Land fighters in newly captured territory

I believe it is more a balance issue.
But letting this point aside.
I can tell that Fighters are very good on defense but usually kept them behind until someone get his back on the wall.

Keeping a Fg out of combat to land it on a just conquered territory would not make a very appealing tactics for players.
Too hard dilemma to sacrifice attacking plane to keep and only do an NCM with it.

You can try with a single Fg per territory conquered max.

But it requires another space move to land on such territory, even though the Fg was already fighting over this given territory.

Such a rule can increase a bit more defending planes on contested zone. Instead of just having en exchange territory which can only get attacking planes fighting over it.

@Narvik:

With the current OOB rules, you are not allowed to land your aircrafts in a territory that you newly captured.
But your ally is free to land as many aircrafts there as he wish, in his next turn. This is a gamey rule that makes no sense.

I see your point, but I think the “sense” of the rule is that “boots on the ground” is what should take and hold land territories - not planes. The humble infantry soldier needs his rightful place. Planes already can attack land, air, and sea, and have the most range. To make them able to instantly hold land (while defending @ 4) would make them overpowered and land units less of a factor IMO. As it is now you have to bring enough land units to hold the land for a whole turn without planes, which I like.

@Der:

I think the “sense” of the rule is that “boots on the ground” is what should take and hold land territories - not planes.

Good point, and the Guadalcanal campaign would be an illustration of this principle.  Guadalcanal was a six-month long infantry campaign whose objective basically revolved around the possession of an airfield.  The Japanese began its construction; the USMC seized it, renamed it Henderson Field, and from then on fought to keep it in American hands while the Japanese tried to pry it away from them.  Securing the airfield essentially meant securing Guadalcanal as a whole, and it’s a job that ultimately depended on foot soldiers.  The airfield didn’t have the ability to secure itself; its airpower helped, but wasn’t enough on its own.

@Der:

@Narvik:

With the current OOB rules, you are not allowed to land your aircrafts in a territory that you newly captured.
But your ally is free to land as many aircrafts there as he wish, in his next turn. This is a gamey rule that makes no sense.

I see your point, but I think the “sense” of the rule is that “boots on the ground” is what should take and hold land territories - not planes. The humble infantry soldier needs his rightful place. Planes already can attack land, air, and sea, and have the most range. To make them able to instantly hold land (while defending @ 4) would make them overpowered and land units less of a factor IMO. As it is now you have to bring enough land units to hold the land for a whole turn without planes, which I like.

It is always necessary to have ground units to capture a given territory.
This rule must be kept, for sure.

In fact, Axis players mostly need to keep a whole game round to put Fighter on territory.
Allies, due to their geographical situations and order of play, can put as many planes as they can muster before the conqueror can, on his new turn, put is own Fighters.
(Narvik showed it cleary in the opening post.)

To keep equity, the rule should be turned around and be something like :
No Power can put planes on a just conquered territory until a complete game round is done.
This would become another hindrance which slow things down. And crippled some of the interesting advantage of cooperating between Allies.
I don’t like this.

The OOB rule was maybe put at the beginning to forbid some kind of “a la RISK” maneuver:
Put a very large stacks of units near the frontier, then go forward.
3 or 4 planes going on attack everywhere needed but coming back to the newly conquered territority makes it almost virtually undefeatable defensive forces (if you can supply some tanks to at least replace some losses).
Just imagine a lot of German’s units put in a single territory to reach as fast as it can Moscow.
This would be absurd.

I like the example of CWO Marc.
The airfield on Guadalcanal wasn’t an Airbase but, as fast as they can, US put some planes on it.
Such airfield couldn’t receive and maintain too many planes either. They didn’t have all the facilities and logistical, IMO.

In G40, scrambled from operational Air Base can do a lot more to protect the adjacent SZ with 3 planes, than a single Carrier can do in the SZ.
The defending player can also choose to risk his precious planes or not, according to ennemy’s unit involved.

That’s why, as far as someone likes planes+ ground units against planes+ ground units battle, it wouldn’t be too much unbalancing to allow a single Fg or TcB unit to land on a just conquered ground. No more, no less. In addition, this plane is put at risk and can be lost while defending.

That is not the case for unscrambled planes adjacent to a SZ.
The attacker must wait to get enough units to have the better hand over the enemy’s naval and air units, but when he gets it, the defending planes can not be on rendez-vous.
Scramble is a far more powerful defensive umbrella than a single Fg put in a just conquered and probably contested territory.

