Strategic Bombing?

There are two different things to consider : Strategic bombing vs. attacking a territory. I’ll use your example for both scenario’s.

Strategic bombing : If you have Strategic bombers(SBR’s) doing a strategic bombing run on Industrial Complexes(IC’s), naval bases(NB’s) or airbases(AB’s), they can be escorted by fighters(known as escorts in this scenario) in anticipation that your opponent sends up fighters(known as interceptors in this scenario. If both you and your opponent send up fighters as escorts and interceptors, then the escorts, interceptors AND SBR’s do battle before the SBR’s do their Strategic bombing run. IF any SBR’s survive the battle, then the IC, NB or AB get an AA shot at each SBR. Any surviving SBR gets to roll dice(damage) against it’s target. The SBR’s only get to select one target per turn. Now, if the SBR’s are unescorted(no escorts) but your opponent still sends up interceptors, then your SBR’s have to do battle w/the interceptors w/out the protection of escorts. The idea being, if your opponent has possible interceptors against your SBR’s, then it’s generally a good idea to send escorts along with your SBR’s on strategic bombing runs. If it’s your 10 SBR’s against 1 Interceptor, then no big deal. If it’s 5 Interceptors vs. 3 SBR’s, then most likely you’ll want to send escorts to protect the SBR’s, as the SBR’s are more expensive and generally an offensive weapon. Having said that, if you do a SBR run and your opponent has potential Interceptors, he’s under no obligation to intercept. Remember, you must do Combat Moves, including SBR runs and allocation of escorts, before your opponent allocates Interceptors. So, you would allocate Escorts, in anticipation of POSSIBLE Interceptors by your opponent. If there’s no Escorts or Interceptors on a SBR, then your SBR’s just go to their target(s), (i.e. IC, NB or AB) and each target gets an AA shot. Remember, your SBR’s don’t have to attack the same target or select their target until Interceptor and Escort/SBR combat is over. So, if you have 3 SBR’s attacking a territory w/a NB, AB AND IC in it. Each SBR can select a different target and those targets aren’t selected by you until after Interceptor and Escort/SBR combat is over. So you can maybe throw your opponent off, so he’s not sure if he wants to Intercept or not b/cuz he won’t know your intended target until he’s allocated Interceptors or not. Also, Tactical Bombers(Tac) can SBR AB’s and NB’s as well. Only SBR’s can bomb all three. There is no limit on how many AA shots your NB’s, AB’s or IC’s get against SBR’s on bombing runs. Bombing runs are different than attacking a territory. See example below.

Scenario 2 : Your 4 Fighters(FTR) are attacking a territory(not SBR or Escorting) w/an AA gun and 2 Infantry(Inf). Then, the AA gun gets 3 AA shots at 3 of the Fighters. If you had 2 AA guns, then you’d get an AA shot against each Fighter. Each AA gun can AA shot up to 3 aerial targets per turn. If you had 1 SBR, 1 Tac and 1 FTR in this scenario, then your 1 AA gun would fire against each aerial target separately. The idea being, if your opponent has a ton of air and may attack a territory, you may want to build an appropriate amount of AA to shoot down his air. Remember, if you get an AA shot, the air is shot down before combat. AND, AA can be selected by as casualties before any other units if you’d like. Selecting AA units as casualties is relatively new over the course of AA’s 25+ year existence.

Being new to AA, I’ll give you a little background. In older versions of AA, 1 AA gun could fire at any number of aircraft. So there was no reason to buy more than one AA gun per territory. And AA guns never died. If you conquered a territory w/an AA gun, then you captured it. Now w/the 3 shot rule and you can select AA’s as casualties, it makes more sense to buy more than 1 AA per territory.

Hope this helps.

I should state Scenario 2 should be titled Attacking a Territory. Attacking a territory and SBR’s are different and identified differently in the rulebook.

You’re right. Having your SBR’s shot down by AA really sucks! Generally I only SBR if my bombers don’t have anything else to do, which they should if you position them right. You’re welcome.