Subs and Transports Clarification

[Wolfshanze]

Hello… quick question on what seems really odd to me… reading over the rules, it seems very, VERY clear that Subs alone in a seazone don’t interfere with enemy ships moving in or through their zone… seems super odd to me, I would think this would be more the option of the Sub captain to be seen or not seen (destroyers not-withstanding), when enemy ships pass through his zone… especially lone transports… so, having said that, I have two questions of clarification:

1. If i’m reading the rules right… if I had 10 subs (alone) in a seazone, and 5 enemy transports, without any escort were loaded up with troops, they could sail merrily right by my 10 submarines as if I wasn’t there on their turn!!!

2. In the same situation above, if 5 unescorted transports loaded with troops ended their combat move in my seazone with 10 subs, with the intent of unloading a bunch of units for an amphibious invasion of the bordering land territory to said seazone… is there any combat between the unescorted transports and my subs, or do the transports just merrily unload their troops for invasion because my subs are super unnoticeable and too lazy to intercept?

I’m super unsure about #2… but i’m fairly certain rule #1 is in-play… which as a big historian on WWII naval combat, and knowing the whole point of Wolfpacks intercepting transports loaded with equipment… this seems really odd that a convoy of unescorted transports can sail clean through a plethora of U-Boats without harm.

[Panther]

Hello Wolfschanze, welcome to the forum :-)

@Wolfshanze:

1. If i’m reading the rules right… if I had 10 subs (alone) in a seazone, and 5 enemy transports, without any escort were loaded up with troops, they could sail merrily right by my 10 submarines as if I wasn’t there on their turn?!?!

Correct, the transports may ignore the submarines.

@Wolfshanze:

2. In the same situation above, if 5 unescorted transports loaded with troops ended their combat move in my seazone with 10 subs, with the intent of unloading a bunch of units for an amphibious invasion of the bordering land territory to said seazone… is there any combat between the unescorted transports and my subs, or do the transports just merrily unload their troops for invasion because my subs are super unnoticeable and too lazy to intercept?

Please see

@rulebook:

A transport that is part of an amphibious assault must end its movement in a friendly sea zone from which it can conduct the
assault. It can also end its movement in a hostile sea zone that could become friendly as a result of sea combat. However,
a transport cannot ignore enemy submarines to offload land units for an amphibious assault unless at least one warship
belonging to the attacking power is also present in the sea zone at the end of the Combat Move phase.

So in your example the transports can still move into the same seazone but they need to be escorted by a warship in order to be allowed to unload.
The attacker may choose to either ignore the submarines or to try to clear the seazone from your subs before unloading, then.

If the transports were loaded during the same combat move phase moving them there without escort would be illegal, as they cannot be unloaded when they are not escorted:

@same:

If a transport loads
land units during the Combat Move phase, it must offload those units to attack a hostile territory as part of an amphibious
assault during the Conduct Combat phase, or it must retreat during the sea combat step of the amphibious assault sequence
while attempting to do so.

@Wolfshanze:

I’m super unsure about #2… but i’m fairly certain rule #1 is in-play… which as a big historian on WWII naval combat, and knowing the whole point of Wolfpacks intercepting transports loaded with equipment… this seems really odd that a convoy of unescorted transports can sail clean through a plethora of U-Boats without harm.

Just imagine a seazone being as big as hundreds or thousands of square-miles. It is not unlikely that they miss each other then…

HTH :-)

[Wolfshanze]

@P@nther:

Hello Wolfschanze, welcome to the forum :-)

Please see

@rulebook:

A transport that is part of an amphibious assault must end its movement in a friendly sea zone from which it can conduct the
assault. It can also end its movement in a hostile sea zone that could become friendly as a result of sea combat. However,
a transport cannot ignore enemy submarines to offload land units for an amphibious assault unless at least one warship
belonging to the attacking power is also present in the sea zone at the end of the Combat Move phase.

So in your example the transports can still move into the same seazone but they need to be escorted by a warship in order to be allowed to unload.
The attacker may choose to either ignore the submarines or to try to clear the seazone from your subs before unloading, then.

If the transports were loaded during the same combat move phase moving them there without escort would be illegal, as they cannot be unloaded when they are not escorted:

QUESTION:
Ok… so I understand 5 transports unescorted, cannot enter a seazone with 10 enemy subs and just unload for amphibious warfare… I got that… but i’m still a tad confused on the whole “unless escorted by a warship” thingie… if escorted by a warship, can they STILL ignore the subs and just unload?  Or does the warship HAVE to clear all 10 enemy subs before the transports can then unload?