So this could makes a more realist Air and Ground combat on both sides.

As it is usually on the opening scene of the Set-Up where it is possible to watch such battles.

Maybe there is some instance where a single Fighter or Tactical Bomber shouldn’t be allowed.

I’m all ears.

Narvik,

if you want to develop a HR on this and read more on a similar topic, you can read this thread.
Some of my ideas were develop during this discussion:

Planes from Airbases or carriers scrambling to defend adjacent territories.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=33265.msg1264920#msg1264920

@Baron:

@WILD:

The rules have always been that you can’t land planes in a territory you just captured, or liberated (w/exception of AA1914 where planes really don’t def well, and there is no NCM phase), maybe it is an obsolete rule though. Maybe you should have some limited ability to land in a newly acquired territory. Maybe 1 air unit for a normal territory, or 3 air units if the newly acquired territory has an operational AB. Could possibly link how many air units can stay to the territories IPC value (value somewhat shows infrastructure). The thing is to not allow the attacked territory to be a ligament landing space when considering a planes range. You don’t want this to extend an air units range in this manner, and basically allow for kamikaze runs.

I bolded the points which I found very good.
Any Fighter would have at least 1 movement point to be able to land in the just conquered territory.

1 Fg or 3 Fgs for a just conquered AB, seems an interesting limit.
The AB should be operationnal (0,1 or 2 hits). A damaged one (3-6 hits) should allows only 1 Fg (as if there was no AB).
Of course, it is possible to divide 1-2 hits, 3-4 hits, 5-6 hits also.

I would allow 3 types of defensive maneuvers:

• aerial retreat for attacking planes (all can retreat while letting ground units pursuing battle),

• a limited aerial withdrawal of 1 space after first combat round for defending planes up to 1 StB or 1 TcB or 1 Fg and

• a limited landing in a just conquered territory: 1 plane (either Fg or TcB).

No Power can put planes on a just conquered territory until a complete game round is done.
–-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agreed…simple rule and fare for everyone…

I think the OOB rules are fine in this matter and fits into Larry’s “rubber band” physics of the game. Nothing on the board or in the rules is based on concrete facts or statistics.

An example is one infantry on Midway does not necessarily correlate to the same historical amount of troops as one infantry in Moscow represents. The game simply doesn’t always correlate with our perception of what’s going on. G1 may be three months “real time” while G2 could be Three weeks. The mechanics of the game simply use the pieces and turns as a sort of “figurehead” of what kind of relevant military force was present in any given area of the map as it moves. There are unknown, unseen and un-simulated actions that change the relative “real-world/real-time” factors which are built-in to the game that cannot be correlated to concrete simulation which the player can manipulate.

@toblerone77:

Larry’s “rubber band” physics of the game.

That’s a good way of phrasing it.  The same thing could be said about the game map, some portions of which (like North Africa) are stretched relative to the geography of the real world, while others (like the Pacific) are compressed.  In fairness, the geography of the real world is rather awkward for wargaming purposes, so the A&A map’s altered proportions don’t bother me.  Like many aspects of the game, the map is impressionistic rather than strictly realistic.

@CWO:

@toblerone77:

Larry’s “rubber band” physics of the game.

That’s a good way of phrasing it. The same thing could be said about the game map, some portions of which (like North Africa) are stretched relative to the geography of the real world, while others (like the Pacific) are compressed. In fairness, the geography of the real world is rather awkward for wargaming purposes, so the A&A map’s altered proportions don’t bother me. Like many aspects of the game, the map is impressionistic rather than strictly realistic.

I agree too.

I conceded also that OOB as always an advantage over any new idea.

But, for the sake of the discussion, we can ask what would be our critics of a rule which allows 1 Fg or 1 TcB to land on a just conquered territory if it had been put in the OOB rules since the beginning of A&A?
What would be the issue then?

Unbalance somehow?
Too favorable toward Allies?
This rule would be more like an exception compared to a simple and uniform rule:
No Power can put planes on a just conquered territory until a complete game round is done.
But this rule is too difficult to apply, because it needs to remember when a given territory was conquered.

Simpler and more uniform: can not put plane on a just conquered territory?
Axis will always get disadvantage and Allies the upper hand.
But the start-up set-up and map board configuration will balance for this gamey situation.

Okay I’m not saying this is a horrible idea or that it shouldn’t be done. It depends on how you’re going to go about it. I have various HBG Air bases that I will implement special rules for.

