Can you land planes in a Pro Neutral you just took?

@nzcamel

Rulebook (Europe 1940.2, page 13) has it:

"However, units can’t end their movement in friendly spaces during the Combat Move phase except in four instances.
…

Sea units that will be participating in an amphibious assault
from a friendly sea zone, as well as sea and/or air units that
may be needed to support it in the case that defending air
units are scrambled (see “Scramble,” page 16).

"

@nzcamel said in Protecting the transports with aircraft, in an amphibious landing, from scrambles.:

@aequitas-et-veritas they aren’t being sent to join a certain combat. They are staying with the fleet (with no enemy ships present) not fighting in the landing battle. Are you sure they are allowed to move in the combat step?

… same rulebook, page 32:

“Carrier aircraft move independently of the carrier on their own turn. They move along with the carrier on its turn if they belong to different powers. On the air units’ turn, they launch before the carrier moves, even if they are not leaving the sea zone themselves.”

So in case the attacking power brings its fighters to the sea zone in question (with the fleet or not) during combat move phase they will fight against possibly scrambling units.

Only fighters belonging to friendly powers remain as cargo on the carrier.

Triple A illustrates the transport issue pretty well by having you ‘roll’ for a hit on even an unprotected transport.

Or… it helps to remember a scenario where a larger naval battle is going on and the defenders have 2 or more transports. If the attackers hit enough to kill all defenders and have +1 hit it gets assigned to a transport even if the defenders return enough hits to kill all the attackers so an attacker might kill some but not all transports.

I’ve never considered doing both, but I really like how it’s laid out here.  If successful, Italy has effectively been eliminated from the game before they even get going.

With a J1DOW and Japan taking Calcutta meaning to swing back and take Hawaii as well ~J8, the allies can follow 1 of 2 basic strategies in Europe:

USA invests heavily in Europe, opening a second front in Germany’s backyard. This forces the UK to go heavy into the ME with 2 ICs in Egypt/Iraq/Persia (3 ICs is perhaps no unnecessary luxury in this scenario). This is because Calcutta needs to be taken back once Japan grabs Hawaii. A little bit from what comes out of those ICs can maybe get into Moscow as well to aid Russia in keeping it. The UK will have only minor bits of IPCs left to assist the USA in Western Europe (~10/turn, TRS as best buy).

USA invests only mildly in Europe, opening a second front in Germany’s backyard with massive UK aid (not such heavy UK presence in the ME as above). Typically USA serves only as a can-opening threat for UK-follow up. Example: USA takes Norway + Denmark, UK takes Berlin (If Germany ignores the allies and keeps throwing everything at Russia).

Whatever strategy is followed, the Wallies must somehow make sure their threat is in place G5, so that Germany will loose either WG, Rome or Berlin if it builds all aircraft for a G6 assault on Moscow (depending how many investments the USA made and thus, how many the UK was able to assist).

Typical forces USA can expect in Europe with heavy investments: 2DD, 2CV, 5FTR, 1TAC, ~4STR and 2TRS per turn (fully loaded). Early TRS can ofc be filled with Brazilians and other starting units. Once Normany and SF are taken (and/or WG), USA also produces from those factories. US6 should see 27US and 8UK land units and 9 USAF in or approaching Western Europe. A bit too much for Germany/Italy if they focused everything on Russia all the way into G5 and only start building troops against the wallies G6 (10 in Berling and WG each can be overrun -one of them if not both), so if this doesn’t arrest German flow of reinforcements into Russia I don’t know what does…

Investing ‘mildly’ still sees the USA with 2DD, 2CV, 3FTR, 1TAC, 3STR, 6TRS fully loaded.
Because the USA should be able to keep Japan out of Hawaii/Sydney with the extra IPCs put into the Pacific, the UK can put more effort in Western Europe at the cost of the ME, starting a war of attrition with Germany. The few troops the USA has should not be ‘kamikazed’ but used as a can-opening threat (Berlin, see above) and to capture areas Germany cannot recapture (Norway, for example).

On a sidenote: a couple of RAF-FTR really enhances Russian defenses in Moscow. The more ships/early bombers Germany builds, the less RAF the UK needs to send. With Max German land production (i.e. no ships/early bombers at all), Moscow may need 10-12 Spitfires/Mosquito’s to withstand the assault.

These are only the basics of what I know the allies can do. They must be adjusted whenever the Axis adjust… If, for example, the USA invests heavily into Europe and Japan does not look likely to swing back at Sydney/Hawaii but rather continues to invest heavily in Mainland Asia/Russia, the UK may ease their spending in the ME a bit and assist the USA a while in spending much more for western Europe for a couple of turns…

Spain is also adjacent to 5 different seazones, so an airbase or port here will unbalance the game, so there is no doubt that Spain need to be cut in more territories, if only just for balace

Excellent point Razor.

@Hepps01:

Yah, I agree with you.  Especially in the situation provided where there was literally 0% chance of success.  The sub attack was simply an “Offensive fodder” attack done to make the fighter move “quasi-legitimate”.

To me (on a personal level) the rules should stipulate that Carriers be required to move during the combat phase into the only potential landing zone and thus force the attacking player to win the secondary battle in order to ensure the fighter can land.  Otherwise this just enables people to do this kind of weak ass fodder tactic in order to get to the transports  that would otherwise be out of range.   This would then also mean that an attacker has to potentially sacrifice very valuable units (carriers) to accomplish these kind of delaying actions.

Just my opinion though.

From an emotional point of view I am with you here and as a fun fact in a current game I face exactly the ugly site of that move as he has Carrier plus sub in place which creates theoretical threats for all my transports. He can sac just a sub and then theoretically kill TTs in many seazones (for the price of saccing the Air of course).

However I like this rule because it gives the game some more dynamics and makes blocking a bit less powerful which I think is good for the game and does make you a bit less dependent on can openers and gives a power to overcome blocking at least a bit better without an allied power.

Gibraltor is the best landing spot when then can enter the war.  From this spot, they can land just about anywhere they want.

UK
Normandy
Southern France
Northern Italy
Southern Italy
Denmark
Western Germany (If UK can take Denmark ahead of them and hold it)
Norway

With the Naval Base damaged, they can only reach Normandy or Southern France.

Remember, “If you defend everywhere, you defend no where.”

Bombing the Naval Base takes pressure off of the Axis.  Germany will gain another turn not worrying if the US is going to attack Italy or land in UK or Norway or where ever.  They can concentrate on Normandy and Southern France.  Or let Italy defend Southern France and Germany Normandy.

I find it very interesting and will make plans to use this.

Doc

i think that was pretty specific!  :-D

In general:
as Axis: be agressive, don’t waste time.
As Allies: start defensive and don,'t rush things.
As both: don’t stack! (well, UK is allowed)

Actually i’d advize to play a few times before you have a look at what others do.