Railways for G-40

[Ozymandiac]

I thought this was a great idea. The presence of harbours (+movement fleet) and airfields (+movement air) has always seemed to invite a houserule with railroad (+movement ground). I like how you’ve defined railroads as being either operational or damaged; there is no stack of IPC’s underneath it to show how damaged it is.

@GeneralHandGrenade:

You can only use a tactical bomber to damage a railway (1 die per bomber at 2 or less). The marker is on the border between 2 territories so the bomber can attack it from either of the territories. The only defence against a bombing raid on a railway is an anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) so it might be a good idea to place one in territories containing a railway. It costs 2 IPC’s to repair a damaged rail marker on the controlling nation’s place units phase during their next turn. The reason they have to wait for that phase is so they can’t use a damaged railway for 1 turn. Why else would you even bother bombing one if there is no effect other than making your opponent pay a couple of IPC’s?

I would try to stick to regular A&A phases to keep things streamlined. I wouldn’t change the bombing rules as you have done. This means AAA units cannot help against railroad bombings; it would be an odd exception, since they’re not used in any other bombings. I would also allow interception just like other bombings.

Another thing that might be nice to add:

• you could let players decide to damage their own railroads. Both the Germans and the Soviets were averse to letting their infrastructure fall into enemy hands.

[Talkalots]

I’d actually be interested to hash out a set of rules to use strat bombers for railway attacks, since more rail markers are indicative of a larger rail network.

[Flashman]

I refer you to my comments on the linked post.

The OP said it - virtually all adjacent industrialised areas were linked by rail. In the game, only a few routes over mountains and through jungle would not have such connections.

So the only use for markers I can see is for damaged links via interdiction i.e. bombing. Otherwise assume all tts are connected by rail. I never really understood the implication in the original game design that soldiers marched to the battle zones and that tanks drove there.

Generally I favour unlimited non-combat rail movement between friendly tts. It’s much simpler and doesn’t need counters or record keeping. One dynamic it changes is the relative value of armour, since this now travels at the same rate as infantry - the speed of the trains carrying them.

The other main counter argument is the relative movement of ships and aircraft. If a turn allow a train to rail artillery from Berlin to Moscow, how far should a ship be permitted to travel in the same turn? Should ships have any limit on their movement range? My solution is that every ship must demonstrate that it passes from, through or to a friendly port to refuel every turn. What’s to stop Japan loading up 10 transports and dropping them off in California? Why, the US Navy of course. The same thing can be applied to aircraft; rather than a maximum range peer turn, they must demonstrate fuel stops at set intervals on a turn. These idea also require more rules regarding enemy interception, radar range and so forth.

In general these rules mean many more units getting into battle per round. There is much less of units stalling in “mid move”, something that virtually ruined 1914 for the Central Powers until the revised rules came along.