For the sake of argument we’ll just consider OOB units and pieces. You would have to lower the range of all aircraft for balance and you would have to require at least one land unit to be present to hold or represent “boots-on-the ground”. You can’t shorten the range to the point where land units negate the range of aircraft. I’d suggest 4/5 for bombers 3 for fighters. The next problem you run into however is now Naval air supremacy is now reduced because they cannot land at sea unless of course there’s a CV and STBs are now less effective due to shorter range.

This idea has been bounced around since 1914’s release which I feel has inspired many to think in this direction, but we also have to remember that 1914 has very different dynamics and mechanics compared to the WWII games.

You could allow the capture of air bases to allow first-round landing abilities or in other words, any territory where an airbase is captured it may be immediately used.

Just some ideas if you really want to implement this using just OOB pieces and parts.

@toblerone77:

For the sake of argument we’ll just consider OOB units and pieces. You would have to lower the range of all aircraft for balance and you would have to require at least one land unit to be present to hold or represent “boots-on-the ground”. You can’t shorten the range to the point where land units negate the range of aircraft. I’d suggest 4/5 for bombers 3 for fighters. The next problem you run into however is now Naval air supremacy is now reduced because they cannot land at sea unless of course there’s a CV and STBs are now less effective due to shorter range.

This idea has been bounced around since 1914’s release which I feel has inspired many to think in this direction, but we also have to remember that 1914 has very different dynamics and mechanics compared to the WWII games.

You could allow the capture of air bases to allow first-round landing abilities or in other words, any territory where an airbase is captured it may be immediately used.

Just some ideas if you really want to implement this using just OOB pieces and parts.

Why is it needed to reduce planes range?
What is the balance issue behind this point you see?

Would you allow Strat Bomber to land on a just conquered territory?
Maybe we can allow this, but it is not a sound tactical move to put a defending unit @1 in a frontier zone, anyway.
Anyone will be glad to destroy somes if they are put on a border territory, within reach of enemy’s counter-attack.
Such a risky maneuver shouldn’t penalize the StB range since the special landing put them in much danger than regular OOB.

Why such a rule like “Any Fighter or Tac Bomber would have at least 1 movement point left to be able to land in the just conquered territory.” isn’t enough from your perspective?
Maybe I miss a specific outcomes.

Without having to land in a safe area Baron you have increased the range of all aircraft. That could create problems. His idea as I have said has been inspired by many from 1914. Planes in that game have a range of two and act totally different.

As I have said I’m not saying the idea is horrble or shouldn’t be done but I find it funny that some people wouldn’t see that there are things involved with HR that might cause balance issues.

@toblerone77:

Without having to land in a safe area Baron you have increased the range of all aircraft. That could create problems.
As I have said I’m not saying the idea is horrble or shouldn’t be done but I find it funny that some people wouldn’t see that there are things involved with HR that might cause balance issues.

I still don’t see why it is a way to increase aircraft range since if it is a just conquered territory, that would only be possible to attack it from a nearby territory in which according to OOB planes could have landed anyway.
As long as your plane have 1 movement point left it seems the same to me. Where I’m wrong.
Please tell me Toblerone.

Well I see that I was just reading it wrong. In my own defense I have seen this idea proposed more than once for combat movement. It still does have some potential quirks in that it can shorten the arrival of of planes to the front in subsequent rounds.

If we’re talking about planes moving in NCM to newly conquered territory that have not moved in combat I don’t see a game breaker nor a reason to shorten range. However it will still enable planes to basically shorten thier trip by one round in certain instances.

Personally I’m not all that for this type of HR. However it’s not a game breaker in my eyes.

I’ve seen a similar idea posted a few times elsewhere where you could basically fly aircraft full range into combat and land it there. The justification for the HR was using the example that your ally can land there the next turn but the conquering power could not but ahould be allowed because the game is actually taking place in “real-time”.

@toblerone77:

Well I see that I was just reading it wrong. In my own defense I have seen this idea proposed more than once for combat movement. It still does have some potential quirks in that it can shorten the arrival of of planes to the front in subsequent rounds.

If we’re talking about planes moving in NCM to newly conquered territory that have not moved in combat I don’t see a game breaker nor a reason to shorten range. However it will still enable planes to basically shorten thier trip by one round in certain instances.

Personally I’m not all that for this type of HR. However it’s not a game breaker in my eyes.

I’ve seen a similar idea posted a few times elsewhere where you could basically fly aircraft full range into combat and land it there. The justification for the HR was using the example that your ally can land there the next turn but the conquering power could not but should be allowed because the game is actually taking place in “real-time”.

