Q: amphibious assault w/o supporting naval units

[snurkert]

Playing as Germany I spotted a good opportunity to capture London which was virtually undefended.

I had a single tranport within reach and a strong luftwaffe, my plan was to keep the landunits and sacrifice some air units in favor of taking England.

UK was able to scramble a single spitfire to fence of the transport.

This triggered the discussion and the rules were not very clear to me: what if UK would scramble in this scenario accorinding to the OOB rules?

Would GE have the oppertunity to save a few air units to fend of the scrambled fighter? Or would the tranport per default be lost, including the carried units?

Thanks,

[Witt]

@snurkert Evening Snurkert. If you did not specify that any Air was in the sea zone, protecting the Transport, then the scrambling Fighter would get one one shot at 4 to sink your Transport and the carried ground units . If he misses, you can retreat back one sea zone fro which you came. The Air units would still have to attack London, of course. But could retreat after one round.
Did you forget that your UK opponent could scramble to prevent the amphibious landing?
Enjoy your game.

[snurkert]

@wittman
Thanks mate! I did not forget about the possibility of UK scrambling the fighter.
What we were not sure about was how to intepret the rules in this particular scenario. If I understand correctly, in this case I would have to reserve one or more air units from my air armada to defend my transport?

[Witt]

@wittman I am afraid that you need to say in advance which units are in the SZ and which are attacking the territory. Not afterwards. It is designed to help the defender, naturally.
Perhaps your opponent will let you change your attack, so you can cater for a probabe scramble . A Ft/ Bomber combination might suffice, but three Air units would be safer, of course.

[snurkert]

@wittman
Got it! Thanks!
The attack did not take place because we were unsure of the rules. Now understanding this will help us applying the rules better in the next game.

[snurkert]

As a non-native speaker the rules related to amphibious assault and scramble confuse me. Consider this scenario, which occured during todays game play:

1. in the US turn an amphibious assault on west germany failed.
2. next the UK tried to land in west germany, with 3 loaded transports, a cruiser and a fighter. At that time there were only 2 fighters present in west germany.

As attacker the UK kept the fighter and cruiser to guard the seazone against any scrambled GE fighters. As playing GE I decided to scramble with both aircraft. I was able to knock down both the cruiser and spitfire while keeping both messersmiths.

Am I correct that this event blocked the amphibious landing?
We assumed that this event had no effect on the attacking transports, apart from not being able to drop off their load on german shores. With the US fleet in the same SZ as the british, we assumed that the US fleet was not able to participate in any way during the british assault.

[Witt]

. @snurkert . Evening.
You did the right thing in scrambling , as you had a better chance of keeping W Germany.
The U.K. can retreat the loaded Transports from the SZ, with as many Tramsports as he had after all your Ft hits were allocated.(Hits first go to combat units , like the Cruiser amd Ft, then To the defenceless Transports.) Thr Transpoerd will not be in the same SZ as the American fleet and might be at risk of being sunk on the next German (or Italian) go.
You are right in saying that the US fleet can only watch as the battle unfolds.

[snurkert]

@wittman
Thanks mate.
Do you mean that the UK shall or should retreat all transports?

[Witt]

@snurkert He should . It is not mandatory. But he will lose them , if he stays in the SZ, as the German Fts will get to shoot st them until they do retreat.

Where are you from , can I ask?

[snurkert]

@wittman
I’m from The Netherlands.
Adjecent to SZ110, 3IPC ;)

[Witt]

@snurkert Lovely country and fantastic people. Have not been for 15 years now . Saw Nijmegen amd Arnhem the last time I went . First tine I went to Delft amd Amsterdam. That was 28 years ago.

[Cpl.Hicks]

@snurkert
@wittman

I was the UK power in the mentioned game ;)

So, to simplify. If we consider both scrambled Messerschmitt to become seaplanes. It becomes quite clear!

Thank you for your time to clarify the issue.

[Cpl.Hicks]

@wittman
Where are you from, if I may ask?