[House Rules] The Cruiser

@taamvan! I didn’t know you worshipped at the church of the d12. :-)

I don’t mind using larger dice if other players want to do so; dice are pretty cheap these days, especially if you buy in bulk. And I agree that there are limits to how many different unit types you can cram into a hit-or-miss system with only 7 basic settings (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

In this case, though, I don’t think we’ve reached those limits quite yet – I think the main limit on the usefulness of cruisers is the number and distribution of the territories on the map. It is rarely worthwhile to send (let alone build) a transport to capture an island worth 1 IPC – to make that kind of thing worthwhile, you have to capture a string of islands in relatively rapid succession, or, even better, you have to move an infantry to a new island chain where it can keep capturing a new 1 IPC-island every turn. World at War has those island chains. Global 1940 doesn’t. If you’re not sending out transports to capture tiny island groups, then you don’t need medium-weight ships to protect those tiny island groups. Either the territory is important (Borneo, Philippines, Norway, etc.) in which case you can send a whole fleet of capital ships, or the territory is unimportant (Crete, Marshall Islands, Iceland, etc.), in which case you usually wouldn’t bother sending anything at all. The problem isn’t lack of room in the numbers on the dice; the problem is a lack of appropriate targets on the map for any type of cruiser to either attack or defend.

@Argothair said in [House Rules] The Cruiser:

I have a premonition that CWO_Marc is going to weigh in to tell me I’ve got the wrong name, so feel free to call it an assault boat, or a landing craft, or a PT or AS or DE or whatever you like – the point is that it’s a small, slow, cheap, multi-purpose ship that can help lend a sense of scale and dimension to the naval wars.

It’s not so much the name that I’m wondering about, but the concept. You refer to a “small, slow, cheap, multi-purpose ship” that can “be used by countries that are small or broke or both to keep their enemies honest,” which has the ability to conduct bombardment and to grab islands. I’m not aware of any such thing existing in WWII, nor even really today. The problem isn’t with the (perfectly valid) concept of a multi-mission ship in and of itself; WWII destroyers, in my opinion, were the quintessential “maids of all work” of the war, and today’s modern frigates occupy a similar niche. The problem is the notion that a highly effective multi-mission ship could be small and cheap. Multi-mission implies multi-capability, and those capabilities have to come from somewhere, which means that they necessarily translate into physical components of a ship: weapons, engines and so forth. Adding components means adding weight and size, which means more contruction time and costs (basically, parts and labour).

A small, cheap WWII-era ship could not have capabilities which were both diverse in nature and all high in effectiveness. The best you could have is a small, cheap WWII ship which was very good at one specialized thing and had a few useful minor capabilities in other areas, but which had severe limitations outside of its specialized context. One example would be flat-bottomed landing craft, which were sometimes fitted with rocket launchers; this made them very useful for amphibious landings, but pretty useless for other applications, given their low speed, minimal range and terrible seakeeping abilities. Another example would be the fast attack craft, of which the American PT boat is a classic example: very fast, packing a considerable punch in terms of torpedoes, and carrying machine guns as auxiliary weapons. Conceptually, you can think of them as the very poor cousins of destroyers (the latter originally having been conceived in the role of “torpedo-boat destroyers”), with most of the destroyers’s capabilities jettisoned. They did carry torpedoes and sometimes depth charges, but they carried no anti-surface or anti-air guns other than .50 cal machine guns (in contrast with destroyers, which typically had 5-inch guns), their range was limited (even when fitted with lots of extra gas canisters, as was done for the MacArthur evacuation), and they were only suitable for use in coastal waters. They could not “bombard” (firing a machine gun at a shore target doesn’t count) and they couldn’t conduct amphibious landings in the same sense that landing craft could (a Higgins boat could carry 36 fully-equiped troops, in addition to its own crew, whereas PT boats typically carried a crew of about 15 people, with little room to spare).

So CWO your saying Destroyers cannot do a shoreshot and carry Inf for amphibious assaults
Correct ?

@SS-GEN said in [House Rules] The Cruiser:

So CWO your saying Destroyers cannot do a shoreshot and carry Inf for amphibious assaults
Correct ?

I’m saying PT boats can’t conduct shore bombardment (because they carry machine guns rather than artillery) and can’t land troops in meaningful enough numbers to be considered amphibious assault troop carriers. WWII destroyers, which carried 5-inch artillery, most certainly could – and did – conduct shore bombardment in support of amphibious landings; as an example, look up the USS Corry (DD-463), which was sunk off the Normandy beaches on D-Day. And some WWII destroyers did carry small numbers of troops and put them ashore, though as far as I know this was an anomalous situation limited to the Tokyo Express at Guadalcanal (an operation, which, incidentally, has been criticized as counterproductive because it cost Japan some valuable destroyers which could have been used for more useful purposes…such as convoy escorting, a task to which Japan paid far too little attention until it realized that US subs were demolishing its vital merchant fleet).

