The planes were subject to sand damage, and massive overheating.
Don’t know if you know or not, but there are not alot of clouds in the desert, and if you didn’t fly upside down, you’d probably cook to death through the glass in your cockpit anyways.
Worse, at the time, there weren’t many places to land the aircraft south of that either.
The planes were VERY susceptable to weather effects. Sandstorms/high winds. Items that are REPLETE in endless deserts.
I flew in Beechcraft King Airs in SWA for a year. It’s not that big of an issue. I was more nervous flying over the North Atlantic than over a desert.
I flew in Beechcraft King Airs in SWA for a year. It’s not that big of an issue. I was more nervous flying over the North Atlantic than over a desert.
Impossible. Larry Harris has forbidden all flights over this area. It is a known fact that certain death occurs if anybody alive enters this area. Thats why the rule was invented.
I am assuming IL is injecting some sort of humor.
I have seen and been in the midst of sand storms in Iraq. They look menacing from afar and can engulf you much like what appears in the 911 videos after the collapse. But I have never seen on go so high that planes cannot fly over them. Again I have no idea how high these planes of the day actually flew except through my perception of videos I have seen, but my sense is that they could easliy fly over them.
In terms of nowhere to land south of that, well in the rules of the game, planes can do percisely just that, is land just south of the Sahara???. I can see no being able to land in the Sahara, but we are talking about flying over it.
OK so which sea zone is the Bermuda Triangle in? I think all ships and planes that pass through it must roll a die. Roll a one and it must stop its movement because it’s disoriented. On the next turn if it rolls another one then it’s removed from play, lost forever……
OOOoooOOooOOOooooo…spooky…;)
1.5 million people live in this desert so all claims about it being “impassible” are bogus. That has not been the case before say about 1800, but in modern times people live and water wells exist. Planes can fly over as higher altitudes and they did. The game just prohibits it because LH just wants to just brush the terrain under a rug forgotten and ignore it and just prohibit it so the travel path follows the historical one. It is a simple remedy that makes it so you don’t have another rule to deal with it.
Yes planes at low altitude might have problems if they flew in a sandstorm, but that is easily avoided and military forces don’t really fight in sandstorms, so they rarely would need any air support either.
About the impassible part as far as ground units go, I imagine the historical pass did not cross the Sahara due to its terrain being to hard to fight in.
With my experience in Iraq, I can say that vehicle maintenance and weapon maintenance was horrific. As long as we cleaned out air filters and cleaned our weapons daily it did not hamper the mission. Of course if we ever had to do battle just after a sand storm, who knows. I was part of the second wave and spoke to soldiers who indeed had to fight in sand storms. It was difficult.
I can only imagine the Sahara being much worse and vehicles being more prone to breaking down in those days, so I imagine both sides just decided not to fight in the Sahara or try to out flank each other by traveling through it.
I think it’s just that way for simplicity.
Why would you need to fly over the Sahara Anyway??? :?
The only reason would be to get to cape town in which case you would have to wait for land reinforcements to arrive anyway.
Also if you could how many movement spaces would it take up?
If people really want to… Use a house rule… Roll dice for however many planes are passing (3 aircraft 3 dice), maybe set it at a 2 or 3…? If it hits then those planes are lost… Same with the Himalayans.
I like that Bermuda Triangle post too :lol:
The Bermuda triangle post is good because ships and planes actually will need to pass over it because it will lbe around the west indies which couldbe used to attack America
@The:
The Bermuda triangle post is good because ships and planes actually will need to pass over it because it will lbe around the west indies which couldbe used to attack America
I kinda want to do it now hahaha… You’d have to put the sea zones over this map to see how many zones are actually affected.
It’s partially in zones 110 and 89.
It’s partially in zones 110 and 89.
Thats a big ass triangle we’re looking at Calvin haha… I think you meant SZ 101…
That would give the U.S. even more protection, unless they have to roll right away when they produce ships since they have to be placed in SZ 101… Don’t think the Bermuda Triangle idea would work out :-(
It’s partially in zones 110 and 89.
