Adapting A&A1914 rules for G40

[Flashman]

Only a fool leaves aircraft on his front lines.

The point is you could use aircraft to impose contested status on a tt with very little risk to your own units. This changes the whole dynamic of CTs and needs to be tested a lot.

[ossel]

I see what you’re saying I guess…A player could send 10 fighters and 1 inf into a tt, choose the aircraft as casualties and leave the inf to contest…but why would anyone do that? The tt is then vulnerable and he doesn’t receive income for it anyway. Maybe I don’t see what you’re saying.

I’m not sure if this helps the issue you’re bringing up, but on the subject of dogfights, it might be interesting to have each player separate their air forces into an “air superiority” group and a “ground support” group, resolving the air superiority battle first and applying bonuses to the ground . Perhaps restrict bombers to ground support, and have tactical bombers be able to participate in both. I’ll have to think about this one, just spitballing here.

[Yavid]

another problem with your scenario is your losing how many ipcs in fighters to gain what 2, 3 ipcs for the one turn?

[Flashman]

Remember we’re dealing with a rule where the combat last a maximum of 3 rounds.

Of course you’re not sending in just 1 infantry - you’d use enough to soak up hits and leave 1 behind to contest - the important thing is your fighters can score big hits and then in effect retreat beyond enemy range, something that does not apply in 1914 rules.

Another big difference is in tanks - since you cannot straff they will always be left vulnerable to counter attack, so its questionable if they’re worth buying over fighters.

You wouldn’t gain any ipcs, since you only collect at the start of a turn. The point is to deny the enemy income by contesting several tts with hit and run(fly away) attacks.

[ossel]

The point I’m trying to make is that currently you can do this anyway. Nothing in the current ruleset is stopping you from grabbing 3 or 4 tt’s with air power and then pulling all of your planes back to safe territories. And honestly, the number of battles that are going to end up contested will be low (and if not, the max number of combat rounds needs to be tweaked), so I don’t see this making much of a difference.

I also want to work on adding an air superiority combat phase anyway; I’ll be posting my initial stabs at these rule adaptations in the House Rules forum soon.

[Razor]

I am thinking among the same lines myself.

CONTESTET TERRITORIES
I figure the attacker should have 3 options. After the first round he can press attack, stay or retreat. Just as in the real war, it should be your choice if you want to continue the attack until the territory is conquered, or you want to stop the battle but stay in the territory to contest it, or just retreat. Remember that a territory is large as a country, and a turn is 3 months, and there was no phase during the real WWII where Germany or Russia vacated Poland with a small force, just to trade it back and forth, like we usually see in A&A games.

THE BATTLEBOARD
The 1914 Battleboard is perfect for WWII. G40 infantry should att at 2 and def at 3, because a 1940 infantry division had a lot more firepower than the 1914 infantry counterpart. And the 1940 tank should absorb two hits, because the maneuver warfare tactic was to break through the enemy line at the weak point, and then cut off the enemy supply, and this made few casualties but big surrenders. On the other hand, the classic assault with artillery barrage and infantry charges was a meat grinder with lots of casualties, and no surrender. So yes, artillery hit on 4 or less, they are the King of the battlefield, and tank hit on 2 but can absorb 2 hits.

DOGFIGHT
Yes, you must fight for air superiority before the ground battle. I think fighters should cost 6 or 8, and att 1 and def 2, both in air combat and later in ground strafing. This will be historically correct. Then the Stuka can hit ground units on a 3, or on a 4 if combined with a tank. And the bomber should carpet bombard huge infantry stacks, maybe like the classic AA gun, roll one dice for each inf, every 1 a hit. I also believe that an airbase should be able to scramble 3 fighters to an adjacent territory under attack, and not just seazones.

AMPHIBIOUS ASSAULTS
I love the 1914 rule that give the defending artillery a preemptive roll against amphibious assaulting ground units. This is exactly how it was on Dday and every other landing during both WWs. Maybe even the inf should attack on 1 in the first round of a landing, since the tanks don’t absorb hits when wading ashore. Then we can have Marines that still attack on 2 during landings

[Razor]

@Flashman:

Should attacking planes even be permitted to land in newly contested areas; maybe the infrastructure needed for air units to operate is considered too complex to allow this.

