Posts made by The Hessian

@Baron:

I wonder if anyone else finds the OBB scrambling system a bit weird? It slows down email and forum games considerably, with constant confirmation requests. Sometimes I think its a little silly, but it’s such an important part of what makes G40 unique from a combat perspective, that I’m reluctant to change it dramatically.

Just a simple question about the focus of this redesign:
Do you want to improve the rules only for board games, email & forum based games (tripple a) or for both?
If your main focus is on board games, I wouldn’t bother much about things that might slow down email games.

I think there are two ways to use the time while it’s not your turn:
One part of our group uses smartphones playing games or leaving the room for a smoke,
while the other studies and analyses the moves of their opponents and make plans for their next turn. And I think the latter ones are the more successful players…  :wink:

CWO Marc, maybe I’ve understood your proposal wrong, but I think It’s not possible to work with written orders in A&A1940 due to the immense number of units some players have to handle. I think it would simply take to much time.
Although it is a nice idea because in this way your best plans might be spoiled by the enemy.  :evil:

Btw. is there any kind of initiative or are all orders being executed simultaniously?
And what happens if say Axis forces move from territory a to territory b while allied forces move from b to a?
Do they simply swap the spaces or do they clash at the border?

@LHoffman:

Are you saying that the GER/ITA combined turn and US/ANZ combined turn would take place every Round? Or just two times during the whole game?

If you like to eliminate Italy as a “can-opener” for Germany and intend to balance the greater offensive power of the Axis especially in Africa by a combined US/ANZAC move,
then you have to make this combined turnes during the whole game.

I think it’s much easier for players to accept that they are prohibited from invading the same space due to their separate turns like in the standard games. If you tell them instead: “you can’t do this due to balancing reasons” most of them will start to argue. Especially when you present them rules you’ve invented by yourself instead of the original OOB rules. At least that’s my experience concerning house rules; no matter if you are talking of tabletop or board games.  :wink:

Shure, the allies had their difficulties working together – if you think of Generals like Patton and Montgomery; or the various discussions about the distribution of resources – but if you look at the differences inbetween the US (or Japanese) army and navy, you also have these troubles within one nation itself.
With your examples you’ve nearly give a nearly complete list of the whole western allied campaign to liberate Europe from 1943 onward. I think this is a little bit more than a few examples. Sure, they had their troubles, but in general they were working very effective together; especially concerning the grand-strategic level A&A tries to simulate.

Maybe a better way to smoothing the game a little bit and to eliminate “can-openers” would be two combined turns per game-turn
a) for the axis in Europe a combined German/Italian turn (as you’ve stated correct, the various axis nations in Europe (Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania and to some degree even Finland) needed German assistance).
b) For the allies in the Pacific a combined US/ANZAC turn (since they coordinated their naval operations e.g. the campaign for the Solomon’s).
I wouldn’t include the British Pacific forces into this allied combined move, you prevent discussions why they can’t attack together in the European TOW and btw. the UK-Fleet in the Pac is no match for the IJN and there is no money expand it or rebuild it once  it’s gone.

In general I would say: if a system isn’t broken, don’t fix it! (And I’m not sure the system “turn-order” is broken.  :wink: )

Hey Folks,
concerning LHoffman’s suggestions about “_can-openers_” and “_collapsed turn-orders_", if you intend to eliminate the „can-opener“ strategies, you might consider a change in the turn-order.
In our games I’ve modelled the turn-order in accordance to the old “1942” & “Reviced” games to ease the transfer to the new game-system for the players. As an unintentional side-effect this eliminated Italy as a can-opener for Germany but created ANZAC as such for the US-Fleet.
(Our turn-order: USSR / CHN / GER / UK / JPN / ITA / ANZAC / FRA / USA)

I wouldn’t recommend a “collapsed” turn-order like the one suggested by LHoffman since the western allies would profit enormous from this. They would simply get too powerful for the Axis. Just imagine a combined Anglo-US invasion of Normandy or combined fleet operations in the Pacific TOW. An Axis “Afrika Korps” or “Panzerarmee Afrika” is no sufficient compensation for this.
No matter how interesting or historic accurate such an idea might be.  :-)

And besides game balancing, I see no plausible argument to deny allied nations to attack the same enemy territory.

Just some thoughts…

Greetings,
Lars

Hey Folks,

has anybody on this board ever tried to design a game variant covering operation market garden?
Maybe in the style of A&A D-Day.

Greetings,
Lars

Any player of Germany or Italy would be VERY pleased about this decision.  :-D

Hi regularkid,

thanks for sharing this variant. Is there any possibility for you to share it with interested people not playing TripleA?

It was something like this, that I had in mind.  :-D

Hi Immaculate and welcome to the board!

As it was said before, I’m not quite sure if partisans are not below the scope of A&A? Maybe the Russians could raise P. in territories which are enemy occupied but currently completely empty…
Anyway I like the idea of “Supply”. What exactly do you mean by “tiles”? A territory or sea zone with all units inside?
Concerning your paratroopers: maybe 4IPCs are too cheap for an air-mobile unit with A2 & D3. How do you model air transports?