Thats a big a** triangle we’re looking at Calvin haha… I think you meant SZ 101…
That would give the U.S. even more protection, unless they have to roll right away when they produce ships since they have to be placed in SZ 101… Don’t think the Bermuda Triangle idea would work out :-(
Yeah, I meant 101
I hope you all realize that the “BT” thing was merely a joke response to not being able to fly over a desert. I never meant it as a “home rule” or a change to the real rules.
I think the point of this post, my post, is to establish why there should be any restrictions whatsoever. I started the post. There should be none. The other point is to learn something I did not already now. The greatest points to somewhat counter my arguement that would make some sense, came from ME.
IL’s points are basically, “Thats how Larry wanted it”. Perhaps he is completely right but please everyone, stop suggesting house rules for something that doesn’t make sense. Either you can fly over a wasteland of sand, or you can’t. Either the Sahara has massive sand storms that reach 20,000 feet into the sky, or they don’t. Even if they did, there are lighting storms over every part of the earth that take down planes yet we don’t roll to see if a storm takes down you plane.
Also, the bermuda triangle is so small relative to where you want to travel, it would not effect your time travel in AA. Pointless rule.
I think the point of this post, my post, is to establish why there should be any restrictions whatsoever. I started the post. There should be none. The other point is to learn something I did not already now. The greatest points to somewhat counter my arguement that would make some sense, came from ME.
IL’s points are basically, “Thats how Larry wanted it”. Perhaps he is completely right but please everyone, stop suggesting house rules for something that doesn’t make sense. Either you can fly over a wasteland of sand, or you can’t. Either the Sahara has massive sand storms that reach 20,000 feet into the sky, or they don’t. Even if they did, there are lighting storms over every part of the earth that take down planes yet we don’t roll to see if a storm takes down you plane.
Also, the bermuda triangle is so small relative to where you want to travel, it would not effect your time travel in AA. Pointless rule.
If you don’t want suggestions, don’t start a thread. It’s in the rules you CANNOT, there’s your answer.
As for the bermuda triangle, it was just spitballing. People need to relax.
I want information. Information as to why or where the rule came from and information I do not already know as to what would make it impossible, unlikely, or overly dangerous to fly over the sahara. If there is no info to give, then oh well. My supposedly frustration, (remember, its written, you can’t see my emotions or facial expressions) is from people giving house rules as suppose to the info i was requesting, that is all
you can’t fly north to south either doesn’t answer your question but does raise another maybe the kraut fighters didn’t have enough range
I want information. Information as to why or where the rule came from and information I do not already know as to what would make it impossible, unlikely, or overly dangerous to fly over the sahara. If there is no info to give, then oh well. My supposedly frustration, (remember, its written, you can’t see my emotions or facial expressions) is from people giving house rules as suppose to the info i was requesting, that is all
I believe it originates between the Classic Map and the Revised Map. In the classics map, only Neutral Territories were represented, and due to the small number of territories and adjacencies, there were balance issues (I’ve seen arguments either way, but in general the smaller number of territories was a problem). In the Revised map, with the addition of more territories, there was probably also a desire to represent more historically accurate unit movements (and reduce axis advantage in snagging parts of africa and vice versa later in the game). The Himalayas isolated India from China, and the Sahara created a buffer between the axis mediterranean territories and british territories directly south.
In Classic, Germany had multiple routes to Africa (go south!). In Revised, there is only one (short of transports) - egypt. The benefit to this was to force egypt to become a back and forth battle between britain and germany as they vie for a strategic advantage.
In order to create a simple rule that aligned with previous mechanics (impassible neutrals), I would imagine that they simply desired these territories to follow the same rules and not allow flyovers either. After all, while it was possible to fly over the sahara and himalayas, it was very dangerous and hardly the preferred route.
As the game map has grown (classics - revised - AA50 - AA40), it has clearly remained a desire by the designer to maintain the strategic route through egypt. And because at the outset of the game allowing flyovers would favor the Axis (far more planes available in close proximity), I would imagine it’s a balance issue as well (at least, early game). Removing the restriction dilutes the value of Egypt.
Satisfied?
