Why would you need to do this when you have the half track? I don’t believe Jeeps could be effective combat vehicles. Dumb rule.
Posts made by General Di Caro
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RE: Jeeps as Combat Vehicles?
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RE: Besides Ebay- Any Good Online Places?
Try Carta Magica… excellent for buying infantry, not great for buying rares, unless you don’t need to buy boosters anymore.
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RE: Vote for the best officer
The Oberleutnant using “Angriff” to send SS-Panzergrendiers into the lines is tough. That 5 defense makes it unlikely the SS-Panzergrendiers will be stopped by defensive fire.
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RE: Has anybody tried the scenarios?
Played the first three Guadalcanal scenarios… took about 2 hours for all three… and they were ecellent. All went down to the last turn, emphasized tactics and special abilities of units.
Just didn’t have enough Arisaka rifles… so I used other units to “stand in.” But one can live with that.
The scenarios are nicely crafted and a nice chance of pace from the usual games. I recommend them to anyone who isn’t obsessed with making every game an exact recration of a historical event with 25 house rules and home-made map boards.
-The General
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RE: Possible Paratrooper House rule??
Good suggestion, but to balance your rule I suggest that
On a roll of of 1 to 3, the player who owns the paratrooper chooses in which he wants the unit to land, consistent with the rules as printed on the stat card.
On a roll of 4 to 6, you would roll two more dice as you are suggesting.
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RE: Tactics: Mortar units
I have found the American mortars teamed with the Red Devil captain to be an excellent combo, but even at 8 hex range I find it hard to protect the mortars because of their low defense of 3.
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RE: How much actual area does a hex represent?
Each hex is 100 meters from side to side. And each turn is 1 minute. An infantry can move two hexes each turn. Once during his movement phase. Once during his assault phase. Of course, a soldier would likely be able to move more than 200 meters in 1 minute, but take into account that these soldiers of ours aren’t just running in a straight line towards an objective. They are moving through tough terrain, getting shot at, shooting back, and doing everything a soldier would do in a hostile environment in a field. It’s not a sprint on an open track.
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RE: Has anybody tried the scenarios?
I’ve been wanting to try them all… but don’t have enough of some of the pieces.
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RE: No Vehicle Defensive Fire??
But you must remember the hexes are 100 meters from side to side, so even if an infantry squad approaches a tank “from the front” there is a lot of room to maneuver in the hex itself, so your infantry can ostenibly be approaching from the side, around trees and hills, in the FOG OF WAR as bullets are flying and the tank is preoccupied with other things.
Too many rules will encumber the game. You can’t expect this to totally resemble real war.
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RE: Future expansions wish list
Or you can craft a scenario in which, for example, several Japanese defenders are in pill boxes guarding the objective and the American attackers have 7 to 10 turns to eliminate them.
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KV-1 Stat card
The KV-1 stat card lists the unit as “1942”.
Then in the flavor text, it mentions an episode in 1941 when a KV-1 survived over 100 direct hits by German tank shells.
From what I have read, the KV-1 was used in abundance by the Soviets in 1941. I think the stat card year listing is a misprint.
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RE: Possible Paratrooper House rule??
Re: Paratroopers.
Just read a few pages of Keegan about Operation Overlord (Normandy). The British 6th Airbrone Division (not represented in Set II– boo!) hit their drop points on open pasture and rallied quickly thanks to their experienced pilots.
As for the Screaming Eagles-- inexperienced pilots, “the narrow neck of the Cotentin Peninsula was easy to overshoot and the valley of the Vire was heavily flooded by deliberate defensive inundation.” Only 3,000 Screaming Eagles rallied and some roamed for days behind enemy lines while rations and ammo lasted. And there was worse for others-- Some fell into the sea, many drowned in flooded areas and others were scattered by poor navigation or fear of flak, dropped miles from their objectives. The area in which they were scattered was 25 by 15 miles!!!
And this wasn’t all bad… because the scattering of the parachutists actually contribued to the confusion and disorientation of the Germans.
Keep in mind this was a night time drop, so there was the great possibility of a miss-drop.
As far as day time drops…
Let’s look at what Keegan writes about the German daytime airborne invasion of Crete- the first paratrooper operation in history not supported by ground forces.
