Posts made by legion3

A decent British Player will probably not let you pull off sealion by turn 3. By that time US and UK forces should be well entrenched in the UK. And if you are not at least holding back the russians then you will not likely have the resources to build enough transports to have a chance and if you do, the royal airforce is a problem.

On turn 1 you can, with the luck of the dice, bring a early invasion of the UK, I have seen it work, once, providing the Russians have not taken out your Baltic fleet, bring the transport with 2 guys, the fighters from France and Norway, The Bomber, and hit england. hopefully england’s rolls are not good  :wink:

Use the remaining fighters and subs to take out UK fleet vs the BB and Trans.

Sealion usually only works after Russia is beaten or if the russian player is not very skilled or good or lucky.

Certainly no one is debating the decisive nature of Midway. And the Japanese really had no chance to win a war against the US. Economically the Japanese were at a huge disadvantage. consider only about 15 % or so of US military output went to the Pacific.

The US might have lost the war by being weak, losing its nerve, or having the american press or people turn on the conflict. Thank goodness previous american generations wern’t as comfortable as we currently are.

But really wars are not waged based on logic of having a chance, even those who may know they have no chance still will sometimes role the dice. You never know what might happen and sometimes you just have to fight.

Poland had no chance against Hitler but they refused to give in to his demands and they fought.

Czechoslovakia probably had a chance against Hitler but were sold out and did not fight.

The Confederacy had little chance of really beating the Union.  Should have quit after Gettysburg and Vicksburg, should have quit after the fall of Atlanta and the reelection of Lincoln. But by then it was too late. And when the South attempted a peace conference in early 1865, Lincoln and his generals told them to pack sand.

The Romans at their height lost wars. The people beating them probably had no chance to win but win they did.

The continentals had little chance of really beating the British. - but they did

Iraq had little chance of beating the US. - in either war but fight both of them they did.

and on and on throughout history.

And once your in the war its real hard to make peace. The Japanese would never had looked for peace after one defeat. Heck it took them getting nuked twice and they still debated fighting on and even had a junior officer’s revolt to keep the war going.

I’m still looking… :wink:

We played A&A so much in the military that we began to have random games.

such as turning over control markers and rolling a die for each.

the odds fought the evens and so forth - so it could be 4 on 1 or some variations.

Russia vs everybody else - not good.

US and Japan vs the rest.

Hey it was a way to pass the time

Well if you read the views of the Japanese (particually good is John Tolands The Rising sun in which he interviewed and documented the Japanese view of the Pacific War) they viewed Guadalcanal as the bigger disaster.

They understood the defeat at Midway, but many viewed this as a Navy disaster, which the Army did not support nor believed needed to be undertaken. The loss of the 4 carriers and the aircrews was not viewed as particually alarming by the leaders in Tokyo at the time (not counting the Navy men of course).

Guadalcanal, however became a struggle that the Japanese Army and Navy waged together (although they really didn’t always work together) and that consumed resources the Japanese could not afford to lose. The Japanese made supreme efforts to stop the US at Guadalcanal, and ultimately cost the IJN far more ship losses than Midway and finished off her naval aviator veterans. The Japanese Army also got a drubbing that was so severe that they abandoned GC…something they usually did not do.

Certainly both battles were disasters for the Japanese but their view was GC was the point when they were thrown on the defensive and ultimately on the road to defeat.

Both the Battles of the Eastern Solomons and the Santa Cruz island battles were carrier battles which were part of the Guadalcanal Campaign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Eastern_Solomons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Santa_Cruz_Islands

We lost the Hornet in the Santa Cruz Battle and Nagumo was relieved of his command after the fight and the Japanese lost the Ryūjō at Eastern solomons. The biggest losses were to Japanese Air Crews and these two fights basically finished off the veterans.

Well the Japanese Sub I-19 torpedoed and sunk the US Carrier Wasp operating south of the Solomons in support of the Guadalcanal campaign.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wasp_(CV-7)

No doubt the smaller supply groups are more vulnerable than larger fleets, however, the risk might be worth the gamble.

