The aberration of the defenseless transport

@Uncrustable:

I would be in favor of letting transports have an AA shot
I’ve argued this before

Then autodestroy as regular AAA (when alone in a territory)? TP will be like naval AAA.

I still think giving them AA capacity is the more historical way of rationalizing a TP unit with no escorting vessel included in the unit.

However, it makes TP far more dangerous than Classic TP when their is some Subs or DDs attacking with aircrafts. Attacking player will rather loose subs or DDs instead of aircraft.

So, this TP treated as naval AAA will be more annoying than ever.

Besides, it still be a nonsense that TP unit (excluding any escort vessel) can sink a capital ship like BB or CV and even cruiser.
And TP’s weaponry is not really fit to fight against subs.

That’s why giving them an AA shot makes sense
Roll an AA for each plane or each TRN whichever is less, if TRN are alone after AA casualties have been removed then they die just like now

Preemptive strike will be a real “pain in the ass” compare to the OOB TT defenseless.

I prefer (for better balance) roll an AA for each plane or each TRN whichever is less but without the preemptive effect.
Said otherwise, 1 TT can only attack @1 1 plane once, and never more than 1 attack per plane.

Why I am frustrated and disappointed by the new transport rules…

Before writing me off as a naysayer, I make this point because I believe the new transport rules have had the exact opposite of their intended effect. They do not, as has been stated elsewhere in this thread, encourage conflict between capital ships. What they do do is the following:

1. Half of the world’s navies are destroyed and sink to the bottom of the sea, before ever getting to move in the first round!

Because transports have no defense value, and the set up being what it is, scripted air on navy combat in the first round is even more scripted and more essential than in any previous edition of A&A. Basically you have to destroy as many ships as you can, trading your air for the enemies naval units and transports, before they have a chance to move together. Literally half the naval units on the board at the beginning of play, are destroyed right out the gate. Just nixed before ever becoming effective, and at the same time forcing a number of ‘standard’ openings.

2. Players are even less likely than ever before, to split their navies and attempt island hoping actions, or risking round 1 deployments that might put their transports (and the ships defending them) in harms way. Nixed, all those interesting opening plays that involved coordinated/but separate naval actions from smaller fleets.

3. The cost of transports, while seemingly less than in revised, are in effect raised prohibitively, due to the large number of ships required to defend even a single transport from attack from the air. Compare an 8 ipc cost transport unit that defends at 1 in deterring Air attacks vs a 7 ipcs transport unit with no defense + the Carrier, fighter and destroyer now required to protect it anywhere it moves.

Once again, new rules (and unit specific rules at that, which add even more complexity) have been introduced unnecessarily into the game, to fix a problem which could have easily been solved by just adjusting the unit cost structure.

The problem as stated elsewhere in this thread, is this: cheap transport fodder has traditionally been used to defend warships, (instead of the ideal where more expensive warships are purchased to defend transports.) I agree, that this was a problem. Maybe less of a problem than others think, but granted, it is a problem that should have been fixed. But the way to fix it is not to remove transports from combat altogether. A much simpler, and more consistent solution would be to raise the cost of transports, and have them use the same old combat mechanics/rules that they used in Classic and Revised.

A Transport at 10 ipcs is no longer cheap fodder. Or if 10 is too cheap for you, then raise it 12. I guarantee no one will be needlessly throwing away transports to defend other ships when their relative cost is that much higher. But 10 seems ideal to me (given the cost of every other ship and air unit as it stands in 1942 second edition.) And it could have been done without introducing such a Major Major rules change to naval combat, which itself doesn’t even accomplish the goal.

Under the new transport rules, fleets are even larger and more consolidated now than ever, with more time and more expensive warships required to move anywhere. What’s more, any ship that is purchased can be countered so easily with cheap air (and even cheaper bombers, but that is a separate digression. Why you would take the most overpowered unit in classic/revised, and make it less expensive is beyond me, but still…) Because the western Allies are so dependent on transports to get into the fight, this means that there is a built in Axis advantage to the game. I still can’t believe no one saw this coming?

Comparatively few alterations were made, either to the overall economy of the board, or to the starting unit placements, to accommodate this massive change, that is the new transports, which effects almost every aspect of allied gameplay. And so now we have an Allied bid to open?

