New Transport Defense

@simon33:

@Caesar:

Correct. I continue to protest how dumb the transport rule is. You can have 1000 transports and 1 fighter can destroy them all because transport defend at 0.

I don’t think it is dumb. If they have no defensive weapons why would you expect a different outcome?

What bother me about TPs and Subs is that actually, in 1941 or 1942.2, there is no way to sink TP before getting ride of all Destroyers.

It was historically the opposite. Subs aimed at TPs and merchant ships, then flee and submerged. Against a convoy, they never go to fry the bigger fish, never.

With TP taken last, there is virtually no way to sink TP with Subs without getting ride of all warships. Only then you get the unrealistic all TPs sinking festival…

It seems unlikely as a single sheeps herd circled by a few dogs and a shepherd, once wolves killed the man and his dogs then they hunt sheeps.

TPs in a SZ are not just part of a single large fleet. I assume there is more than just a single mission in a given SZ. It would be easier to accept that you can loose a few TPs before taking all warships as casualties.

It seems SS your original way of handling TP was very near Phillip Schwartzer World War II The expansion rule on Classic A&A for Transport.
Unable to defend against warships but able to flee after two attack rolls.
Able to defend @1 (on D6) each combat round against aircrafts but unable to flee from them.

Your rule was more realistic with @1 on D12.

I believe it might help to give a few facts:

Use in battle
On 27 September 1942 the SS Stephen Hopkins was the first (and only) US merchant ship to sink a German surface combatant during the war. Ordered to stop, Stephen Hopkins refused to surrender, the heavily armed German commerce raider Stier and her tender Tannenfels with one machine gun opened fire. Although greatly outgunned, the crew of Stephen Hopkins fought back, replacing the Armed Guard crew of the ship’s lone 4-inch (100 mm) gun with volunteers as they fell. The fight was short, and both ships were wrecks.[26]

On 10 March 1943 the SS Lawton B. Evans became the only ship ever to survive an attack by the German submarine U-221. The following year from 22 to 30 January 1944, the Lawton B. Evans was involved in the Battle of Anzio in Italy. It was under repeated bombardment from shore batteries and aircraft throughout an eight-day period. It endured a prolonged barrage of shrapnel, machine-gun fire and bombs. The gun crew fought back with shellfire and shot down five German planes, contributing to the success of the landing operations.

But Liberty was not the main troop Transport ships.

In September 1943 strategic plans and shortage of more suitable hulls required that Liberty ships be pressed into emergency use as troop transports with about 225 eventually converted for this purpose.

Probably troop transports were much more heavily equipped by Anti-Aircraft guns than standard Liberty ship.

For instance attack Cargo ships, or AKA:

A total of 388 APA (troop) and AKA (cargo) attack transports were built for service in World War II in at least fifteen classes. Depending on class they were armed with one or two 5-inch guns and a variety of 40 mm and 20 mm anti-aircraft weapons.

As amphibious operations became more important in World War II, planners saw the need for a special kind of cargo ship, one that could carry both cargo and the LCM and LCVP boats with which to attack the beach, and that carried guns to assist in anti-air defense and shore bombardment. Specifications were drawn up, and beginning in early 1943, the first 16 U.S. attack cargo ships were converted from Navy cargo ships that had previously been designated AK. During the course of the war, 108 such ships were built; many of them were converted from non-military ships, or started out as non-military hulls.

Attack cargo ships played a vital role in the Pacific War, where many were attacked by kamikazes and other aircraft, and several were torpedoed, but none were sunk or otherwise destroyed. Nine AKAs were present at the surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_transport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibious_cargo_ship

@Der:

Larry Harris said this about transports in 2007 on his site:

“I will say this… Transports are considered to be lightly defended with escorts. Additional ships provide additional defense and so on.” (Posted: Fri 23.Feb, 2007)

So originally transports were not to be thought of as just transports.

Two maxims of the game have generally been:

1. every decision involves some risk (dice rolls)
2. defender chooses his own casualties

The new transport rules violate both.

@Der:

More research:

The typical troop carrying Liberty ship in WWII had 3 3"/50 cal guns, 1 5"/38 cal gun, and 8 20mm AA guns. How is this now represented in the auto-destroy rule?

