Artillery

@Arreghas I really like the rule. Here’s what I like the most

I think it would speed up the game It helps minimize giant stacks of troops It’s historically accurate. Concentrated artillery bombardments were used all throughout the war, especially by the Germans in Russia during 1915

I just have one suggestion. I feel like having the artillery not being able to battle if they do this will discourage people from doing this, so here’s what I propose:

When you choose to have an “artillery duel” artillery just hit at one less, like you said. You and the defender use all your artillery in the territory Once per turn you may choose to have your artillery battle at their normal values. However, the roll at 1 until your next turn.

These posts from a past thread on AA guns summarized many AAA’s limitations:

@Vance:

I guess the issue is that AA guns are of equal value to fighters, as Fortress said, but only in terms of defense.

Fighters are expensive units, but are often a good buy because they provide defense, offense, and mobility.

AA guns are all defense, only move 1 space in NCM and have no offense at all.

So while its true that a $5 AA gun has a 50/50 shot at taking out a $10 plane (and yes sometimes they get 2 or even 3 planes, including more expensive tacs or bombers), overall you don’t see people building AA guns very often, if ever. A house rule for AA guns getting something extra like antitank capability would add some extra historical flavour to the game.

@allweneedislove:

like ryguy, i also would like to know why aaguns were changed but still suck.
aaguns were a boring unit that no one purchased. 2nd edition did a good job changing them to behave like a regular unit that can have more than one in the same territory and be taken as casualties. however, they are still boring and a bad purchase.
@Fortress:

Why are we trying to fix something that’s not broken? I laid out the math very specifically. Nobody has refuted it. It literally couldn’t be fairer. They are worth exactly what they should be worth. Where’s the case that there is a problem?…

aaguns are broken and should have been fixed with the 2nd edition revision. they are overpriced.

@Fortress:

….That is absolutely perfect. You can’t improve on that. Literally.

i think you are being disingenuous. you are a better player than what your posts in this thread would have readers believe. you do not purchase aaguns yourself as they are the least flexible and cost efficient unit.

your math works with the framework of a single battle with fighters attacking aaguns. thankfully the game is more than just this one type of battle.
like vance states, they are the unit with the least offense, they are the unit with the least mobility, they only fire if planes are attacking them, they are only used in land battles, they are the 2nd most expensive land unit.

@ryguy:

Part of the problem might be that they are so damn immobile when traveling overseas. Why can’t AA guns move during the combat phase? Would it mess the game up completely? If you capture a territory overland, you can always move the AA gun into that territory during the non-combat phase on the same turn so you are accomplishing the same thing. You cant do that via transports however if the transport was involved during the combat phase. Why cant you just unload the damn AA guns with the attacking force? Why not treat AA guns like tanks/mech infantry/artillery in respect to transports? Why not let the AA guns travel with the attacking force overland during the combat phase?

If were talking in real life terms this might seem weird (Im not a buff on military equipment used in WWII) but it makes them more versatile. You can make it a rule that AA guns cant be chosen as casualties when attacking if you wish, but they definitely cannot shoot at planes when attacking. Theyre just along for the ride. This makes it much easier to transport them overseas without having to purchase separate transports for the non-combat phase. I like mixed arms and this might incorporate AA guns into the mix more often for the Allies.

Im not sure if I like the idea of one IPC AA guns with one shot. I would rather see the current AA gun scheme with a value of 3-4 IPCs with the above rule changes about movement perhaps. If theyre valued under infantry they will get used as fodder more than their original purpose and I dont like that. I still find it strange that AA guns can be chosen as casualties first. Was that rule created just because of the UK and Sea Lion?

@WILD:

Yeah I don’t like how AAA guns are just ignored after the first round of battle, and normally are the first casualty (seems like a flaw). Not sure that they should be able to fire one shot each round afterwords though unless you made it that they only fire 2 shots in the opening round, and one shot each round after that. I also agree that attacking planes should have the option to attack AAA guns directly (maybe AAA is taken as a casualty if air units roll a 1?), and/or can retreat after any round if AAA are allowed to continue firing.

