AA capabilities for big ships

@WILD:

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).

Even aTcB attack/defense @3 which allows to pick enemy’s ground units is not a game changer IMO from my few HR games.

The unknown is about targeting navy, mainly Cruisers, Carriers and Battleships.

Acknowledging that planes are so useful and versatile, making them a little bit more vulnerable against bigger and costlier warships cannot be that unbalancing. Don’t you think?

Baron,

Your point makes sense to me too…on the flipside however, AAA as part of an attack doesn’t seem unauthentic to me whether on the ground or at sea. I don’t see cruisers hunting down planes exactly the way you say it. Think of a battle taking place like the Marianas battle you describe. Japanese planes were shot down by US planes. Yes, but both sides’ planes wanted to attack each others’ vessels, primarily carriers which in turn had AAA. Another example is the Corral Sea Battle which was carrier based aircraft attacking each other’s carriers. When the enemy planes got near, AAA fire was one of the ways each other’s planes were shot down. Both sides were attacking (with aircraft) and defending (AAA) at the same time.

In regards to ground attacks, mechanized AAA have to keep up with the tanks to provide them air cover while enemy defending aircraft try to knock out the approaching tank formations. It’s all combined arms. They all move together whether maneuvering or in a static defense. I’m an Army officer and I see all units working together regardless of their situation.

The idea of letting cruisers throw just 2 dice, 1x at the beginning, is a way to add a bit of threat and teeth to an approaching cruiser and make them a purchasable unit again. The unit is currently broken. I don’t think they’ll be shooting down so many planes to the point that people wouldn’t sill consider fully loaded aircraft carriers the primary base vessel combination in Axis and Allies.

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.”

Good point. So also let fighters hit other planes EVERY time they roll a 1 during a battle.

@GeneralHandGrenade:

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 Imperious 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.

A 10 IPCs Cruiser moving at 3 (4 from Naval Base), and
a 18 IPCs Battleship would have been an interesting patch to the actual roster.
On a battlecalc simulations, these cost makes both warships more competitive against Destroyers and Subs.
Based on 1914 Cruiser, I believe M3 Cruiser is the next logical step to make it more interesting.

But, in itself it is not enough to outweight optimal cost/hit ratio for Subs and DDs.
Also, you need to consider how much ships work usually inside large fleet.
A pack of very mobile Cruisers is not as interesting compared to a pack of Subs or single cheap DD blocker.

Adding an AA capacity to Cruiser gives an incentive to the usual tactic of working with large fleet.
Cruiser will stay with other warships and TPs to provides the additional AA cover.

M3-4 Cruiser more autonomous from fleet seems to work well with an other idea from YG:
giving cruiser an Anti-blocker capacity.

@Young:

@Baron:

@Young:

If Cruisers had the opportunity to attack blockers in a new phase prior to the combat movement phase, I think they would be purchased more. It’s like a blitz ability for the trailing ships, but the Crusiers must stay where they attacked first.

I like this idea because it emphasizes some kind of special movement capacity.
It is consistent with a full M3 move, M4 with Naval Base bonus.
Both could be given to Cruiser.
In addition, Cruiser can be able to do both Combat Move and Non-combat move.
So, after taking care of blocker, it can move up to the remaining move points left to reach its naval group during noncombat phase.
This would be similar to plane movement.

I would introduce a “Reconnaissance Phase” in which Cruisers (and only cruisers) can attack before the combat movement phase. Each cruiser that attacks during the reconnaissance phase, may not attack during the combat movement phase. Also, I would not allow them to move during the non combat movement phase if they attacked during the reconnaissance phase, that would make blockers obsolete IMO.

@Ichabod:

Baron,
Good point. So also let fighters hit other planes EVERY time they roll a 1 during a battle.

To Wild Bill and Ichabod,
Not so long ago I put this on one of my thread, with Word file Doc to print a summary of a full roster with many HRs, as player’s help :

FIGHTER A3 D4 M4, SBR A2 D2 Cost 8
Air combat unit, Fighter as an Air Superiority aircraft: All “1” and “2” rolls are allocated to aircraft units first, if any available, then AAA, and finally other kind of units (owner’s choice).
Fighter as part of an extended Air Defense System:
1942.2, 1 Fg can scramble from an Air Base/Victory City.
SBR/TcBR Attack @2, Defend @2.

Can hit unsubmerged submarines without Anti-Sub Vessel.

TACTICAL BOMBER A4 D3 M4 Cost 10
All “1” rolls are allocated to any aircraft OR ground units of your choice,
All “2” rolls are allocated to any ground units of your choice.
This can makes for Tactical Bomber as a “Dive Bomber” and “Tank Buster”:

1942.2, 1 TcB can scramble from an Air Base/Victory City.

SBR/TcBR Attack @1 first strike,
TcBR damage: 1D6.

Can hit unsubmerged submarines without Anti-Sub Vessel.