I agree with you.
For my part, I will never allowed a full range move in Combat Move.
In NCM it is OK, since the plane strictly did nothing except waiting to move in NCM.
Keeping ground unit to take possession of a territory is necessary too.

I think that the most unbalancing aspect is the number of Fgs which can be put on a defensive stance in a given just conquered territory.
This needs a clear limitation.
Depending on the scale of the game, G40 or 1942.2, more than 3 Fgs or more than 1 Fg can create an important defensive boost which precludes counter-attack.

About historical realism, I can just reiterate that such kind of HR provides more opportunity to have ground battle between planes+ground units on both sides like it is often the case on the water because of Carriers.
And also for Axis as well as Allies to defend territories, not just: Germans againt Russian grounds units+Allies Fgs.
But also Russian grounds and planes against Germans grounds and defending Fgs.

I could just add that allowing a limited number of Fg to land on a just conquered frontier territory is still puting a costly and valuable unit at risk.
In addition, defending stance after a hardly fought battle will left only the remnants and the costlier units prone to counter attack.
One game, I go all-in West Russia, all my Infs were lost on the offensive.
There was around 6 Tanks remaining and I put a Fg to give some air cover.
Unfortunatly such target was a big prize and Russia counter-attack with Infs and Tanks.
There was not much left of Russia, only 1 Tank but I lost all my costlier units. It breaks all my offensive capabilities in the aftermath.
My Fg rolls 1 hit amongst all the combat rounds (4 or 5).
So this Fg tactics can still be costy even for the conquerer.

Of course, having been able to put as many planes as I whished it would have been a russian disaster.
The number of Fgs limitation is needed to keep balance.

@CWO:

@toblerone77:

Larry’s “rubber band” physics of the game.

That’s a good way of phrasing it. The same thing could be said about the game map, some portions of which (like North Africa) are stretched relative to the geography of the real world, while others (like the Pacific) are compressed. In fairness, the geography of the real world is rather awkward for wargaming purposes, so the A&A map’s altered proportions don’t bother me. Like many aspects of the game, the map is impressionistic rather than strictly realistic.

Fair enough, but my question would be…
How come this is accepted with every other aspect of the game, but not for the relative distribution of IPC/Production values on the gamemap?

This has been a sticking point with me for years now.  For example, when I have suggested (repeatedly) that IPC values should be awarded to all territories on the gamemap, or that a particular region should have more IPCs (e.g. pacific islands) because production in this game is obviously abstract and does not correlate to reality in any meaningful way at all, everyone always jumps to defend these zero IPC territories. Or they insist that certain territories should be kept low (in terms of their IPC value) for strict “historical” reasons, despite the potential advantages to the gameplay, or to overall gamebalance that might result from increasing IPCs in such instances.

If a lone infantry unit on Midway is not the same as an infantry unit in Moscow, why not extend this same logic to Midway’s IPC value? Why shouldn’t Midway be worth 1 ipc, under the same essential argument, that 1 ipc here “is not the same” as 1 ipc somewhere in Russia?

To the point of this thread, I don’t see a major issue with allowing aircraft to land in a newly conquered territory, if the goal of the rule is alter the infantry push, and essentially change how all units interact in a hugely substantial way hehe. Even if the fighter did participate in combat. I mean why not? Sure, it would obviously break the set up of most games, but as a stand alone idea, the fighter landing rules strike me as arbitrary. The rules about fighter landing might have been drafted otherwise, with a totally different starting unit set up, and it might have worked. It would likely result in a lot more “critical” defenses and all-in battles, as opposed to deadzones and trading. Not to say that it would work in any of the existing games, but it might be worth exploring. I’d try it in 1941 the starter board, to see, if that was your inclination  :-D

@Black_Elk:

@CWO:

@toblerone77:

Larry’s “rubber band” physics of the game.

That’s a good way of phrasing it. The same thing could be said about the game map, some portions of which (like North Africa) are stretched relative to the geography of the real world, while others (like the Pacific) are compressed. In fairness, the geography of the real world is rather awkward for wargaming purposes, so the A&A map’s altered proportions don’t bother me. Like many aspects of the game, the map is impressionistic rather than strictly realistic.

Fair enough, but my question would be…
How come this is accepted with every other aspect of the game, but not for the relative distribution of IPC/Production values on the gamemap?

