AA50 escorts and interceptor rules

[Lynxes]

SBR in AA50 looks to be more powerful than before, yet it was opted not to include any rules for escorting or intercepting SBR missions. Can this be included in the game in a simple and elegant way? PLEASE don’t discuss damage caps or heavy bombers rules in this thread, that is a separate albeit important discussion! Note also that “Air combat” is only performed in SBR raids. What do you think?

Intercepting and escorting fighters:
Defending fighters in the attacked IC area are intercepting fighters, but the maximum number of interceptors is the combined number of attacking fighters and bombers. The attacker may also attack with fighters which then are escorting fighters, but escorting fighters must start their turn on land areas and there may be no more escorting fighters than there are attacking bombers.

Air combat:
In air combat, you fight one round only and then proceed to roll for SBR damage for each bomber that has survived. You add the number of aircraft on each side and then roll that number of dice, hitting on a ‘1’.

Jet fighters:
If you have “Jet fighters” you get two rolls for each fighter in air combat and enemy bombers no longer get to fire in air combat.

Hit allocation in escorted SBR attacks:
If there are escorting fighters in the attack, the first hit by the defender is always on an escorting fighter, the second on an attacking bomber, and so on.

[Imperious Leader]

Intercepting and escorting fighters:
Defending fighters in the attacked IC area are intercepting fighters, but the maximum number of interceptors is the combined number of attacking fighters and bombers. The attacker may also attack with fighters which then are escorting fighters, but no more escorting fighters than there are attacking bombers.

Are you saying the defender cant bring in more planes than the attacker? Also why the limitations on escorts?

Jet fighters:
If you have “Jet fighters” you get two rolls for each fighter in air combat and enemy bombers no longer get to fire in air combat.

Whats the deal with enemy bombers? They don’t fire when jets are around, but fire when piston aircraft are? huh?
i don’t get it.

Hit allocation in escorted SBR attacks:
If there are escorting fighters in the attack, the first hit by the defender is always on an escorting fighter, the second on an attacking bomber, and so on.

I don’t like this. Escorts should protect bombers and take the loses. If you have jets then i can see the ability to evade air support and head straight for the bombers. But the 1 fighter 1 bombers combat lose allocation seems real artificial to me.

just being your sound board

[Lynxes]

Are you saying the defender cant bring in more planes than the attacker? Also why the limitations on escorts?

The UK should be able to bombard Germany with reasonable odds. If Germany has 3 or 4 fighters in their IC and you have no limit to interceptions, attacking is suicide. My proposed limit is a representation that all fighters were not allocated to interceptions and it will nicely represent the historical scenario that the more bombers the Allies throw in the more fighters Germany will defend with and risk losing.

Whats the deal with enemy bombers? They don’t fire when jets are around, but fire when piston aircraft are? huh?
i don’t get it.

The Me 262 was so quick that bombers had very little chance of defending with their on-board machine guns. From wikipedia:

The standard approach against bomber formations, which were travelling at cruise speed, called for the Me 262 to approach the bombers from the rear at a higher altitude, diving in below the bomber’s flight level to get additional speed before gaining altitude again and, on reaching the bomber’s level, opening fire with its four 30 mm cannon at 600 m (656 yard) range.

Allied bomber gunners found that their electric gun turrets had problems tracking the jets. Target acquisition was difficult because the jets closed into firing range quickly and had to remain in firing position only briefly using their standard attack profile.

Also I wanted to have a strong defensive tech vs. SBR that is strong so you have something to hope for if the enemy gets Heavy bombers.

I don’t like this. Escorts should protect bombers and take the loses. If you have jets then i can see the ability to evade air support and head straight for the bombers. But the 1 fighter 1 bombers combat lose allocation seems real artificial to me.

It’s a balance thing. If you only hit on a ‘1’ you will almost never score two hits anyway and it would be very strange if even those two hits always will be versus fighters. Even with my rule escorts will in 90% of combats protect bombers vs. hits. It would be historically awry if interceptors never could hit bombers directly since they did all they could to do just that.

But all in all I think escorts are a very dangerous thing in this ruleset since you will be losing more fighters as the defender and also most of the time not shooting down the bombers. It also boosts the Long-range aircraft tech and makes areas like Libya and Norway more important to fight over as fighter bases. When I think of it maybe fighters must be forced to be based with the bombers to be able to escort in order to avoid carrier fighters to escort?

just being your sound board

Appreciated!  :-)

[Imperious Leader]

Quote
Are you saying the defender cant bring in more planes than the attacker? Also why the limitations on escorts?

