AA capabilities for big ships

I really like the idea and have toyed with it myself, but I think it should be limited to capital ships only.  Cruisers are already a good unit with a relatively low price, and I think that giving them this new ability with the same price could potentially create a a frenzy of cruisers on the board.

@Tamer:

I really like the idea and have toyed with it myself, but I think it should be limited to capital ships only.  Cruisers are already a good unit with a relatively low price, and I think that giving them this new ability with the same price could potentially create a a frenzy of cruisers on the board.

It is a fact that even before WWII the old battleships got obsolete, and the combo of carrier and cruiser became the new standard. Cruisers had just as good AA fire ability as battleships. The only difference between cruisers and battleships is the armor. The main purpose of a battleship is to never sink, but stay afloat no matter how much beating it gets. But a cruiser don’t need that, since the fighters on the carrier will make sure no enemy ships will be in range. This is historical facts, and I wonder why anybody would make game rules that don’t reflect this ? Maybe they would be better of playing a WWI game, because no rational player should purchase battleships in A&A, just use the ones that comes with the set up

Battleship stay a correct purchase because of the gamey ability to take hits.
A core fleet of 3 and more Battleships can be dangerous if it can survive and be repaired.
Saving three or more hits before loosing fodder warships can destroy smaller fleet without loosing any fodder.

@Young:

AA capabilities for big ships

every 1 that is rolled from cruisers, aircraft carriers, and/or battleships during all combat rounds, must be applied to enemy air units first.

It is an historical variant for this three warships.
You probably remember one of my older suggestion to give OOB AAA to a fleet every time 1 CA, 1 BB and 1 CV are together.

@Baron:

@Young:

AA capabilities for big ships

every 1 that is rolled from cruisers, aircraft carriers, and/or battleships during all combat rounds, must be applied to enemy air units first.

It is an historical variants for this three warships.
You probably remember one of my older suggestion to give OOB AAA to a fleet every time 1 CA, 1 BB and 1 CV are together.

Are you still shy about altering opening game round?

One way not to alter combat round mechanic with special “1”, is :
to give for each Battleship or Cruiser, and only these two excluding Carrier (it is already an interesting unit), an AA shot @1 (both offense and defense) in each opening combat round in addition to regular combat @4 and @3, without the preemptive strike of OOB AAA. After the first combat round, everything stay as usual.

That way, even attacking planes in opening game round can still get their combat roll.

I can depict the regular AAA attack and defense roll as each enemy squadrons are fighting enemy’s warships and both aircrafts or warships are within range of each other, unlike numerous AAAs ground defense organized  in layers upon layers of defensive lines of more important targets and army divisions, justifying OOB AAA preemptive strike.

@Narvik:

@Tamer:

I really like the idea and have toyed with it myself, but I think it should be limited to capital ships only.  Cruisers are already a good unit with a relatively low price, and I think that giving them this new ability with the same price could potentially create a a frenzy of cruisers on the board.

It is a fact that even before WWII the old battleships got obsolete, and the combo of carrier and cruiser became the new standard. Cruisers had just as good AA fire ability as battleships. The only difference between cruisers and battleships is the armor. The main purpose of a battleship is to never sink, but stay afloat no matter how much beating it gets. But a cruiser don’t need that, since the fighters on the carrier will make sure no enemy ships will be in range. This is historical facts, and I wonder why anybody would make game rules that don’t reflect this ? Maybe they would be better of playing a WWI game, because no rational player should purchase battleships in A&A, just use the ones that comes with the set up

Your POV, Tamer of Beasts, on Cruiser at 12 IPCs is marginal.
Cruiser is the worse naval purchase according to all AACalc simulations (compared to Destroyers or Battleships) and a Carrier with planes is far better in amphibious assault, because a Fg can attack @3 each round, not just the opening combat round like a shore bombardment.

However, Narvik, in a game perspective, Cruiser bombard is better than BB for the same cost:
3 BB @4 vs 5 Cruiser @3 (60 IPCs) or 12 attack points vs 15 points.

If 1 AA is given to both warships, you get 3 AA shots @1 vs 5 AA shots @1.
So, for the same cost, Cruiser become better for both shore bombardment and AA while Battleship remains better for her double hits capacity.

I never actually thought about it that way.  Thanks for clarifying BM.

This is an old discussion over the years, my original idea was to leave cruisers imbalance alone and either give them a 3 move capability ( 4 if from port) due to their superior range, or give them an AA platform allowing either any “one” result on the die hitting any planes if they are in the battle, OR before combat they get a free shot at planes just like AA on land ( defender chooses loss).

@Imperious:

This is an old discussion over the years, my original idea was to leave cruisers imbalance alone and either give them a 3 move capability ( 4 if from port) due to their superior range, or give them an AA platform allowing either any “one” result on the die hitting any planes if they are in the battle, OR before combat they get a free shot at planes just like AA on land ( defender chooses loss).

I believe you have tried a lot to convince Larry about adding something to improve Cruiser, is it really the case?

Did you play-test often the 1 preemptive AA strike @1 per Cruiser?

I’ve been really happy with giving ships @1 preemptive AA abilities.  … and that is the ONLY way ships can hit airplanes.

During a ship’s normal combat rolls, their “big-gun” hits must be applied to other ships.

