Submarine Surprise Strike

@morvill said in Submarine & Fighter attack, Fighter DD defense - Retreat Rules:

To me, it seems like because the 2 defending fighters have a valid target, that being the 1 attacking fighter, this condition is not met. And it does not specify “All units of a particular type”, so we can’t say the destroyer was “all units” in any sense. I don’t think I’ll see any disagreement on that. Thus, another round of combat will ensue unless the attacker chooses to retreat. The submarines cannot submerge at any other point than step 2 of the General Combat Sequence, thus for the subs to remain in the sea zone, another round of combat must persist, otherwise they must retreat “with” (the fighters remain the sea zone as part of their retreat) the fighter. Yet, if the attacker chooses to press, the subs do not have any valid targets for the next round of combat. Again, they could choose to submerge, but you could also surprise strike at “no units”, which to my knowledge is neither allowed nor disallowed by the rules, at least in this context.

Correct. It doesn’t matter whether or not all units on both sides have a valid target, only that at least one on each side does. If the attacker decides to press, all units will remain in the sea zone, even those that don’t have a valid target (the subs). If the attacker decides to retreat, all attacking units must retreat. As you say, the subs can submerge in the next combat round, but the only reason for them to do so would be so that they can remain in the sea zone if the attacker decides to retreat at the end of that round, as they are effectively out of the fight anyway.

Not sure if this is relevant, but per the rules:

Sea zones are either friendly or hostile. Friendly sea zones contain no surface warships (this doesn’t include submarines and transports) belonging to a power with which you are at war. Hostile sea zones contain surface warships belonging to a power with which you are at war. (The presence of a surface warship
belonging to a power on the other side with which you are not yet at war doesn’t make
a sea zone hostile.) pg. 8

The friendly/hostile state of the sea zone has no bearing on combat. That is relevant only to movement.

You’re welcome. Enjoy the game.

@Von-Kuulness You are reading the rules correctly.
Your submarine would only have been able to retreat if it had established a valid alternative retreat route during combat movement (in case that had been possible, it depends on the map of course).

@knp7765:

If an attack that involves 3 planes goes after a territory with a single AA gun, in normal rules that AA gun would get 3 rolls @ 1 to try and hit those planes. With Low Luck, would you simply roll 1 die @ 3?

Yes, that’s the way to do it: roll 1 die @3. Ruling out abominations as combat results (with rolling dice), that’s the goal of using LL. Win/loose due to strategy, not blessed/jinxed dice.
The downside of LL is that you can exactly calculate what you need. In big battles I don’t see this as a problem. Smaller ones however are stuff for debate. A Yughoslavia strafe can never go ‘wrong’ because Germany rolls too much hits. Russia can safely strafe every area with 6INF that has 2 axis units in it (or 12 if there are 3 axis units, etc.), moving large INFstacks around without risk of actually taking the area.

@Keodis:

if a submarines “first shot” (attacking at 2 or defending at 1) kills and enemy unit, that unit cannot fire back. correct?

Usually, but if the casualty is a sub the also gets a Surprise Strike, it will fire back, as fire is simultaneous.

Well, I really don’t like the wording of it in the rule-book, it’s not as unambiguous as I like, but again, computer programmers are an anal bunch.  I am surprised the voting was as one sided as it was but I can see it either way, that’s the problem for me.  The rules should not have to be submitted to an linguistics expert, it would be great to see an explicit mention of a partial sub fleet submergence while the rest carry on first shot attacking or defending.  I will sleep at night just fine until that ever occurs however!

i actually usually point out misstakes in my opponents moves. That way I can be certain that I win because of better strategy, not better tactics.

very difficult to suprise someone if you tell them that they are exposing themselves to certain moves.

The warship and transport need only end their movement in the same sea zone.  They don’t have to move together.