Kamikaze clarification

[Jercules]

“If an Allied player attacks Japanese units or declares an amphibious assault from one of these sea zones, the Japanese player can announce at the beginning of the Conduct Combat phase that he or she intends to launch one or more kamikaze strikes.”

The wording of this makes it sound as though the attack must be coming from a Kamikaze seazone, when my understanding always was Kamikazes may be used if a Kamikaze seazone is under Allied attack, or land adjacent to a Kamikaze seazone is being amphibiously assaulted. Can anyone clarify this please?

[knp7765]

The “coming from” part is basically for the amphibious assault part of that rule.  I will try to clarify this with an example:
Let’s use Sea Zone 6 which borders Japan and Korea and has the Kamikaze symbol.
1 – Japan has warships in SZ 6.  USA sends warships to attack the Japanese fleet.  In this case, the Allied player is attacking Japanese units in a sea zone with a kamikaze symbol, so Japan may use kamikaze if he/she wishes.
2 – Japan has NO warships in SZ 6.  USA sends warships to SZ 6 along with transports full of land units to invade Korea.  In this case, since there was no naval battle, the US Navy has already occupied SZ 6 and the amphibious assault on Korea is coming from SZ 6.  Since SZ 6 has a kamikaze symbol, Japan may use kamikaze.  This will count as a sea battle so any battleships and cruisers can NOT use shore bombardment.

SPECIAL NOTE:  Kamikaze attacks can only be made on surface warships, NOT on submarines or transports.  So, if Japan had no warships in SZ 6, and had no planes to scramble from Japan’s airbase, USA could move the transports in the combat move and invade Korea without suffering Kamikaze.  Assuming USA takes Korea, then the USA player could move warships to SZ 6 to protect the transports in the NCM without suffering Kamikaze attacks.  Also, even if Japan had planes to scramble, USA could send carrier based planes to fight the Japanese scramble planes and cover the transports because Kamikaze does not work on allied planes either.

[Jercules]

Thanks!

[Guest]

Hmmm so suppose USA does an amphibious assault on Korea, and Japan has some ships in z6 that have to be taken care of in a naval battle first.  If USA does the naval battle using only submarines and planes, then the kamikazes can’t do anything and then the carriers and other surface ships move in during the noncombat phase.  Subs and bombers!

[Jennifer]

knp,

I dont believe America would have to TAKE Korea, in your scenario.  You are free to NCM warships into hostile zones without risk of Kamikazee attacks so long as there are no enemy warships present.

So if Japan had no units in SZ 6, but had 6 Kamikazees left, America could waltz in with 3 battleships during NCM and nothing could be done about it.

[Razor]

Right but so what ?

US can move 5 battleships and 10 floaded trannies into sz 6 during non combat move, and Japan cant do noting, man, no scramble, no kamikaze.

But, if US dare to amphibious assault Korea next turn, then its gonna get total treatment with kamikaze and scramlings all over the place, for sure man. The rule is foolproof, its just a matter of timing.

[knp7765]

@Cmdr:

knp,

I dont believe America would have to TAKE Korea, in your scenario.  You are free to NCM warships into hostile zones without risk of Kamikazee attacks so long as there are no enemy warships present.

So if Japan had no units in SZ 6, but had 6 Kamikazees left, America could waltz in with 3 battleships during NCM and nothing could be done about it.

Yeah, you are right.  USA could lose the land battle for Korea and still move in the warships to SZ6 in the NCM with no kamikaze attacks.  I worded that a bit wrong, but the point I was making was that as long as there are no Japanese naval units in SZ6, then the USA could move warships into SZ6 in the NCM and Japan could not use it’s kamikaze.  The battle for Korea has no influence one way or the other in this example.