What do you make of the new Strategic Bombing rules?


  • @Slackaveli:

    @Der:

    Well I’m using the Interception rules on Larry Harris’ website where both attackers and interceptors have to roll ones to hit. Using mathematical odds, you would have to have 4 fighters posted there to have a 51.77% chance of rolling a one and shooting something down. This is not much of a deterent to approaching bombers as not many can afford to keep that many fighters sitting around. Fighters defending at 2 might keep the bombers out, though.

    they DO defend @ 2, thus making attacking fighters fodder @ 10ipc/ea just to barely damage a factory. makes SBR a stupid move unless you have an opponent w/ 0 fighters.

    http://www.harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=6491


  • so they took out the +2 at least.

  • TripleA '12

    Am I right in thinking that any defending interceptors are removed immediately and completely from the air battle without being able to return fire if they are hit by the attacking bombers and/or escorts? This is what seems to be implied by the rules but I just want to be 100% sure. Thanks.


  • Hi Loz. That is how it reads. Different from Global OOB, but changed this way in the alpha revisions. Is obviously the way SBR is going.


  • @Lozmoid:

    Am I right in thinking that any defending interceptors are removed immediately and completely from the air battle without being able to return fire if they are hit by the attacking bombers and/or escorts? This is what seems to be implied by the rules but I just want to be 100% sure. Thanks.

    Maybe this is to try to simulate the interceptors concentrating on attacking the enemy bombers and not giving full attention to the fighter escorts.


  • It is not an awful idea, just need to see how it works in practice. It is probably historically accurate as you say: the Germans were after the bombers and you still have one shot of AA.
    Will come down to which side can afford  to spend money on Fts.

  • Customizer

    I see very little in our games of Global, of Strat bombing, for the reasons stated above. You just don’t know if the opponent is going to send interceptors up. Now if your own airforce has nothing better to do, e.g. take out navy, then you can afford to send them in, but if you send too many in, in hopes of taking out defenders fighters for a later invasion, he’d be foolish to send them up. I suppose in a perfect situation where you had enough to send in and knew he would chance it just to take some of yours out it might happen but how often do we have fighters with nothing else to do? Maybe round 3 or 4. I just don’t see it happening often enough to make it a rule. This is for a much more vigorous economy like Global not for something like 42. Maybe Anniversary could benefit from this rule because of the extra money from NO’s but not this game.

  • Customizer

    If you can afford the air force to try SBRs, then it’s really a win-win for you. Say you can afford to send over 5 or 6 bombers and he only has 2 fighters. In that case, it would probably be foolish for him to send them up as interceptors because you have a much better chance at knocking out at least one or maybe both fighters. In that case, AA fire not withstanding, then you have more bombers to plaster his factory with.
    Of course, if he does decide to send up interceptors, it’s even possible that you could not only kill his fighters but still plaster his factory.
    If you are trying this strategy to bleed his fighter strength, then you can’t send escorts. Surely your enemy won’t bother with interceptors unless he has a chance at taking out bombers.


  • @knp7765:

    Surely your enemy won’t bother with interceptors unless he has a chance at taking out bombers.

    Yeah but if your interceptors are firing @ 2 like in these new rules, you are going to likely take out twice the fighters you lose.


  • @Der:

    if your interceptors are firing @ 2 like in these new rules, you are going to likely take out twice the fighters you lose.

    The attacking BMRs and escorts fire first and get a surprise strike, with no return fire from hit interceptors. So, the raider only needs to outnumber the interceptors by about 3:2 to figure to get as many hits as the defender. I’ll provide an example.

    Suppose the raiding player sends 3 BMRs and 3 FTRs on a SBR.
    The defender chooses to scramble 4 interceptors.

    The attacker fires first. 6 planes @ 1 figure to get 1.0000000 hit on average.
    The defender removes the hit interceptor immediately and it does not fire back.
    The remaining defenders fire. 3 planes @ 2 figure to get 1.0000000 hit on average.


  • Actually rolling a “1” with 6 planes is harder than you think. There is a 66.51% chance you will roll a one when rolling 6 die, not 100% - check here:

    http://www.edcollins.com/backgammon/diceprob.htm

    I honestly don’t know why they don’t just leave the numbers alone for the one round of combat - simultaneous fire - so the fighter escorts would attack @ 3, interceptors defend @ 4, bombers defend @ 1. That would hurt something!

  • Customizer

    In the latest Alpha+3 rules, Larry changed the SBR rules for escorts and interceptors. Both hit @ 1 but any hits made by the bombers and escorts simply go behind the casualty line and can still roll with the surviving interceptors.
    In other words, if you have 3 interceptors and the attacking bombers and escorts hit 2 of them, you still get to roll for 3 interceptors. Difference is they only hit on a 1 now.
    It’s anybody’s guess as to which is better.


  • @Der:

    Actually rolling a “1” with 6 planes is harder than you think.

    You’re mistaken.@Der:

    There is a 66.51% chance you will roll a one when rolling 6 die, not 100%

    You’re correct about this.@UrJohn:

    on average.

    I was referring to the statistical mean. As you pointed out, better than 1 time in 3 you get no hits, but you occasionally will get 2 hits, and you will rarely get 3-4 hits.

    However, to get really, really close to that 1 hit average in practice, you’d need a large number of repetitions, and you’d have to have at least 6 defending units to be available to take as hits. The wasted unapplied hits from the rare times you get 5-6 hits on 6 dice versus 4 defenders actually slightly reduces your average number of hits taken by the defender, but 5+ 1s on 6 dice are rare enough that it’s too insignificant for this to even really merit discussion, worse than 1500:1. So, you really get around .9995 hits on average. I was just rounding to 1.


  • @knp7765:

    In the latest Alpha+3 rules, Larry changed the SBR rules for escorts and interceptors.

    This game came out 10 months after that 10/10/11 post on his site, so it has changed again. That’s one thing that makes this game frustrating - it’s not like chess where the rules have been around for hundreds of years. The rules are still fluid and keep changing.

    @UrJohn:

    I was just rounding to 1.

    Agreed!

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