Rethinking Strategic Bomber and Tactical Bomber Roles

@Chrisx:

@Baron:

I would agree with you only if their was a specific unit for medium bomber.
It is not the case. German’s JU88 and Japanese’s Betty Medium twin-engine bombers were used in tactical missions.
That’s why I think, as long as there is no 4 fourth air units in A&A (Fg, TcB, MedB and Heavy Bombers), Strategic bomber can do both types of missions (Regular and SBR), since this units included both medium and heavy bombers.

Above are the small changes which can gives more historical feel to both TcB and StB IMo.

If SB’s represent both heavy and medium bombers then their movement should be reduced to 5. My interpretation is that TB’s represent all light and medium bombers with a battlefield role while SB’s represent heavy bombers intended for destroying infrastructure. In their current form SB’s trump TB’s and make them all but superfluous: for one piffling extra IPC they are better attackers, have a longer range and are better at strategic bombing (the only thing they should be good at). They can’t defend as well (but who buys SB’s or TB’s for defence?) or land on a carrier but with their long range and the right base SB’s can be positioned to threaten any strategically important sea area. So who’s buying TB’s instead of SB’s? It’s no wonder that it’s not the players doing extreme SB strategies!

I see it in the opposite way.
If StBs sculpts OOB were made only of 4 engines heavy bombers, then I would have given them a 7 spaces move. So, with Air Base, such High Altitude Heavy Bombers would be able to go 4 TTs away and come back.

@Chrisx:

Perhaps you’ve inadvertently presented a case for Germany and Japan not being able to build SB’s, only TB’s? That would certainly solve the problem of extreme Axis OP SB strategies.

Not really. Here is my solution:
@Baron:

I thought deeper about this Strategic and Tactical Bomber issue.
I believe the right historically inspired rules for them should have been the following, but the StB was too iconic to make such a change:

TACTICAL BOMBER
ATTACK 4
DEFENSE 3
MOVE 4
COST 11
Paired 1:1 with Tank, gives +1D to Tank (an historical point which I kept on defense to counter-balance the Attack @4 in all situations.)
TBR Attack 1 Damage 1D6

STRATEGIC BOMBER
Attack 3 rise to 4
when no enemy’s plane (+1 Attack due to Air Supremacy bonus) or
when paired 1:1 with Fighter
Defense 1
Move 6
Cost 12
SBR Attack 1 Damage 1D6+2

That way, when StBs are attacking a SZ without any Fighter support, then their attack value will be 3 while the defending Fg will keep their high Defense @4.

It will be only when they are paired with 1 Fighter escort per StB, that they can rise to an even combat Attack 4 against Defense @4.

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I said more historical combat value because between TcBs and StBs, it seems to me that StBs were much more sitting duck than TcBs. So, it should have been StB which clearly needs a combined arms for Fighter support. Many TacBs types of Fg-bomber or Light-Bomber were able to fly without escort.

Here is what I would prefer as Fg unit to fix the other balance issue in SBR:
FIGHTER
Attack 3
Defense 4
Move 4
Cost 10
Gives +1A to StB when paired 1:1
SBR Attack 2 Defense 2

I would add that restricting Strategic Bombers to SBR will too much restrict players options.
The game needs that Strategic Bombers should do both SBRs and regular combats.
I agree it need a small reduction on attack to make the Tactical Bomber more attractive.

That way (above) both StB and TcB will perform regular missions, but StB can have a longer range.
Tactical will become THE main attacking unit with a regular A4.
So, each bomber will have is own niche.

Tactical will become THE main attacking unit with a regular A4.

Yea! Now I get it! That is totally Kick Ass! If you want the guaranteed 4 hit you gotta buy the Tac. The Strats still get the range with a 3 hit, possible 4 boost. Will need to support with fighters off carriers for full escort range. That will be cool too!
Still a little hesitant about boosting the tanks on D. But I’m gonna give it a try in a coupla days and see what happens. :)

Giving no bonus to Tank is simpler.
But if you want more historical feels and another boost for Tactical Bombers against StBs, the pairing bonus with Tank can be +1 on offence and defense.
This will slightly change some Germans and Japan openings rounds.
But much more for Germany than Japan since they have far less Tank units.

