Killing Fleets with Bombers

[P-Unit]

We noticed this issue early on in our first game. Needless to say, Germany didn’t even think about building any ships. It’s just not going to happen unless UK and USA are asleep at the wheel.

[TG Moses VI]

Hell yes!!  especially US in '42 with three bombers…

Yes.  I thought about this myself.  I guess it’s more of an incentive for the Italians to take Gilbralter.  Though, in that case, you leave your mavy open to the inevitable counter.  The Stalingrad airlift seems pretty indefensible.

[Jennifer]

Hmm…forgot about that change to AA Guns.

Perhaps a fix would be to give Battleships AA Gun abilities (perhaps allow them to be layered so if you had 3 Battleships, all 3 would get an AA shot at each attacking fighter and bomber.)  That would seriously stop the allies from strafing and skip-bombing their way to victory.

I mention Battleships with AA Guns not because it’s overly historically accurate. (Aircraft Carriers were the ones with the superior AA Guns, not Battleships) but because those are the units that have them in AARe and we’ve found that it does not become unbalanced with them.  If anything, it actually gives you an incentive to purchase a battleship instead of other units.

[Bridger]

Was there a large need for bombers to go down to 12 instead of 14?  At 14 you’d still see them bought in force by UK or US or even Germany sometimes.

[Lucifer]

The reduced price for bombers are one of the changes from AAR which I support. Bombers were hardly bought in AAR, too expensive and not cost effective.

What about inventing strats and tactics to deal with this issue?

If Italy can’t sustain its fleet then build tanks and infantry, or do something else which is useful for axis  :wink:

[jeffdestroyer]

If the Axis own Egypt and TRJ, Italy can move its fleet to sz 15 to be safe for a rd.  if the UK builds extra bombers in a single turn.

[HolKann]

how about 1 AC on italy2? Throw some German ftrs on it if needed. That’s 7 hits already, which would need at least 7 bmrs = UK4 if they bought 2 bmrs a turn. = 12*6= 72 IPC’s invested vs 14 for the Italians. I don’t think this is such a good strat. Better to build some fleet as brit (an AC and some DD), and kill the Italian navy this way. Remember that bmrs can’t land on carriers, nor do they defend on a 4 like fighters. As for Germany not building any fleet: bmrs are of no use against an U-boat-armada…

[toblerone77]

One of goals for AAR was to encourage combined arms. The bomber drop is a good thing. Lower cost brings up demand. The drop from AAR to AA50 is just a refinement of this ‘combined arms doctrine’. I’m all for it.

[crsluggo]

@HolKann:

As for Germany not building any fleet: bmrs are of no use against an U-boat-armada…

I agree with HolKann, airpower is of no use against a sub fleet. As long as the subs are sinking Allied hulls you effectivly cripple the Allies ability to invade Europe.

[Bardoly]

@toblerone77:

One of goals for AAR was to encourage combined arms. The bomber drop is a good thing. Lower cost brings up demand. The drop from AAR to AA50 is just a refinement of this ‘combined arms doctrine’. I’m all for it.

My group and I like the cheaper Bombers, but after playing several games, with them, we have basically come to the conclusion that either Heavy Bombers needs to be adjusted/eliminated, or the cost of Naval units need to be lowered even more.  There is such little interaction between Land units and Naval units, that lowering the costs shouldn’t hurt the game at all.  I mean, come on, compare 20 IPCs for a 2-hit 4  on attack/defense (Battleship) to 4 Tanks with 3 on attack/defense for the same price.  Where is the incentive to build navy versus land unless you must? (i.e. USA)  Germany was after a World Empire, not just a European one.

[TG Moses VI]

Bardoly,

I know.  It’s great isn’t it?  Every day I grow fonder and fonder of bombers.  It’s only historical.  The dramatic rise of airpower during the war signaled the eclipse of the world’s navies.

All jesting aside, I believe that the cost of SOME naval units should be lowered.  To me transports, subs, and destroyers are priced fine how they are.  By virtue of how essential the transport is, we should set that as the baseline for determining the value of units.  In that case, I believe Cruisers should cost 10 IPCs, Carriers 12 IPCs (and their defense bumped back up to 3), and Battleships cost 18 IPCs.  Sounds fair?

[DarthMaximus]

The thing about cruisers though is their endless supply of bombardments with no risk of loss.  Since the UK will routinely dropping off 8 units and has multiple targets in Europe, having 4 CA at your disposal might be better long term considering you’re probably going to lose 2-3 bombers taking out the Med fleet.  Also if the UK goes only bombers on UK1, that means no significant land forces until UK 3.  You still have to buy ships which includes capital ships and transports.
Germany will also see the purchase and can respond with a bomber of their own and I think really threaten the Atlantic with ftrs and boms as they blitz on Mos.  I think the early bombers put a ton of pressure on Moscow to hold out on their own which is difficult as it is.
I think with the 43 starting IPC, it might be better to get you base fleet of capital ships down in the water before Germany can stack ftrs in WE and before you start losing your ipcs to Japan.  UK drops to the 30’s by rd 2 and low 30’s by rd 3, then potentially high 20’s after that.

