@wartorn:
yup true, the scramble is the defender. AND, the amphibious assault is coming from Land units not controlling any of the naval ships in the SZ. ALL of the naval ships are controlled by friendlies,
Right
and if the scramble is defending the assault they would have to defend against ALL of the ships.
Only against the ships of the power whose turn it is (in this case, there are none)
If the scramble can swoop in and destroy only the transports in the middle of ALL the war ships, I feel that this is just a manipulation of the words printed in the rulebook.
It’s a wrong interpretation, not a manipulation… :-)
Scrambled aircraft defend along with any defending warships against whatever naval or air forces of the power whose turn it is (in this case UK) are in the sea zone at the end of the combat movement phase. If there are no naval or air forces of the playing power (UK) in the first place, then there is no combat, and amphibious assaults off friendly transports would then not be allowed.
This is all under the set of facts that you have UK ground units on Allied (Not UK) transports and there are no other UK warships or aircraft in the sea zone at the end of the combat movement phase. Under this set of facts, if the defender scrambles (only 1 plane required), the attacker (UK) is simply not able to unload any troops and no combat takes place. The amphibious assault is stopped by the scramble, with no losses.