If you don’t boost the tank as well, do you think it would be enough to stop bomber spam? If you still wanted to go bomber heavy you could. It would probably make you think twice though. I guess one would just have to play it a few times and see what happens.

Boosting the tank on offense and defense would definitely slow down some SBR buys. So stoked to try this out!

@barney:

Tactical will become THE main attacking unit with a regular A4.

Yea! Now I get it! That is totally Kick Ass! If you want the guaranteed 4 hit you gotta buy the Tac. The Strats still get the range with a 3 hit, possible 4 boost. Will need to support with fighters off carriers for full escort range. That will be cool too!
Still a little hesitant about boosting the tanks on D. But I’m gonna give it a try in a coupla days and see what happens. :)

Here is the beginning of my ideas on StBs and TcBs.
But there is no idea such as the simpler one I suggested above, which reverse the attack bonus of StB A4 to TcB, and the A3-4 of TcB toward StB.
You may find more to think about in this thread:
Rethinking Air Units
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=34502.msg1328356#msg1328356

There is also an interesting thread about Tactical bombers and what kind of planes they should represent:
Tactical Bombers and their use
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33181.msg1258795#msg1258795

@Chrisx:

I would add that restricting StB to SBR will too much restrict players options.

I think the opposite: at present super-powered SB’s or ‘super bombers’ are restricting options. As the USA I would like to do a KGF strategy but am restricted from getting anywhere near Europe by spammed super bombers. As the UK I would like to build transports and/or a fleet next to England but am restricted from doing so by spammed super bombers. As an Allied player I would like to have some sort of presence in the Mediterranean but am restricted from doing so by spammed super bombers. As Russia I would like to move a force out of Moscow but am restricted from doing so by spammed super bombers. As Germany I would like to try a different strategy but am restricted from doing so because spamming super bombers is a no-brainer.

Changing the attack factor of StB from A4 to A3 need escorting Fg paired 1:1 to get A4, will drop the effectiveness of Bombers against Naval, which usually built Carriers.

You don’t have to change radically StB units to fix the Darkened Skies Strategy (if their is a consensus about it as an overpowered broking game strategy, which is not clear for now).

There is some others options HR.
Just thinking about giving also AAA capacity to some warships combined arms.
Below, there is a summary of all others HR adjustment which can reduced the OP of OOB G40 StBs combined with a Darkened Skies Strat:
@Baron:

@captain:

I’m not if favor of changing the rules, but I do feel some of the rules favor this strategy.
Like the delayed entry and reduced income for the US…by the time the US can get to Gib, Germany could already have enough bombers to take out their fleet.

Or that you’re only allowed to scramble three fighters from an airbase…a big stack of fighters doesn’t help much if you can only use three of them to defend against a bomber stack.

@rgp44:

They change the “rules” every time we turn around.   They change how much units cost all the time why is the latest iteration sacred?  If you can win the game most of the time just by building 1 unit then that unit is too powerful and it should be made more expensive or less powerful in values.  There has been a continual struggle over decades to keep A&A games balanced and to act like one unit value or one specific rule is unchangeable is silly.  The fact is the bomber strategy makes a mockery of the game and I won’t use it even if it works, I would prefer that a strategy to neutralize it would emerge (short of bids going into the 30s) but if it doesn’t the game needs to be adjusted for the enjoyment of those who play.  No one wants to play a game where one and only strategy dominates.

Talking about opening the OOBox:
You can increase the cost. (The simplest but not very creative.)
Or develop the other units to be a good response to the overwhelming mobility and projection of power of Strategic Bombers stack.

You can add some countermeasures to one neglect unit, such as giving Cruiser an AAA capacity.
Or a combined arms bonus which gives same AAA capacity as OOB land AAA, to two or three warships paired 1:1:1, such as Cruiser, Battleship and Aircraft Carrier.

You can increase the combat value of Fighters specifically against planes.
(The simplest is a “1” on any roll hit directly enemy’s planes.
But there is more interesting ways, inspired by 1914 Fighter.)