Greetings,
Lars

@LHoffman:

It depends what you mean by submerged… […] Most of a sub’s combat was conducted either at periscope depth…

This is exactly what I mean by “submerged”.
Since the best (or only) way to detect a submerged sub is by sonar, such a sound impulse would warn a targeted sub and only gave them two choices: to dive as deep as possible or to go on an Evasion course; both in the hope of not being hit by the enemy. Since it is not very easy to hit a submerged sub by a depth charge, I assume it nearly impossible to kill it by a Torpedo.

According to the possibility that a sub could be seen if it operates on periscope depth, I bet they would break off the action due to their vulnerability to surface ships, especially destroyers, and their depth charges. (Always depending upon the tactical situation, of cause.)

Maybe my view about submarine-warfare in WW2 is influenced a bit too much by the movie “Das Boot”.

@Baron:

So, your DD blocks/detects on 1:3 ratio, while mine is at the lower 1 DD:1 Sub ratio blocks/detects.

Yes, but maybe we are going to change this ratio to 1:1…

@Baron:

And as OOB, in the example, if all 6 Fighters and 1 DD gets 4 hits, even if there is 3 detected Subs and 1 unsubmerged but undetected sub, it would be sunk too. Right?

Not necessarily, but in this case, yes.
Since aircraft can only score hits on detected subs, you have to seperate the rolls of the DD and the fighters. A hit caused by the DD can be taken by any SS (owner of the SS’s choice) and a’Ftr-hit’ may be assigned only to the three detected Subs.
(According to the way A&A is played in our Group, the ‘Ftr-hit’s’ must be assigned first.)

@The:

As far as I’ve understood WW2 technology and tactics most subs fought submerged; in contrast to their WW1 predecessors.

But maybe I’m wrong with this assumption. In this case, please ignore what I’ve wrote about Subs vs Subs… :-)

In our games each DD automatically detects three enemy SS in the same SZ. (Keep it simple… :wink:)

So according to your example (1 DD & 6 Ftr vs 4 SS) the DD detects 3 of the 4 SS; so they can be attacked by the panes. The 4th (undetected) SS has the option either to withdraw from the fight or take his surprise shot against the DD. If any of the SS scores a hit, the DD is sunk and the subs may no longer be attacked by the fighters.

According to your “Pacific” example, I was only refering to submerged subs. (As far as I’ve understood WW2 technology and tactics most subs fought submerged; in contrast to their WW1 predecessors.)

“_Since Sub always have First Strike_” I thought only undetected subs have the “first strike option” (@2 in attack & @1 while defending) while detected subs fire along with all other vessels. At least this is the way we handle this in our games…

Hey Folks,

the current discussion has some very good points. Some of the biggest flaws of the original rules concerning Subs are the possibility to detect an unlimited number of Subs with just one single destroyer. In our games we’ve limited this with great success to just three subs that can be detected by each destroyer. (Maybe even this ratio could be reduced to a 1:2 od 1:1 base…)

A second point is the unhistorical capability of Subs to sink other Subs. There was only one case in which a submerged Sub was able to sink another submerged Sub. (And to me this seemed to be a very lucky shot.) So I would appreciate such a change of the rules very much.

To increase the capabilities of submarines I like the idea of Baron Munchhausen: “_When a Sub gets a hit on attack, the attacker can choose as casualty either a Transport or a hit on warships_” but I suggest this should be limited only to successful delivered surprise shot (since in this case DE’s were not able to fulfill one of their main purposes of protecting the transports.)

Greetings,
Lars

@Baron:

It certainly changes the dynamic pace in game in the same with warships cost redux.
It is a complex matter.
One HR developped was about marines units.
Marines A1 D2 M1 cost 4, can load up 3 units in a regular Transport.
It is somewhere in this Sub-forum.

If you want to use Marines (or ‘Rangers’ if used in the European theatre; or SNLF as the Japanese variant) then I suggest to use the Marine-rules from the old 2001 A&A-Pacific:
A1* D2 M1 C4 - treat them like regular infantry, except that the attack at +1 in a naval invasion and may upgraded by artillery (A+1 if paired 1:1).

It depend on the kind of restricting rule. For example a rule forbidding subs to fire on subs – since there is only one case in which a submerged sub sunk an other submerged – is far more easier to employ as a restriction in production.  :-)

Just like the historical example Mussolini definitely needs German support.
Especially if the Italian BB doesn’t survive the British 1st turn. (Should be the case in a normal game.)
A bunch of fighters are a great help in Africa.

Btw. of all Victory Objectives, the “African” ones are the easiest to achieve.

Why shouldn’t there be much action in N.Afr.? There are several NOs for control of the region in the original game. Britain loosing Egypt and axis tanks on their way to the Mid East and sub-Sahara Africa is nearly a great blow to the allies as a Japanese conquest of India. (Maybe even greater…)