Bombing by Average

Okay, it sounds reasonable then. As Escorts primary purpose (from a game play perspective) is to take interceptor hits instead of bombers (the ability to shoot down interceptors seems incidental in comparison), I’m inclined to pair it with a rule that escorts can each protect one bomber, but any unprotected bombers take interceptor hits first. This way at least you have a reason for intercepting escorted bombers.

Here are our Atomic weapons rules
Only Germany and USA may research them.
Must pay 5 IPC to research. Roll one die and on a result of 6 a technological breakthrough has occurred.
Then roll 2 dice to determine the technology discovered. We have multiple technologies for USA and Germany.

12 – Atomic weapons.
Atomic bombs cost 24 IPC to build. Only two may be built per turn. May not be built on same turn as breakthrough turn.

Move as infantry by land or sea. If loaded on a strategic bomber, it can move the current range of the bomber

Due to a lack of trained technicians and engineers, a nation may possess no more than 2 weapons at one time.
Due to the size and nature of the airburst associated with the nuclear warhead, no attack roll is required to score a successful hit.
No air defense, such as fighter scramble, is allowed due to the altitude of the strike plane and surprise of the attack. Only upgraded fighters may intercept. Long range aircraft or jet power technology must have been successfully researched to intercept an atomic strike.

An atomic weapon is treated as an AAA gun if the territory in which it is stored is attacked. 
No AAA guns are to be fired due to the altitude of the strike plane and surprise of the attack only normal built in AA gun defenses with an industrial facility can fire. Airbase and naval base do not fire AA.
Any industrial complex is attacked with 4 dice disabled to maximum value of 20 for major and 2 dice disabled to maximum value of 6 for minor complexes.
Any airbases or naval bases in the territory are attacked by one dice of value.
One dice is rolled and that number of units of defenders choice eliminated. AAA guns may be chosen.

If used on a naval assault:
The nuclear strike cannot be combined with surface vessels or additional aircraft.
Due to the altitude of the strike plane and surprise of the strike, aircraft on carriers and loaded troops on transports are considered to be cargo and provide no defense. The 5 hits are assessed and the attacking bomber returns to base. No 2nd attack is permitted.
Transports chosen last.

As the Baron points out, modeling air superiority contests in a relatively simple wargame like A&A is quite a challenge! I think there are actually several different phenomena that go by the name of ‘air superiority’ that a good house rule would pay attention to. One is that if your air force is totally unopposed, your ground units will have advantages in terms of recon, surprise, flexibility, etc. because your planes can survey the lay of the land and strike quickly at the point of maximum impact. Another is that airplanes tend to kill each other first, before killing ground units. A third factor is that when fighters intercept bombers, the bombers tend to be less effective – it’s not just that the bombers get killed accomplishing their missions; it’s also that the bombers fly at higher altitudes, fly at faster speeds, and fly on more evasive flight paths to try to minimize their risk of getting shot down. Even when the bombers survive, they do less damage if they’re being harassed by fighters.

Here’s my take on a set of rules that could capture all of those dynamics:

After all attacks are declared, the defender may scramble up to 3 fighters from anywhere on the board, plus up to 2 more fighters from each airbase. Scrambled fighters can move to an adjacent territory or sea zone to participate in a battle there, and then (if they survive) automatically return from whence they came. The same fighter cannot participate in more than one battle per turn.

Attacking and defending fighters roll their dice separately from other units. When fighters score a hit, that hit must be assigned to a plane if possible. The victim can choose which plane is killed. Even though fighter casualties are assigned separately, they are resolved at the same instant as other casualties. For example, suppose a German force of 4 inf, 1 tnk, 1 fighter, and 2 bombers attacks a French garrison of 3 inf, 1 art, 2 fighters. The Germans score a hit with their fighter, and 3 hits with their remaining forces. The French score one hit with their fighter, and 2 hits with their remaining forces. The Germans would have to lose 1 plane and 2 units of their choice – they would probably choose to lose 2 inf, 1 ftr, leaving them with 2 inf, 1 tnk, and 2 bombers. The French would have to lose 1 plane and 3 units of their choice – they would probably choose to lose 3 inf, 1 ftr, leaving them with 1 art, 1 ftr.

If at any point you have at least one plane in a territory, and your opponent has no planes or AAA guns left alive in that territory, then your infantry and mech. infantry in that territory get +1 to their dice rolls. This is cumulative with the artillery bonus. For example, if you have 2 inf, 1 mech. inf, 3 art, and 2 bombers attacking in a territory, and your opponent is defending with only 3 inf, 1 tnk, then your infantry would score hits on rolls of “3” or less – 1 for their basic offense, +1 for the artillery, +1 for the air superiority. Defending infantry can also benefit from air superiority if the defender has air superiority. For example, if your force of 4 inf, 1 fighter, 1 bomber is being attacked by 3 inf, 3 tnk, then your infantry will hit on rolls of “3” or less – 2 for their basic defense, +1 for the air superiority.

