Historical Carriers, ASW and other vessels : 1942.1/1942.2/1940

  • '17 '16

    @Uncrustable:

    I see nothing wrong with giving carriers +1 movement aswell as cruisers

    But is it unnecessary ?
    Everyone buys lots of carriers….and carriers themselves are weak, it is carrying planes that makes them strong, and increasing carrier movement does nothing to planes

    If your going to add escort carriers, why not also add torpedo boats, merchant carriers, coastal subs, transport planes, F-150 pickups, horse and buggys,  mars rovers, RC cars, log rides, etc…

    :-D Absolutly no irony here!!!  :-D
    I like your sense of humor.

    Otherwise, is it really too precise for the strategical level of A&A?
    There is some Casablanca-class unit miniature in HBG which can fit for a CVL with only 1 plane.

    The idea here is creating a working task force able to go on offensive anti-sub patrol to block them before they can reach much weaker lines of communication. I think it could do some interesting thing in PTO.
    However, in ETO it will helps USA to reach sooner UK and defend TTs against U-Boat.


  • Please add 30 more types of ships. Then we can have 40 types of ships, 4 types of land units, and 3 types of air units. I see no conflicts here whatsoever. Excellent.

  • '17 '16

    @Imperious:

    Please add 30 more types of ships. Then we can have 40 types of ships, 4 types of land units, and 3 types of air units. I see no conflicts here whatsoever. Excellent.

    Are you talking about Uncrustable post ?

    Do you sometimes play with 2 types of carrier or only the OOB?


  • Just having so many new ships and leaving Land and Air alone seems silly. Having 3 times or 5 times more units also does not really seem too fun.

    I guess CVL could be worked in, Perhaps a battlecruiser, perhaps a destroyer escort or super battleship. Then also add a few land and air units to balance out right?

  • '17 '16

    @Imperious:

    Just having so many new ships and leaving Land and Air alone seems silly. Having 3 times or 5 times more units also does not really seem too fun.

    I guess CVL could be worked in, Perhaps a battlecruiser, perhaps a destroyer escort or super battleship. Then also add a few land and air units to balance out right?

    I saw many historical board games miniature: about different types of tank, marines, paratroopers, transport plane, etc.

    The initial post was not intended to introduce all those carriers, just trying to fit some unit caracteristic with historical carrier.

    However, I introduce in my 1942.2 a CVL but it was not bought at all.
    There was no need for this cheap carrier with ASW.
    Players have enough money to bought only carrier+DD.
    The CVL makes no difference.

    Introducing a new unit must bring more  strategical, tactical challenge, historical aspect and still keep the balance.
    Creating unit which duplicates in a way or in other some already OOB unit capacity won’t add much.
    For instance, a battlecruiser (between BB and CA) may not gain any interest because (maximizing game mecanics) for few IPCs BB will fight better or longer.
    Or a combination of 2 DDs may prevail because of their 2 hits 2*A2D2 ASW vs 1 Bc A4D4C16 1 hit. (20% survival for Bc)

    This said, that’s why I saw a “nest” for CVL A0D1M3C11 ASW, 1 plane.
    Because their is not much ship moving 3 spaces, and, in addition of the 3 spaces of a CA, it combines ASW and carrier capacity, in one single unit.

    Is 50% less powerful than CV, 1 hit 1 plane D1, is less powerful than the other ASW 1 DD A2D2 vs A0D1 at 3 IPCs higher price.

    Even with plane A3D5 vs DD+CA, A5D5 for 1 additionnal IPC have 2A point less.
    So, it is a jack of all trade unit but still balance.

    Finally, joined with a CA A3D3M3 can create an autonomous Task Force and may generate interesting strategy without depending upon Naval Base.

    So CV and CVL will not have the same function at all.
    No one will stop buying CV, but in some situation CVL may come in handy to move fast to provide some air and naval protection � to lonely TTs exposed against Sub and aircrafts.

    That’s how I see this unit.


  • Introducing a new unit must bring more � strategical, tactical challenge, historical aspect and still keep the balance.

