AARHE: Phase 3: land Combat

I’m glad I cleared your principle concern and I do take your point with regards to world-wide naval redeployments. I think, from a purely historical perspective, I do have to concede that what I am proposing does require a suspension of disbelief. Even today, that sort of operation is incredibly difficult to plan for, let alone execute, (although it is only a concern for the USA at the time of writing).

If I may touch on your examples, my limited understanding is that thanks to the Dogger Bank incident, the British closed the Suez Canal to the Russian fleet, which they were hoping to do anyway. The Brits had recently signed treaties with Japan against Russia, so Dogger Bank just gave them a pretext, which has always made me wonder if the British had something to do with the whole mess. So, on top of the two other major problems you previously mentioned, the required transit distance was increased by thousands of kilometres. Had that not happened, I still think the Japanese would have just as easily and completely annihilated the Russian fleet, but every little helps.

The Great White Fleet and Force Z are good examples too, although Force Z was defeated largely by lack of air cover, not so much to do with logistical challenges, again, as far as I am aware. I agree that this sort of thing is likely done in stages, as you mentioned in your last paragraph, not as one trip only stopping for food and fuel, but I did consider that for the House Rule.

As for the colossal US naval builds and deployments, again I think you are correct. In GW36, to build cruisers and light carriers takes 18 months and battleships and fleet carriers take 2 years, that is, 3 and 4 game rounds respectively, so that aspect doesn’t detract from reality when taking my House Rule into account, IMO.

Ultimately, I do agree that the whole thing is a little hard to swallow, but a ship can travel from Liverpool to Bombay, through the Med, and it still takes 1 year in game time. I think if each nation gets 1 Naval Redeployment per turn, things become much less fantastic. I had to try to balance realism with the in game mechanics to address something that I felt was a bit odd, and it can’t be 100% believable, but we are talking about a board game that has to make it at least feasible for the Axis to win the Second World War, which I believe to be a total impossibility.

@cressman8064:

@Fishmoto37:

Here is an easy fix for the problem of not being able to land planes on carriers after one hit. Carrier takes one hit and combat lasts one round then it cannot land planes as per the rule book. If combat lasts two rounds then carrier can land planes because damage control parties have had time to make temporary repairs. If carrier takes the hit in the second round then it must survive a third round of combat in order to land planes and so on. The damaged carrier must still make its way back to a friendly naval base to be repaired. To be fair and balanced this rule must be the same for each nation even though the U.S. had the best damage control.

So according to this house rule if your attacked by an enemy fleet who scores 1 hit and you apply it to your carrier, then on defense you roll all 3 hits and wipe out the attackers you would loose your planes, where as if missed and the attacker continues for another round your planes can safely land if you eventually succeed?

You are correct. If you are involved in a small naval battle like this and the the battle is NOT in a sea zone that contains a friendly island or a sea zone next to any friendly land territory then you obviously need to put some serious thought into taking that hit on your carrier. This is all covered in the rule book for the first round of combat. This house rule does not even come into play unless the combat goes into the second round. It would make no sense to take a hit on your carrier if you thought there was any chance of combat not going into the second round and you might LOSE your planes. If you were attacked by a force that only took three hits to destroy, then I would take my first hit on my escorting vessel or vessels. I would never have an unescorted carrier anywhere near the enemy at any time.

My bad… I forgot the 4x rule.  That clears up a lot.

Sounds cool. When you did the combat move you would move into an area and then roll for combat or was like you moved all your units then the other person could reinforce an area before combat. Have you played AAG? Combat system is awesome and of course the inspiration for my rules.

Ok that explaination makes more sence. Can you reword it in such a manner that it captures both the examples and the language of your description?

Yep thats correct… but once Moscow is fallen its possible for western allies to move into Soviet territories because after all communism has fallen and Stalin is dead.

see its quite simple rule

Absolutely! Wouldn’t that be the definition of Defensive Air Support?

GG

ok lets talk about it in the setup thread

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=8697.0

so far only change is FTR (fighter) on CV (aircraft carrier) is NAV (naval fighter)