I don’t want to come off too negative here, obviously I still love this game, but I mean come on… Just looking the options for Air attacks on G1, playtesters should have seen this, and called out the new transport rules back when AA50 came out.

The simplest solution I have found, to satisfy my own nagging annoyance, and more importantly to balance the clearly off kilter set up, is just to play the game using the old transport rules. The game is immediately, without doing anything else, re-balanced away from the Axis advantage, and more comfortably into Allied advantage territory.

But again, just to reiterate, with all the other unit cost adjustments, I do not find the new rules for transports compelling. The destroyer is a perfectly adapted fodder unit, that never got the chance to shine, because of this weird alteration to the transport rules. And now, I have to say again, I see the same problem occurring that occurred in all previous versions: Massive, slow moving, single navies that only engage one another when one side can bring a massive-land-based air force to bear!

My thoughts on this issue
thanks for listening
J

I remember you from before. You used to post on Larry’s site some good house rules.

Glad to see you have returned!

Imperious leader! I recall you as well, and as a font of usefull information! How’s it going man?

Yeah, I must admit, my A&A dips and then recovers in wild swings (like a battle in the Ukraine hehe), but I always come back for more in the end. Usually this coincides with the purchase of a new board, like 42 second edition, or 1914 which I just picked up.

The thing about 1942 second ed, is that I really really love the updated map, the new unit pricing structure (for the most part anyway), the new anti-aircraft art rules and almost every other change that’s been made. I don’t even mind the loss of the paper money, or plastic factories. The only thing that bugs, and which I can’t get my head around is this decision to drop transports from the combat phase, and the fact that in this version Allies seem to need a bid rather than Axis.

So I tried playing with the old transport rules on the new board

and lo and behold, the game more or less reverts to the familiar dynamic. With a slight Allied advantage initially… Except that now, because of G’s stronger starting position on the eastern front, and the new Pacific dynamic, the game plays and balances more like I always wished it would. The ability for UK to potentially keep one battleship afloat, and transport in round 2 removes the need for the Allied bid I find. But the increased distance between E. USA and Europe, also prevents a total creeper of allied units getting shuck shucked for the same old KGF. USA also has a fight now in the pacific, instead of a wash under KJF scenerios, where Japan is just forced to cat and mouse, after getting thoroughly trounced by the UK in the first round. I find that old transport rules, also alleviate some of the pressure to totally tank stack India with the UK, since you have more flexibility into Africa.

That is my gripe, that in every other respect the game is beautiful… More beautiful than it’s been in years!
and then the new transport rules go and screw it all up again…
Alas. So close. Why this unnecessary change?

In house games, I do think a cost of 10 ipcs per transport makes more sense than the old 8 ipcs, to reflect their defensive ability, but I still find something about it much more appealing with the old rules. I mean, you can’t just take away the unit’s roll can you? or the defender’s choice to select their own casualty priorities? It feels wrong somehow to me under the new rules, and I was hoping they might just be an Anniversary experiment. But now it seems they are in for sure?

So I just wanted to voice my opinions on the subject, in the post above, to give my reasons for why I think the change to defenseless transports is problematic, and doesn’t really accomplish what many people claim it does for the gameplay. I still see round one blowouts that kill half the ships on the board, in scripted/standard air on ship round 1 attacks. Then a slow, tortuously slow naval rebuild and stacking, with single fleet armadas inching along, and only really getting hit when they come in range of land-based enemy aircraft… And the reason is entirely because of the transports!

All the other changes to the naval game are fantastic, the new units and new pricing, and these would lead to a brilliant naval game if it weren’t for these weird transports that play by their own rules! I wanted to share my thoughts on that, and of course, also to offer a house fix for anyone who might be interested.

A simple addendum to rulebook, stating the old transport rules and allowing them as an “option” would go a long long way in improving this game for me.

best again,
and good to be back
J

So you advocate raising the transport’s cost to 10, letting them defend @ 1 and allowing the player to select them as casualties BEFORE any warships? I don’t think that is a good idea. Even with the increased price, you are still going to end up with some players using transports as fodder even in attacks. I remember that from Classic, when someone would have a “fleet” made up of a couple of battleships and 10 transports and would attack another fleet, sinking it while only losing 5-6 empty transports.