The following escort vessels I found in a short search are not represented in this game:

Merchant aircraft carriers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_aircraft_carrier

Catapult Aircraft Merchantmen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAM_ship

Armed merchant cruisers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_merchantmen#Armed_merchant_cruisers

Corvettes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvette#World_War_II

Frigates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frigate#World_War_II

Escort Carriers 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escort_aircraft_carrier

How do you represent them? Keep Transports defense@1.

And we are not talking about dry goods/grain/supply transports here - supply is not modeled in the game. These are all really Troopships - which were naturally more heavily defended.

Probably troop transports were much more heavily equipped by Anti-Aircraft guns than standard Liberty ship.

They had none whatsoever. The whole idea is farcical. The fact that one liberty ship damaged a German sub does not mean the thousands of liberty ships should now have AA capabilities or ability to destroy subs or other surface warships is akin to Nazi’s exploring the moon in 1944 and leaving a swastika to mark Hitlers new colony. Only The US and Germany employed decoy ships that were used to trick subs into surfacing, with the Germans using them to sink other merchant ships as Raiders ( no not Los Angeles Raiders).

Holy crap

@Imperious:

The whole idea is farcical. The fact that one liberty ship damaged a German sub does not mean the thousands of liberty ships should now have AA capabilities or ability to destroy subs or other surface warships is akin to Nazi’s exploring the moon in 1944 and leaving a swastika to mark Hitlers new colony.

So you’re the guy who made this movie?  How did you know the Nazis were on the moon? That base is a secret!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jth4yATniS4

@Imperious:

(no not Los Angeles Raiders).

The Los Angeles Raiders? Dude, you’re several decades out of date, they’ve been in Oakland for a very long time and are about to move to Las Vegas.

@Imperious:

Probably troop transports were much more heavily equipped by Anti-Aircraft guns than standard Liberty ship.

They had none whatsoever. The whole idea is farcical. The fact that one liberty ship damaged a German sub does not mean the thousands of liberty ships should now have AA capabilities or ability to destroy subs or other surface warships is akin to Nazi’s exploring the moon in 1944 and leaving a swastika to mark Hitlers new colony.

I.L. makes an important fundamantal point: units in A&A are a somewhat generic and abstracted representation of what the corresponding unit types did in WWII, and as such their game capabilities should reflect what most of them did most of the time in the circumstances under which they normally operated, not what a small number of them might have done under unusual circumstances.  Or to put it in statistical terms, the modeled capabilities should be based on the real-world behaviour found in the middle of the bell curve, rather than being based on the statistical outliers found at the two tail ends of the bell curve.  The fact that exceptional behaviour exists doesn’t justify treating exceptions as if they were the norm.  That would be like saying: “somebody bought a winning ticket to last week’s lottery, so this proves that everyone who buys a ticket for next week’s lottery is going to win.”

That’s what I was trying to say in my post, just probably not as clearly… basically transports SHOULD be sitting ducks, and making them capable of taking out warships is a bigger inaccuracy then whatever SS’s friends are crying about.

Here, I’m not talking about merchant’s vessels.
Only specifically navy troop transport.
So, Germany only use Destroyers as troop transport for Norway invasion?
Japan mainly use Destroyers for Tokyo Express?

But any Axis troop transport was totally unarmed?

Only USA had APA and AKA and were armed against aircraft?

UK get no armed troop transport at all because they only made it on D-Day and after they assumed total air dominance ?

Another case: General G. O. Squier-class transport

Armament:
   4x 5"/38 caliber gun mounts
   4x 40 mm AA gun mounts
   16x 20 mm AA gun mounts

So, I guess only USA have money to invest into Trooper ship and built-in AA armaments.

All other Powers were careless about this (not enough resources) and only rely unto escorting frigate or Destroyer?

OK, I saw that many if not most of UK’s troop ship were Armed Merchant Cruiser:
Which brings around 7 BL 6-inch Mk VII naval gun on deck and  2 x3*76mm, AA QF 12-pounder 12 cwt naval gun:

In World War II the gun was used to arm British troop ships and armed merchant cruisers, including HMS Rawalpindi, which briefly fought the German 11-inch gun battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in November 1939, and HMS Jervis Bay which similarly sacrificed herself to save her convoy from the 11-inch pocket battleship Admiral Scheer in November 1940.