    Yes i agree but having 5-6 different carriers does not get you those things for example. A few new things, but for each class you need sculpts and HBG only makes so many carriers.


  • Adding units dilutes the game

    And why add escort carriers before torpedo boats?
    Or super battleships, battlecruisers, light cruisers, etc

    The carrier in the game now does not represent a specific carrier, but rather a ‘group’ or ‘task force’ focused around aircraft carriers. I imagine the groups would include multiple different types of carriers both large and small

  • '17 '16

    @Uncrustable:

    Adding units dilutes the game

    And why add escort carriers before torpedo boats?
    Or super battleships, battlecruisers, light cruisers, etc

    The carrier in the game now does not represent a specific carrier, but rather a ‘group’ or ‘task force’ focused around aircraft carriers. I imagine the groups would include multiple different types of carriers both large and small.

    That’s why I suggest to allow 1 plane to land on a damaged carrier in 1940.
    The OOB forbid any air operation on a damaged carrier as if it was a single big carrier which received a hit.

    So the OOB  game mecanic for damaged carrier is actually counter-intuitive.

    If 1 carrier unit represent many carrier ships, then they won’t be all damaged at 1 time.
    They would have place to land some aircrafts and not loosing all their air support because some of them need repair.

  • '17 '16

    @Uncrustable:

    Adding units dilutes the game

    And why add escort carriers before torpedo boats?
    Or super battleships, battlecruisers, light cruisers, etc

    The carrier in the game now does not represent a specific carrier, but rather a ‘group’ or ‘task force’ focused around aircraft carriers. I imagine the groups would include multiple different types of carriers both large and small

    I can say Cmdr Jen tread has working out a somewhat potent superbattleship.
    3 hits/ 1 first strike @1 vs 1 surface vessels.

    For those who want a wide variety of ships, I let them do it.

    You already developped 1 real more “A&A” AAA division unit, that is not so bad at all.


  • AA has been in the game since classic?

    It just underwent changes?
    It has always been there


  • @Baron:

    @Uncrustable:

    Adding units dilutes the game

    And why add escort carriers before torpedo boats?
    Or super battleships, battlecruisers, light cruisers, etc

    The carrier in the game now does not represent a specific carrier, but rather a ‘group’ or ‘task force’ focused around aircraft carriers. I imagine the groups would include multiple different types of carriers both large and small.

    That’s why I suggest to allow 1 plane to land on a damaged carrier in 1940.
    The OOB forbid any air operation on a damaged carrier as if it was a single big carrier which received a hit.

    So the OOB  game mecanic for damaged carrier is actually counter-intuitive.

    If 1 carrier unit represent many carrier ships, then they won’t be all damaged at 1 time.
    They would have place to land some aircrafts and not loosing all their air support because some of them need repair.

    Makes sense , but it would be needlessly complicated.

    In the case where a carrier is damaged with 2 planes on board, now one can take off but one can’t, what if 2 different powers Fighters?

    Much simpler to say ‘damaged carrier cannot conduct flight ops until repaired’

  • '17 '16

    @Uncrustable:

    AA has been in the game since classic?

    It just underwent changes?
    It has always been there

    Yes and no.
    Now it has 2 ways: in-built is the classic AA gun against all SBR.
    The AAA unit (which has now is own sculpt), which you develop toward a real AAA.
    This one A0-1D1M1C6 is a new ground unit.

  • '17 '16

    @Uncrustable:

    @Baron:

    @Uncrustable:

    Adding units dilutes the game

    And why add escort carriers before torpedo boats?
    Or super battleships, battlecruisers, light cruisers, etc

    The carrier in the game now does not represent a specific carrier, but rather a ‘group’ or ‘task force’ focused around aircraft carriers. I imagine the groups would include multiple different types of carriers both large and small.

    That’s why I suggest to allow 1 plane to land on a damaged carrier in 1940.
    The OOB forbid any air operation on a damaged carrier as if it was a single big carrier which received a hit.

    So the OOB  game mecanic for damaged carrier is actually counter-intuitive.