However, I will agree that making transports totally defenseless is an overstretch. One thing I have never liked is seeing a single fighter or sub wipe out a big stack of transports. So I suggested that each warship or plane be limited to 3 transports. So, for 1-3 transports = 1 attacker, 4-6 transports = 2 attackers, etc. So if you want to kill a stack of 10 transports, you would HAVE to commit 4 attacking units.

As for transport defenses, simply giving them a hit @ 1 isn’t right either. As stated in previous posts, transports were not equipped to deal with submarines and it’s really ridiculous to think of a transport being able to hit a warship. I do like Baron Munchhausen’s idea of giving transports an AA shot. It’s not unbelievable to imagine a transport being able to shoot down an enemy plane. It shouldn’t be an automatic destroy of the aircraft like on land though. I would combine this with my 1 attacker per 3 transports idea. For example, 1 fighter flies out to kill 3 transports. Each transport gets to roll @1. If one of them gets a hit, then the fighter rolls to get a 3. If the fighter gets a 3, then it destroys 1 transport and the fighter is destroyed by the transport AA hit. If none of the transports get a hit, then the fighter automatically destroys all three transports without having to roll. This gives any attacker that goes “air heavy” an element of risk when going after unescorted transports.
As for transports that are escorted by warships and attacked by only aircraft, I would say roll the battle between the aircraft and warships first. If the aircraft destroy all escorting warships, then they take on the transports AA defenses. However, in the battle if the aircraft get more hits than needed to sink the warships, any extra hits are applied to transports and only the surviving transports would be able to use their AA shots. EXAMPLE: 5 fighters attack 2 destroyers and 3 transports. Fighters get 4 hits, killing both destroyers and 2 transports leaving 1 transport left. The destroyers manage 1 hit, leaving 4 fighters. That last transport would get 1 AA roll against the remaining fighters. If it hits, 1 fighter will be killed. You wouldn’t have to roll for that fighter because the remaining 3 would automatically kill the last transport.

I do, for all the reasons outlined in my post of on the previous page, advocate this. For simplicity, I favor the rules of Classic and Revised, with the only adjustment being the cost of the unit.

I see the advantage of a more developed rule as well, (such as the one you outline) and for people who enjoy more nuanced rules that seems a good solution, but I am just not one of those people. I always prefer to handle the issue with an adjustment to unit costs, rather than the introduction of new or specific rules, and I favor consistency with the previous versions of the game when it comes to the transport.

So just for clarity, if using the old transport rules
att 0, def 1, defender chooses casualties, can block etc.
Then I suggest an increase to the cost, of either 1, 3, or 5 ipcs. +3 being my personal favorite

I do not mind if some players use transports as fodder even in attacks, as they did in Classic and Revised.

It is a familiar phenomenon that we all recall, for an attacker to take every advantage, in which units to commit and which to take during casualty selection. Unloaded transports were frequently killed first, loaded transports were killed last if possible, which makes an intuitive sense. The major difference now is that transports are more expensive and relative to other units they become less ideal in this role after a certain point. At which time they are substituted for destroyers beyond their effective ability to transport land units. Using the old rules is for simplicity sake, where transports behaved as did all the other ships (the only anomaly being submarines, which everyone is already used to operating with their own unit specific rules, and for me that was enough complexity right there.)

In my evaluation, if you really want defenseless transports in this game, than Russia needed to be stronger (not requiring UK ground support, which it barely receives now) which seems the reason for an Allied bid, or more covering warships, or else the cost of defenseless transports maybe lowered even further, to compensate for the fact that they die so easily and do nothing to assist in combat. I look at the round one attacks and see a major advantage to the air attacker. It’s to the point where in some of these round 1 scripted attacks, you could just as well have removed a German fighter and sub from the board with the British ships they invariably attack from the board and saved everyone the time of rolling, since the outcome is more or less a foregone conclusion. At least under the old rules a smaller cover fleet can be used, allowing for earlier move outs, or split fleet actions.