In A&A, A&AR, A&AE and A&AP given the power of aircraft, and the lack of an “air attack phase” a single DD (or comperable unit) vs a BMB or BMB/FTR, the DD is likely doomed with a much greater statistical value.

In A&AG I would still not fear to send a small unit given the random nature of hits. In the 15 or so games my friends and I have played, I have never seen Airplanes (without ships) ever be more than a nusiance to plan around.

Fantastic statistics and the numbers are interesting but what did Han Solo say…

“never tell me the odds”.  :wink:

Actually keep up the good work.

Oh no  :-o  … no offense and hopefully I have caused none.

I agree completely, the more airplanes (escorts) the better the chances of getting some sort of hits but as I originally posted, they just aren’t the fear weapon in this game they should be.

Also since you are using dice statistics on bomber safety, what then would be the statistic of the single bomber actually hitting anything? The ships have such an advantage of being damaged.

My only issue is that airplanes are weak in this game and are not to be used alone unless the fleet or force you are facing is minimal. Which I stated in my original post. I am just defending my thesis and still don’t see the threat aircraft have in this game. As others have said combined assaults or your chances of success are extremely random at best.

Player 2 has such an advantage as to how battles will unfold by countering air movement.

@dinosaur:

Yes, a direct hit on a bomber does kill it and the fighters didn’t change that, but, consider that with only one fighter and one bomber, the attacker has to roll a hit on his fifth or sixth die to score that hit.  Heck he even has to roll at least five dice to get that chance.  If he rolls four or less, he can’t hit an escorted bomber without killing the fighter first.   The odds are much improved for bombers when fighters are sent as escorts.  Just don’t send them at a fleet alone.

With only 1 FtF and 1 Bmb he does not have to roll a hit on his fifth or sixth die to score a hit. It seems to me he feels the 5 and 6 slot on the battlebox is the only way to hit a bomber and it clearly is not.

I understand that as you add fighters the enemy force would need to add dice in order to hit the bombers but really how often is your enemy only going to have 4 dice?

And again to stress the weakness of aircraft you could have all your fighters destroyed, get your bombers through, make your attacks and still hit nothing or just damage a few things. C’est la guerre.

Air attacks without sea power in support seems to have big risk, little gain.

See this thread on wrap around hits

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=11029.0

You are not counting hits properly.

All the defender has to do is score 2 hits with his first two dice or any combination of hits and both planes the fighter and bomber are gone. All hits are a hit… the hit still counts, but will hit a different unit type of that catagory.  A hit on a bomber does not occur only if the 5 or 6 die is a hit.

The hits keep on coming in this game.

All hits hit something and you do not have to roll 5 or more dice to hit a bomber.

To use your example a Bomber and a fighter attack two destroyers, all the DD’s have to roll is two dice, if those two dice are both ones or two’s both planes are shot down…not just the fighter. the hit on the second fighter wraps around until you find a unit that can take the hit…the bomber.

See page 18 Topic Hitting Units you Enemy doesn’t have.

But are they really escorts?
The way the battlebox, wrap around hits occur, it is conceivable that an attack with fighters and  bombers may end up with only fighters left over.

And the effort may not be any sunk ships just damaged ones. Good thing airplanes are cheap. If they cost standard AA prices…would you buy very many?

Airplanes alone are not much of a threat to ships. Even without CAP the ships can throw up a lot of AA fire. With CAP they are really protected. Even a resupply DD scooting along alone swarmed by fighters is not guaranteed to be sunk.

Still I like the game even with airplanes and subs as they are. It just takes some getting used to.

If you are not intercepted! But if the player who moves his aircraft second (unless he has none) will (or should) intercept any airfleet large enough to damage a fleet. The second player has the advantage in aircraft usage (again unless he does not have any) as he knows how to respond. Aircraft range seems somewhat irrelvent to the seabattles, most aircraft have the range to reach almost any sea zone with carriers. Island spaces are a bit more dicey.