    If 1 carrier unit represent many carrier ships, then they won’t be all damaged at 1 time.
    They would have place to land some aircrafts and not loosing all their air support because some of them need repair.

    Makes sense , but it would be needlessly complicated.

    In the case where a carrier is damaged with 2 planes on board, now one can take off but one can’t, what if 2 different powers Fighters?

    Much simpler to say ‘damaged carrier cannot conduct flight ops until repaired’

    All the time I played with it, it never rise any problem.

    If any of these fighters roll a defense while Carrier was under attack, one of them will not be able to land on the carrier: that’s it.
    If the carrier was hit while on attack, if 1 of them is his Fig, then only the other can offload normally. The flying Fgt must land elsewhere.

    Only, on a rare case when two planes from other country was on board an attacking carrier, then the owning player will have to chose which one is trap in the carrier.

  • '17 '16

    @Uncrustable:

    Adding units dilutes the game

    And why add escort carriers before torpedo boats?
    Or super battleships, battlecruisers, light cruisers, etc

    The carrier in the game now does not represent a specific carrier, but rather a ‘group’ or ‘task force’ focused around aircraft carriers. I imagine the groups would include multiple different types of carriers both large and small

    I could say because Troop Transport need more escort and protection (since TT has no combat value).
    And CVL were design for this during WWII and it was a cheaper way than using Fleet Carrier.

    You can recreate this interesting historical effect in a game without introducing a totally different unit, (such as Torpedo boat: A1D1M2C4-5, maybe).

    Instead of a complete battle Task Force to defend TTs against Sub and support landing :
    1DD+1CV+2Fgt= 8+16+20=44 IPCs / 1fgt=34 IPCs.     Combined A8D12, 5 hits/1Fgt A5D8, 4 hits
    Support land attack with 2 planes, many rounds 2@3   /  1 plane 1@3.

    You can have a smaller, faster Escort Group able to do a little something vs Subs and support landing too:
    1CVL A0D1M3C11(10?) + 1Fgt A3D4C10 = 21 (20?) IPCs       Combined A3D5, 2 hits
    Support land attack with 1 plane, many rounds 1@3.

    And it is still different than slower Escort/attack ship only:
    1DD+1CA= 8+12= 20 IPCs                                 Combined A5D5,  2 hits
    Support land attack 1 bombardment, 1 round @3.

    On the other part,
    creating battlecruiser and lightcruiser will require something special to create an incentive toward essentially combat ship, which we already have in 2 versions: Cruiser and Battleship.

    How will those 2 new units (which can bombard?, have AA guns?, or have ASW, have 3 spaces move?) will add something?
    The same question will rise, as shown by many treads complaining about few buying of cruiser.
    Many will say: why buying this or that, if it doesn’t improve or maximize the offensive or defensive punch?

  • '17 '16

    @Baron:

    @Uncrustable:

    Adding units dilutes the game

    And why add escort carriers before torpedo boats?
    Or super battleships, battlecruisers, light cruisers, etc
    The carrier in the game now does not represent a specific carrier, but rather a ‘group’ or ‘task force’ focused around aircraft carriers. I imagine the groups would include multiple different types of carriers both large and small

    On the other part,
    creating battlecruiser and lightcruiser will require something special to create an incentive toward essentially combat ship, which we already have in 2 versions: Cruiser and Battleship.

    How will those 2 new units (which can bombard?, have AA guns?, or have ASW, have 3 spaces move?) will add something?
    The same question will rise, as shown by many treads complaining about few buying of cruiser.
    Many will say: why buying this or that, if it doesn’t improve or maximize the offensive or defensive punch?