The old transport rules mitigate somewhat the built in Axis advantage of the 42 set up. The old rules favor particularly the US, but also the UK and Russia in that order, because of the support aspect. Japan less so, because the distance they need to transport is comparatively smaller. You only need to defend 1 sea zone to get troops from Japan to the mainland, and can do so without even moving the transports (to Manchuria.) By contrast, the US has to move a number of spaces before reaching combat, as do the British. The Atlantic crossing is already farther to both UK and Africa from E. USA. These rules allow the western allies to move out sooner, rather than waiting the extra 2 rounds (at least) that it takes, to rebuild navies piecemeal, or save and build for a magnified drop. By which time Russia is typically already folding, even with fighter support. The game at it’s core is built around the need for the western Allies to move ground units to Eurasia, and they need transports more than any one else to do this. The old transport rules make this easier to do, the new ones much much harder (since not much was done to re-balance the starting unit set up against this change), or at least that is my conclusion. At least under the old rules, the round 1 battles go a little more favorably for the Allies, who then have the option to build out effective fleets sooner than they otherwise can right now.

You know DK and Elk, I wish this would be an LH rule but it’ll never happen. I totally agree with you guys though!

I only play solitaire games or the occasional F2F game with well known people and it works fine for us even with transports at 8 still no hordes of transports.

I get why people like the newer rules. I don’t expect everyone to change or even want to.
I have to say though, maybe me and my group suck, but it hasn’t thrown the game off or made anybody flip the board on to the floor.

Clearly we need to break you guys into Online play…

Then you will learn to love the new rules :)

Care to try?

I’ll keep it in mind Garg LOL!

@Gargantua:

Clearly we need to break you guys into Online play…

Then you will learn to love the new rules :)

Care to try?

You know Garg, I’ve actually downloaded tripleA and use it for solitaire (not against AI) games and testing set-ups. I’ve played the AI hundreds of times too. Veqyrn mentioned there would be no work to update AI. The AI does suck LOL and won’t do much to make you a better player. I have a feeling I would get my ass kicked all over hell and back playing online. That actually doesn’t bother me so much. I would do GTO or an online game but I don’t want to have to commit a several hour long sitting at the computer or let some player down if I had to leave the game quickly or without notice.

I looked up sort of on what you need to do to play by forum I was almost tempted to do so. While I appreciate all that tripleA does and the fact that they are strictly volunteers, but it seems like every time I update tripleA I have to go fix a bunch of stuff to get it to run properly again. I’m not computer illiterate but working with tripleA is somewhat befuddling at times. However I might just have to go thread digging and get myself into the PBF world.

Clearly we need to break you guys into Online play…

Then you will learn to love the new rules  :-)

Trust me, I’ve played enough games online to know exactly why I think what I think, and all the various reasons that attach to my views about this. Playing games, and making them, and analyzing the mechanics of A&A to death, time and again and again. It’s not an observation that comes from lack of online play :)

Sometimes I do feel like some of my ideas have penetrated into the Harris design universe (a little bit anyway), but always slowly, and then only half applied hehe.

Among the many things I have argued for fervently in the past (along with others): the inclusion of a starting IC in India, the lowered cost of the battleship, destroyer, sub, and the inclusion of cruisers, Honolulu as a VC, A larger China under US control with normal rules, more spaces in eastern Russia etc.

But the main thing I argued for was shot down, (the most important thing!) which is this: That in order to do all the stuff mentioned above you need to raise the overall economy of the board!

Initially my thought was that you’d have to do this by at least 10% (closer to 20% really, but that is an aside.) Just increasing the Atlantic crossing by a single space, stalls the pace of the Atlantic game by 3 rounds (not the 1 round you might think) and turns into a major economic cost to the US. That’s not including all the other map changes adopted. Just putting a starting IC in India, under my views, was going to require a boost to the starting UK income of like 10% over the Revised number to support it’s inclusion, to prevent totally unbalancing their position in the Atlantic and against Sea Lion. Russia in my view, needed even more, to justify a Karelia IC. Because in my analysis, starting ICs were effective more as anchors and target liabilities for the Allies, than as initial advantages. “Spaces that had to be defended”, was always the argument, because they had factories on them!

My simple overall solution was to raise several territories on the board by at least 1 ipc, or 2 ipcs in many cases. I felt, and still feel, for example, that Honolulu as a VC deserved 2 ipcs and a starting factory. But honestly my solution in effect was to raise the overall money in the game by about 10 ipcs per power, and distribute that income across territories along a wider field of play. The income is so tight under the current set up, that even one tiny set up flaw, or one wild battle, can throw the whole thing. And that in my view was the major issue, which would be solved relatively simply by just increasing the money a modest amount.