Since a turn is 3 or 4 months, then yes a fighter should be allowed to land in the grain field on a newly contested area, just as they did in the real war. But a big Bomber should always need an airbase. Bombers don’t land on carriers either.

and as I said in my previous post, an airbase should be able to scramble 3 defending fighters into an adjacent territory too, and not just into seazones. And with fighters att at 1 and def on 2, they will not upset the balancing.

[Razor]

@Flashman:

Do we still allow attacker retreats i.e. strafing? Or must the attack be followed through.

You tell me, Flash, was it, to your knowledge, in any time during WWII, or any other war, some kind of a divine judge that told the generals that Dieppe raids or kamikaze attacks was illegal moves, and you was only allowed to do 3>1 attacks. No, I didn’t think so. So why do you want rigid and derogatory fantasy rules for this A&A game, when in real world the generals do what they want.

As I said, after first round of battle, the attacker should choose to press continue  attack, or stay in the territory to contest it, or retreat. Why should attack or retreat be the only options, when in the real wars there are many different tactics to use. Maybe even the defender should have a choice to stay or retreat, they had in the real war

[Razor]

@ossel:

I’m not sure if this helps the issue you’re bringing up, but on the subject of dogfights, it might be interesting to have each player separate their air forces into an “air superiority” group and a “ground support” group, resolving the air superiority battle first and applying bonuses to the ground . Perhaps restrict bombers to ground support, and have tactical bombers be able to participate in both. I’ll have to think about this one, just spitballing here.

I figure we should do this very simple.

If Amphibious Assault
1a. Naval combat as OOB rules
2a. Defending artillery roll preemptive fire, 3 or less a hit

Land combat
1. Air combat. Every attacking Fighters, Tacs and Bombers hit on a roll of 1.
Defending fighters hit on 2 or less. May scramble fighters from adjacent territories with airbases.

2. Anti Air guns fire, OOB rule

3. Ground battle. Fighters strafe land units at 1, Tacs hit land units at 3, or 4 if combined with a tank, Bombers at 4, or the carpet bombing houserule
Defending fighters hit land units at 2, Tacs at 3 and bombers at 1
Land units act as usual, but with 1914 Battleboard

4. The attacker press attack, stay for contest or retreat

If the attacker press attack, then do this again, from 1 to 4.

I think Fighters should cost only 8, since they now att on 1 and def on 2. But they should be able to scramble both to seazones and territories, and land in newly contestet areas.
Tacs cost 10, and Bombers cost 12.

[ossel]

I’ve actually been testing some of these rules in a recent solo game. The results are very interesting!

During Germany’s first turn, they actually ran into some bad die rolls and ran over the 3-round limit, failing to take Paris! Perhaps the German High Command decided to take on the Maginot line after all? The defending French dug in around Paris and prevented a German sweep of the country.

I’ve also been playing around with an “air combat phase,” basically resolving air combat before land combat, and I think you’re right Razor, air attack/defend values need to be reduced from what they normally are.

[Flashman]

Shouldn’t WWII tanks be able to absorb hits on defence as well as attack?

Also think ships should have the option to “retreat” even if they eliminate the enemy; why would they stay in open waters when they can return to home port and be repaired & reinforced?

Last man standing rule to apply; unit must remain to retain control of original enemy tt; otherwise reverts to original owner.

Doesn’t two space movement (or similar) make mech infantry redundant?

I think a fix is needed for one unit contesting a tt holding up a huge enemy stack - just about possible in WWI but not the more mobile war that followed.

[ossel]

@Flashman:

I think a fix is needed for one unit contesting a tt holding up a huge enemy stack - just about possible in WWI but not the more mobile war that followed.

The way I imagine it, it’s more of a thin line of defenders who have just barely broken enemy morale, who then fall back to their lines, as opposed to one single unit holding off a horde of enemies for a sustained period of time a la Thermopylae.

[Razor]

@Flashman:

Shouldn’t WWII tanks be able to absorb hits on defence as well as attack?

No, they absorb 2 hits because of the encircle tactic, which produce less casualties than the classic trench warfare, and not because they got armor, like the 2 hit battleship.