    I found this about historical light cruiser CL and heavy cruiser CA:

    Perhaps the ultimate example of this interchangeability of light and heavy cruiser design was the Japanese Mogami class, which were commissioned as light cruisers armed with 15-6.1" guns in five triple turrets in order to conform to the Washington Naval Treaty. When war became imminent, they were rearmed as heavy cruisers simply by exchanging the triple 6" turrets for twin 8" turrets, which by design shared the same size turret rings. The Mogami’s were, in fact, among the most powerful and capable of all WW II heavy cruisers and graphically demonstrated that there was no longer any practical difference, in terms of hull size or displacement, between light and heavy cruisers.

    http://www.chuckhawks.com/best_light_cruisers.htm

    About Battlecruiser, specially the H.M.S. Hoods:

    The Royal Navy had three battlecruisers at the beginning of the Second World War: Renown, Repulse, and Hood. All three were begun during the First World War, and represent the second generation of battlecruisers.

    Renown and Repulse were sisters, and carried 6-15in guns and a 9in belt on about 32,000t standard displacement. Both were modestly refit in the 1920’s. Renown was given a major reconstruction which, when completed in 1939, brought her up to contemporary British standards. Due to the outbreak of the war, Repulse did not receive this second reconstruction.

    The German Admiralty was particularly nervous about the British battlecruisers, as they were the only British ships which were as fast as the two third generation fast battleships, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and also out gunned them. Repulse, along with the battleship Prince of Wales, was sunk off Malaysia in December, 1941 by Japanese naval aircraft. Renown survived a very busy war to be sold to the ship breakers in 1948.

    The third ship, Hood, was the largest battlecruiser of all time, and probably the most famous. For almost all of her life she was the largest warship in the world. She was known everywhere as “the mighty Hood”. She was originally designed as a response to the WW I German Mackensen class. When it became clear that these would never be completed, the three other members of the Hood class were canceled, but the Hood herself was far enough along to be worth completing. She was intended to be a 32 knot battlecruiser version of the very successful Queen Elizabeth class battleships. She was commissioned in 1920, and represented a new standard of battlecruiser protection. Many authorities consider her to be the first of the new type later to be called “fast battleships”. Certainly, her 12in inclined belt offered good protection by the standards of the time, but a lot of her total tonnage of armor (which amounted to 33.6% of her hull weight) was wasted in inconsequential places. In fairness, it should be pointed out that the Hood was armored to almost identical standards as the vaunted Queen Elizabeth class battleships.

    She got a modest refit in 1929-30, but was never modernized. She was due for a major rebuild in 1939 (similar to Renown), but this was never accomplished due to the outbreak of war. After the beginning of the war, her original 5.5in secondary guns were removed, and more AA guns added.

    Her specifications in 1941 follow (From Jane’s Fighting Ships of World War II and Encyclopedia of the World’s Warships, by Hugh Lion):

    Displacement: 42,100t standard; 46,200t full load

    Dimensions:810ft pp, 860ft 7in oa x 105ft 2.5in x 31.5ft max.

    Machinery:4-shaft Brown-Curtis geared turbines, 24 Yarrow small tube
    boilers, 144,000shp = 28.8kts Oil 4,000t max.

    Armor:Belt 12in-5in; deck 3in-1in; turrets 15in faces, 12in-11in sides;
    barbettes 12in; 12in-9in CT

    Armament: 8-15in/42 (4x2), 14-4in AA (7x2), 24-40mm AA (3x8), 8-.50 MG,
    4-21in TT (2x2)

    Complement:1,341

    Range:5,170nm at 18kts


  • Well let me say this;
    The problem with cruisers is they are essentially a cheaper form of BB
    Whenever you have 2 similar units, 1 will be predominatly purchases while the other is rarely purchased, except when a nation is too poor.
    Giving cruisers +1 movement would easily solve this and give them there own role as a
    “Faster, cheaper BB”

    The more I think about the more I actually think escort carriers do have a place
    As a 'cheaper carrier ’
    Give them 3 movement and now you have a very mobile fleet option
    Cruisers + escort carriers with 3 range

    They should NOT have ASW as that woukd upset destroyer purchases

    I think I have come full circle ;)

  • '17 '16

    @Uncrustable:

    Well let me say this;
    The problem with cruisers is they are essentially a cheaper form of BB
    Whenever you have 2 similar units, 1 will be predominatly purchases while the other is rarely purchased, except when a nation is too poor.
    Giving cruisers +1 movement would easily solve this and give them there own role as a
    “Faster, cheaper BB”