Jervis Bay’s sacrifice bought enough time for the convoy to begin to scatter. Further time was bought by the freighter SS Beaverford which engaged Admiral Scheer for over four hours. In the end the German cruiser was only able to sink five merchant ships and the remainder of the convoy escaped.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/the-fearless-near-forgotten-story-of-hms-jervis-bay-1.1288803

So, if we set aside the idea that TP unit in A&A are merchant cargo ships and agree that its purpose is to carry Inf, Art, MI and Tank, and such unit are functional army divisions able to be thrown into amphibious assault. We have to wonder: what kind of Allied troopships were totally defenseless against aircraft?

Even fast ocean liner such as Queen Elizabeth:

Queen Elizabeth left the port of New York on 13 November 1940 for Singapore to receive her troopship conversion. After two stops to refuel and replenish her stores in Trinidad and Cape Town, she arrived in Singapore’s Naval Docks where she was fitted with anti-aircraft guns, and her hull repainted grey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Elizabeth

basically transports SHOULD be sitting ducks

Exactly this.They are Ducks. Quack.

So, Germany only use Destroyers as troop transport for Norway invasion?
Japan mainly use Destroyers for Tokyo Express?

Because this is true does not give Transports AA capabilities, no matter how many examples you can show. ^65%%*(900-0-0–0-) -120=3

Just the Germans and USA made any attempt to arm them them for different reasons and to fight in extremely limited events.

The transports represent many types of ships, but they mostly represent by far the type that has NO GUNS OF ANY TYPE. The few cases are very limited. Anybody can find some example of any ship that had some luck at feeding Goering, but usually they came up empty. The British had like thousands of merchant ships, and perhaps a few had some cook who brought a pistol, most of them didn’t and NONE OF THEM HAD aa GUNS.  If you find one i will look at a naked picture of Herman eating a sandwich that could feed starving Germans.

Transports should have defense regardless. They are armed transport ships and second, if you take D-Day as an example, half the allied fleet that was used for Overlord was armed civilian ships.

Here is another example of a converted merchant ship into military troop transport:
Armament:
   4x 15 cm/50 41st Year Type guns
   2x 8 cm/40 3rd Year Type naval guns
   2x 4 Type 93 13.2-mm machine guns
   2x 4 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes

As a military transport

From 16 December 1942, Aikoku Maru was reassigned back to the IJN 8th Fleet, primarily as a military transport to support New Guinea operations, and her aircraft were disembarked. While unloading cargo at Madang on 18 December, she was attacked in an air raid by B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of the 43rd Bomb Group of the USAAF Fifth Air Force, but was not hit. She returned to Kure on 29 December 1942.[1]

As part of “Operation C” (the Reinforcement of New Guinea), on 5 January 1943, Aikoku Maru loaded the IJAAF 209th Airfield Battalion, 14th Aerial Repair Shop and others, a total of 691 men plus 34 vehicles at Pusan in Korea, arriving at Rabaul on 14 January. She was then sent to Tsingtao in Japanese-occupied China, arriving 24 January, and from there to Cebu (2 February) and Palau (7 February), where she loaded additional troops and cargo, delivering the reinforcements successfully to Wewak on 23 February. She returned to Kure on 5 April.[1]

On 10 July 1943, as part of a convoy including the aircraft carrier Un’yō, Aokoku Maru was attacked by the submarine USS Halibut 170 nautical miles (310 km; 200 mi) north of Truk, which fired six torpedoes. One struck Aikoku Maru, causing moderate damage. On her return voyage, on 15 July, she was attacked again, this time by the submarine USS Tinosa, whose four torpedoes all missed. She returned to Kure on 2 September.[1]

On 6 October, Aikoku Maru returned to Tamano for repairs and refitting with additional weaponry, which included two 152 mm guns and four twin-mount Type 96s. The refitting work was completed by 31 December 1943.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aikoku_Maru_(1940)

Armament:
   4x 14 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns,
   2 Type 93 13.2-mm machine guns
   2x 4 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes

Military service

On 6 August 1941, Kongō Maru was requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Navy and was converted to an armed merchant cruiser at the Harima Shipyards at Aioi. Single mount 14 cm/50 3rd Year Type naval guns were installed at her bow and stern, as were two Type 93 13.2-mm machine guns and two 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes. Her conversion was completed on 14 October and she was assigned to the IJN 4th Fleets South Seas Force and deployed to Truk. At the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Kongō Maru was at Kwajalein, from which she deployed as part of the Japanese task force in the first attempt to invade Wake Island on 8 December 1941. She was bombed by USMC F4F Wildcat aircraft using depth charges, and caught fire. The fires were brought under control and she returned to Kwajalein. She later participated in the second attack on Wake Island on 21 December 1941, which succeeded in taking the island. After the battle, Kongō Maru was sent via Saipan, Truk and Guam to participate in the battle of Rabaul on 22 January 1942.[2]

