AARHE: Phase 3: land Combat

[Imperious Leader]

under air supremacy, what difference does it make whether air units need supporting land units to fire in opening-fire if enemy land units can’t hit them anyway?

++++++Air units need land units to attack territories and land units cannot gain from the bonus +1 with armor… I think that if air units alone attack a territory they should have modified combat values ( prob fighters attack at 1, bombers attack at 2 ) after one round of this nonsense the land units can retreat. This would be my proposal to solve this.

how do you like my proposal of a low chance of land units forcing air units (without supporting land units) to retreat? This is to solve the “1 FTR attack and kill 10 ARM” and the “1 INF attack forcing 10 FTR to retreat” situations in the latest rules. It represents land forces rounding up their airfield or preventing them from relocating their moible airfield.

++++++Ill come back to this is a second post…

Quote from: Imperious Leader on June 24, 2006, 11:15:05 AM
During Ground Combat, for amphibious assaults, all surface warships with a primary combat value of two or higher have one preemptive “shore bombardment” attack.

So destroyers can bombard now without technology upgrade?
I guess thats reasonable. Their guns would have enough range.

++++++ on shore bombardment only BB, CA and DD get a shot, but again its one shot for every 4 land units in the opening invasion combat round

Quote
Warships that participate in Naval Combat may not shore bombard or provide infantry support for amphibious assaults.

I question this OOB rule.
I understand its so a unit don’t fight twice.
But what does this map to in reality? Ships ran ot of ammunition/fuel?

+++++ no not at all. it represents the reality of playability and abstraction:

1. it allows the defender to lessen the effects of a major military invasion with the threat of naval conflict… in 1940 hitler feared the british fleets ability to intercept the landing craft and pound the escorting warships. In the game we simulate this “fear” by declining some abilities of the invaders as supporting the invasion by instead moving away to engage the defending warships.
2. the sea zone is very large so in this game we have to key on the big picture with a token idea to demonstrate the loss of support albeit temporarily.

From other thread:
Quote from: Imperious Leader on June 22, 2006, 12:46:49 PM
IMO each turn = 6 months… each round of combat is say 1 month?

What do you think of limiting combats to 6 cycles?
This would get rid of “1 FTR attack and kill 10 ARM” situation.

+++++ i am not sure why that is such a big deal. Just limit the whole affair to: 1)fighters cannot attack land forces w/o your own land forces or
2) fighters can attack land forces alone with a modified attack of (1 for fighters, 2 for bombers) or 3) air forces get one free attack alone against air forces after which point they retreat after one combat round.

[tekkyy]

@Imperious:

1)fighters cannot attack land forces w/o your own land forces or
2) fighters can attack land forces alone with a modified attack of (1 for fighters, 2 for bombers) or 3) air forces get one free attack alone against air forces after which point they retreat after one combat round.

I think 3) would be most realistic.
That one can be justified by loss of land control.

It would get rid of 1 FTR attack and kill 10 ARM.
Or 1 INF attack and forcing 10 FTR to retreat.

[Imperious Leader]

lets go with that for now and work on neutrals, VC and tech

[tekkyy]

Ok so somehting like this.

When only one side has land units at the beginning of a combat cycle, the other side must retreat at the end of the cycle unless those land units retreat at that time.

@Imperious:

lets go with that for now and work on neutrals, VC and tech

Lets do.
I’ve already left comments in the Neutrals and Technology threads.

[Imperious Leader]

“When only one side has land units at the beginning of a combat cycle, the other side must retreat at the end of the cycle unless those land units retreat at that time.”

This is very confusing… can it be reworded into 2 sentences? Im not even sure of the meaning, but your saying if one side no longer has any land forces then any other units owned by that player previously involved in combat must also retreat?

[tekkyy]

@Imperious:

“When only one side has land units at the beginning of a combat cycle, the other side must retreat at the end of the cycle unless those land units retreat at that time.”

This is very confusing… can it be reworded into 2 sentences? Im not even sure of the meaning, but your saying if one side no longer has any land forces then any other units owned by that player previously involved in combat must also retreat?

I meant to the side with no land units must retreat their air units. And then I thought thats just all units really.
And ended up with that confusing sentence.

“At the end of a combat cycle, the side with no land units must retreat.”

Now that would sound too obvious. So…

“At the end of a land combat cycle, the side with no land units must retreat.”

But that would have a different effect.
Attacking with only air units gives you a cycle of firing. Defending with only air units also gives you a cycle of firing.
But attacking or defending with land+air units gives no free round (cycle) of fire after just losing all your land units.

Is that ok?

[Imperious Leader]

I meant to the side with no land units must retreat their air units. And then I thought thats just all units really.
And ended up with that confusing sentence.

+++++++ok this makes more sense

“At the end of a combat cycle, the side with no land units must retreat.”

++++++ok good right.

Now that would sound too obvious. So…

“At the end of a land combat cycle, the side with no land units must retreat.”

++++ yes im following even better.

But that would have a different effect.
Attacking with only air units gives you a cycle of firing. Defending with only air units also gives you a cycle of firing.
But attacking or defending with land+air units gives no free round (cycle) of fire after just losing all your land units.

Is that ok?

yes its perfect. add it to the phase two stuff. we are moving right along on this.

[tekkyy]

@Imperious:

Now that would sound too obvious. So…
“At the end of a land combat cycle, the side with no land units must retreat.”
++++ yes im following even better.

Oh no I was gonna add a second sentence and forgot about it.

I was to highlight the case where you have air units left.