    The more I think about the more I actually think escort carriers do have a place
    As a 'cheaper carrier ’
    Give them 3 movement and now you have a very mobile fleet option
    Cruisers + escort carriers with 3 range

    They should NOT have ASW as that woukd upset destroyer purchases
    I think I have come full circle ;)

    I think about this, and I think your fear about DD is logical but will not pass the game test.
    I explain:
    First: compare the vulnerability against Sub of 1CVL+1Fgt

    Even ASW didn’t forbid sub from making a hit against an ASW ship.
    What will remain, if it’s the case?
    1 Fighter craving for a landing place.

    CVL have A0D1C10-11 vs DD A2D2C8
    You get better offensive and defensive punch.
    Compare those 4 Task Force A, B, C and D:
    TF-A: 1 CVL A0D1C10-11 + 1 Fgt A3D4C10 + 1 CA A3D3C12=  A6D8C32-33, 2 hits vs Subs
    TF-B: 1 DD A2D2C8 +  2 CA A3D3C12 =                                 A8D8C32, 3 hits vs Subs
    TF-C: 2 DD A2D2C8 + 1 CA A3D3C12 =                                   A7D7C28, 3 hits vs Subs
    TF-D: 4 DDs A2D2M2C8  =                                                     A8D8C32, 4 hits vs Subs

    If a 5 Subs attacking scores 2 hits, it means no more TF-A.
    TF-B-C-D can fight another round against Subs.

    And TF-B and D has more offensive punch while TF-C has same 14 pts A/D value, it is 4-5 IPCs cheaper.

    I think ASW add the possibility to other unit going on Anti-Sub Patrol but at a lower offensive capacity compare to DD.

    I will add that it is a better Anti-sub Patrol to add 1 DD to CVL and CA Task Force, even at the expense of loosing mobility, because DD are cheaper and stronger.

    For all this reasons, and an historical one:
    CVL/CVE used more often their planes to patrol against Subs than Fleet Carrier used their planes for this kind of mission.


  • So who would buy a destroyer when for 2 more IPCs you can get a unit with 3 range and carries a fighter and does ASW too?

    Then get rid of destroyer altogether

  • '17 '16

    @Uncrustable:

    So who would buy a destroyer when for 2 more IPCs you can get a unit with 3 range and carries a fighter and does ASW too?

    Then get rid of destroyer altogether

    I think you must compare them on a same IPC basis:
    TF-A: 1 CVL A0D1C10-11 + 1 Fgt A3D4C10 + 1 CA A3D3C12=  A6D8C32, 2 hits vs Subs, only 1 ASW
    TF-D: 4 DDs A2D2M2C8  = A8D8M2C32, 4 hits vs Subs and 4 ASW

    Would you really get ride of the DD?
    Subs have better odds of surviving against TF-A than TF-D

    U-Boat TF: 5 Subs A2D1M2C6 = A10D5M2C30,  5 hits Task Force.
    Fst rnd, 52= 10/6  1 hit     (1 subs casuality)
    Scnd rnd 4
    2= +8   12/6 = 2 hits  No more TF-A   (1 Sub casuality vs DD)
    Third rnd  3*2= 6/6   1 hit            No more TF-D
    Frth rnd  ???


  • Ok if you want more units make it basic:

    3 Carriers: CVB, CV, and CVL
    2 Cruisers: BC and CA
    2 Destroyers: DD and DE
    2 battleships: BB, BBB

    CVB= 3 planes, 3 hits, 2-3-3-
    CV= OOB
    CL= 1 hit, 1 plane, 0-1-3-
    BC= 3-3-3-2 hits, 16 cost, 3 SB
    CA= OOB
    DD=OOB
    DE= preemptive strike negated, plus boosts each transport to 1 defense ( no more one sub kills all thing) 1-2-3-7
    BB=oob
    BBB= 3 hits, 5-5-3-24, sb at 5

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