AARHE Historical Map

The map in playtest 9°

M0.Base1940v2.png
M1.OIL1940v2.jpg

Thanks! I mostly agree with your comment about per-dice research efficiency; the only reason I didn’t include additional penalties for triple-stacking your scientists is for the sake of simplicity. If you want to play with a -3 penalty, or (even better) a -4 penalty that rounds up to a -3 penalty if you roll three 1’s, then go right ahead!

Giving each Axis nation 3 tokens and each Allied nation 2 tokens tends to give the Axis an early edge in research (they will manage their first couple of breakthroughs earlier than the Allies will), but then the Allies will start to catch up and then overtake the Axis later in the war, because the Axis scientists (on average) will be more “crowded” and will take more stacking penalties.

You could bump Radar to 14 pts. or even to 16 pts. if you really want to, but there are limited opportunities to make full use of the potential synergy. E.g., suppose Germany is using a “Dark Skies” approach to ward off Allied fleets with its enormous Nazi bomber squadrons. Britain might want both Radar and Anti-Aircraft Cruisers to help protect its fleet. Russia, on the other hand, only needs Radar – they’re not going to build any cruisers. Similarly, Russia doesn’t have much use for Jet Fighters, since if it’s suffering from a strategic bombing campaign, it won’t be able to afford much in the way of extra fighters. There’s also the concern that “Heavy Bombers” has always been an overpowered technology in every version of Axis & Allies that had tech. I tried to err in the opposite direction by making the anti-aircraft techs roughly as powerful as the aircraft-enhancement techs!

There is an “Improved Artillery” tech in some of the OOB versions of Axis & Allies, and I’ve never seen anyone buy it, except maybe Russia, who really does have to count every dollar and might not be able to afford enough artillery to fully power its infantry stacks. It is really challenging to fully exploit the advantage of 2:1 artillery support is that it’s really hard to maintain the desired ratio. E.g. if I have a stack of 10 infantry and 5 artillery, then after one round of combat, I probably have something like 2 infantry and 5 artillery, and the extra artillery support becomes moot. It stays moot on defense, too, when those artillery try to hold the ground they just captured. But if I have a stack of 20 infantry and 5 artillery instead, then my army is hugely inefficient – even with 2:1 artillery support, I’m only generating 40 pips of punch on 25 units, so I’m going to give you multiple rounds of combat in which to score hits and wear down my army.

You get the same problem in reverse if you want to only boost the artillery’s native attack power. With a stack of, e.g., 8 infantry and 3 artillery, the tech would only give you +3 pips of punch – it’s just not very exciting. You could try attacking with a stack of all artillery, e.g., 10 artillery for $40, but that just seems weird and un-thematic.

Anyway, let me know if you try out the rules, with or without some modifications! I’d be curious to see how they work in live play. I’m defending my rules so you have the benefit of my opinions, but they’re just opinions, and ultimately the house rules are there for everyone to enjoy however they like…if you think you’ll have more fun tweaking the costs or nerfing a couple of the techs, then go with what seems fun! :-)

Nice ideas. Thanks for posting. You have probably seen that many here do the same thing.

Did some real brief digging around on the wiki and found this…

The last part seems to confirm those speculations in Reason 2 Marc mentioned aboved. Though I think there might still be enough in here to justify a starting Strat B for the Russians.

The fact that the Russians are unlikely to ever be able to afford another one would put a ceiling on it, and give a nod to the fact that the Soviet strategic bombing campaigns in WW2 were dwarfed by those of the Western Allies. The logic there I guess would be that Britain and America can readily expand their bomber arsenal through purchasing, whereas the Soviets are basically stuck using what they start out with, or risk just getting crushed in the land war haha.

Anyhow, here’s quick copy paster…

"Soviet strategic bombing
See also: Shuttle bombing and Operation Frantic
The first Soviet offensive bomber campaign was directed against the Romanian oilfields in the summer of 1941.[185] In response to a German raid on Moscow on the night of 21�22 July 1941, Soviet Naval Aviation launched a series of seven raids against Germany, primarily Berlin, between the night of 7�8 August and 3�4 September. These attacks were undertaken by between four and fifteen aircraft�beginning on 11 August the new Tupolev TB-7�from the island of Saaremaa, base of the 1st Torpedo Air Regiment.[185] (At least one raid of the 81st Air Division took off from Pushkin.) Besides thirty tonnes of bombs, they also dropped leaflets with Joseph Stalin’s defiant speech of 3 July. The Soviets sent a total of 549 long-range bombers over German territory in all of 1941.[185]