“At the end of a land combat cycle, the side with no land units must retreat. This holds whether you have air units left.”"

[Micoom]

If you look at builds in WWII then in total the powers build more fighters then tanks. But in A&A that will never happen because of the costs…  This is just a thought I came up with…

Tanks and self-propelled guns

Soviet T-34Soviet Union = 105,251 (92,595)
United States = 88,410 (71,067)
Germany = 46,857 (37,794)
United Kingdom = 27,896
Canada = 5,678
Japan = 2,515
Italy = 2,473
Hungary = 500
Note: Number in parenthesis equals the number of tanks and self-propelled guns equipped with main weapons of 75 mm or larger. Smaller producing nations do not have this differentiation.

Fighter aircraft
United States = 99,950
Soviet Union = 63,087
Germany = 55,727
United Kingdom = 49,422
Japan = 30,447
Italy = 4,510

Attack aircraft
Soviet Union = 37,549
Germany = 12,539

Maybe you could change the value of the tank more to that of a fighter. Allthough I think this is better suited for a D12 use. But on D6 make a tank 3+3/3/9.

Example; When a tank scores a 3 or lower on it’s first shot, he gets to roll another roll of 3 or less. This to reflect the possible breaktrough of lines by tanks.

You could also choose to give tanks the extra shot if first is a hit, but not change the value. Only reducing the fighter cost from 10 to 6 or 7… If both are made more expansive… then it could help to see more infantry stacking, and you don’t want that. IMO…

[tekkyy]

Its obvious a fighter costs more than a tank.
But a piece in the game is said to present a division and no further details.

I duno about increasing the tank’s attack.
Both the tank and fighter attacks at 3.

Of course it can be argued that a tank is more powerful than a fighter.
A tank can reload easier and basically keep fighting. A fighter needs to fly back and land everytime after dropping the 1 or 2 bombs it carries.

[Micoom]

Yes, but i would like to see the tank make a extra shot, if the first was a hit… Or will this make them to powerfull?

[Imperious Leader]

OK what does this tank idea supposed to recreate historically?

[Micoom]

@Imperious:

OK what does this tank idea supposed to recreate historically?

The extra shot, reflects to the breaktrough and exploit of the lines by tanks. Tanks were the first to breaktrough the enemy lines. And to put them more in the same category as fighters for strength, this because build totals had been the same in WWII.

[tekkyy]

Build totals only tells us after all the reasoning involves the powers together build as many tanks as fighters.
It doesn’t neccessary mean we need to put tanks in the same category as fighters.

As mentioned they are quite different.

With breakthrough idea we do have biltz and panzerbiltz…

[Imperious Leader]

The extra shot, reflects to the breaktrough and exploit of the lines by tanks. Tanks were the first to breaktrough the enemy lines. And to put them more in the same category as fighters for strength, this because build totals had been the same in WWII.

++++ this is a good goal to incorporate… except how does it simulate the other aspects of Blitzkreig? it contains no movement after breakthru or has any aspects of envelopment attacks.

thinking…

how bout in every battle where the enemy has no armor forces ( destroyed in combat?) your mech units ( air, artillery, tanks) have a special ability as follows:

1. at a 1/1 basis each retreating infantry (defenders) rolls one D6 a result of one and its considered captured ( actually enveloped by attacking armor in a pocket) The piece is removed from play like it was destroyed but ONE ipc is salvaged to the owning player to represent the salvage of some escaping troops.

example: 3 tanks, 1 artillery, and 5 infantry attack 1 tank, and 6 infantry.

The attacking tanks kill the enemy tank and also take out 2 defending infantry…but the defending tank causes a hit ( attacker must lose one armor— he chooses the artillery)

thus with his three tanks the defender must select 3 infantry and 3 d6 are rolled… 2,5,1… thus one infantry is captured… the owner of this unit gets back one ipc on his next turn as partial compensation.

The defender decides to retreat its 4 infantry…

[tekkyy]

I think not only INF but ART is also slow and should be capturable by ARM.

The rule should require overwhelming ARM. Try 2-to-1?

Although so far I feel the complexity is not worth it.

Also, I doubt salvaging INF ammunition is all that useful. Gureilla forces probably maybe not armies.

[Imperious Leader]

Yea its probably a reach and too tactical….

[tekkyy]

I feel our land combat rules are almost complete.

Oh yes we have to sort out those air missions thingo.

Any updates?

[Imperious Leader]

well do we make cutbacks or modifications? more or less?

[tekkyy]

Oh I just realise our quick solution of
“At the end of a land combat cycle, the side with no land units must retreat.”
prevents Battle of Britain type attacks. This can be a problem.

Also, it seems great at the start that land fighters can’t keep firing at enemy naval units (unlike naval fighters which can with carrier support). They can only fight for 1st cycle and retreat (not able to rearm in the SZ).

And then I felt is 1 combat cycle too little? A turn is 6 months and we only allow one “contact” with the enemy?

This leads me to one of your proposed air missions, taking 1-cycle to travel to adjacent territory to help hence starting to fight from 2nd cycle.

Maybe land fighters from Western Europe can keep firing at naval units in SZ 7 but takes 1 cycle to rearm each time? fighting every 2nd cycle?

But this is meaningless unless we implement a combat cycle limit, to say 6 cycles (1 cycle per month you said once?). But this is a huge change that was reasonably dismissed previously.

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You proposal many air missions. Quite complex.
So lets start with you describing the most (or one of the most) important idea/phenomena you want to model and mention the respectively “air mission”?