@rgp44:

or you could do something with unescorted bombers attacking at lower values which would be much more realistic, I cringe every time I send a stack of unescorted bombers against a factory because in reality any fighter cover would make mincemeat of unescorted bombers (unless its a night raid).

For this specific point, you can modify Strategic Bombing Raids escort and intercept values of Fighter:
Gives escorting Fg: Attack 2 and intercepting Fg: Defense 2.
(The actual OOB G40 SBR rules are very much against the defender which can only use the Fgs from the IC’s territory.
For his part, attacker can bring as much StBs, TcBs and Fgs within range.
Also, Fg having the same defense D1 value as the Bomber attack factor A1 gives an important advantage toward attacking Bombers and is quite unhistorical.)

Allows up to three Fighters only on an operational Air Base to scramble in an adjacent territory (not just SZ) which have an Industrial Complex/Naval Base/Air Base under SBR/TBR to be able to act as interceptors.

You can increase the combat value of AAA unit.
Allows each AAA to make up to 1 roll per plane per combat round (instead of 3 initial rolls and no more after), let it works the same as other units but only against planes.
You can even make more powerful this neglect 5 IPCs unit:
Up to three pre-emptive rolls @1 against up to 3 planes, whichever the lesser, and 1 regular roll @1 against up to 1 plane, whichever the lesser, for the other rounds.

You can lower the price of AAA unit to 4 IPCs or even 3 IPCs, so it becomes easier to provide an Anti-Aircraft cover against StBs umbrellas attack.

You can also allows 1 or 2 Fighters or Tactical Bombers (with enough additional move points) to land in a just conquered territory to protect the remaining ground units, which are usually weaker and more vulnerable to large stack of Bombers.
Naval units can do it by bringing a few Carriers in a SZ, you can at least allows that land territory being able to receive a similar number of planes as if you bring in a single carrier unit.

Allows up to one Fighter only per Aircraft Carrier (max 3 Fgs) to scramble from an adjacent SZ into a territory which have an Industrial Complex/Naval Base/Air Base under SBR/TBR to be able to act as interceptors.

About this specific issue:
@captain:

Or that you’re only allowed to scramble three fighters from an airbase…a big stack of fighters doesn’t help much if you can only use three of them to defend against a bomber stack.

Allows the building of one additional Air Base in any given territory, maximum: 2 per territories.
That way, up to 6 Fgs or TcBs can be scramble into one SZ.
However, it means that the first 4 damage points are for making both ABs non-operational, but it can rise to 12 damage points, since each AB worth 6 damage points.

Allows defenseless transports stack under Airplanes attack only, a single regular defense AA roll @1/per plane per transport, whichever the lesser. Once done, all transports are destroyed, even if all planes were destroyed too.

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Thanks for this thread topic.
It provides an opportunity to summarize a lot of other HR discussed in the Forum.
(Without it, I’d never try to put in a single post every HR related to StBs somehow.)  :-)

@Chrisx:

Thanks for the links, Baron. An interesting read and I’ve got a few ideas that don’t seem to have been thought of so far. In order to limit the use of SB’s in land battles, each attacking SB must be paired with an attacking land unit. This will prevent a weak land power from dominating combat with SB’s alone, stop SB’s from attacking non-front line areas and force a player to buy at least as many land units as SB’s in order to get the most out of his SB’s. Similarly, in order to attack a naval force each SB must be paired with an attacking surface warship. This will stop a weak naval power from dominating the waves with SB’s alone. SB’s can continue to attack infrastructure according to the OOB rules. The logic behind the above is that without at least some form of surface contact to pinpoint a (mobile) enemy location SB’s are blind and therefore ineffective (and it’s also good for play balance). Another idea is that attacking SB’s cannot inflict battle casualties on fighters (in a similar way to submarines being unable to hit planes). Thus if a force of attacking SB’s found itself alone in an area with fighters it would have to retreat or be eliminated. SB’s would defend against fighters as normal and hits from interception combat during a strategic bombing raid would apply as normal OOB.

There goes bombing the mainland/London to prep for an invasion…

I made more rooms between your ideas to help reading and separate them:
@Chrisx:

Thanks for the links, Baron.

An interesting read and I’ve got a few ideas that don’t seem to have been thought of so far.