During the invasion of Lae-Salamaua on 8 March 1942, Kongō Maru transported elements of the Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces to Huon Gulf in what is now eastern Papua-New Guinea. While still at Huon Gulf of 10 March 1942, Kongō Maru was bombed and sunk by aircraft from the United States Navy aircraft carriers USS Lexington and USS Yorktown at 06 49′S 147 02′E.[2] She was removed from the navy list on 20 March 1942.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongō_Maru_(1935)

If Transport are considered Troopships, it seems very dumb to not trying to give some Air defense to protect the costly soldiers which take a lot of time to replace.

I can understand that cargo ships were less important, stock can be rebuilt faster.
A functional military unit cannot be rebuilt that fast. Training take times.

I see no absolute reason to treat Transport unit as only merchant ship.
And, on the reverse, there is no absolute reason to not consider Transport unit as military troopship.

The game does not actually consider fuel, supplies, drugs, cloths, food and shelters shipping on the map.

Even G40, the more complex and detailed game, get a special Convoy Disruption rule to consider the economic aspect and impact on merchant shipping.

Plus as an example, it’s not like the crew aboard a ship is not going to return fire, even if it’s small arms. I know it seems dumb but several nations have used their squad machine guns as AA before. Plus as said before, it seems illogical that the player cannot take transports as a hit in combat.

@Wolfshanze:

That’s what I was trying to say in my post, just probably not as clearly… basically transports SHOULD be sitting ducks, and making them capable of taking out warships is a bigger inaccuracy then whatever SS’s friends are crying about.

@Wolfshanze:

@SS:

OK, I’m looking at giving a transport a defense shot besides at a plane only.

Each transport can decide if it wants 1 shot D12 D1 at a plane or a Cruiser ?, Destroyer and a transport. In all my games the transport gets 1 shot each at any attacking planes.
I don’t know off hand what the G40 OOB rule is.

I know some US transports had 5in guns and the other ones had 20,40 mm anti air and mortars. But I can’t find any info on what was on the other WW2 transports as far as Ger, Russ and so on.

I got a new youngin in group now and all he complains about is the history is not right in these games.

While it’s not perfect, no defense for transports is a lot closer to history than giving them the ability to sink enemy warships.

Yes, some had some light AA armament, and if you’re lucky, you might mount a single 4 or 5-inch deck gun…

On the matter of light AA, yes, in-theory you could shoot down a plane with this, but it was nowhere near the AA armament of an actual warship (even a DD)… so something like a roll of “1” on a 1D12* would be better than the standard roll of “1” on a 1D6. If you want to house-rule AA on a transport, I’d say “1” on a 1D12… using a standard 1D6 would be giving them too much credit (heck, I might even argue a 1D20).

Now a single 4 or 5 inch deck gun for anti-sub defense… this is a long-shot… because for starters, the sub would have to be surfaced for this to even have a chance, and a 4" gun vs torpedoes usually doesn’t end well for the guy with the deck gun… but for the most part, subs stopped making surface attacks anyways, unless it was in the dead of night.

On the issue of a single 4 or 5 inch deck gun on an unarmored transport EVER having ANY chance of engaging and destroying an enemy warship, especially since you specifically mentioned a cruiser (which would be in-reference to a 10,000-ton+ cruiser armed with multiple turrets of 8" guns and an armor belt designed to stop at least 6" and lighter armament, I’m sorry… your friends can moan all they want, a 30-knot heavy cruiser let loose in a fleet of 10-knot unarmored transports is not going to result in the loss of the cruiser in any circumstance short of divine intervention.