Giving players more flexibility in developing their game, especially in the second and third rounds, without making it hinge so dramatically on the starting set up. A modest increase in the overall amount of money I feel, leads to more expensive and exotic purchases and more experimentation. But this point was largely ignored, when I tried to make it. (To their credit, the NA’s in AA50 at least tried to put this theory somewhat into effect, but instead of directly increasing the ipc value of important territories, it was done indirectly through the National Advantage money. An idea which irked me, because it introduced new rules, where I felt a direct, simple, and visually immediate income adjustment would have been so much easier.)

And of course, I never even considered a change to the transport rules! or a decrease in the cost of bombers, or an increase in the cost of Armor.

Now many of the ideas I argued for initially, I do not see working correctly in this game, because the economic/logistics aspect has remained static into the new edition, even while trying to put all those other changes into effect.
So yeah, I have thought about these things quite a bit.

As of now, the only thing I can think of to restore the playbalance somewhat (absent a pretty major allied preplacement bid) is to restore the combat ability of transports.

There are other things you might try, like increasing the economy, or giving more units to the western allies to offset the essential cost of transports, or lower the cost of defensless transports considerably, or give Russia enough power to stand on its own at the outset. Or give Japan an incentive to attack towards the W. US. Or a thousand other things you could try… But those all essentially require a redesign of the game, or unit set up.

This fix just requires that you go back to the old rule that you already know. And while it doesn’t fix everything, it certainly can help. Which is why it seems a good option to me.
But again, just something for all to consider.

ps. while I am on the subject of experiments. Here’s another thing you may wish to try sometime, if you ever want to see what I am driving at… Add +1 ipc to every single territory on the board. This is a super crude house rule I considered initially, (it’s rough, but relatively easy to implement) and it does lead to some rather interesting game play options, that you might enjoy. While not my ideal way to distribute production, this does come fairly close to increasing the overall economy by around 50%

pps. Or another thing you could try, is to give a +1 ipc bonus during the collect income phase, for each territory that a Nation controls. Which does not modify production, but has a similar effect. So there is always an incentive to attack and hold every territory, because of the bonus money. And bonus money means more flexibility with purchases, and less dependence on the starting unit set up. This is also easy to implement, you just count up your territories at the end of the turn, the same as in risk, and add that number in ipcs (+1 per territory) as a bonus to the income already collected that round.

@Black_Elk:

Why I am frustrated and disappointed by the new transport rules…

Before writing me off as a naysayer, I make this point because I believe the new transport rules have had the exact opposite of their intended effect. They do not, as has been stated elsewhere in this thread, encourage conflict between capital ships. What they do do is the following:

1. Half of the world’s navies are destroyed and sink to the bottom of the sea, before ever getting to move in the first round!

Because transports have no defense value, and the set up being what it is, scripted air on navy combat in the first round is even more scripted and more essential than in any previous edition of A&A. Basically you have to destroy as many ships as you can, trading your air for the enemies naval units and transports, before they have a chance to move together. Literally half the naval units on the board at the beginning of play, are destroyed right out the gate. Just nixed before ever becoming effective, and at the same time forcing a number of ‘standard’ openings.

2. Players are even less likely than ever before, to split their navies and attempt island hoping actions, or risking round 1 deployments that might put their transports (and the ships defending them) in harms way. Nixed, all those interesting opening plays that involved coordinated/but separate naval actions from smaller fleets.
3. The cost of transports, while seemingly less than in revised, are in effect raised prohibitively, due to the large number of ships required to defend even a single transport from attack from the air. Compare an 8 ipc cost transport unit that defends at 1 in deterring Air attacks vs a 7 ipcs transport unit with no defense + the Carrier, fighter and destroyer now required to protect it anywhere it moves.

Once again, new rules (and unit specific rules at that, which add even more complexity) have been introduced unnecessarily into the game, to fix a problem which could have easily been solved by just adjusting the unit cost structure.

The problem as stated elsewhere in this thread, is this: cheap transport fodder has traditionally been used to defend warships, (instead of the ideal where more expensive warships are purchased to defend transports.) I agree, that this was a problem. Maybe less of a problem than others think, but granted, it is a problem that should have been fixed. But the way to fix it is not to remove transports from combat altogether. A much simpler, and more consistent solution would be to raise the cost of transports, and have them use the same old combat mechanics/rules that they used in Classic and Revised.