In order to limit the use of SB’s in land battles, each attacking SB must be paired with an attacking land unit.
This will prevent a weak land power from dominating combat with SB’s alone, stop SB’s from attacking non-front line areas and force a player to buy at least as many land units as SB’s in order to get the most out of his SB’s.

Similarly, in order to attack a naval force each SB must be paired with an attacking surface warship.
This will stop a weak naval power from dominating the waves with SB’s alone.

SB’s can continue to attack infrastructure according to the OOB rules.

The logic behind the above is that without at least some form of surface contact to pinpoint a (mobile) enemy location SB’s are blind and therefore ineffective (and it’s also good for play balance).

Another idea is that attacking SB’s cannot inflict battle casualties on fighters (in a similar way to submarines being unable to hit planes).
Thus if a force of attacking SB’s found itself alone in an area with fighters it would have to retreat or be eliminated.
SB’s would defend against fighters as normal and
hits from interception combat during a strategic bombing raid would apply as normal OOB.

Yes, it is very original ideas.
Especially the paired 1:1 with ground or naval unit.
It can be almost like the shore bombardment restriction: no more than the number of ground units unload in the amphibious assault.
It is more in the spirit of A&A game mechanics.

It is less the case with the following:
I tried something similar with StratBomber on offense.
They were attacking @4 as long as there is naval or ground targets but when there is nothing else than planes, their attack values drop to @1 (as in SBR).

I only tested once.
This wasn’t so popular amongst my fellow players.
That’s why the next time I will probably come back to A3 rise to A4 if no enemy’s plane or paired 1:1 with Fg.

The main reason is the hasardous effect of the first or second rounds of battle.
If there is only 1 or 2 naval units defending with 4 planes (for instance) and the attacker have 8 StBs.
A lucky first salvo (all@4) can be the demise of many planes while the second salvo will drop the bombers attack to almost nothing @1.

That’s why I prefer a lower attack at the start, which can rise if circumstances gets better for the attacker.
Not the reverse, it makes the attack planification with StBs to much depending on the first combat rounds luck.

attacking SB’s cannot inflict battle casualties on fighters

Why not make it more general such as “cannot inflict battle casualties on other planes”?

That last idea is very interesting!  :-D

Definitely reminds me of the bombardment pairing concept. It would make the bomber considerably less powerful though, so I see why you suggest to keep strategic bombing as OOB.

What’s interesting to me is that a very similar Bomber exploit for Germany that people have noted in G40 has been around since AA50, but in that game there was a fairly decent Russian counter since armor was still relatively cheap and all nations began play at war. Even then though, I recall many games where the go to play for Germany was a steady bomber spam.

The power projection and magnified attack advantage vs ships is potent, it isn’t quite exponential, but it can certainly feel that way with the doubling! In general 2 bombers together can just wreck it so much harder than 1, and when you start to carry it out over several rounds with a dozen bombers or two dozen etc reaching out across that kind of range, you start to see how the game can get unhinged air vs naval. Its probably analogous to the JTDTM in the older games, where sooner or later, the magnified power of a unit with reach and “can opening” potential, just becomes hard to ignore. Global is complicated enough that it’s sure to take longer to crack like that, but bombers are so potent and Germany is positioned a bit like USA in their ability to bomber halo around their core rich territories and project power around a wide field of the map.

As people are discussing it really comes down to the fact that its harder and more expensive for the Naval defender to put up 4’s (fighter defense hit) in the water, than it is for the Air attacker to put 4’s (tacB and especially stratB) in the water.

I mean for the Air attacker a strategic bomber costs 12 ipcs, and for 24 ipcs you can get a pair of Hit 4’s into the battle.

To match this on defense, you have to spend 16 ipcs on a Carrier and 20 ipcs on fighters, 36 ipcs to at least match the hits in the first round of combat. That’s a fairly large disparity, and it doesn’t include associated cost of the transport and destroyer fodder that the naval defender needs to be effective with their force. Then take that same sort of equation and run with it over a few rounds, basically the Air attacker buying bombers is likely to outclass the Naval defender (spending less money on average with more reach/options for the heavy hitting 4s.) If it turns out that the bomber strategy gets stale and people feel frustrated with it, then some simple HR solutions could help the game.

