@KGrimB:
Having a problem in one of our games and something doesn�t seem right about this. Japanese player has 1 aircraft carrier with 2 fighter planes and 2 empty transports in SZ 56. Western Australia is controlled by Anzac with 1 tank and 1 infantry. Anzac turn 5 combat move 1 sub from SZ 62 �> SZ 56. Combat no destroyers present sub rolls and gets a hit, damaging carrier. Defending fighters do not roll and defending carrier misses. Attacking Anzac sub retreats from combat to SZ 61.
Now this is the part that is mixing us up. We are under the impression that the planes that were on the Japanese carrier now have no legal landing zone because all territories adjacent to sz 56 are sea zones without axis carriers. Japanese fighters are destroyed as a result.
The net outcome is one Anzac sub got one hit and wounded a Japanese carrier resulting in the destruction of the planes it was carrying.
This seems too powerful. We are trying to find if planes can land on a damaged carrier, but that doesn�t seem to be the case, which means one sub can destroy a lone carriers planes.
How do you defend against this. Even if a destroyer was present if the Anzac had gotten two sub hits then Japanese planes would go to the bottom of the pacific. Wounding carriers and then retreating to kill planes seems like a loophole. I know carriers are expensive so two hits seems fair so they can be repaired, but I think by the time I take a hit on a carrier I�m losing that battle anyways.
Yep the planes are considered defending in the air for the combat, and if carrier is damaged the planes are lost because they don’t have a safe landing space. The moral of the story is to screen your carriers w/dd’s. If the Japanese would have had a dd present then the planes could have hit the sub in defense (dd allows the planes to hit the sub). The dd takes the hit from the sub saving the carrier from damage and the planes from crashing into the sea. I also agree with the others that the Anz probably should have pressed the attack having a 50/50 chance to sink the carrier, and if the sub survives the transports are also lost.
I would imagine that the Japanese got into this position because of a prior attack from the USA and lost part of their fleet (including some dd’s), and the Anz were playing clean-up. Either that or the Japanese player simply didn’t realize what he got himself into (seems like the Japanese may have done an ill advised amp of W Australia, and the Anz (or US) took it back leaving the Japanese w/o a landing space, and the fleet vulnerable).
BTW the sub can’t retreat to sz61, it submerges in sz56.