Heavily armed Q-ships is an altogether different issue… they aren’t even really transports at that point… not in the traditional sense… they also still suffer from the very bad issue of no armor and no speed (it can be armed well, but it still has no armor belt and usually can’t top 10 to 15 knots tops). Their main advantage is not firepower as much as surprise… the enemy not expecting a armed merchant and closing in without expecting resistance… a proper clash between a Q-ship and an enemy warship would still usually not go well… at best there is chance against a DD or CL, but you can forget a Q-ship having any chance against a CA… and once again, surprise is the main issue here, lose it and the Q-ship is toast. In any case, it’s not really a proper transport, and certainly not the norm… if you want to try and work in unarmored slow Q-Ships, they should be a separate purchase.

In the end, an unarmed or lightly armed typical transport IS A SITTING DUCK to any enemy vessel in this game, and giving them no defense is more realistic then giving them a 1 in 1D6 chance of killing planes and enemy warships. Your friends are getting closer to history as-is than if you start having transports sinking heavy cruisers.

*If 12-sided dice are a rarity or an issue, you can always demand a roll of “snake eyes” on 2D6 to simulate a roll of “1” on a 1D12.

I agree with your analysis.
But you also have to consider the other spectrum of unrealistic depiction provided by a more (when on offense) or less no hit value TP. It never happened that a whole convoy (if looking at TP unit as Cargo ship) was obliterated.
Usually, merchant ship were targeted first by Subs and planes because they have limited ammunition or torpedoes and bombs and have to inflict maximum damage.
So, the actual game depiction is faulty on that point because you destroyed all warships before touching TPs.

Now, if you consider TP as real military vessel troopship, and, as such, were always heavily protected you have to admit that these specific ships were equipped with Anti-Air defense.
So, you cannot have your cake and eat it.
In addition, in the case all escorting vessels would have been sunk. As showed by the example of HMS Jervis Bay, it give time to Troopships to scatter away from enemy’s warship.
It is only realistic that in a situation like Battle off Samar, Escort Carrier and Destroyer would have fought valiantly too. Even to be defeated by enemy’s warships (if IJN Yamato’s fleet would have stay the course instead of retreating) to ensure that as few troopships as possible will sink. Hence, a big naval clash resulting in a total oblivion of all TPs unit, once the last Fg or BB escorting as been sunk, is totally unhistorical.

A zero hit unit create a lot historical aberration too.

Also, this does not consider the tactical use of scattering when the enemy is overwhelmingly powerful.
A few warships cannot be everywhere to sink multiple ships, and each single fleeing target is also buying time for others.

At a theater of operational level, total destruction of all TPs units is also very weird if you cannot achieve it on tactical level.

@Caesar:

Plus as an example, it’s not like the crew aboard a ship is not going to return fire, even if it’s small arms. I know it seems dumb but several nations have used their squad machine guns as AA before. Plus as said before, it seems illogical that the player cannot take transports as a hit in combat.

To be fair, the other issue is that in some particular naval combat a given player would take as casualties all TPs before loosing any precious and costly warships like Cruiser or Battleship.
That would be weird because it gives the impression that gunboats are hiding behind unarmored TPs.

So basically, we all have different opinions and it seems like most of us are against OOB treatment of transports.

So either give them AA guns or give them a defense of 1.

I also like the idea of letting them scatter in combat.

@Baron:

@Caesar:

Plus as an example, it’s not like the crew aboard a ship is not going to return fire, even if it’s small arms. I know it seems dumb but several nations have used their squad machine guns as AA before. Plus as said before, it seems illogical that the player cannot take transports as a hit in combat.

To be fair, the other issue is that in some particular naval combat a given player would take as casualties all TPs before loosing any precious and costly warships like Cruiser or Battleship.
That would be weird.

Weird but not above AA, out of all the version I have played, G40 is the first I’ve seen where you can’t just soak hits on transports to protect costly BB or Carriers.

It is the case since AA50 edition.
All TPs are defenseless since then.

They are armed transport ships and second, if you take D-Day as an example, half the allied fleet that was used for Overlord was armed civilian ships.

When are they THAT?

Since the “Kongō Maru” was made from a Dreadnought to a Troopship ( which was an upgrade) sure lets make the other 50,000 merchant ships of the world into AA gunned, torpedo tubed, leviathans of the sea.

Hence forth all navies of the world rejoice in their newfound capabilities. The vaunted conversions to troopships is abound and all nations must comply in face of the wrath.

Battleships beware a new sheriff is in town and taking names and putting notch’s on their 50 Caliber AA guns.

The world will never be the same…

600&(^^&(^^%%–===++==3+5434=542334=-5455=)=0