@P@nther:

Just imagine a seazone being as big as hundreds or thousands of square-miles. It is not unlikely that they miss each other then…

Oh trust me… i know “in the real world”, ships can get by other ships without being noticed in the big deep blue see… but we’re talking about the rules in the game here and attempting to make sense and/or justify them… I know you’re going by what the rules say… but if we’re going to apply real-world logic here… the rules would say “a 40 sub wolf pack will completely miss a fleet of unescorted transports sailing by 100% of the time… because… well… big blue ocean”, while at the same time it wants us to believe “a single surface ship will always catch same transports in the exact same big blue ocean 100% of the time”… sorry… i’m not going to try and apply that logic to this case.

It just seems to me all this “transports may sail completely oblivious to subs with no worries” rule completely invalidates any and all reasons for submarine warfare… the original classic A&A rules (where subs were treated just like any other warship) seems more realistic then the “subs basically don’t exist at all” rules in the current “more realistic” version.

I know you’re answering my question(s) to what is stated in the rules, and I appreciate the clarification… but my military historian brain is having a hard time grasping the real-world correlation here.  I have a real hard time grasping a 40 sub wolfpack being completely oblivious to a large number of transports sailing through its zone unnoticed while a single destroyer would find and nab them every time.  The Chewbacca Defense seems in play here.  I can see subs sailing past a group of ships that have no anti-sub defense (no destroyers), but I have a much harder time seeing a gang of transports sail merrily on by a wolfpack of subs.  I think some house rules may have to be put in play here for my household… this hurts my mind too much to let it slip by unchanged.

Anyways, once again… a SINCERE thank you for the official book rules clarification… if you (or anyone else) could still clarify my one remaining question above in red, that would be great… the rules seem shady on Submarine warfare, even though they tried to do something “more realistic” over classic A&A, even though i think they may have not ended with the best rules in-place.
:?

[Panther]

@Wolfshanze:

…
QUESTION:
Ok… so I understand 5 transports unescorted, cannot enter a seazone with 10 enemy subs and just unload for amphibious warfare… I got that… but i’m still a tad confused on the whole “unless escorted by a warship” thingie… if escorted by a warship, can they STILL ignore the subs and just unload?  Or does the warship HAVE to clear all 10 enemy subs before the transports can then unload?

If the subs are escorted by a warship the attacker can choose to ignore the subs and unload or to engage the subs in order to attempt to clear the seazone before unloading. In the latter case the transports may be unloaded only in case the subs have been defeated. So one warship might most likely be not enough for that purpose in your example ;-)

Yes, I was only referring to the game mechanics. From a historical point of view I am sure you are right, but I am far from being a military expert “in the real world”.  :-)

[Wolfshanze]

Ok, once again, i know you’re clarifying the rules… I used the “single surface ship” to kinda drive home the silliness of the scenario… so if 10 (or 50 or 100) subs were off the coast, and one surface ship escorted the transports… the entire invasion force could then safely ignore the fleet of subs and unload… that’s how the rules are written?  [sigh]… unfortunately… i was getting that thought…, and you clarified that it is indeed the case… but man, that just blows my mind.
:-o

Thanks again for the swift clarification!  :-D

[Private-Panic]

Of course all A&A games are littered with such problems Wolf. It is the impossibility of capturing all possibilities within a game that does not last 6 years. The rules must be simplistic by definition.

[Wolfshanze]

Oh I know the rules must be simple by definition… I don’t question that… this is not a historically accurate war simulator… I used to play Avalon Hills Third Reich boardgame back in the day (talk about detailed rules)… I don’t expect that from a Beer and Pretzels wargame like A&A… the thing that bothers me are absurd abstract rules that have already been handled better, or could obviously be handled better within the current scope and limit of the game.

As I understand it now, this is how the rules are currently in game:

1. a convoy of 10 unescorted transports can merrily sail right through a seazone with 20 Submarines patrolling without fear
2. the same 10 unescorted transports cannot disembark its cargo for an amphibious invasion in a seazone with 20 subs, but plop one battleship down, and all of the sudden its good to go for invasion, feel free to ignore the subs again.

While I am DEFINITELY new to the current version of A&A (hence my clarification questions), i’m not new to wargames in general, or A&A in-particular.  Those two above rules in red just strike me as silly and unrealistic… and yes, within the scope of what the game can handle abstractly, rules-wise.

I know they added new sub rules since A&A classic in an attempt to make sub warfare better/more realistic (otherwise they would have left those rules untouched since Classic).  IMHO, at least in the case of those two situations above… Second Edition has taken a clear step backwards in reality within the scope of the game… and needlessly, might I add.  In classic, both situations 1 and 2, the subs would have to be dealt with and could not be ignored.  I find the classic interpretation more realistic than the current rules.

I think situation 1 is pretty clear that you just dont want a bunch of unescorted transports sailing through sub-infested waters… it’s a REALLY BAD IDEA, and yet A&A 1942 clearly suggests its perfectly ok and safe to do so… this is not a “limitation of the scope of the game”… not at all… they could (and have in classic) very easily say “nope, sorry pal, a pack of subs is going to tear up your transports”.