Before each combat starts, match each fighter in the combat with one enemy bomber. At the end of the first round of combat, remove that bomber from combat. It no longer rolls dice to try to score hits, and it can no longer be taken as a casualty. This represents bomber pilots’ efforts to avoid interceptors by flying high, flying fast, and then going home. The bomber can be returned to a friendly territory as normal during the non-combat move. If, in any given territory, you have more bombers than your enemy has fighters, your ‘excess’ bombers participate in the entire combat as normal.

To help adjust for the increased mobility of fighters and for their ability to preferentially target (expensive) planes, the combat value of a fighter is reduced to a “2” on offense and a “3” on defense.

Here’s one that doesn’t have any IPC changes or the added Russian and UK NOs.

ww2global40_2nd_edition_A-Bomb_No_PUs.xml

@Uncrustable:

I think you should play some games of G40 on here before making these assumptions.
I do, and I see many SBR involving fighters.
Germany sometimes will send 5 or more bombers on Moscow alone, where Moscow has 2-3 fighters to scramble. Odds are better that Russia will lose a fighter before Germany loses a bomber in the air combat. And  Il trade a German bomber for a Russian fighter, Russia can’t afford it.
I also see many games where G2 Germany sends 2 bombers 2-4 tac bombers and 2-4 fighters to London where there are sometimes up to 5 fighters that can scramble.
Italy will also heroically send its lone bomber to London in an attempt to disable the airbase on London before Germany’s turn.

Even with interceptors SBR is a touch too powerful in G40.
This is mainly because bombers are getting +2, meaning 1 bomber auto disables bases and minor facilities once past AA and interceptors.

I would propose taking away bombers +2, while halving tacbombers damage.
Bombers SBR at 1D6
Tacbombers SBR at 1D6 /2. Rounded up.

Now I better see why you wanted to give defending interceptor D2 instead of D1.

Attacker have the advantage of picking which units will go SBR and to concentrate firepower on a single IC.

The defenders are overwhelmed by the sheer number.
In addition, on defense you have often more than just only 1 IC to protect, and you cannot keep all the Fgs in the same territory, have to split them usually.
D2 interceptors can counterweight the advantage of attacker and hindrance of defense a bit.

Reducing attacking bombers to only 1@1  for the whole group is also a way to preserved the defending fighters against destruction by a large number of StBs. But we both know, that is not A&A standard rules, each unit usually get 1 roll…

…unless you treat StBs/TcBs the same way as AAA!!!. :-o
So each defending Fgs can never have more rolled against them than 1A@1, if there is at least the same number of StB/TcBs vs Fgs.

It can be rationalized to get an historical accuracy somehow in the way:
intercepting fighters are not able to attack all groups of StBs/TcBs flying over the territory but only one unit (flight group) at a time.
When interceptors fly around StBs they are under an intense and concentrated AA fire coming from the flying fortress. But all others group of StBs are not chasing actively Interceptors, they are just flying toward the IC/AB/NB target.
So if interceptors are overwhelmed by the StBs/TcBs, it will be in essence 1:1 combat.
1 TcBs A1 vs 1 Fg D2, all other additionnal StBs/TcBs cannot shoot anymore.
In fact, all intercepting Fgs are already busy, other StBs/TcBs have pure and simple an open road toward IC or NB/AB.

What do you think of this one?
When StBs/TcBs attack fighters on SBR air combat, they get A@1 for each StB/TcB or intercepting Fgs wichever is less.

Escorting fighter attack as usual, 1 unit get 1 roll.
Based on 1942.2, I will keep @1 First Strike
Based on G40 rule, if Interceptor has D1, then A1.

(I really wonder why I haven’t think about it, even back in the old thread about StB spam strategy. :?)
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=31373.0

What would be neat is if you can arrange it so that all the war crimes result in IPC gains but have morality point losses.  If at some point those war crimes result in tangible bad things happening to you (e.g. Fifth column etc), then you have to balance the benefits against the potential harms and it really becomes a game of “How much can I get away with?”.

I am gonna post a new version of mine using KISS. I think it is too complicated.

but i will do that in a new thread :-D

@Rakeman:

@Cmdr:

That is significantly better. (Allies can capture Kwangtung or Philippines easier.)

Though, I still think having it auto liberate after Russia’s turn is the best idea.  That way Japan would have to maintain pressure on W. USA too keep the VC.

Perhaps if USA loses money due to bombing, the VC is captured, but liberated automatically on Russia’s turn?  It would require pressure maintained, but not so much pressure that Japan needs to dedicate all of its money to bombing.

I think it would be okay as long as Japan has to successfully bomb W. USA each successive turn to maintain command over the Victory City there.

That way Japan can still screw up by sending one bomber and having it shot down, or America could get lucky and get 3 hits with it’s AA Gun against 3 bombers.