WILD BILL provided two interesting abilities to planes which can limit somehow the unbalancing effect of AAA#1 or AAA#2 continuous firing :

1- Any hit from attacking planes could be directly taken on AAA units.
2- All attacking aircraft units can retreat after each combat round while ground units still be part of the battle.

Maybe one or both should be add to the mix to reach an equilibrium point.

@userx:

@Baron:

I would rather prefer to limit them to their role of AA gun but, specialy for Germany, it seems they used a lot their 88mm AAA as antitank gun (El Alamein battle, i.e.).

I like that because you are correct, in Real Live, AA was just high-velocity ammo pointed at the sky, point it at a tank like the Germans did, it became an effective anti-tank.

I like the idea of taking out tank and/or armor for the pre-combat AA roll.

I don’t know if it would be unbalanced but I think I will try this next game

Thank you

I just learned that Germans put their Flak 88 on tracks and plates so it becomes the Tiger (Mark VI) and deliver them for the Battle of Kursk in 1943.
This gun seems quite an invention.

@Yavid:

2-2-2-5 supports inf., supports mech inf, Blitz with tank.

Looks like the best idea. Attack on 3 essentially would make it a tank at 1 IPC cheaper. Nobody would buy tanks anymore.

What about giving it the ability to fire first in battle, defender removes casualties, then normal combat begins. Or what about being able to fire from adjacent territory. Also can it be used as AA and land combat at the same time or do you have to designate in defense.

But doing that does not model the capabilities of these units. The game OOB permits the preemptive firing because it is against just air units that are flying over to attack. It is marginally acceptable to allow this, but realistically these are just basic artillery.

Since they were made as a new unit it stands to bring it fully into the fold as a normal combat unit.

To allow preemptive fire every round is too strong for a 5 IPC unit IMO.

Plus this unit needs to be 3-2-5 as the other units took the other values, so the value of a 5 IPC unit must balance out and preemptive is worth more.

If you want accuracy, you would need to introduce the concept of units ‘breaking’ and running before they are destroyed.  Squad Leader (Avalong Hill 1977) had this, some squads keep fighting when they are down 50% strength, others ‘break’ and run when damage hits 10%.  Of course each of the existing units when they need variable strengths compared to other nations units.  This would require a switch to dice with a greater range of values, I’d say minimum 10 sides, but lets use 2 10 sided like AD&D.  No way a soviet or german tank unit fights the same way as an allied unit.  The way the allies fought german tanks was using a squad of 4 allied versus a german tank.  It starts like this, the first allied tanks lights up like a torch and the remaining three start to manouver around the german as its turret rotated a bit slow.  So, allied tank #2 then #3 light up in flames and the 4th allied tank gets in behind the german and lets loose at point blank range in the poorly armoured rear of the German and manages to disable it.

New units would not fight as well as vetern units of course so you would have to keep track of the age of each unit then modify its combat values based on just aging and also exposure to combat.  Yeah cool, way more accurate, of course each countries turn would take a few hours and we would have to go back to cardboard units with the 3-4 % values representing the units abilities.  We would need zillions of these units for each combination of values.

In ‘set-piece’ battles the Japanese were getting slaughtered against the US.  Perhaps it because by 1943 the US was producing as many machineguns per month as the Japanese produced during the entire war.  I think the Japs having never faced trench warfare and the futility of charging into massed machineguns had no concpet with this type of warefare.  Moreover, the Japs never seemed to retreat so they had little ablity to learn lessons as nobody came back to HQ with information on what they faced.  I would think for accuracy this would have to be represent also with different strencth units.

Personally, I think AA has found a pretty good balance of accuracy and playability.

I agree 100% art needs a boost defensively to keep its place in the game, especially with the new units introduced.

4-6 was still good in the game though.  Since you could only have 2 + aircraft per territory…