And just to add a clarification: destroyers were versatile, but they were not “small and cheap” in the same sense that a tiny plywood PT boat was cheap. Destroyers were high-powered (both in terms of speed and armaments), fully-fledged, ocean-going surface-combat vessels. They may have been smaller and cheaper and faster to build than a cruiser (to say nothing of a battleship), but they were still substantial pieces of naval construction…actual “ships”, as opposed to “craft” and “boats”, which is what “small and cheap” refers to in absolute terms rather than just relative terms.

Ok. Thank you very much. Then I have those 2 correct in my game

@SS-GEN said in [House Rules] The Cruiser:

Ok. Thank you very much. Then I have those 2 correct in my game

My pleasure.

@Mursilis Britain can manage a sea lion solo if you plan ahead. If Japan attacks J1, and Germany’s opening is compatible with sea lion, Britain builds 8 inf in London, 1 mech in south Africa. Uk2 can build at least another 7 inf in London even against a bombing run, and then if Germany does sea lion, Germany will choke on all those inf – even if Germany takes London, it’s a pyrrhic victory and Russia will eat poland and Romania and never fall. Meanwhile us goes 80% - 100% Pacific theater and eventually catches up to japan.

@Mursilis No, no, sorry if that’s the impression I left. J1 is fine, but Sea Lion only works as a feint, a surprise, or a punishment for sloppy defense. If Britain puts a reasonable amount of defense into London on UK1, then buying 8 transports on G2 is a losing move.

J1 is fine, though; it’s part of a lot of winning openings.

@Mursilis said in [House Rules] The Cruiser:

I agree that in OOB there are not enough island chains. However in the BM3 version are are some very important 3 ipc bonus island chains that you can claim. Some even 5 if you own all 3 islands. So having the cruiser able to carry 1 infantry would make the pacific into a more interesting and active combat zone.

I think I’m going to try this on my next game actually. I am currently running 11 IPC cruisers. Still not buying them. Just no incentive.

Interesting idea on the DD CA pairing. Maybe have a CA boost 2 DDs ? My first thought is 1 doesn’t seem enough.

yea I tried dropping the price before and came to the same conclusion. I tried 10 bucks too but then I didn’t buy hardly any DDs.

As I’m sure you’re aware, BM allows you to transport the Marine unit on CAs. Marines cost more than infantry and I initially believed them too expensive, but a pile of BM games have been played by some of the most experienced players and it seems to work for them.

Personally I don’t like having BBs and CAs transport dudes. It just doesn’t feel right to me, but it does make for another way to play the game.

@Mursilis said in [House Rules] The Cruiser:

@barnee

That’s a good idea. 2 DD for 1 CA.

heh heh well…idk but it sounds like fun to try. Guess I need to add another triplea option : )

@Mursilis said in [House Rules] The Cruiser:

How do you feel about making the destroyer attack on a 1 and is buffed up to a 2 when paired with a cruiser?

I’m not a fan because I think DDs are already too weak relative to subs – you pay an extra 2 IPCs for the DD, but it’s not obvious that 1 DD is stronger than 1 SS. Sure the DDs can defend against airstrikes and they have one extra point of defense, but the sub can hide from airstrikes and does convoy damage.

Still, I see what you’re getting at, and it’s a clever idea.

@Argothair yea I was thinking that too. Maybe drop them to 7 bucks ? It’s hard to say but would help the Cruiser. : )

I think the CR is fine as it is.
There are enough pieces at T1 to start with. Just bc it has a cost value doesn’t mean you have to buy alot or one at all, during your whole game.
BM3 managed to get more juice out of a CR without changing too much on a CR attributes.
You can Transport a Marine if you want to.

What makes that game great is YOU playing it with your style and the benefit to HR it in your groupe if you want to.

The CR might be the “Hotels” for Monopoly.
They are in the box but you don’t have to bring 'em into Play if you want to win 😉.

The CR is likely made as some sort of a middle unit as a A3 D3 but has no special effect (s).

Shorebomb is nice but this happens every once in a While…

My 2 Cents

@aequitas-et-veritas said in [House Rules] The Cruiser:

The CR might be the “Hotels” for Monopoly.
They are in the box but you don’t have to bring 'em into Play if you want to win 😉.

Heh heh yea houses are the way to go. Sis always kicked our ass : )

For whats its worth if you want to try this. Didn’t know subs cost only 6. That is to low as Arg has stated in previous post.
Batt. C20 A4 D4 AD 1.26
Crus C12 A4 D3 AA@1 at Plane only first round only. A.67 D.50
Dest C8 A2 D2 AD .75
Sub C8 A2 D1 A.75 D.38

Still not right. Destroyer still stronger. Most will disagree. For the cost it would only take 2 Destroyers to kill a Battleship and 1 Destroyer to kill a Cruiser. Sub should always have more punch on A. Comes down to Cruiser Destroyer costs. Thats where you need to lower cost for Battleships and Cruisers to be in line with the Destroyers Cost and Punch. Most will disagree with my ideas but I base every thing on cost and Punch so
pieces are fair to each other as far as cost but IMO.

Well I’m going to bow out of this discussion now because its going in the direction most of these G40 discussion go. Just a ball bouncing around in a 4 corner room and not stopping for play testing. LOL It was another good topic to talk about. Thanks.