The UK should be able to bombard Germany with reasonable odds. If Germany has 3 or 4 fighters in their IC and you have no limit to interceptions, attacking is suicide. My proposed limit is a representation that all fighters were not allocated to interceptions and it will nicely represent the historical scenario that the more bombers the Allies throw in the more fighters Germany will defend with and risk losing.

OK i see your idea. Your trying to fix the issue of overwhelming odds of some nations to bring in tons of planes against weaker ones, so that everybody has a fair possibility of using SBR, even if its Italy. I both like this idea and don’t like it.
But i see how its balancing. good.

Quote
Whats the deal with enemy bombers? They don’t fire when jets are around, but fire when piston aircraft are? huh?
i don’t get it.

The Me 262 was so quick that bombers had very little chance of defending with their on-board machine guns. From wikipedia:

ok i guess. yes.

Quote
The standard approach against bomber formations, which were traveling at cruise speed, called for the Me 262 to approach the bombers from the rear at a higher altitude, diving in below the bomber’s flight level to get additional speed before gaining altitude again and, on reaching the bomber’s level, opening fire with its four 30 mm cannon at 600 m (656 yard) range.

Allied bomber gunners found that their electric gun turrets had problems tracking the jets. Target acquisition was difficult because the jets closed into firing range quickly and had to remain in firing position only briefly using their standard attack profile.

Also I wanted to have a strong defensive tech vs. SBR that is strong so you have something to hope for if the enemy gets Heavy bombers.

OK i now think like you do on this. I will alter my proposal to reflect this development.

Quote
I don’t like this. Escorts should protect bombers and take the loses. If you have jets then i can see the ability to evade air support and head straight for the bombers. But the 1 fighter 1 bombers combat lose allocation seems real artificial to me.

It’s a balance thing. If you only hit on a ‘1’ you will almost never score two hits anyway and it would be very strange if even those two hits always will be versus fighters. Even with my rule escorts will in 90% of combats protect bombers vs. hits. It would be historically awry if interceptors never could hit bombers directly since they did all they could to do just that.

I am not convinced on this. I would say the escorts are taken as loses to protect bombers. If a player has jets they can select the plane they want to die for each hit.

But all in all I think escorts are a very dangerous thing in this ruleset since you will be losing more fighters as the defender and also most of the time not shooting down the bombers. It also boosts the Long-range aircraft tech and makes areas like Libya and Norway more important to fight over as fighter bases. When I think of it maybe fighters must be forced to be based with the bombers to be able to escort in order to avoid carrier fighters to escort?

Yes its a worry, but AAE didnt seem to have problems in this area, which we are both using as a reference for escort rules.

[italiansarecoming]

Well i would go back to AAE and make intercepters as a 2 defense also i would allow the interceptors send as many fighters to defend holding out on some fighters was not somone would do in ww2 unless if you were the Japenese and you needed to regroup and wanted to keep some major ships!  (ww2 is a game were u sent all or nothing well shouldn’t you be allowed seriously*

[Lynxes]

I don’t think we should just copy the AAE rules. They were too much in favour of the defender and it wasn’t worth using bombers for SBR. Remember you have AA as well and if you have interceptors at ‘2’ you have a sum total of 50% chance of being shot down!

Carriers in AAE were not that often bought if I remember correctly and you wouldn’t move them close to Germany. In AA50 I think CV buys for Uk will be very common, even more so than in AAR now that transports have no defence value. Getting escorts into Germany should take some effort, either to take Norway or Finland or to develop Long-range aircraft. After all, it wasn’t until the Mustang fighters were introduced in '44 that the Luftwaffe defences broke down (in game terms Long-range aircraft). I have edited the original post now so that escorts need to be land-based.

[italiansarecoming]

well …… then make it a 1.5 avg. for each fighter so 2 fighters hit =3 but if its 1=1.5 so they have a choice if they want to hit as a 2 or a 1 though next time it rounds down or up determining what they want.

ALSO TRUTHFULLY WHO BUYS AIRCRAFT CARRIERS IN AAE (I DONT
Anyways it should be 50/50 chance since normally it was in ww2 ok!  though the attackers had nothing to lose but the defenders did so if i make it like a 40/60 i think thats quite fair and noormally germany doesn’t mass air!