Given the way casualties are handled…maybe some bombers get through maybe not.

You almost have to have airplanes in this game as you say Frimmel but they are now expendable infantry of the skies as Maarek stated.

sorry, until one of our games has aircraft wipe out a fleet, I just don’t fear them. One game was a blowout do to the US losing all their aircraft, while the Japanese lost none, but this was do to the dice gods…and has not been repeated.

I am confused about what you are saying. In many battles their are no remaining air units during the sea attack phase as the combined CAP and AA from the ships is usually devestating to fly through.  :?

Even a huge airfleet may or may not get any hits on the ships below. Heck I would steam a fleet straight down the slot and dare you to air attack it.

airplanes need a 1 for a kill and 2 for a damage rating such as capital ships.

@PacificFleetCaptain009:

Just opened up and played my AAG game today. It took far too long to figure out how to even start this game. I have a few questions I’d appreciate help on.

#1  I was playing as the japs and I only had one supply token on Rabul to start with. That meant I could only move one ship out of my homebase the first full go around? I assumed reinforcement points werent given at the start of the game, so that meant only 1 ship could come out.

#1 No this is not what the supply tokens are for. All ships can move each round during their movement phase. Supply tokens are used in the repair stage to fix broken ships or in the deploy stage to move a ship off the base card early and before its actual movement stage and into the battle zone. Supply tokens are also used to construct airfields.

#2 I chose 1 of my two carriers to come out first. When I got to the move aircraft stage I assumed my two bombers could take off from Rabul. (No airfield in sight on Rabul) I also assumed the two fighters sitting on my remaining carrier could take off from homebase too. So the carrier who got to come out, its fighters were able to move one zone further than the two fighters who flew off the deck from the carrier still at home base. This game isnt too clear how to start IMO.

#2 Correct on aircraft ranges, the base card is 2 zones, a sea one and a land one, flying off Rabaul counts as one, flying on to the main board is two.

I see where someone helped me see how the hits were assigned. Basically, if you have just one dice, and its a hit, say a roll of 1, its going to hit something, any ship out there as long as there is something to hit. Because you just keep going down the line, wrapping back around if necessary till that hit lands on someone, right?   YES a hit is a hit on something, keep wraping till you find a unit that you do have on the board

#3 I had two fighters and two bombers in a zone I could attack. I chose to have my two fighters engage the American fighters in the zone, I used 4 dice and scored a hit, killing 1 of 3 planes in the zone. I decided my bombers were going to strike the carrier. So I did a separate roll for them. I realize now, with the Reference sheet in my hand, I shouldnt have been able to attack the ship until the 2nd step in Phase 2. So really, the American AA should have had a chance to take out my bombers before I fired. My first role all 4 dice missed, then the Americans shot down both my fighters and bombers in the Attack air Units phase.

#3 the airphase attack includes ships AA fire. So all the fighters, bombers and ships with AA capability fire at the attacking planes then surviving planes get to attack the ships. The bombers take part in the air battle and are not seperate. Its quite a gauntlet planes have to fly through and you will find aircraft get destroyed a great deal in this game

I will have more questions later I know, but help me with these first. This game is awesome. I knew I’d love this series, never played an A&A game before tonight. I love playing Battleship. Im also a talented Risk player, but as I figured, I’ve found my new favorite game. The reviews said AAG was much more fair than AAP, despite the huge naval board that was tempting me to buy AAP first. Like I see others doing, Im goingto take AAG rules and use them for AAP when I buy it. My dream is to one day create an ultimate A&A game that uses a huge board for land and sea. Id like to find a way so that there is an Admiral commanding the fleet, and a General commanding the troops for the same country. Where the Admirals fight against other admirals, and generals against generals, and both take turns at the same time, both commanders of each country relying on what the other commander is doing because the troops need naval support and air support. Actually, really 3 guys per country, Navy, Air Force, Army. If your Navy, you only control ship movement, Air Force, only planes, etc. I also envision having zoomed in zones where the game had an upper playing surface deck supported by columns. So on the lower main board you drove the ships toward Guadalcanal, then when you wanted to enter the zone, you placed your ships on the upper deck to play in the zoomed in map of Guadalcanal. Also, a zoomed in upper deck to represent Omaha Beach, etc. I think I may need to use Miniature figs to get the game to the scale I want. I know, for a guy that just played his first A&A game, I dream big, but I never could leave well enough alone. I see all the complaints you all post on the other A&A games and Id love to have one big board and rules set to fix them all.

