Attacking Transports - eligible for taking casualties???

@rookeries Welcome to the forum :slightly_smiling_face:

Moving the UK plane to SZ 5 to attack the German transports there indeed is a valid combat move. The battle will be resolved according to the “defenseless transports”-rules on page 19 of the rulebook, sometimes referred to as “autodestruction”.

Scramble is not part of the ruleset here (you might mix that up with the rules for Global 1940).
Also there is nothing in the rules saying that planes must be accompanied by attacking ships.
So never leave your transports unprotected :smile:

Japan, of all the countries, has the most opportunities, units to take advantage of these opportunities, and time to attempt them.  These moves might cost them some of their planes, but those are expendable(start with NINE!) to further expansion as well as most easily replaced due to their range and relative low cost.

By mentioning time, Japan is isolated enough to be able to recover if their opening round attacks go poorly.

J1 Buy = 2 tpt, inf = 17/17

Combat:
2 inf (sz61) via sz61 tpt > brn *MT

CA,BB (sz61) > sz50 (dd, tpt)

inf (car) inf(oki) via sz51 tpt
2 inf (jap) via sz 62 tpt

3 inf, art (sz61) via sz61 tpts > bur (inf)

2 ftr (sz61) > sz35 (dd,tpt)
2 ftr (sz57) > sz56 (dd,tpt)
2 ftr (sz57), dd (sz51) > sz53 (BB)

However you want to attack China on the ground.  This is not the strongest push, but also not the weakest.
3 inf (man), inf (kia) > Sui (inf)
2 inf (kia), ftr (jap) > fuk (inf)
3 inf (fic),  ftr (for), ftr (man) > yun (inf,ftr)

@ShadowHAwk:

Would it not be much better and simpler to state that every move should be possible before combat is rolled?
To avoid these cheesy situations. It takes the carrier the whole turn to move 2 spots so if it does not start sailing the same time the fighters would launch they would not survive anyway.

That will severely hinder some of the tactical & strategic aspects of battles and planning and remove alot of the surprises from the game.  Regardless of how a battle turns out, one of my favorite aspects of the game is the surprise move or act of desperation that wasn’t expected or accounted for.  I’m satisfied that you can’t send your planes on a one way trip, but you CAN send them on a potentially suicidal mission.

thanks krieg

besides what the rules say as just mentioend above, it is also specifically adressed in the appendix to the rules which you can find lots of links to here on this forum

Sounds interesting, though my fighters stay OK on top of my carriers (others have mentioned having a problem, though).  I’ve been a bit interested in magnetic wargames since reading about the strips in the Avalon Hill catalog back in the day.  I’ve never done it (I like normal tabletop games just fine, including AA50), but I imagine it’d be pretty cool-looking to have a wall-mounted wargame with magnetic pieces.

Learning to differentiate the various ships took a little time;  I was tempted to mark them some way, too.  It doesn’t help that the German/Italian cruisers are so big (like battleships) with flat sterns (like destroyers), or that their transports don’t have cranes, but I think I have all the ships sorted now. And now that I’m used to all the pieces, I rather like them.

Thanks for the prompt replies.
Looking at some moves for my first game with my new AA50 this weekend.

Subs submerge before any dice are rolled, attacker first then defender.  At the time the USA player rolled his hits, the decision should have already been made and acted upon.