A Transport at 10 ipcs is no longer cheap fodder. Or if 10 is too cheap for you, then raise it 12. I guarantee no one will be needlessly throwing away transports to defend other ships when their relative cost is that much higher. But 10 seems ideal to me (given the cost of every other ship and air unit as it stands in 1942 second edition.) And it could have been done without introducing such a Major Major rules change to naval combat, which itself doesn’t even accomplish the goal.
Under the new transport rules, fleets are even larger and more consolidated now than ever, with more time and more expensive warships required to move anywhere. What’s more, any ship that is purchased can be countered so easily with cheap air (and even cheaper bombers, but that is a separate digression. Why you would take the most overpowered unit in classic/revised, and make it less expensive is beyond me, but still…) Because the western Allies are so dependent on transports to get into the fight, this means that there is a built in Axis advantage to the game. I still can’t believe no one saw this coming?

Comparatively few alterations were made, either to the overall economy of the board, or to the starting unit placements, to accommodate this massive change, that is the new transports, which effects almost every aspect of allied gameplay. And so now we have an Allied bid to open?

My thoughts on this issue
thanks for listening
J

You have a very fine analysis and albeit this very lengthy discussion threads, your post still brings many new ideas on the subject.
I think it worth it to bold those elements.
In my next post, I will try some other way (than TP A0D1M2C10) to fix the problems you rightly mention.

I’m still agreeing to this objection about Classic Transport:
@knp7765:

So you advocate raising the transport’s cost to 10, letting them defend @ 1 and allowing the player to select them as casualties BEFORE any warships? I don’t think that is a good idea. Even with the increased price, you are still going to end up with some players using transports as fodder even in attacks. I remember that from Classic, when someone would have a “fleet” made up of a couple of battleships and 10 transports and would attack another fleet, sinking it while only losing 5-6 empty transports.

However, I will agree that making transports totally defenseless is an overstretch. One thing I have never liked is seeing a single fighter or sub wipe out a big stack of transports. So I suggested that each warship or plane be limited to 3 transports. So, for 1-3 transports = 1 attacker, 4-6 transports = 2 attackers, etc. So if you want to kill a stack of 10 transports, you would HAVE to commit 4 attacking units.

As for transport defenses, simply giving them a hit @ 1 isn’t right either. As stated in previous posts, transports were not equipped to deal with submarines and it’s really ridiculous to think of a transport being able to hit a warship. I do like Baron Munchhausen’s idea of giving transports an AA shot. It’s not unbelievable to imagine a transport being able to shoot down an enemy plane. It shouldn’t be an automatic destroy of the aircraft like on land though. I would combine this with my 1 attacker per 3 transports idea. For example, 1 fighter flies out to kill 3 transports. Each transport gets to roll @1. If one of them gets a hit, then the fighter rolls to get a 3. If the fighter gets a 3, then it destroys 1 transport and the fighter is destroyed by the transport AA hit. If none of the transports get a hit, then the fighter automatically destroys all three transports without having to roll. This gives any attacker that goes “air heavy” an element of risk when going after unescorted transports.

Now, what I propose is clearly influence by this post of knp7765.
It is a kind of combination between classic TP (vs aircrafts) and defenseless TP (vs warships).
Here is the house rule:

A- TP can never control a sea-zone or act like a “blocker”.

B- TP is A0 D0 M2 C7 and has a 1 hit value as TPclassic + 1D@1 vs aircraft each round (as AAA without the preemptive effect).

C- When any Warships (such as subs, destroyers, cruisers, battleships and even 1942 carrier CV A1 D2 M2 C14 but not 1940 CV) attack TPs without escort, it is an autokill on a 1 on 1 basis, except for BB which got 2 TPs/BB ratio.

This attack can last only two rounds, (maybe one? or even three?) then remaining TPs are treated as having been able to escape the slaughter  fleeing combat in the same sea-zone. I had called it “scattering”. It is pretty similar to a sub “submerge” ability.

D- When any aircrafts  launch an attack on isolated TPs, it is a regular attack (StrB A4, TacB A3-4, Fg A3) and TP gets each round a Defense roll @1  for each TP or aircraft present whichever is less, no preemptive strike.
For example: 1 Fgt vs 3 TPs, the Fgt gets only one roll @1/round against it.
It is a regular combat and it is over when attacker retreats or all defending TPs units are sunk.

