@barnee
The German U-Boat Pen units must be placed during the Place New Units phase - and can defend in this round against Allied Strategic Bomber units - but cannot protect German U-Boat units until Germany’s following turn.
Note:
The Heavy Bomber unit described on pg. 59 no longer has any Special Attack Ability concerning U-Boat Pen units.
The Special Attack Ability rule has been eliminated due to play balance - we’ll correct this in the next U-Boat Pen rules update.
U-Boat Pen units defend as any other Facility concerning AAA defense.
The German U-Boat Pen rule is very usefull, when the German player wants to launch U-Boat Campaigns.
Game experience shows that when the Free German U-Boat Pen units enter the game, the War most often requires all other types of weaponry - meaning that Germany most often doesn’t spend IPC on U-Boat units anyway.
We advice experienced players to use the U-Boat Pen rule, when they want to test new strategies concerning U-Boat Campaigns.