Do you want US Marines ?

Everyone,

Gargantua makes an excellent point concerning Victor Krulak’s inteligence,…But itonly concerned the forward bow ramp that was later employed on the modified designs of A.J. Higgins “Eureka” boats.  Higgins had been making his Eureka’s for many years before for the oil companies, hunters, and the US Corps of Engineers.  This ultimately lead to the famous LCVP “Higgins” boat.

I’d recommend two good books on this subject:
“Krulak”, by Robert Coram and "Andrew Jackson Higgins and the Boats that Won World War II, by Jerry Strahan.  The book about Higgins tells of the battle that he, and later the Marines had to wage with the Navy itself to overcome their “politics”.  Great reading!
                                                                                  “Tall Paul”

Ok, so the USA had better landing craft.  But other nations had better equipment in other areas, too.  Why include something like this for only one nation?

If we start making different units for different countries, then we’re making a fundamental change to A&A.  I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be good as a house rule or something, but it adds a lot of complexity to the game that really isn’t necessary.

The amtrac actually saw more and more use in the Pacific as the war went on. The Higgins had trouble getting stuck in the coral, and the amtrac offered exit in the rear of the vehicle instead of the door lowering in the front.

I like the idea of Marines.  But why not make them just like the Japanese Kamikaze Rule?  Instead of being “Special Units” the USA gets a number of Amphibian Assaults that can be DECLARED as Marine assaults.  The landing infantry get a first combat round advantage.

@Razor:

US Marines was not some lame elite force, it was a million man army inside the army. And they had Landing Craft’s. As you propably should have figured, amphibious assaults do favor men that come with Landing Crafts. So basically the Marines unit is not superhumans, but plain infantry that happen to use Landing Crafts. Lets imagine you pay 3 IPC for the inf and the extra 1 IPC is for the Landing Craft. Happy now ? Only USA had this advantage during WWII. The other nations had to use canoes when they invaded some crap island.

WHOOO HOOO!  preps desk, fills pen ink, polishes apple, sharpens the chalk…to throw at you

gotta love statements like, ‘only USA had landing craft during ww2.’  short, sweet, definitive…and wrong.  Any idea who the Ami’s got the idea for landing craft with a front drop down ramp?  Any idea what other nation was invested heavily in amphib invasions?   Thats right we got our landing craft design from the Japanese!   They got the same deal going.

***EDIT:
Gah, Garg beat me to it!  Dang it man!

If you amphibiously invade an island with 1 infantry/1 artillery per transport you can call them “Army”; if you use 1 infantry/1 armor you can call them “Marines”.  Problem solved.

I like it Lego Vance!

Hmmm… What’s the whole point?

Just buy an artillery for 4IPC and it will attack at ALL time with 2.

Why would anyone even bother to buy Marine?

@MightyPol:

Hmmm… What’s the whole point?

Just buy an artillery for 4IPC and it will attack at ALL time with 2.

Why would anyone even bother to buy Marine?

I guess the marine would be able to fill the infantry slot on a transport, so that another non-infantry unit could be used.

Lego man is shooting an MG42 machine gun

I never liked the idea of armor or artillery being good at amphibious assaults. I think only marine units should get to attack on a 2 during amphibious assaults and everything else is a 1. Since this would make it very hard to land troops maybe BBs and CAs could fire every round during an amphibious assault to return the balance, but make the amphibious assaults rely more on naval/marine units instead of land units.

The bottom line is, that these kinds of units are COOL.

That’s why people want them instituted in the game.

That’s why the waffen SS should be instituted.

You can by infantry, or you can buy Waffen SS troops at $4. They attack at 2 when paired with artillery, OR tanks, OR mechanized. :D  or something else? lol I don’t know.

Waffen SS should be a tank unit. The most famous veteran German forces are armored divisions that where Waffen SS. The infantry divisions were not the heavy hitters, though they did have a number of these as well.

US Marines and German SS are both very good ideas.  For UK, I propose that any infantry units mobilized in Canada should have an attack of 2.

If you are going to go this route, then you need a special unit for every nation. However IL makes a good point, it dosnt need to be an infantry unit. That would really open up the possibilities you could have a special artillery unit that represents the massive Soviet concentrations of artillery during the war that can support 3 infantry and call it the guards artillery. You could give the Japanese a special amphibious tank thats gets a bouns when it attacks in an amphibious assaults but maybe make it defend on a 2 instead of a 3 to represent the SNLF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Special_Naval_Landing_Forces). Britian is a bit more difficult because they have so many options! You could give them a specail cruiser that takes 2 hits to kill to represent the duribility of the Royal Navy, you could give them a special fighter that when fighting over england and the channel attacks on a 3 to represent the spitfire or a special infantry to represent the myrdrid number of elite formations from around the empire. Though I wonder what you would use for the Italians, ANZACs or even the Chinese?

Maybe some countries could have special powers instead of special units:
Russia: Lend Lease-US can give some of its IPCs to russia (max 10/turn?)
Anzac: When Guadalcanal Canal is in allied hands anzac gets an infantry unit/turn to represent US supplies flowing
Japan: Already has kamikaze attacks.
Germany: Blitzkrieg-tanks increase mech inf attack value to 2?

Other countries maybe have special units:
US: Marines-Amphimbious attack on 2 even without artillery? or allow BB to fire every round until the Marine unit is killed? or….?
UK: Spitfire-1st round bonus when attacking an air unit
China: Maybe the flying tigers unit already counts?

Italy is a tough one. I have no ideas.

Hi, everybody,
How about an elite unit (marine, commando, SS, guard, etc.) the same ability for every country?

Elite unit: Att: 2 Def: 2 Move: 1 cost: 4, give +1 att. to one artillery or one tank, on the second round of an assault (amphibious or terrestrial). Think of it like the time to get used to the environnement and the geography of the terrain, or being able to reach and pass the shore to fight inland.

For example, if a marine unit paired with an artillery survived his first round of landing assault; on the second round, it attacks at 2, but artillery attacks at 3, instead of 2.
It is the same if it was teamed up with a tank. On first round, the tank attacks at 3, and on the second round it attacks at 4.
In summary, it works like artillery but gives better punch on costlier unit.

What do you think?

Should we raised the cost to 5? Because their will be no more inf (cost 3)+art (cost 4)?

It seems that I borrowed some of these ideas from Pjor in Two units threads:

Now to the point, new units and models.
First; Veteran infantry. A:2 D:2 M:1 cost: 5.
This unit is supposed to represent elite soldiers of each power. They are better trained, equipped and have a higher morale then the normal infantry. For example the SS Stormtroopers, British Commando or U.S Rangers. Special rules for the Veteran infantry is that if teamed up with a arty the attack value will rise to 3.

P.S. Sorry for my approximate english (not my native tongue)…