Making Airbases Required for Flight/Landing

[mohare6]

I like this idea except or the fact that it would cancel out the existing bonuses airbases give. Maybe you could say that only on islands, not counting japan or Australia, do you need airbases to land or launch aircraft. What do you think?

[Zieleniuk]

No it would still give out all the other bonuses, jsut add these to them. So you would still get the extra movement, and the scramble ability.

I was also thinking about as far as basing limits, a base airbase could base 8 aircraft, and that you could upgrade them as a buy in during the purcahse round. So for example you could buy an upgarde for X ipc that would  y more planes to land there.  You could mark it with a chip or something to show that is was upgraded. I would say the starting home base territoies for aircraft West US Tokyo etc, have an unlimited basing number or something extremely high 20 - 30. This way it could still effectively be bombed, to limit capacity, but the chances of it being completely knocked out, would be little to none.

[Hobbes]

An interesting idea but it would have a few side effects:

• Planes would be heavily restricted on their movement, since they would be limited to moving between airbases. Some areas of the map might be completely off limits to fighters/tac bombers unless bases are build there, limiting options for Japan during the 1st rounds.
• Land based planes automatically have their movement increased by 1 since they can only operate from airbases.
• It’s doubtful that the 3 island bases involved (Midway, Wake and Guam) would be much more used since their position pretty much limits their usefulness. Guam is helpful to ferry planes to and from the Phillipines and for bombers to land after hitting SZ6. Midway also for bombers to hit SZ6 and can be used (or Wake instead) by Japan to base planes to invade Hawaii.

[Zieleniuk]

@Hobbes:

Planes would be heavily restricted on their movement, since they would be limited to moving between airbases. Some areas of the map might be completely off limits to fighters/tac bombers unless bases are build there, limiting options for Japan during the 1st rounds.

Well i see that point but if it was used in tandem with aircraft carrier you could negate alot of those area until you took over those areas. I do see you point thought with the restirction especailly on the japanse side if you are trying to use alot of planes in hitting the US. The few game si have play the middle pacific island are usually not used and are ignored.  I was hoping that this mechanic would make those territories a bit more vital.

[Hobbes]

@Zieleniuk:

Well i see that point but if it was used in tandem with aircraft carrier you could negate alot of those area until you took over those areas. I do see you point thought with the restirction especailly on the japanse side if you are trying to use alot of planes in hitting the US. The few game si have play the middle pacific island are usually not used and are ignored.  I was hoping that this mechanic would make those territories a bit more vital.

I think it is an interesting idea, although you’d have to reduce the cost of airbases to 10 or even lower. That way it would incentive players to build airbases on newly conquered territories and change the dynamics a bit.
But I definately don’t think it would give much of an incentive to go more for the central pacific. The IPCs and the national objectives are near all in the South Pacific/DEI islands, with the exception of the Iwo Jima/Okinawa NO. Perhaps you’d have to change the NOs a bit to bring more fight to the Central Pacific because just changing the airbase rules would not be enough.

[Zieleniuk]

@Hobbes:

@Zieleniuk:

Well i see that point but if it was used in tandem with aircraft carrier you could negate alot of those area until you took over those areas. I do see you point thought with the restirction especailly on the japanse side if you are trying to use alot of planes in hitting the US. The few game si have play the middle pacific island are usually not used and are ignored.  I was hoping that this mechanic would make those territories a bit more vital.

I think it is an interesting idea, although you’d have to reduce the cost of airbases to 10 or even lower. That way it would incentive players to build airbases on newly conquered territories and change the dynamics a bit.
But I definately don’t think it would give much of an incentive to go more for the central pacific. The IPCs and the national objectives are near all in the South Pacific/DEI islands, with the exception of the Iwo Jima/Okinawa NO. Perhaps you’d have to change the NOs a bit to bring more fight to the Central Pacific because just changing the airbase rules would not be enough.

