Alternative house rules for bombardment?


  • Has anyone come with alternative house rules for shore bombardment? I have always felt the OOB rules are way too powerful. In AA50 they took a step in the right direction by matching a bombardment with an invading unit. But, in AA50 they still made bombardment more powerful. All Cruisers get bombardment at 3 and a Cruiser costs 12 IPC. Thats like all destroyers getting bombardment. In AAR you needed tech to get bombardment with destroyers. This system does not allow island battles because you can usually just kill everything before you invade. This does not simulate WWII very well.


  • My house rule for bombardment is that the ships do not get an independent attack, but only boost the attack of one supported unit to 2.  This works quite well in the Pacific game, and eliminates the ability of the US to simply wipe out the Japanese on an island by bombardment, as this simply did not happen.  It also takes care of the problem off a naval force eliminating the opposition from a large area like France, Norway, Egypt, etc. by shore bombardment before landing any troops.  I believe that this correctly puts the navy in the supporting role for the attack, and means that the major emphasis is the invading forces success.  I also have a house rule that air attack cannot eliminate infantry units, but may eliminate artillery and tank units.  This also works very well in the Pacific game, as it means that you cannot eliminate an opponent’s forces if they include infantry by simple air attack, especially on islands, but you have to use ground troops to take it.  An air unit may support an ground unit in an attack on infantry units just like artillery, increasing its attack roll by one, but does not get an independent attack.

    The reason for the difference in air attack on artillery and tanks is that those forces are more vulnerable to air attack, whereas dug-in infantry is a very difficult target.  I am thinking about excluding Japanese artillery units on Pacific islands as well, as the Japanese in island defense primarily used their artillery in the direct support or direct fire role, firing from either cave or heavily protected positions.  The aim is to achieve a closer relationship to what actually occured in the war without excessive complexity.


  • I like that idea of shore bombardment boosting infantry to 2 like artillery. The guns on the ship are just like artillery really. But what is the difference between a Cruiser and a Battleship? A Battleship supports two infantry to 2 or maybe boosts infantry to 3?


  • Well, I don’t know about all the guns on Cruisers and Battleships for every nation but, I think it makes sense for a game that the Battleship can support 2 infantry or bring one up to 3. You pay for more you get more so people have reasons to buy Battleships and not just Cruisers. I am very much in favor of a rule like this. It probably has come up before in others house rules too, but I will be playing this way with my house rules.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    My house rule was that you could get technology (pill boxes) which made your defending infantry immune to bombardments.  So to do any damage, an attacker would have to get more hits on bombardments than you had defending infantry before killing anything.


  • @Cmdr:

    My house rule was that you could get technology (pill boxes) which made your defending infantry immune to bombardments.  So to do any damage, an attacker would have to get more hits on bombardments than you had defending infantry before killing anything.

    I like the idea of fortifications but, I don’t think you need to research pill boxes. Fortifications like this should be something you can just build. You woundn’t need to invent them.


  • @Cmdr:

    My house rule was that you could get technology (pill boxes) which made your defending infantry immune to bombardments.  So to do any damage, an attacker would have to get more hits on bombardments than you had defending infantry before killing anything.

    If you do that, Jen, you should make the rule apply to aircraft bombarbment and artillery as well.  The average WW2 naval gun was considerably heavier than WW2 field artillery, and more accurate than any form of air bombardment.


  • @Admiral_Thrawn:

    @Cmdr:

    My house rule was that you could get technology (pill boxes) which made your defending infantry immune to bombardments.  So to do any damage, an attacker would have to get more hits on bombardments than you had defending infantry before killing anything.

    I like the idea of fortifications but, I don’t think you need to research pill boxes. Fortifications like this should be something you can just build. You woundn’t need to invent them.

    The basis for my rule that you cannot kill infantry by bombardment, either naval or air, assumes that they have dug in, with overhead cover.  US tests and experience in WW2 showed that dug-in infantry with overhead cover, i.e pillbox or similar, required at least 100 times the firepower to inflict casualties on than infantry in the open.  If in rough terrain, it takes even more.  You need to have ground troops to deal with dug-in infantry.  Japanese island fortifications are a special case, but again, I do not think that any tech needs to be researched for them.  They simply made good use of manpower, hand tools, and the materials at hand.  A good description of Japanese defensive positions can be found in the Handbook on Japanese Military Forces, published in reprint by Louisiana University Press.  You can also get good information from Jack Coggins Campaign for Guadalcanal which uses illustrations from that Handbook.  The data on firepower required to inflict a specific level of casualties comes from the formerly classified Army manual, Ballistic Performance of Ammunition, 1948. The information in that manual still applies today.


  • I believe you can have timerover51 system in a simple way.
    Use AA50 system but put value at ‘1’ and not preemptive.
    Right?


  • @timerover51:

    Hmmm, that would be a reasonable approach as well.

    I was merely making an observation that each bombardment ship supporting each infantry +1 on 1-to-1 basis…is the same as rolling one bombardment die per infantry at 1 and not preemptive

    like you can arrange the rules to appear as only a minimal rule change, and then people are less resistive

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