Posts made by legion3

I’m surprised the Me-109 has not found any love in the survey.

At 57% of all German fighter production and according to some sorces, the most produced fighter aircraft in history at 33,984 units and in service with the Fins, the Swiss, as well as others and used even after the war by Romainia well into the 1950’s. The Czech copy the  S-199 even saw service with the Israeli AF. A generally good all around, well designed, fighter.

But yes no love in the poll, perhaps its such a common WW2 Workhorse that it has no sex appeal, simple with no spice. Kind of like the Sherman Tank or the Liberty Ship…just a solid hardworking weapon.

But love for the YAK?

And so little love for the ZERO, HELLCAT and Thunderbolt???

And no P 39 love  :-o

No love for the Italians?

Here is some

Or how about old school:

Fiat CR.42 Falco (“Falcon”)
Gloster Gladiator
Polikarpov I-153

No love for two wings  :wink:

FDR is catching up  :-o  but Hitler hangs on to his lead. I guess Acorn has not registered any old new dealers yet.  :wink:

Macchi C.202 Folgore of the Regia Aeronautica

The Italian Thunderbolt

I voted for the 262 and the FW190

I choose other too, as both possibilities listed were good options, but I doubt they were enough by themselves. It probably would have taken a combination of events to push the US to war.

Hitler was generally too aggressive, and bit off more than he could chew, since it is rare for a change of personality (a leopard changing its spots) it is likely Hitler would have stuck to this course of action and eventually provoked the US or would have declared war on them for some alleged wrong. Heck, Hitler didn’t change his strategy even when hunkered down in the bunker at the end.

US aid to England and Russia was already flowing, something Hitler already considered an act of war, and US warships and German U-Boats were already shooting at one another, and losses were being taken.  Its not to hard to see that this was a recipe for war. Cooked up in Washington and even perhaps Berlin.

Remember, most Europeans (and Hitler was a huge Euro-centrist) still considered the US not a formidable power in 1939, 1940, 1941 etc…And frankly we weren’t. We had potential but not actual proven strength in 1941. They viewed our success in WW1 as us arriving with new fresh troops after they the Europeans had fought the war and were simply worn out from the effort. Even the Brits and the French felt this way in 1918. Heck, whose planes, artillery and equipment did we have to use? Germany certainly wasn’t shaking in its boots when we declared war in 1917.

Hitler was part of that generation and believed the Us would enter the war at some point, his policy was simply to delay that entry. At some point he probably would have changed that policy.

This actually got mentioned in a Guadalcanal thread on Artillery sinking a sub. Still its cool that it was found. There was some belief that the Grunion was possibly sunk by an IJN Sub, but there was never any firm knowledge. As the article states its still somewhat a mystery.

However, that tended to be how subs were lost… they report in on a certain day and are never heard from again. Sometimes Japanese records helped determine the fate of these boats and sometimes only God knows what occured.

Depends on the criteria.
However, HITLER affected all the other’s on the list in some way or another, and allowing some to be even on the list. What would these guys positions be without HITLER?

Lets look at the list in order:

1. FDR - His new deal was not ending the depression only easing it, it took HITLER starting WW2 and the corresponding Japanese actions to pull the US out of economic disaster and on the road to Superpower status. If HITLER had not started War in 1939, FDR’s third term election might not have occured. (it was not as big a blowout as his previous two elections, the war in Europe might have been the deciding factor.)

2. Churchill was generally considered something of an adventurer and gambler and was not really viewed as a super success either as a politician or military leader before HITLER came to power. After HITLER churchill became the outspoken critic of the Nazis and appeasement and as a longtime supporter of the survival of the British Empire (not democracy for all peoples). Only after the US entered did Britian change to its pro democracy commonwealth idea. (Ghandi directly benefitted from this change by the British in securing an independent India, something that the British were not so gung-ho about in 1939. Sure it probably would have happened at some point but it did not happen with churchill in power)

3. Stalin would have been a 2 bit dictator of a crappy third world country blissfully abusing his own people if not for HITLER invading his country and forcing it to build its armed forces into a juggernaut and giving Stalin the power edge he needed to take and hold eastern Europe and become a “superpower”.

5. Franz Ferdinand is not the man of the centry although his death did help propel the direction that the 20th century took. However if not for Franz…HITLER would not have come to power had WW1 not been fought. I know this is a stretch but frankly in no way was Ferdiand man of anything.

6. Albert Einstein - a top notch guy who had to flee HITLER (and fortunately brought him to this country) and whose theories help lead to the A bomb which was built in order to beat HITLER to it. His math and science models will last beyond the century. Probably the best choice.

7. Ronald Reagan, ignoring the democrat liberal cliche’s that always seem to haunt this very good president, but for Stalin building his empire in response to HITLER’s invasion and the resulting Cold War, Reagan would not have been in a position to (however it happened) oversee the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

Again all these men owe a great deal of their historical legacy to HITLER and his actions.
what is the criteria for man of the century? Goodness and light, impact, long term effects?

I have not read the “to the death” variant, however, my pals and I have long since stopped playing with VP’s and have played with the base requirement that you must control ALL islands on the game board, unless defeat comes in another form or if it takes to long.

Krieghund is correct, we have found that like many other A&A games this one has a clear tipping point and usually he who controls 5 wins. Often the loser will end the onesided affair.