Thanks for the input you are probably right about the NO thing maybe i will tinker with that some also :-D

[trackmagic]

I think this is a FANTASTIC idea. I have thought about this before, but until now I had a problem with it. My problem was on (as pointed out earlier) that on the continent Japan’s aircraft movement might be too limited.

How about this: Planes may only land on islands that contain an airbase. For continental territory no airbase is required.

Either that or just add an airbase to any place that has an aircraft starting out and build airbases where you want to land. That is the way it was done in the war. If you wanted to station air units closer to the front you had to build an airbase. This would also make it so a lot more airbases would be built during the game.

I don’t think you need to set a limit on the number of aircraft that can operate out of an airbase. Currently there is no rule against stacking the entire Japanese air force in Guam, but nobody does it.

I like this because in the Pacific war any island with an airbase was considered a very high level target since they could not land planes unless there was an airbase.

Krieghund, if you read this at all I would be interested if you guys thought about doing something like this and what the reason was you ended up not going this route. (When I originally heard you were adding airbase tokens I thought this would be the rule)

[The Fire Knight]

I disagree kind of. An airbase I think is much different than a landing strip. For aircraft to take off and land, it really only requires a simple dirt runway, which probable wouldn’t even be worth an ipc. An airbase however i would think would be a sophisticated system of concrete runways which could refuel, repair, and other sorts of things. It would be like an airport, which would be worth the 15. I think this is the “real-world” reason why this was not in the game. there are runways everywhere, but not airbases/airports. This is in addition to the reason that it would just be a huge pain and would complicate the simplicity of the game.

[Krieghund]

@trackmagic:

Krieghund, if you read this at all I would be interested if you guys thought about doing something like this and what the reason was you ended up not going this route. (When I originally heard you were adding airbase tokens I thought this would be the rule)

It was considered.  I can’t say why it wasn’t done.

[oztea]

you cant say why, or you cant remember why

I think why is because it limits air power immensely, you would either have to start the game with 100 airbases to it fair. It would almost make the rest of airbases abillities irrelevent, and just standard powers of air units

[Omega]

This would push realism into the right direction. At the same time, lowering Planes use on the ground and probably making Bomber all godly (since they have huge range)

This would definately make Japan weaker in the current Pacific game, no doubt about this. Maybe UK and Anzac too

Robert

[Zieleniuk]

Advanced Island Airbase Rules
For AAP40
Version 1.0
Created By Jeff Zieleniuk 03/09/2010

Here are some additional Island Airbase rules, to simulate a more realistic airbase structure, and air war scenario. During WW2 capturing islands was important strategy to move closer to objectives, many of these islands were under developed, and not suitable for landing aircraft until improvements were made. Capturing these island to extend the ability to position aircraft was imperative, as this reduces the need for a huge carrier fleet, and gave both sides the ability to more effectively protect shipping lanes, and launch sorties without putting carriers in harm’s way of enemy fleets.
Airbases still provide all the normal functions as per the Base rules found in the rule book, these are in addition to the existing rules. Please feel free to use only part of these to fit your taste of game play.

