Strategic Bombers - Global 1940

[Jennifer]

So, I was thinking.

We all know that submarines cannot be hit if there are no enemy destroyers present.

We also know from history, that bombers could drop sonar buoys to locate enemy submarines.

Since submarines cannot hit aircraft, we can’t just assume a strat. bomber can offer unlimited shots by enemy fighters on submarines - it would break the game, IMHO.  So what if….

Attackers can attack defending submarines, even without a destroyer, if (and only if) the attacker has at least one naval ship with a combat rating greater than or equal to a value of 1, AND, an attacking strategic bomber.

Note, this would not help on defense against submarines, because strategic bombers cannot be scrambled or stationed over sea zones anyway.

It’s just a thought.  Could be especially helpful in the pacific and southern atlantic because of the range of bombers and the distance from industrial complexes to get new ships out.

[Young Grasshopper]

At first glance, it looks as though you are increasing the value of attacking bombers (a unit that already has incredible value), and decreasing the value of defending submarines (a unit that already has horrible value).

[A Former User]

The rule should include that bombers (in sea zone attacks) hit on 2, regardless of targets - which is meaningless anyway in A&A, because defender chooses losses.

[Jennifer]

Could amend it that the bombers are dropping buoys, not bombs and thus, do not have an attack value in this type of engagement.

[CWO Marc]

Sonobuoys were in their early infancy in WWII, and they seem to have been quite limited in their capabilities (sound discrimination, transmission range and battery life).  I’d never heard that they existed as far back as the Second World War; my guess would be that they weren’t used on any large scale, and even then probably only by the British and/or Americans.  They became a mature technology during the Cold War.  There’s a nice action sequence in the movie The Hunt for Red October that features an aircraft-dropped sonobuoy, followed soon afterwards by an aircraft-dropped homing torpedo.

[Jennifer]

http://www.navairdevcen.org/PDF/THE EVOLUTION OF THE SONOBUOY.pdf

See also ADC082812. U.S. Navy Journal of Underwater Acoustics. Volume 62, Issue 2, April 2012 Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW)

They were being used in World War II for anti-submarine warfare.  However, I could see that the bombers were probably loaded to bear with nothing but these buoys and had to probably carpet the entire area where a suspected submarine was, which is why I said that it might be realistic to remove the attack ability of the bomber(s) being used on ASW.

[CWO Marc]

Great article – thanks for the link.  From the point of view of the house rule concept, the article makes the interesting points that sonobuoys were indeed used operationally with some success in WWII, but that they weren’t deployed from what A&A calls strategic bombers; they were actually surface-deployed either from ships or air-dropped from escort-carrier-based small aircraft like the TBF Avenger (which in A&A is classed as a tactical bomber).  This makes sense: sonobuoys have limited range (both in terms of how far they can hear and how far they can transmit), so it’s only worthwhile to drop them in a fairly concentrated area where you already think a submarine might be lurking.  An escort carrier (for instance one providing close support to a convoy) is well positioned to launch a sonobuoy-equiped plane right on the spot when a sub is picked in the area by such means as radio direction-finding.  A long-range aircraft, by contrast, has the defect of its virtue: it covers lots of distance, but it spends most of its time flying over empty water.  Modern ASW planes carry magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) equipment, so they can detect a submerged submarine on their own when they fly over one and this tells them where to drop their sonobuoys.  A WWII long-range bomber, by contast, would have had to rely on ground controlers (with radio direction-finding equipment) vectoring them towards the last known position of a sub that had given itself away by sending a transmission; unless the position was very close to where the bomber happened to be when the sub transmitted, the bomber wouldn’t have time to arrive before the sub had moved significantly from that position and was no longer findable.

[baron Münchhausen]

@CWO:

Great article – thanks for the link.  From the point of view of the house rule concept, the article makes the interesting points that sonobuoys were indeed used operationally with some success in WWII, but that they weren’t deployed from what A&A calls strategic bombers; they were actually surface-deployed either from ships or air-dropped from escort-carrier-based small aircraft like the TBF Avenger (which in A&A is classed as a tactical bomber).

Your house rule Jen should apply to TacB instead of StBs.
When a TcB is present, other planes paired 1:1 can act like a Destroyer is present.
Each TcB present act as 1 Sub submerge blocker.
When choosing this option, TcB have no attack value.
What do you think about this?

[Jennifer]

I agree, the Tactical Bomber makes more sense, and this adds functionality to a unit that, in my personal opinion, is under utilized in naval operations.

It would also spur the purchase of airbases in the South Pacific because you might need that extra range.  It might not…but it might.

[baron Münchhausen]

@Cmdr:

I agree, the Tactical Bomber makes more sense, and this adds functionality to a unit that, in my personal opinion, is under utilized in naval operations.
It would also spur the purchase of airbases in the South Pacific because you might need that extra range.  It might not…but it might.

I agree.
For Pacific, coming back and forth from the same AB on an island doesn’t change the max range whether 4 or 5 points. But, if a Carrier or a different AB, it can reach much more SZs.

[Jennifer]

Yea, I always wished that ABs added 2 to fighters/TBmbs and 4 to Strat Bombs…but that isn’t how it is, so my wishes be danged. lol

[baron Münchhausen]

@Cmdr:

Yea, I always wished that ABs added 2 to fighters/TBmbs and 4 to Strat Bombs…but that isn’t how it is, so my wishes be danged. lol

You can still HR that an AB on island TTy is treated like an Aircraft Carrier.
That way, StB or Fg going out only received only +1M bonus, but any Fg or TcB taking off and landing on the same AB gets a +2  bonus move.
This allows TcB and Fg to attack an island in another SZ and be able to land on the island Air Base. .