[Bardoly]

I know.  It’s great isn’t it?  Every day I grow fonder and fonder of bombers.  It’s only historical.  The dramatic rise of airpower during the war signaled the eclipse of the world’s navies.

All jesting aside, I believe that the cost of SOME naval units should be lowered.  To me transports, subs, and destroyers are priced fine how they are.  By virtue of how essential the transport is, we should set that as the baseline for determining the value of units.  In that case, I believe Cruisers should cost 10 IPCs, Carriers 12 IPCs (and their defense bumped back up to 3), and Battleships cost 18 IPCs.  Sounds fair?

I’m okay with this, although perhaps keeping the ACs at 2 defense is best, and Battleships could even go to 16-17 IPCs in my book.

The thing about cruisers though is their endless supply of bombardments with no risk of loss.  Since the UK will routinely dropping off 8 units and has multiple targets in Europe, having 4 CA at your disposal might be better long term considering you’re probably going to lose 2-3 bombers taking out the Med fleet.

The shore bombard rules have been somewhat nerfed in this version’s rules, so I don’t see this as a big problem.  Someone in another thread, I believe, suggested that if the naval costs for Cruisers/Battleships were lowered, then perhaps the shore bombards could also be lowered.  (i.e. Cruisers bombard at “2”, and Battleships bombard at “3”.)  I would also be okay with this to get the naval units’ price lower so that they are not so tempting to my opponent’s Bombers.

[DarthMaximus]

You can’t drop the price of cruisers, otherwise you will obsolete AC/ftrs in terms of naval defense.

3 ca @ 10 ipc = 30 ipc, att/def =  9/9

1 ac @ 14  (1/2)
2 ftrs @ 10  (3/4) = 34 ipc, att/def = 7/10

You’d have to drop the price of ac’s to about 10 to even make the ac/ftr combo worth it, or up the defense of acs, but even back at 3 defense (if price stayed at 12-14), I’d still probably go with the cheaper cruiser knowing that I still get the 9 for Att.

Also the bombardment (even if nerfed) is still very valuable, it essesntailly makes a cruiser a ftr for any coastal territory and for the UK that is gold.  Sz 12, 7, 6, 5 are all frequented by the UK and combined touch like 9 territories.  That is a lot of uses.  You also don’t have to worry about AA guns.

I also don’t think you can drop the price of BBs without obsoleting another naval unit.  Either the cruiser or ac/ftr combo will be phased out.  Unless the CA is so cheap it makes BBs pointless and if that is the case then DDs become useless.  In order to make an 18 BB, you’d need a 10 ipc cruiser but I think that just messes everything up, you’d have to drop the price of acs, ftrs and dds and then we are back to the same spot.

At some point you have to realize that navies only serve 1 purpose, to get land units from A to B.  So navies will always be the bare minimum needed to protect your trns.
You could make ships as cheap as possible but if there is no threat to your fleet they still won’t get built. (exception - trns)

[Jennifer]

Instead of dropping or raising prices, would it be possible to just prevent bombers from engaging in naval warfare?

Note, I did not say historically accurate.  I did not say best solution.  I just asked if it was perhaps a viable, simple, solution that could be implemented to negate the problem?

[Bierwagen]

Ah!  Cmdr J. the good old days of Billy Mitchell and the Ostfriesland.  You had to go pick at that scab, didn’t you… some wounds never heal!

One of the versions of AARHE has the rule of not allowing bombers to engage in naval warfare – I thought it played pretty well and made sense from a historical point of view as well.

In the few games of AA50 I’ve played I’ve found the German bombers to be very effective at keeping the Atlantic free of pesky ships trying to invade France. I’d hate to play without them, but it sounds like an option that might be worth exploring.

[Guest]

@Cmdr:

Instead of dropping or raising prices, would it be possible to just prevent bombers from engaging in naval warfare?

Note, I did not say historically accurate.  I did not say best solution.  I just asked if it was perhaps a viable, simple, solution that could be implemented to negate the problem?

I like that.  Or maybe just make aircraft weaker in the seas.

[Constantinople]

Did Bombers have any significant impact upon navies in WWII?

I thought that Bombers bombing carriers and battleships and cruisers and destroyers was non existent in WWII?

Was there any significant such encounters? If not, then ban the use of bombers against naval assets.

Perhaps they attack at 2’s not 4 agst naval targets??

[tin_snips]

germany used bombers against allied shipping

[toblerone77]

@tin_snips:

germany used bombers against allied shipping

Yup. Tin is absolutely correct the Germans used a relatively small ammount of Condor four-engined bombers in conjunction with the u-bootewaffe to attack shipping. The production of the Condor was small and they had chronic mechanical problems due to the fact that it was orginally designed as an airliner and had difficulty in dealing with the stresses of combat flying. That being said the low operational quantities played a big role.