If you don’t want to change the ability of the bomber itself. I think the best idea proposed elsewhere, was for a carrier deck that holds 3 fighters. That was probably the most elegant solution I’ve heard. It has some ease of use advantages. First, you it doesn’t change the printed values on the battle board, or the unit cost/values printed on the map. Second, the carrier sculpts that come in the box can generally support 3 fighters if you rest them with their wings on the diagonal. Third, it doesn’t require you to change a whole lot of other rules to accommodate. It doesn’t alter the value of the bombers directly (so the battleboard and the rest of the rules can still remain. It change the OOB unit distribution on the mapboard. It’s just an feature of the carrier deck to put up better defense. It could potentially provide some interest with the opening combats though, as the ability to land a 3rd fighter on a carrier deck might allow for some novel openings. Baron has discussed the idea before. I don’t know that you’d really need to change much else for the concept to be viable in G40, at least then you could match the bomber buyer more easily on the water. You’d still incur the cost of the carrier deck to activate them, but the cumulative cost wouldn’t be as high for the hit 4’s, relative to the dude buying all the bombers.

Right now people use Air Bases as a way to get more three hit 4’s in the water on the scramble. But Air Bases are expensive as well, and they are limited to one per territory. It’s still possible for the bomber buyer to outclass this on hit 4’s, given enough time/bombers. Not to suggest that the bomber strategy is so out sized right now, that everyone would change the game like this. But since there doesn’t seem to be much discussion of a 1940 third Ed. game, HR stuff is probably the best way to go if you want to see bombers work in a less overpowered way, then at least the carrier could be brought more into line with it, giving players a way to get fighters additional fighters into the water.

I think either triple fighter carriers to match the bomber hits at 4, for less cost over time. Or something like this last suggestion to just to limit the ways in which bombers can attack other planes. Bombers dog fighting is kind of silly anyway granted hehe. But I don’t know which approach is best. I would like a solution that requires the fewest necessary changes, and has the widest application on this and other maps. I wish a third edition was considered by publisher, so some of these ideas could be addressed officially, but until then they’re interesting to explore.

The third fighter would work. My only concern is fleets have the defensive advantage as it is ( well evidently not with the bomber spam) but fleet to fleet. It would be a simple approach which is best.
I’m gonna try Baron’s Tac A4 D3 +1 A to tank when paired with tank. SBR A3 +1 when paired with fighter or no enemy air. Cruiser gets 1 AA shot at 1 (one plane only). Fighters A/D 2 on escort /intercept. SBRs stay at 1.

Should be able to set it up tomorrow unless Germany rebounds from the ass kicking the lucky Russians just gave them. :)

@Chrisx:

@Baron:

attacking SB’s cannot inflict battle casualties on fighters

Why not make it more general such as “cannot inflict battle casualties on other planes”?

That sounds even more sensible. Arguably, though,  there’s always the chance that bombers could eliminate unprepared enemy planes that are on the ground (as happened in sneak attacks like Pearl Harbour and the first few hours of Germany’s attack on Russia) but as that’s rare it’s probably best to ignore it in favour of a good general rule.

This can be restricted to: “in Naval Combat, cannot inflict battle casualties on other planes”

@Baron:

@Chrisx:

@Baron:

attacking SB’s cannot inflict battle casualties on fighters

Why not make it more general such as “cannot inflict battle casualties on other planes”?

That sounds even more sensible. Arguably, though,  there’s always the chance that bombers could eliminate unprepared enemy planes that are on the ground (as happened in sneak attacks like Pearl Harbour and the first few hours of Germany’s attack on Russia) but as that’s rare it’s probably best to ignore it in favour of a good general rule.

This can be restricted to: “in Naval Combat, cannot inflict battle casualties on other planes”

Except that the same exception occurs there too. I believe in the Battle of Midway Japanese bombers destroyed some planes aboard Yorktown. Maybe allow planes to be hit by bombers only on the first wave of attacks?

Well you could make it where when bombers are attacking fleets with carriers and planes, have it where if bombers roll a 1 on first round of combat only, the plane or planes are destroyed due to they didn’t launch in time.