In the current versions of Axis and Allies historically difficult places to attack like Gibraltar and Leningrad are treated like any other territory. I believe this can be fixed. I also believe that amphibious assaults are too easy for the attacker - in fact they are easier than regular land battles, because of the free shots BBs and CAs get to make without return fire.
I’ve fleshed out some rules here for entrenchment which combine my former posts about entrenchment and the amphibious assault bonus. I think these rules are simple and reasonable, and can help make the any edition of the game more realistic. These brown “dirt” chips can be ordered from HBG - I printed the “E” stickers for them. I was going to use a shovel pic but couldn’t find one that looked right at that scale. The chips are nice and convenient because you can just add another to the top of the stack instead of sliding one under a different symbol.
ENTRENCHMENT
Introduction:
• Brown colored chips in the game marked with an “E†represent
entrenchment.Entrenchment represents any trenches, tunnels, barbed wire,
concrete barriers, etc. built and used by infantry in order to help protect
defending units. Entrenchment has no defense value - it only helps by absorbing
hits meant for defending land units.
• During the opening phase of his turn, each player may place one entrenchment
chip on the map in any infantry occupied land zone he currently owns.
Entrenchment chips cannot be moved once placed. The maximum placed
entrenchment level for any one territory is 5.
Resolving Battle:
• When defending infantry are involved, place any entrenchment chips that are in
the same territory in the entrenchment area on the battleboard. When suffering a
hit during an attack, you may choose an entrenchment chip as a casualty instead
of a land unit. (This works with pre-invasion ship bombardments also. You can
choose an entrenchment chip as the casualty.) Entrenchment chips cannot be
used in the battle if there are no defending infantry.
• Units other than infantry cannot make use of entrenchment. In this case, if the
attacker wins, he would get to keep the unmanned entrenchment for himself.
After a battle with entrenchment concludes and the attacker wins, 1/2 of the
defenders’ placed entrenchment is restored to the attacker, rounded down. This
represents the surviving tunnels and trenches that the enemy can now use for
himself.
Amphibious Assaults:
• All Units (not just infantry) defending against a pure amphibious assault get a
bonus of 3 entrenchment chips placed on the battleboard during the battle.
(these bonus chips are not kept on the map like the regular placed chips and last
only for that battle) These bonus chips represent the extra difficulty and
disorganization attackers have while wading in to the beach during such battles.
(No bonus is allowed if the Amphibious assault is combined with an attack from
an adjacent land zone.) This means a fully entrenched territory facing a pure
amphibious assault could theoretically be entrenched to a maximum of 8.
• If desired, all entrenchment chips in territories that you have owned since the
beginning of your turn can be removed during the noncombat phase.
• Historically Fortified zones of the map like Gibraltar may begin the game with
certain levels of entrenchment. Setup Entrenchment levels:
- Gibraltar: 3
- Leningrad: 3
- Caucasus: 3
- Moscow: 2