This is my first post after being a long time lurker. Hoping this is the right place to put this question/it hasn’t been answered before.
Situation is 3 subs and 1 fighter attack sea a sea zone containing 1 destroyer. The defending player decides to scramble 2 fighters into the sea zone.
The attacking subs get 1 hit. The attacking fighter misses. The defender puts the destroyer behind the casualty strip.
The defending destroyer misses, and the defending fighters get 1 hit. The attacker takes 1 submarine as a casualty.
Referring to the rules most recently published (the Renegade Games Europe: 1940 Second Edition), we are now at step 6 of the General Combat Sequence. The question is this: Can you retreat the attacking fighter, but have the 2 surviving attacking subs remain in the sea zone? Or, if the attacker chooses to retreat the fighter, must the submarines retreat as well? I’m leaning towards the latter, seeing as to how there are no rules on units retreating separately (other than fighters remaining until non-combat, but that concerns when they MOVE, not when/how to initiate the retreat itself), but the former is more intuitive.
Per the rules:
Step 6. Press Attack or Retreat
Combat rounds (steps 2–5) continue unless one of the
following two conditions occurs (in this order):
Condition A—Attacker and/or Defender Loses All Units
Once all units that can either fire at a valid target or
retreat on one or both sides have been destroyed, the
combat ends.
If a power has combat units remaining along the battle
strip, that power wins the combat. Players that have units
remaining along the battle strip return those units to the
contested space on the game board.
In a sea battle, if both sides have only transports remaining,
the attacker’s transports can remain in the contested sea zone
or retreat per the rules in Condition B below, if possible. pg. 20
To me, it seems like because the 2 defending fighters have a valid target, that being the 1 attacking fighter, this condition is not met. And it does not specify “All units of a particular type”, so we can’t say the destroyer was “all units” in any sense. I don’t think I’ll see any disagreement on that. Thus, another round of combat will ensue unless the attacker chooses to retreat. The submarines cannot submerge at any other point than step 2 of the General Combat Sequence, thus for the subs to remain in the sea zone, another round of combat must persist, otherwise they must retreat “with” (the fighters remain the sea zone as part of their retreat) the fighter. Yet, if the attacker chooses to press, the subs do not have any valid targets for the next round of combat. Again, they could choose to submerge, but you could also surprise strike at “no units”, which to my knowledge is neither allowed nor disallowed by the rules, at least in this context.
Not sure if this is relevant, but per the rules:
Sea zones are either friendly or hostile. Friendly sea zones contain no surface warships (this doesn’t include submarines and transports) belonging to a power with which you are at war. Hostile sea zones contain surface warships belonging to a power with which you are at war. (The presence of a surface warship
belonging to a power on the other side with which you are not yet at war doesn’t make
a sea zone hostile.) pg. 8
It appears that the sea zone after this first round of combat should be considered friendly, and conducting combat in a friendly sea zone seems nonsensical. One could respond by saying, per the rules:
General Combat
In this step, you resolve combat in each space that contains your units and either contains enemy units or is enemy-controlled. pg 18.
The sea zone contains a fighter, thus you can continue combat. But the submarines have no valid targets. It appears as though there is now combat in a friendly sea zone.
I can’t find any language that states specifically WHEN the state of a sea zone shifts. So maybe we assume it is still hostile? But that still doesn’t resolve the issue of the submarines “firing” at nothing. There are situations addressed where hits get lost, but not situations where there is nothing to hit. Should we assume that because we can have multiple units fire at a single unit, and there is no need for a one to one assigning of firing, 0 units is a valid number to fire at?
This is a long one and I apologize for that. Appreciate the thoughts on this.
@morvill said in Submarine & Fighter attack, Fighter DD defense - Retreat Rules:
To me, it seems like because the 2 defending fighters have a valid target, that being the 1 attacking fighter, this condition is not met. And it does not specify “All units of a particular type”, so we can’t say the destroyer was “all units” in any sense. I don’t think I’ll see any disagreement on that. Thus, another round of combat will ensue unless the attacker chooses to retreat. The submarines cannot submerge at any other point than step 2 of the General Combat Sequence, thus for the subs to remain in the sea zone, another round of combat must persist, otherwise they must retreat “with” (the fighters remain the sea zone as part of their retreat) the fighter. Yet, if the attacker chooses to press, the subs do not have any valid targets for the next round of combat. Again, they could choose to submerge, but you could also surprise strike at “no units”, which to my knowledge is neither allowed nor disallowed by the rules, at least in this context.
Correct. It doesn’t matter whether or not all units on both sides have a valid target, only that at least one on each side does. If the attacker decides to press, all units will remain in the sea zone, even those that don’t have a valid target (the subs). If the attacker decides to retreat, all attacking units must retreat. As you say, the subs can submerge in the next combat round, but the only reason for them to do so would be so that they can remain in the sea zone if the attacker decides to retreat at the end of that round, as they are effectively out of the fight anyway.
Not sure if this is relevant, but per the rules:
Sea zones are either friendly or hostile. Friendly sea zones contain no surface warships (this doesn’t include submarines and transports) belonging to a power with which you are at war. Hostile sea zones contain surface warships belonging to a power with which you are at war. (The presence of a surface warship
belonging to a power on the other side with which you are not yet at war doesn’t make
a sea zone hostile.) pg. 8
The friendly/hostile state of the sea zone has no bearing on combat. That is relevant only to movement.