In situation 2, it still doesn’t seem like a good idea to start unloading a whole bunch of transports in sub infested waters just because a battleship is off shore… subs would sneak right in again and cause chaos.  I might be able to see where they were going here, but they’d have to tweak the rules to say "you cant unload transports in sub infested waters UNLESS YOU HAVE A DESTROYER SCREEN, instead of just “any combat ship”.  Once again, doable within the scope of the game, and easy to word and implement.

Now, I don’t want to come off as some old grumpy guss, poo-pooing on the game after coming back after 30 years.  I’m in-fact very excited to pick up the game and start playing again, and look forward to about 99% of the new changes to the game.  A lot of the new sub rules ARE COOL and I totally agree with… the submerging rules are pretty well handled, as well as the sneak attacks and sub movement past everything but destroyers… i can get on board with that… it just irks me, that over the course of 30 years… SOMEBODY (Larry?), came along and had to consciously come to the conclusion that a pack of unescorted transports can safely move through sub infested waters without any fear at all… that was a change from “nope, subs are going to intercept and tear up that convoy, you better get some escorts”… I mean… that one really irks me… they changed it FROM transports need escorts around subs to “nah, just go ahead and sail on through pal, no worries”.  That’s not a “scale of the game limited that realism” factor… that one just was a plain glove across the face of realism for no apparent reason to me… somebody at Avalon Hill must’ve had a relative killed by a U-Boat, because they sure seem to have it out for subs.

Oh well, enough of my soapbox… I AM excited to pick up the game again… I know people do custom rules, and since I will be playing primarily with my kids (at least for starters), there will be some rule tweaks in this household… Thanks again to the kind folks on this forum, especially for the rules clarifications… I was finding it hard to believe what I was reading on some of them and came here to clarify the sub rules and you guys did that.  Kudos.

[Krieghund]

Welcome back to the game, Wolfshanze!  Let me see if I can address at least some of your concerns.

A decision that was made fairly early in the development of the current rules sets was that subs (and transports) wouldn’t block sea movement.  That decision avoided the problem of players using cheap “fodder” units to screen their fleets, which was unrealistic.

Unfortunately, that also allows the situation you describe.  We made some attempts to come up with escort rules for transports, but found that it was a Pandora’s Box.  What constitutes an “escort”?  How many ships are necessary, and of which type(s)?  Does it vary with the number of enemy subs?  Must they travel along with the transports for their entire move?

After coming up with and testing a few combinations of rules, we felt that the rules would either be too complicated for what they add to the game, or they would be inadequate and lead to dissatisfaction.  The one rule that did remain from this process was the compromise that unescorted transports can’t offload for an amphibious assault in a sea zone containing enemy subs.  This was easy to implement (“escort” being determined simply by a warship being in the sea zone at the end of combat movement) and avoided unescorted transports being able to take a hostile action in the presence of enemy subs.

Is this solution perfect?  No.  But in the “broad brush” approach to “realism” that A&A games take, it works for us.  While transports may “unrealistically” conduct their business in the presence of enemy subs, those un- or inadequately-escorted transports will surely perish on the next turn of the subs’ owner.  They may enable one amphibious assault, but then their owner will suffer a loss of materiel that must be replaced in order to carry out future amphibious operations.  In the long run, it’s cheaper and more efficient to adequately protect your investment in transports rather than lose them in a one-shot operation.  In other words, you can do what you’re suggesting under the rules, but it’s not very likely that you’ll want to do it, so the realism comes in the playout rather than in the rules themselves.

Incidentally, it was our intention that the amount of IPCs spent on countering subs should in part represent the assets lost to subs’ attacks on supply shipping, without necessarily representing those attacks directly.  In other words, some of the IPCs that you spend on buying destroyers or lose to attacks on transports indirectly represent losses form convoy raids by subs.  Because of the “broad brush” design philosophy, not every rule is realistic in and of itself, but the rules as a whole paint a fairly accurate picture of the war at a macro level, if you use a little imagination.

I hope this helps!

[Wolfshanze]

Thanks for the design clarification… appreciate the thoughts during design… I know in the game design business you will always be second guessed, and i’d be happy to toss in a “what about just a simple rule like subs can’t stop passage of units unless its unescorted transports…”  even if it’s just “one warship” which is the same rule you DID put in place for amphibious operations.  Oh well, i’m sure they won’t be putting out an A&A Third Edition rules, Wolfshanze-style!  lolz.  Oh well, that’s what house rules are for.

Thanks again for a great game… I know I might sound a little grumpy, but I always have loved A&A since 1984 when I first started playing, and I really can’t wait to introduce the game to my kids and get back into it again… in the end, my concerns in this thread are minor in the overall picture, and I know i’ll love it now like I did 30 years ago… fingers crossed my kids will feel the same!