All I can tell you is A&A is my favorite game series, started plaing back in the mid 80’s and currently have all the boardgames.

Need to add the following IJN subs:

I-42 Torpedoed and sunk by US sub Tunny 23 Mar 1944
I-22 Torpedoed and sunk by US sub Skate 10 June 1945
I-365 Torpedoed and sunk by US sub Scabbardfish off Yokosuka 28 Nov 1944
I-354 Probably Torpedoed and sunk by US Sub Sea Devil 14/15 Sep 1944
I-371 Probably Torpedoed and sunk by US Sub Lagarto 24 Feb 1945
I-373 Torpedoed and sunk by US sub Spikefish 14 Aug 1945

This is what I found as to sub sinking sub in the Pacific, I may have missed some but the IJN seemed to have the worst of it…

USS Corvina (ss 226)  Torpedoed and sunk by Japanese Sub I-176 sw of Truk, 16 Nov, 1943

USS Grunion (ss 216) Missing , probably sunk by Japanese Sub I-25 off Kiska 30 July, 1942 (wreck found in 2007, loss a mystery)

USS Snook (ss 279) Missing in Okinawa Area, April 1945 , possibly sunk by Japanese Sub. (I-56?)

From both US Warships of WW2 by Paul Silverstone and Silent Victory by Clay Blair Jr

And honorable mentions for sub vs sub  :wink:

USS Tang (ss 306) and USS Tullibee (ss 284) : Sunk by their Own Torpedo 24 Oct, 1944 and 26 Mar 1944 respectively. That’s a bummer!

Turnabout is fair play,

IJN Sub RO 113 Torpedoed and sunk by US Sub Batfish off Babuyah 15 October 1945
IJN I-64  Torpedoed and sunk by US sub Triton off Kagoshima 17 May 1942
IJN I-66  Torpedoed and sunk by British Sub Telemachus off Singapore 17 July 1944
IJN I-68  Probably torpedoed by US Sub Scamp 27 July 1943
IJN I-73 Torpedoed and sunk by US Sub Gudgeon off Midway 27 January 1942
IJN I-183 Torpedoed and sunk by US Sub Pogy 28/29 April 1944
IJN I-28 Torpedoed and sunk by US Sub Tautog off Truk 17 May 1942
IJN I-29 Torpedoed and sunk by US Sub Sawfish 26 July 1944
IJN I-34 Torpedoed and sunk by British sub Taurus 13 Nov 1943

The above from Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1869-1945 by Hansgeorg Jentschura

And I had to stop looking…

According to US Warships of WW2 by Paul Silverstone:
The USS Herring (SS 233) "sunk by Japanese shore batteries off Matsuwa Island, Kuriles, 1st June 1944.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Herring_(SS-233)

Herring’s exact manner of loss can be determined from these records also. Two more merchant ships, Hiburi Maru and Iwaki Maru, were sunk while at anchor in Matsuwa Island on the morning of 1 June 1944. In a counter-attack, enemy shore batteries scored two direct hits on the submarine’s conning tower and “bubbles covered an area about 5 meters wide, and heavy oil covered an area of approximately 15 miles.”

And for modern combat;

The Argentinan Frigate Guericco was hit several times by a Carl Gustav Anti Tank Rocket and several 66 mm weapons during the Argentine Invasion of South Georgia Island. Although not sunk.

http://www.britains-smallwars.com/Falklands/South-Georgia.html

From this web site.