After the Luftwaffe’s preparatory bombardment, “The Germans had no control over their descent; they jumped from their Junkers 52s, in groups of 12, their parachutes opened by static line… Slipsteam and wind carried them indeed ‘like dolls’ to their landings…”
Crete’s New Zealand defenders knew the assault was coming, as well.
Keegan says “400 of III Battalion, 1st Assault Regiment’s 600 men were killed before the first day was out.” Many were killed or badly injured by the fall, and many were shot right out of the air. The 3rd parachute Regiment was slaughtered as it arrived directionless, right upon waiting defenders.
So, it would have been great for the game designers to have factored in some kind of possible bad event like a miss-drop or injury
on the stat cards of each paratrooper, depending on the nation and year involved. The Crete invasion was 1941-- and went so poorly Hitler suspended all future airborne operations.Normandy was in 1944-- by then the British and Americans had had three more years to test out the tactic.
I suppose my proposed house rule will do… again, the map the game is played on is relatively small… only 1,800 meters long and not even that long wide… so even if there isn’t a mis-drop or some big calamity, a paratrooper wouldn’t have to drift very far to land where he isn’t supposed to on the maps used in this game. And the enemy forces already deployed on the map would be able to see the paratroopers falling to earth.
Bottom line-- no way could paratroopers land that accurately. :)
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RE: Future expansions wish list
Each hex is 100 meters from side to side.
Re: air units. How about once per game, you can call in an air strike to target a certain number of enemy units… like a strafing run by fighters or bombers dropping their payload on units. There wouldn’t even have to be a piece for this… just a card with the fighter/bombers special abilities.
This attack would probably be devastating and ruin the game… artillery barrages I could deal with, but that also isn’t necessary.
This game is about using tactics of units you have on the map… it takes no tactical skill to fly an airplane over some units and blast them.
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RE: Possible Paratrooper House rule??
I have no problem with that…. I actually wouldn’t even bother with dropping men into a pond, but if you want to do it for enhanced realism, then I think your idea of rolling a die is fine so your opponent doesn’t lose 9 points just from bad luck… but then again, this is war.
I am wondering— for those who have used this rule… if/when you roll a six when deploying a paratrooper, has your opponent dropped the paratrooper far away or in an enemy occupied hex???
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RE: Future expansions wish list
All of these defensive structures can be incorporated in the game by giving units a cover roll bonus while they remain in certain predetermined hexes… For instance, on one of the North African scenarios on the Avalon Hill website allows all units to make cover by rolling a 3 or higher because they are dug-in.
This would be a simple way of adding a little depth without burdening the game with more rules and things to remember… as you know from playing the game, when a unit continues to makes cover rolls (which my usual opponent does at an alarmingly high rate) you can’t destroy the unit, no matter how much fire you direct at it.
You could even make a rule that is some cases a unit automatically makes it’s cover roll that ignores enemy units special abilities (like the Red Devil Captain’s ‘pinpointer’), unless attacked by a unit in the same hex, forcing the enemy to get close in to “root out” the entrenched units. Once in the same hex, the defender would roll for cover as normal, with the -1 penalty because the attacking unit is in the same hex.
That would be simple to do.
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RE: Where to buy?
I just checked out some of the sites to buy minis…. for some reason I only have only British SMLE rifle… and some of these places are selling units for $12 a pop… THAT’S NUTS!!
No way.
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RE: Snipers
Then it seems like the sniper’s ability in A&A minis is appropriate.
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RE: Future expansions wish list
A cool idea… such a commander could have excellent commander abilities… BUT when did a three star general or Field Marshal ever involve himself in such close, squad level combat? I know Patton was gung-ho… but don’t know too much about him.
I doubt Rommel ever charged a hill with a few Mausers.
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RE: Possible Paratrooper House rule??
Let me know if you had any “miss-drops” or if the rule is playable. Â
I am thinking about using all paratroopers in a game, once I have enough. 11 paratrooper squads on a mission. Would be a cool scenario if you played all paratroopers who have to secure a bridge the Germans need to hold on to so they can get their tanks across a river.
Would be an easy scenario to construct.
By the way, I did not intend to allow vehicles to make defensive fire against a miss-drop paratrooper, consistent with the rules that soldiers do not provoke defensive fire from vehicles.