Air Transports

@zooooma:

1st edition had an optional rule that German subs take 3 IPCs in a convoy raid instead of 2.

Ah ok, indeed.

I was thinking about another (temporarily discussed) rule during Alpha-development towards second edition rules,
that increased all subs convoy raiding IPC-reduction to 3 when the “Super Subs” technology had been achieved.

Better to prepare for a counter attack where you won’t have to deal with fighters in the battle and coastal bombardments. So no defending the atlantic wall in this version of the game.

I think this take is mostly accurate but sometimes Allies have so many transports and (UK) fighters that they might be able to hold Normandy (especially in cases when the bulk of the Luftwaffe is far away).  In cases like that, it might behoove Germany/Italy (let’s say they are defending Germany, West Germany, and France from a big Allied fleet) to move the France stack to Normandy.  If the USA force is relatively small and the UK force is not enough to take Normandy, a 1-2 attack would be costly and risky.  Landing in Holland instead is not always an option, since it’s adjacent to Normandy and W Germany and within tank/mech range of Germany).

In circumstances like that I’ve had success stacking Normandy with a combined German/Italian stack.

SBR can be used effectively against Italy - not like you need it, but it can.

When you’re ready to invade Rome you can SBR before hand to prevent Italy from using its meager remaining income from adding units to its defense.

If you’ve beaten Axis in the Med, and have the SZs stuffed with subs to blockade away Italy’s income, one good SBR run on each Italian factory can shut them down for good, since it can be very difficult for them to come up with even the few IPCs needed to repair it. This can stop Italy from building the inf or two a turn needed to work in conjunction with Germany to trade territory or can-open.

While it can be expensive to send just air units against ground units, sometimes it is warranted.
In a recent game of 1942 2nd edition, Germany was really giving Russia a hard time and Russia was having trouble having enough troops and tanks to retake their own territories. The US and UK had built up sizable air forces so they took turns attacking the German infantry and tanks so on Russia’s turn, they could simply move in and take the territories thus improving their income.
While the US/UK did lose some expensive air units, it worked out very well as Russia was able to roll up a lot of territory and Germany just couldn’t produce enough to reverse the tide. Russian tanks would blitz 2 territories while Germany could only take the 2nd territory back in combat. Then here would come those dang Brit or American planes again.

Sometimes I find the units on the transports more valueable to eliminate than the transport itself.

In a RARE occassion, someone might opt to NOT scramble against such an attack, and let the infantry be destroyed instead!  :evil:

AA guns can’t load in Combat Phase.

Believe me…

You can load them in NCM a turn before, and choose NOT to unload, then choose to unload in a future non combat.

@Spendo02:

@Krieghund:

The US cannot win this battle.  The fighters will continue to defend in the air until the battle is over.  The Japanese fighters and US subs can’t hit each other, so the fighters will sink transports until the US retreats.  If the US wishes to conduct this amphibious assault, it must bring units that are capable of hitting the fighters.

This is one of those unique situations where you are required to take Trn as losses before subs because that is all the unit can hit?

Yes.  They just need to be the only legal selection for a loss.  That might mean that planes have no other target (like this example), or that Sub hits have no other ship targets, or that the defenders hit everything else in a round of combat and need to assign some more hits before the defender retreats.  Remember, the defender still has the option to retreat, if they can, and transports are only automatically destroyed when they’re attacked, not when attacking (unless the attacker has no place to retreat).

Yeah.  The fighters can scramble to defend, but without a destroyer present they can’t target the sub.