Why do folks think aircraft can only hit aircraft?

People dont put infantry into perspective.  One fighter isnt one fighter, and one infantry isnt one infantry.  They think the opposite and cant imagine one infantry shooting down a fighter so they believe that land units cant hit air, and they realize that means air can just kill every land unit in a territory.  They realize this makes the game horribly unbalanced, and decide to come on here and ask if what they think is right.

That and people think of dogfighting, not strafing the ground or bombing the enemy or AA Support weapons like short ranged AA Guns (browning 50 calibur rifles, etc)

i beleive that the question of aircrafts ability to be hit only by other aircraft or AAguns is that it isn’t clearly stated anywhere in any book, and so people need to interpret the book. and like the constitution there are two ways of interpreting it. one way is that it doesn’t say that i can’t so why not? whereas the other point of veiw is that it doesn’t say that i can, so it is implied to be forbidden. also rationalization plays a key part in this as well. just recently going throught this myself, we said that youknow infantry or tanks cant shoot down  a plane. they’re way the heck up in the sky, especially bombers. tanks and artillery are too slow and infantry cant just pull a rocket-launcher out of their back pocket as if they were Master-Cheif.

@Mork:

i beleive that the question of aircrafts ability to be hit only by other aircraft or AAguns is that it isn’t clearly stated anywhere in any book, and so people need to interpret the book. and like the constitution there are two ways of interpreting it. one way is that it doesn’t say that i can’t so why not? whereas the other point of veiw is that it doesn’t say that i can, so it is implied to be forbidden. also rationalization plays a key part in this as well. just recently going throught this myself, we said that youknow infantry or tanks cant shoot down  a plane. they’re way the heck up in the sky, especially bombers. tanks and artillery are too slow and infantry cant just pull a rocket-launcher out of their back pocket as if they were Master-Cheif.

Hey!  Chiefs carry around rocket launchers in their back pockets too!!!

Or maybe it is just a rocket in the front pocket….

We went through this discussion also when the game was fresh out of the box.  I had to pull up some historical references to AA guns being assigned to infantry units to absolutely silence the opposition.  One of the issues is the players tend to see a “man” not an “Infantry Army”.  A man has very little he can do against a plane.  An “Infantry Army” has a bit more resources at hand.

This arguement also carried over to the discussion of whether or not “cargo ships” could shot down “airplanes” or sink “submarines”.  After pointing out that the TRANS unit on the board was obviously a compiliation of oilers, tankers, cargo ships, escort vessels and amphibious assualt ships and craft, the light bulb came on.  A BB is not just ONE ship.  It is a BB squadron and the idea carries on from there.

It also helps to think of battles for territories occurring over a period of time - not just minutes or hours. Since planes can’t stay airborne forever, picture infantry overrunning airbases, destroying aircraft on the ground, intecepting and cutting off supplies etc. A little imagination helps here.

Or just remembering exactly how Bltzkreig worked, and what Stukas were designed for :-)

Frimmel, I have a one-word answer:  N - E - W - B - I - E - S

wg

Another great example…

From Patton where Patton is standing in the middle of the street firing a pistol at a German plane…

It CAN be done :-)