Trombetta now realized that there was in fact a very healthy British military presence at Grytiken and ordered Alfonso to bring Guerrico closer in and  to bombard King Edward Point. The Argentines now knew where Mills and his Marines where positioned and opened fire with Guerrico’s 100 mm semi-automatic gun. But even at maximum depression the shells smashed into the scree behind the plateau. Frustrated, Alfonso brought Guerrico closer in, broadside to the Royal Marines. Mills waited until the frigate was 550 meters from his position, then ordered his men to open fire with every weapon they had. A Type A69 frigate is a very big target and the Guerrico shook under the impact of thousands of rounds ripping though her thin structure.

Marine David Combes, who was normally the ships steward on Endurance now placed his name in naval history books by firing his Carl Gustav 84 mm anti tank weapon at the Guerrico.  The Royal Marines watched as the 10lb projectile staggered across the waves and then, on it’s last legs, smashed into Guerrico’s hull just above the waterline, sending up a column of white water.  They then heard a loud rumble come from inside the ship. Below decks Argentine damage control parties struggled to stop the flow of water that was now coming though the hole.

The explosion killed one Argentine sailor and wounded several others. It also destroyed many electrical cables, including the ones used to power the 100 mm gun’s traverse mechanism making the gun useless at this close range. The aft 40 mm was still working until Marines Parsons and Chubb cut down the Argentine gun crew with their LMG. Alfonso was having a hard time trying to manoeuvre the big ship quickly inside the small bay. He knew he had to get out of the bay quickly. As the ship came about, Sergeant Major Leach lying on a table up stairs in Shackleton House, took his time and fired 15 shots into the bridge with his sniper rifle. This caused panic and confusion as officers and sailors trying to steer the ship had to take cover. With the ship turned,  Alfonso steered the ship out of the bay, but she had to run the gauntlet of fire from the Royal Marines again before getting out of range. Marine Combes let go another 84 mm at the frigate that smashed into the hull below the Exocets. The Marines also managed to hit Guerrico at least twice with 66 mm rockets. Corporal Peters was severely wounded in the arm while standing to fire his 66 mm. The rifle shot had come from one of the Argentine Marines in the buildings near Shackleton House.

Guerrico finally made her way out of range.  Later an Argentine officer counted over 1,000 hits to her structure. The Royal Marines had taken on a warship, and won the fight. While the ship to shore battle had been taking place, Bussan’s Alouette helicopter had been ferrying more Argentine Marines ashore, out of range of the British. These Marines soon advanced and joined the others in Grytiken. Guerrico now out of British range managed to fire off a salvo that bracketed Mills positions. Mills knew he had proved a point and informed his men he intended to surrender. This decision did not go down well with the veteran Sergeant Major Leach, but he obeyed his officer and passed the word to all the Marines to cease-fire.

Also the British Frigate Glamorgan was hit by a land launched exocet during the same war.

Defending with CAP and naval AA fire during the air attack phase is the problem. Planes had to run both gauntlets but not usually at the same time.

In the airphase only airplanes should be involved, true airbattles, attackers either driven off or busting through the cap. Simulating the dogfights high above or away from the fleet.

Then planes left attack the fleet, score hits, but ships then fire back and score hits on planes.

So an intermediate phase is needed to adjust the airphase balance.

Just a thought.

Still love the game but airplanes are units you can’t do without but can’t do much with, except destroy other aircraft.

Yep, I can remember the old A&A games of my past where fighters made you think before you attacked. My son came home from college and we played AAG for the first time, he is a moderately good A&A game player and the first airbattle we waged after the role of the battlebox was ended his eyes were wide opened while surveying his attack force down in flames and splashed. Of course he was equally shocked that my CAP was also obliterated. Seriously, he was quiet for quite some time and it took him a while to adjust.

I guess the scale of the game is the issue ,in classic A&A and revised a fighter stands for a lot of fighters in this game they clearly stand for a lot less.

He like I was shocked at the attrition rate of aircraft. Oh well… I still like the sweeping air and sea battles this game offers