E- When both warships and aircrafts attacked an isolated group of TPs, the warships have 2 rounds to destroy as much TPs as 2TPs/warship, 4 TPs/BB (or 1 rnd to destroy  1TP/Wship, 2TPs/BB? or 3rnd for 3TPs/Ws?) but aircrafts can continue the battle after, as stated in D.

F- Here is the main rule change: when TPs and warships sharing a sea-zone are under attack, the attacker have 2 choices:
option 1- to ignore the TPs and fight only the warships (and any Fgs from CV or scrambled). If all defending warships and aircrafts are destroyed, then the battle is over and all the TPs have survived and can even share the sea-zone with the attacker’s victorious units.

option 2- to attack both transports and warships, which mean TPs can be taken as cheap fodder (as said 1 TP worth 1 hit) instead of loosing a combat unit. The battle is over when attacker retreat or all defending units are destroyed (including all TPs), or some TPs managed to escape after 2 rounds (or 1 rnd? o 3 rnds?) of autokill from warships, as stated in C.

So this special House Rule give the attacking player the choice to kill only warships at the expense of letting TPs alive for another turn (and let them be able to flee toward a safe haven: up to 2 sea-zone away) or
going for the total kill at the expense of suffering greater casualties because of the TP unit ability to be taken as a casualty even if it have no defensive value against attacking ships.

I think this discrimination against aircrafts is balance by their better projection of power (near 3 to 5 spaces move and even 4-6 with airbase) than any surface vessel (2 spaces move) and better attack factor/IPC [Fgt A3 M4 C10 vs CA A3 M2 C12 vs StB A4 M6 C12 vs BB A4 M2 C20]. It will also be sound from an historical point of view as some posts noted earlier about Transport real antiaircraft capacity.

Do you think this HR can give a better balance between Axis and Allies powers in Global and 1942?

Should we give warships 3 rounds or only 1 round of fire against defenseless transport instead of two?

I hope my English will not too much hindered your understanding of these few additionals rules.

I would advocate 3 reasons for introducing such a HR for Transport:

1- No more out of nowhere, never to be seen, aircraft automatic destroying a bunch of lonely TPs.
At least, this HR give TPs much more payback before being wiped out.

2- The attacker option 1 of a restricted attack against warships only units will doomed anyone which prefers to hide 2 or 3 big BBs behind a bunch of little TPs.

As history showed, warships are protecting transports and not the reverse.

It was only when troops/marines transports were primary target, that they take a great deal of punishment instead of other warships/escorts ships. The attacker option 2 is able to simulate this aspect of naval warfare while letting each player choose their casualties (as per traditional or classical transport rules).

3- The attacker option 1 recreates the effect of the no combat value under Taken Last transport rule. In Global OOB, you could have dozens of TPs, only aircrafts and warships determine the outcome of a battle. TPs are kind of collateral damage if the attacker wins.
According to this present HR, attacker (choosing option 1) cannot destroy any TP but, on the other part, they have no unbalancing effect which is active in option 2 due to the screening effect of taking a cheap TP as casualty instead of a combat unit with a higher defensive value.

In option 1, TP is treated the same as in an amphibious assault on an island surrounded by ennemy transports, in which you keep any cruiser and battleship for the coastal bombardment mission instead of throwing them at the defenseless transport.
At the end of the invasion, both allies and axis TPs share a sea-zone with some warships.
And it is allowed by the current OOB rules.

Is it more convincing now?

How about this idea,

Since they are defenseless, lower their cost to $4. And give the AA shot as described. That keeps it simple. Each transport gets one AA shot before being sunk.

It is another approach.
But the main problem is that you almost double the number of transport for the same price.
Is it intended to be a way to help the Allies getting an edge over Axis?

It is intended to be realistic. Why should a defenseless ship that is almost empty, (filled with troops and material) cost as much as a destroyer with massive armaments. The price of a transport is foolish.

I believe in the past, a transport represented the actual transport ships, landing crafts, and escorts. I have read this exact idea applied to an infantry. An infantry does not represent a squad, platoon, or company of soldiers, but a whole infantry element that with it would come different resources such as anti-aircraft capabilities, anti-tank infantry (bazookas), ect….

So know they made the transport represent only the transport ships and the landing crafts. And defenseless. The should then drastically lower the cost. And provide it with some AA capability as the real ships of the war did have that ability.