Attached are to pics,
Pic 1 is of the classic infantry attack with artillery barrage, and this is a meat grinder with lots of casualties

Pic 2 is of the modern maneuver warfare, where tanks break through the enemy line at the flanks, cut the supply line and encircle the dug in enemy, forcing them to surrender. This make less casualties to the attacker, and this is why the attacking tank absorb two hits

[Flashman]

Yes, but in WWII tanks were much more valuable on the defence. Firepower needs to be taken into account, and the ability to stop enemy attacks - like the Germans running into KV1s in Russia that their shells couldn’t knock out.

[Razor]

Yes, maybe a defending tank should deny one matching attacking tank the two hit absorb

Or tanks defend on 4 or less

[ossel]

In my personal opinion, tanks in 1914 had the “hit soaking” ability because they didn’t have the advantages of tanks in the WWII games…namely speed and increased firepower. I don’t really think it’s necessary to add this ability to the WWII game.

In regards to planes landing in contested tt’s, as I’ve pointed out before in this thread, planes can NEVER land in a newly captured territory anyway, so I’m not sure how a territory remaining contested could ever make it easier for aircraft to land there. Just stick to treating contested territories as hostile for the purpose of movement and it resolves a lot of the issues that arise from the WWII rules (blitzing, etc.).

[Razor]

@ossel:

, so I’m not sure how a territory remaining contested could ever make it easier for aircraft to land there.

No, I totally disagree. An Axis & Allies territory represent a very large area, in some times an entire country. And a turn represent 3 to 6 months. It would be crazy if the real world Hitler told his generals that, yes we occupied Poland this year, but we have to wait until next year to land aircrafts there, due to rules and regulations.

Lets take Norway, it is one territory on the AA map. In the real war attack on April 9 1940, German mountain troops captured two airfields in Southern Norway on day one, and they started to use this airfields from day one. They even landed heavy Bombers there, like the Condor, from day one. The other day, UK started to use the Norwegian airfields, and they landed bombers there too, even if Norway was a contested country. So why do you want a game rule that is absolutely far away from what is possible in a real war ?

I could go with your rule, if Airbases was allowed to scramble defending fighters into adjacent territories under attack, since that too was pretty common during WWII, but I bet you don’t wanna allow that either

[ossel]

For your first point, I agree with the fact that the OOB G40 rules don’t necessary reflect reality in regards to landing aircraft. I didn’t realize you were promoting completely scrapping the “no landing in newly captured tt’s” rule. I was simply saying that if you were keeping the OOB rules, it doesn’t make sense to not allow planes to land in contested tt’s and not newly captured tt’s.

As far as the scrambling rule, I’ve always thought that they should be able to scramble to land attacks. In fact, here is a house rule I use:

Scrambling is a special movement that the defender can make at the end of the Combat Move phase. It must be done after all of the attacker’s combat movements have been completed and all attacks have been declared. The attacker may not change any combat movements or attacks after the defender has scrambled.

The new version of this rule allows players to scramble fighters to adjacent land zones as well as sea zones.

A quick reaction team of no more than 3 defending fighters and tactical bombers (strategic bombers can’t scramble) located in a territory that has an operative air base can be scrambled to defend against attacks in the sea zones or territories adjacent to those territories. These air units can be scrambled to help friendly units in adjacent sea zones or territories that have come under attack.

It’s basically a small re-write of the rule in the book.

[Razor]

My apologies, your houserule that allows players to scramble fighters to adjacent land zones as well as sea zones is a winner. This is the way A&A OOB rules should have been from the start, and I don’t figure why its not. Must be some balancing consideration. Maybe fighters become too powerful. Anyway, this rule should be the standard.

Yes, I want to allow aircrafts to land in newly captured territories as well as contested territories. If you have a land unit there, then you can land a plane there.

[baron Münchhausen]

@Razor:

@Flashman:

Should attacking planes even be permitted to land in newly contested areas; maybe the infrastructure needed for air units to operate is considered too complex to allow this.

Since a turn is 3 or 4 months, then yes a fighter should be allowed to land in the grain field on a newly contested area, just as they did in the real war. But a big Bomber should always need an airbase. Bombers don’t land on carriers either.

and as I said in my previous post, an airbase should be able to scramble 3 defending fighters into an adjacent territory too, and not just into seazones. And with fighters att at 1 and def on 2, they will not upset the balancing.

I find this idea very interesting.
From a game consistency perspective it is very strange that any airplane cannot scramble to protect an adjacent land territory but can do for an adjacent SZ.
Good point.

Is it the first time someone thought about it?