Attacking an empty sea zone?

[Soviet Steamroller]

Hi there,
As i’m reviewing the scramble rule a question came to my mind.
Can i assign planes to a sea zone with no ennemy warships just as a safety against scramble?

For example let say Germany decide to invade Leningrad with an amphibious assault through SZ115. There is no allied surface warship present in SZ115 but there is 3 Soviet Fighter in Leningrad.
Can i (Germany) choose to assign planes to fly over and ‘‘stay’’ in SZ115 just in case Russia decides to scramble?

[barnee]

Hi Steamroller

yea you can. Probably a good idea too, if your trprts don’t have a lot of naval support. Although you may want to save your planes (Russians), or some of them, to use against the land invasion.

So you’d want to send enough planes to force russian planes to stay and fight the land battle but not so many you can’t win. Well…you get the idea :)

[Panther]

@Soviet-Steamroller said in Attacking an empty sea zone?:

Hi there,
As i’m reviewing the scramble rule a question came to my mind.
Can i assign planes to a sea zone with no ennemy warships just as a safety against scramble?

Bringing units against a potential scramble is a valid combat move, indeed.
Rulebook Pacific 1940.2 page 13

… Further, if enemy air units could potentially be scrambled to defend the sea zone, additional units may be moved into the sea zone to combat them in case they are indeed scrambled.