In March 1942 the strategic bombing arm of the Soviet Union was reorganized as the Long Range Air Force (ADD). It raided Berlin from 26�29 August and again on the night of 9�10 September with 212 planes.[185] It raided Helsinki for the first time on 24 August, Budapest on 4�5 and 9�10 September and Bucharest on 13�14 September. The German-occupied Polish cities of Krakow and Warsaw were not exempt, but the bombers concentrated primarily on military targets.[185] There were 1,114 sorties over Germany in 1942. In March 1943 there was a strategic shift: in preparation for the Kursk Offensive, the bombers were directed against the German railroads behind the front.[185] In April the Long Range Air Force expanded to eight air corps and eleven independent divisions containing 700 planes. After the Kursk preparations, the Soviets turned their attention to administrative and industrial targets in East Prussia in April. With 920 aircraft taking part, they dropped 700 tonnes of bombs there. The largest Soviet bomb of the war, an 11,000-pound weapon, was dropped on Konigsberg during one of these raids.[185]

Throughout 1943, the Soviets attempted to give the impression of cooperation between their bombers and those of the West.[185] In February 1944 they again shifted priority, this time towards terror bombing, with the goal of knocking Finland and Hungary out of the war.[185] Helsinki was struck by 733 bombers on the night of 6�7 February, by 367 on the 15�16th and 850 on the 25�26th. A total of 2,386 tonnes of bombs were dropped.[185] Budapest was hit four straight nights from 13�20 September with a total of 8,000 tonnes by 1,129 bombers. The Soviets flew 4,466 sorties into enemy territory in the year 1944. In December the Long Range Air Force was reorganized as the 18th Air Army.[185]

The main task of the 18th Air Army was to support the final offensive against Germany, but it also undertook raids against Berlin, Breslau, Danzig and Konigsberg.[185] In total, 7,158 Soviet aircraft dropped 6,700 tonnes of bombs on Germany during the war, a modest 3.1% of Soviet bomber sorties, a mere 0.5% of all Allied “strategic” sorties against German-occupied territory and a measly 0.2% of all bombs dropped on it.[185]

After the war, Marxist historians in the Soviet Union and East Germany claimed that the Soviet strategic bombing campaign was limited by moral qualms over bombing civilian centres.[185] One early bombing theorist, Vasili Chripin, whose theories influenced the Soviet Union’s first strategic bombing guidelines (1936) and the service regulations of 26 January 1940, drew back from terror bombing as advocated by Western theorists.[185] The Spanish Civil War also convinced Soviet war planners that the air force was most effective when used in close cooperation with ground forces. Nonetheless, after the war, Marshal Vasili Sokolovsky admitted that the Soviets would have gladly launched a strategic bombing offensive had they the capability.[185] In reality, the Soviets never geared aircraft production towards long-range bombers, and so never had enough to mount an effective campaign. The land-based nature of warfare on the Eastern Front also required closer cooperation between the air forces and ground troops than did, for example, the defence of Great Britain.[185]"

That note 185 heavily referenced above shows the following as its main/only source… so there’s that too I guess. Little lackluster, but you know what they say about beggers lol

Horst Boog; Derry Cook-Radmore, trans., “Part I: The Strategic Air War in Europe and Air Defence of the Reich, 1943�44”, in Germany and the Second World War, Volume VII: The Strategic Air War in Europe and the War in the West and East Asia, 1943�44/5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006 [Stuttgart: Deutsche Veralgs-Anstalt GmbH, 2005]), 153�58.

yep

No way am I opening that can of worms again!!!  :-)

I am very happy as is, just wanted a clarification.

if you want to be able to move through enemy submarines in non-combat move, I am ok with it

yes they can pass thru. no special dispensations.

if you want to be able to retreat into a sea zone occupied by enemy submarines, I am not sure about that (as mentioned)
if so I rather we let defender retreat into ANY adjacent sea zone

They can retreat to ANY sea zone not occupied by enemy surface warships ( so they can enter SZ with subs or transports)

From now on subs and transports don’t do anything unless its their active turn.

Of course you can send ASW units and try and kill them by hunting them down.

also,have some new ideas for subs which are extremely simple, listed under AA50 house rules.

I want to make a new AARHE version for AA50 once we fix these semantic issues and clarifications.

I have a map that’s the best map you have seen. Id say its at least as good as the new map and done in the same style. Its 98% done. adding artistic items. I will release this and alot of files in a few weeks time.

Ok I’ll make it more precise.

I am touching up the the player aids atm.