This has been a sticking point with me for years now.  For example, when I have suggested (repeatedly) that IPC values should be awarded to all territories on the gamemap, or that a particular region should have more IPCs (e.g. pacific islands) because production in this game is obviously abstract and does not correlate to reality in any meaningful way at all, everyone always jumps to defend these zero IPC territories. Or they insist that certain territories should be kept low (in terms of their IPC value) for strict “historical” reasons, despite the potential advantages to the gameplay, or to overall gamebalance that might result from increasing IPCs in such instances.

If a lone infantry unit on Midway is not the same as an infantry unit in Moscow, why not extend this same logic to Midway’s IPC value? Why shouldn’t Midway be worth 1 ipc, under the same essential argument, that 1 ipc here “is not the same” as 1 ipc somewhere in Russia?

To the point of this thread, I don’t see a major issue with allowing aircraft to land in a newly conquered territory, if the goal of the rule is alter the infantry push, and essentially change how all units interact in a hugely substantial way hehe. Even if the fighter did participate in combat. I mean why not? Sure, it would obviously break the set up of most games, but as a stand alone idea, the fighter landing rules strike me as arbitrary. The rules about fighter landing might have been drafted otherwise, with a totally different starting unit set up, and it might have worked. It would likely result in a lot more “critical” defenses and all-in battles, as opposed to deadzones and trading. Not to say that it would work in any of the existing games, but it might be worth exploring. I’d try it in 1941 the starter board, to see, if that was your inclination  :-D

Black Elk I think you and I agree on many things my friend. The IPC system and production is one that constantly annoys me. If factory “A” is using resources from all over the Globe why should it be limited in the number that it can produce? By that logic a factory in a TT with a value of eight should only be able to produce 8 IPCs worth of units. I could go on and on.

As to my “Rubber band” comment. I am simply pointing out that there is no concrete, absolute correlation to a specific real-world number of units vs. game pieces so the pursuit of doing of doing so is not exact, and IMO not a good way to “prove” any aspect of A&A. Just because the IPC artwork of the old paper money says, “1-5-10 Million Production Hours” it does not prove that a 25 IPC Battleship costs X amount of real-world money or correlates as such. It’s simply art that flavors the game. So I really cringe when someone tries to “Bible Code” the game either for or against an HR.

As to the HR proposed, I’m not the one to knock it down. I misunderstood the concept. Secondly, many of my HRs are ideas in embryo, and are part of a larger variant that is an on-going personal project that involves heavy customization and uses many, many more pieces and markers than most players have.

Lastly I’ve actually been focused on getting a gaming group up and running, which means LOL, I’m focused on teaching OOB rules! Once I get my group going then we’ll move on to the fun stuff LOL.

@Black_Elk:

Fair enough, but my question would be…
How come this is accepted with every other aspect of the game, but not for the relative distribution of IPC/Production values on the gamemap?

The question of whether the territorial IPC values printed on the game map (including the fact that some territories have 0 IPCs) is a different issue from the question of whether planes should be allowed to land in newly conquered territories.

I’ve never looked very closely at the map to decide if the IPC values are, in my opinion, correct for each territory – but if I did so, I’m sure I’d find some of the figures arguable.  So I can certainly see why other folks find those figures problematic too.  I likewise agree that the game doesn’t give sufficient importance to the possession of Pacific Ocean islands (which in WWII were crucial to control), though I’m not sure that giving them IPC values is necessarily the best way to fix the problem.

The airplane-landing question seems to me to be different in nature.  The point I was making with the Guadalcanal example I gave is that aircraft, generally speaking, can only operate effectively (if at all) from secure airfields – and the securing of those airfields can only really be done by ground troops.  In other words, cause and effect have to be distinguished: ground troops can secure an airfield and thus make it usable by airplanes, but the reverse generally isn’t true (the use of an airfield by an airplane doesn’t secure it).

So in terms of the game rules, I guess that the question hinges on whether the new conquest of a territory represents a situation in which the territory is secured to such a degree that its airfields can be put to use immediately by the player who conquered the territory.  The no-immediate-landing rule seems to reflect the concept that the player has to consolidate his victory (by holding onto the territory for a span of time) before doing so.

All your points were sound and we’ll taken :)
I just saw a clear opening to raise the relative ipc distribution subject and had to take it hehe. It’s the one area where strict comparative analysis is always pushed “well territory A can’t be worth X since territory B is worth Y” etc. But with units people allow more flexibility. I only brought it up because the rubber band always seems to snap on ipcs, despite being pretty flexible everywhere else ;)