[Imperious Leader]

I found flaws in these rules:

1. Italy can send one bomber and 1 escort to UK and UK can have 4 fighters defending but only bring in one as defense, because poor Italy is too broke to buy proper fighter escorts.

2. Italy or anybody can elect to bring in JUST a bomber and no fighter defense, invalidating the entire rule.

not good.

[Lynxes]

IL/

I think you have misread the rules. It says that it is the combined number of fighters and bombers. So in 1) Italy would face 2 fighters, and in 2) it would face 1 fighter. The historical case is the UK SBR campaign prior to the entry of American escorted missions by Mustang long-range fighters, and I don’t think it would feel very good if Germany could just stack up 3-4 fighters and then UK would never be able to SBR with anything like OK odds. Hence the interceptor limit.

[Imperious Leader]

ok will playtest.

[italiansarecoming]

i still think that fighters should have  a 1.5 avg 2  fighters get 1 and the other a 2!

[Imperious Leader]

ok this is what i have in my rules from these posts:

Fighter Defense/Escort:
During SBR attacks the defending player can bring in planes to fight against bombers defending at a 2. The attacker can bring in escorts to escort his bombers and they attack at 1. The maximum number of defending planes cannot exceed the total number of attacking air units including bombers. Only one round of air combat occurs prior to SBR rolls. The attacker can not bring in more escorts than bombers. Note: The AA gun rolls only against the bombers and not against the escorting fighters.

[Lynxes]

Again I think it’s way too strong to go from 1/6 to 3/6 when shooting down bombers. I think we should play-test the 2/6 option as I think this is enough and doesn’t upset the balance in the game. Now that Germany has NO bonuses, a major SBR campaign is part of the balance of the game and if we weaken SBR too much this balance will be upset!

[Imperious Leader]

1/6 to 3/6 when shooting down bombers. I think we should play-test the 2/6 option

What?

I am using the standard AAE rules with limitations on total planes. its 1 for attacker 2 for defense. that’s it. I played it and it works.

as far as jets are concerned they should get 3 because these are independently created planes, rather than “POOF” all your planes are magically turned into jets thing. IN my system some techs like super subs, jets and heavy bombers need to be built from scratch. Its ridiculous to assume every plane is now having the new technology.

[italiansarecoming]

aha moohahahahaha AAE rules live and stand yes! anyways i just wanted to say that 2/6 is what i was getting at!

[templeton]

@Lynxes:

IL/

I think you have misread the rules. It says that it is the combined number of fighters and bombers. So in 1) Italy would face 2 fighters, and in 2) it would face 1 fighter. The historical case is the UK SBR campaign prior to the entry of American escorted missions by Mustang long-range fighters, and I don’t think it would feel very good if Germany could just stack up 3-4 fighters and then UK would never be able to SBR with anything like OK odds. Hence the interceptor limit.

1. Well, you can make bombing more attractive - the bombing dice role is the number of damage tokens, and IPC cost - so in effect, because you have to spend IPC to conduct repairs - bombing is twice as effective.

Risk/reward.

2. The British bombing campaign was not that effective anyway - and you could say that playes have an option for daylight bombing - escort/interceptor rules apply, or nightbombing - damage is halved and escorts cannot be used, but neither can interceptors.

Hence, the US can afford daylight bombing which is more effective - and the British, who cannot, do the more ineffective area bombing. A heavy bomber at night just rolls one dice rather than two - which gives the US the option to do the Tokyo night raids if they want to avoid Japanese fighters.

I’d leave interceptors and escorts hitting on a ‘1’ or less…

But I also have a house rule where the US can build TAC air - attack 4 defend 3 (which can’t be used in strategic escort/intercept) - and the Germans have the same, they can build the stukas from the revised edition which attack at 4 and defend at 3 and can’t be used in strategic combat.

That way, the Germans and Americans have to balance the need for strategic fighters - and the more attractive tactical fighters.

Since the new edition has Me109’s, I’m loathe not to use my stukas from the earlier editions - seems such a waste!!!

[Imperious Leader]

Well latter i did figure out what the rule was and amended my house rules along his idea ( except its really the old AAE rule on fighter escorts).

On night bombing raids… i got 50% effectiveness, but no escorts/interceptors…or AA