess you’d just have to have at least 1 defending unit fighting at any one time, regardless of the amount of paras.

Airborne can be considered “elite” troops however, but to mix them like this is not realistic.
Marines are special troops trained for sea invasions and are also “elite” but not in the same task as above.

I admit that realism is compromised here, but if elite infantry are allowed to fill all these roles, it will mean less unit types and therefore less compexity. Believe me when I say I’m still all for historical accuracy and realism, this is just my take on things.

69- good point. i guess people like to make up rule for things that they see as glaring holes in the rules or cool stuff, like paratroopers, that should be added. anyway, yeah i agree with you