This lets you attack fleets with only air units and dish out some serious WWII-style dive-bomb/torpedo damage unless the defending fleet has air-cover.  (which it should)

@the_jetset:

I’ve been really happy with giving ships @1 preemptive AA abilities.  … and that is the ONLY way ships can hit airplanes.Â

During a ship’s normal combat rolls, their “big-gun” hits must be applied to other ships.Â

This lets you attack fleets with only air units and dish out some serious WWII-style dive-bomb/torpedo damage unless the defending fleet has air-cover.  (which it should)

I totally agree on the rational on that, but the playability problem is aircrafts will be so superior to ships that after a few turns there will be no ships on map, man. Do mind, that in the real war, aircrafts had really short range. Fighters could barely cross the narrow part of the English Channel, and that is not very long range. So the real war ships were protected by distance. In A&A Global, fighters taking off from Western Germany can sink British ships in the far Mediterranian Sea and land in Libya. And not only one or two, but thousands of aircrafts. If one A&A aircraft unit represent from 500 to 1000 real life planes, and Germany send like 3 Fighters, 4 Tacs and 2 Bombers from Western Germany to attack British ships adjacent to the coast of Africa, and maybe even land in Libya, that would be like the real world Luftwaffe fly 10 000 planes over an insane distance and land in a rocky desert with no airstrips. The whole idea is insane, bedlam, derogatory crazy nuts. And this fleet would be protected by a Carrier, but in the real war a WWII Carrier had room for like 150 planes, not 2000 like the 2 A&A units represent. So before fixing the sea to air problems, there is a lot more urgent problems.

This is cointerbalanced by having Strat Bombers attack Naval Units @2 instead of @4. … dropping a load of bombs at a moving ship from 20,000 feet is not very effective.  And also by letting the defending fleet have a chance to escape after each combat round with a roll of 4 or greater.  (Please check the Three Turn Playing Rules for more info)

We haven’t had any problems at all with ships being eliminated from the map.  But giving planes their proper place does make you build your fleets around carriers instead of around Battleships.

I find it a lot more balanced and realistic.

About Carriers, the Yorktown and Enterprise  were holding around 90 planes on board.
If a single Carrier sculpt depict 3-4 ships, then a single Fg sculpt represent around 135 to 200 planes max.

YG,

What about Cruisers get to throw 2 dice @ 1 at air just like normal AAA on land? But this rule would apply to both attacking and defending cruisers. This might make this unit useful again, rather than just broken.

Ichabod

@Ichabod:

YG,

What about Cruisers get to throw 2 dice @ 1 at air just like normal AAA on land? But this rule would apply to both attacking and defending cruisers. This might make this unit useful again, rather than just broken.

Ichabod

I played some 1942.2 game with this first strike off/def AAA.
It is not imbalanced.
I drop this HR because of the unthematic aspect that Cruiser were more able to destroy planes than Fighters.

My concern with your proposed changes YG is that players would be too leery to engage in naval combat if there was a chance of them losing planes instead of subs or destroyers. That chance would be great if all 3 of those ships had this capability. I do think that aircraft carriers should have some chance of defending themselves so you could use that AAA rule for them. I also like Impervious Leader’s idea of increasing the range of the cruisers by one space ( that would open up a whole new world of possibilities for grouping them and using them as a raiding party against far away small navies). You could increase the worth of battleships simply by lowering the cost to 18 IPC as they are tough enough as it is.

Technically, in real life, destroyers were the ships that had the AAA guns for Aircraft Carrier protection. They of course also protected carriers through their anti-submarine capabilities. Cruisers were mainly for surface ship warfare and shore bombardment.

Anyways, Baron Munchuasen’s please further explain your point about “Cruisers were more able to destroy planes than fighters.”
In real life yes. But Tac. Bombers and S. Bombers are easier to shoot down than fighters in real life by any anti-air unit or gun also. However, in the board game, these units are simply represented on the board. And we like the onus of being able to select the cheaper units first for “hits.”

The idea of allowing ships to shoot down planes whether YG idea of for every 1 thrown, or just 1x up front like AAA guns on land, is to change a dynamic of the game that maybe should be changed. I personally like the House Rule idea of allowing Cruisers one extra ability. The unit is obviously broken…no one buys a 12 IPC cruiser. It’s just no worth it. But if for every cruiser, I got to throw 2 dice at Japanese planes, I might buy 1 cruiser for every 3-5 destroyers…ect. Regardless, Aircraft Carriers are still going to be (and should be) the dominate sea vessel as they are today and were during WWII.

@Ichabod:

Anyways, Baron Munchuasen’s please further explain your point about “Cruisers were more able to destroy planes than fighters.”
In real life yes. But Tac. Bombers and S. Bombers are easier to shoot down than fighters in real life by any anti-air unit or gun also. However, in the board game, these units are simply represented on the board. And we like the onus of being able to select the cheaper units first for “hits.”

From a game POV, defending planes’ hit at 4 or less are taken on DDs or Subs first, cheaper units.
While cruiser directly hits planes on “1” roll, according to this HR.

In WWII, Fighters were hitting planes.
For instance, during the Great  Marianas Turkey Shoot, most kills were credited to F6F Hellcats, not Cruisers or Battleship AA fire.
Also, another example, during battle of Midway, US Devastator Torpedoe Bombers were taken down by japanese CAP.

So, I can see some defensive AA fire from Cruiser, but offensive AA seems unthematic to me when compared to aircrafts capabilities (Cruiser roaming the see to hunt down enemies TcBs and Fgs).

We have used carrier shots for fleet AA in the past. Carriers would still defends at 2 every round but hits are applied to air first. It kinda reinforces that carriers should be the center piece of your navy. I think that AA for all big ships that roll “1” is a bit much, and could cause to much attrition to air.

I would like to play around with ftrs that roll “1” hit planes, and tacs that roll “1” can target navy or ground units (think that would be cool to test).