The game does not change much except as frimmel stated it does remove the urgency and the fear of losing capital ship units. Airfields still are usually built but at a more lesiurely pace. It also can stalemate into bitter sea and air battles and it really is up to your purchases and deployment which make the difference.

But the sea battles rock! A&A’s greatest sea fights ensue. Anchors away!!!

Yep, a total of 4 VP’s for the US at the end of turn 2.

this is why it can be difficult to win if you get behind early in the AF building race.
Unless you can take out some capital ships once you are behind you tend to stay behind.

If you make the game to historically accurate;

1. It would not be A&A.

and

2. It would not be fun to play as the Axis.

And in the current game the AA fire chews up everybodies planes. One of the beauties of A&A is the ability to tweak the game, however, if you came up with a set of rules that made the Japanese player face a huge disadvantage, unequal results, I wouldn’t play with you…unless I could be the Americans  :wink: . I would tell you to take your toys and go home.

Its a game not a historical recreation.

Heck if you want reality, limit the US to only 4 Aircraft carriers (I suppose you could add the Ranger but that would not be historically accurate  :-o) as that is all they had at anyone time during the campaign. Limit the number of BB’s and CA’s to the number both sides had operational in the solomons.

Our favorite way to play is to scrap the VP’s and play until one side controls all 6 islands…takes a while but makes for some great battles.

Try playing it with no VP’s… first one to control all 6 island wins… it becomes quite the battle.  :wink:

A vote for guadalcanal… sweaping air and sea battles, lots of action.

Bulge is to “not Axis and Allies” like. To much like a real wargame and harder to explain to novices.

If I want to play a real wargame, plenty of rule intensive and complicated games to choose from. But the beauty of the A&A line was it quick and easy playability.

DDay is the simplist A&A out and one of the best to explain to non players.

The AAG battle box system works well with AAP, you just need to insert “tank” on the wrap around box or we have also used regular AAP combat structure for the tank “heavy” India front and used AAG for the naval/air part.

It does seem like you have the two options, make aircraft tougher or make AA fire less potent.

It has always seeemed to me that the AA fire is to fierce in this game. As I stated before, aircraft have to run to great of a gauntlet, all at once. I do think a step where air combat and air  (raid)attacks are seperate is needed.

I like the idea of an airplane only battle phase, would simulate the attacking wave meeting the CAP (which at this time was not super strong) away from the fleet. Planes shot down then would be shot down, no questions asked. Planes damaged then could do one of two things;

1. continue on to the fleet and make an attack but then be lost (removed/destroyed - IE Torpedo plane shot down after it launches) because of the damage, loss of fuel…whatever,

or

2. the player could decide to return the plane to base (abort/turn back due to battle damage) where it could live for another day. And if not enough surviving non damaged planes were left the entire mission could be scrubbed - which happened a lot.

Then have the air attack phase where the surviving planes, bust through the cap and now face the ships AA.

At this point in the war neither the USN or the IJN could repel a determined air attack. Either by the use of CAP or AA fire, ask the Carriers at Santa Cruz and Eastern Solomons.

In 1944 US Air defenses were much stronger in 42-43.

So it appears unless you need to make a big gamble, aircraft should best be used to attack small supply convoys, deter air attacks against your airfields, fly CAP over your fleet or join a main effort fleet engagement against the enemy.  Going after a main body with only aircraft appears to be a big gamble at best.

Which is the point I made at the outset…now backed by math and science. Booyah!!!  :wink:

A game cannot be too historically accurate or it would not be fun to play. Weaken the IJN’s defenses and the game would be unbalanced. World War 1 Games which are to accurate often become grinding slugfests and quickly become boring and plodding to play.

Maybe I am just old school, don’t care for revised all that much, looking forward to the Anniversary Edition. Be honest I don’t play the original much either anymore. I have all the games, some I play often, some I play very little, and most I pilfer for parts and units.

I like A&A and I have been playing for 23 years, (how many nights in the military did we play A&A? I could not count) so for me not owning an A&A game is not an option but Revised is close to my least favorite version, maybe because its a repeat/upgrade of the original and the others aren’t.

I agree with you, a Japanese victory at midway would (probably) not have changed the inevitable outcome, might have prolonged it, and I don’t think that generation of Americans would have trimbled and lost heart.

Loss at GC would also not have done anything more than give Japan further breathing space but America’s untouchable economy would have eventually plowed under Japan.

Japan simply did not have either the economic resources or the military power to wage a long war, frankly neither did the Germans.

A good book to read is KAIGUN Strategy, Tactics and Technology of the IJN 1887-1941 by Evans and Peattie. Apart from the technical aspects of the IJN and its early victories over china and russia, the book goes into great detail of the war the Japanese planned to fight, hoped to fight but in the end was unable to fight do to the changing nature of the Pacific War and the modern economic face or war.

And on G1 I see that you are planning for some sort of amphib ops and I buy all infantry and have the US player fly his fighter and bomber to UK. And if you fail to take out the UK fleet on G1, I can build more ships and perhaps count on the US navy to arrive and maybe the Russian.

I then use my 2 ftrs and 1 bmbr and attack your tranny and subs in the baltic, provided the Russian has not already done this.

On G2 I send the RAF and US planes to attack your un-aircrafted aircraft carrier and 3 tranny’s and then hope the Russians are kicking in your eastern door.

Sealion is a risky proposition. But notice my reactions fall into CMDR Jennifer’s Allies on the Defensive (except for Russia).