1. Airbases are required to land on an island. Continental Territories; N. America, Asia, Australia, and Japan ignore these rules. In effect you can land planes on any friendly controlled territory that is on a continent as per normal rules.  If you wish to land aircraft on an Island it must have a friendly airbase for you to be able to land on. During Setup if you have aircraft stationed on an island (example Formosa) simply place an airbase on that island. Remember continental territories such as Manchuria are exempt from this rule.
2. Basing Limits.  Island Airbases have a limited capacity to hold planes, at the start of the game island airbases can base 9 aircraft (Exception: Continental Territories; N. America, Asia, Australia, and Japan ignore these rules.)
3. Upgrading an Airbase. During your Purchase Phase you can upgrade an existing Island airbase facility, for Every 5 IPC you spend on Upgrade you can base an Additional 3 planes. Use some sort of marking mechanism to show the facility has been upgraded. Each upgrade bought will also increase the amount of damage the Island airbase is capable of taking. For every upgrade applied increase the damage capacity by 1. ( Example, In normal rules an airbase take 3 hits of damage it is inoperative until repaired, so Say the airbase on the Philippines is upgrade one time it can now house 12 aircraft, and takes 4 points of damage to make it inoperative).
4. Island Airbase Damage.  Island Airbases may be bombed during an SBR to make them inoperative, and negate the effect it confers to units and the map. For every one point of damage applied the base losses the capability to land, or launch 3 aircraft until repaired, this includes scramble ability and SBR Defense. This does not affecting basing rules, aircraft in excess of the aircraft limit are considered grounded do to runway cratering, damage to facilities, and decreased logistical support.
   • If planes are launched in defense of an SBR against an Island Airbase, and enough damage is done to the airbase to restrict some or all of the defending planes from landing, they are allowed to immediately take their full movement to either find another island airbase , continental territory, or aircraft carrier to land on, if none are in range the plane is lost.
   • If an Island airbase is made inoperative, it cannot launch or land aircraft, it cannot be used to scramble, SBR Defense, or confer movement bonus. Also in addition to this, if an island airbase is made inoperative the planes on it are effectively grounded, they cannot be launched. (Example Bombers can’t be used in SBR defense, they could become stuck on the airbase, or if you decided to not use fighter aircraft in defense of an SBR.) If an island airbase is reduced to 0 points, any further bombing runs made against the facility, will instead destroy grounded aircraft. This is accomplished by rolling one dice for every bomber than makes a run against an inoperative facility, for every roll that comes up a 1 destroy one grounded aircraft, all other rolls are considered misses.

Please feel free to use this in your game; also please let me know if you have any other ideas that could be merged into this. Above all please comment.
PM me and i can send this to you in .doc format.

[Gharen]

This is probably one of the most inventive house rules I have ever read.  It is the most real one as well because what do planes have to do in real life?  Take off and land at airbases.  This would severally limit EVERYONE in the game and thus I think, balance the game out tremendously.  Having to build forward bases makes the game take longer and I think could make it more interesting.  Carriers would be bought quite more often and this would turn the Pacific into what it truly was, several nations jockeying for position and having to take islands, build air fields, and move on.  I really like this.

[Zieleniuk]

Thnaks for the feedback has anyone tried these out yet.  Unfortunately i havent been able to get a group together since i wrote these.

[lnmajor]

well done!
been trying to think this one out for awhile. one idea i had was you have to purchese airbases for pacific islands, then you have to pay extra to upgrade them to accept bombers. islands with airbases were crucial to the bombing campain against japan. we lost thousands of men invading okanawa just to secure it as an airbase. allways think of islands as unsinkable aircraft carriers

[spartan solider]

I love this idea :-D, it is very accurate historic wise and also adds a lot of new tactics and limitations to the game :-), I endorse the upgrading idea mentioned by the guy who posted before me and would like to hear his stats and such  8-)but I battle tested this rule yesterday :-) and it worked great, I will be using this rule from now on for sure  :-D :mrgreen:

[Wilson2]

@Omega:

At the same time, lowering Planes use on the ground and probably making Bomber all godly (since they have huge range)

Really? I would think that it would make the bomber worse. All this rule would do would be to make all planes have to be carrier based.  That pretty much kills the bomber. Also, due to the limited range of fighters/tac bombers, they are already not very effective on islands (unless there is an air base). So implementing this rule would hurt bombers more because they are the ones that actually use the islands.

[crusaderiv]

_I love this idea , it is very accurate historic wise and also adds a lot of new tactics and limitations to the game , I endorse the upgrading idea mentioned by the guy who posted before me and would like to hear his stats and such  8-)but I battle tested this rule yesterday  and it worked great, I will be using this rule from now on for sure _

It only takes a few days to build airfield so why pay extra cost for that?
There was already airbase everywhere in the pacific (Except Guadacanal and New Guinea island)
so it’s useless.