G40 Redesign (currently taking suggestions)

Interesting bit about the AAguns and marines. If AA fires every round I’d say only 1 shot. I’ve always found AA units that fire every round to be too strong but that’s just my opinion. It would definitely promote people buying AAguns. Speaking of, what do you want the AAtransport to cost Baron ? Provided I can get it to work that is :)

Anyway the elite units have been reformed. A2, D2, M1 C4. No arty boost. BB can transport 1. I’ll probably make a 5 dollar version too. They’ve also finished jump school and are ready for action. The question is how should they be transported into battle ?

Currently  there is a A0, D0, M4 +1 w/AB, may transport 1 elite into battle or ncm, C6 air transport. Which means you can’t transport them any farther by sea then you already can, although the Air can land with a land army, so you wouldn’t need a navy to protect it. UK/US will probably attack Normandy and Holland forcing Germany to defend, trade or in the case of Normandy leave it French. I know some peole do that already, which probably needs some sort of solution as it’s not really ideal. Italy could get some Med islands and canopen for Germany. ANZAC/US could use them against DNG. Japan could hit the Far East and Siberia as well hammer China. Germany out of Romania will force Russia to defend Caucasus and trade/defend Rostov, Ukraine. Russia can hit Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Could even canopen for UK/US.

If you go with the traditional drop from bombers The added range will put Stalingrad at risk of an Italian canopener. It will also allow Scotland and Norway to be hit along with several Pacific islands. The whole Med will be pretty much be reachable. I find them to be too powerful dropped from a bomber. It definitely promotes spamming. Being dropped from a transport with 6 range and then needing a bomber escort if the TT is defended seems better to me.

You could also use the current 2 units can M3 from a AB. Would reduce spam. You’d still have the problem of Italian canopeners in the Black Sea with a AB in Romania. Right now you need a factory, NB and protection for your transports to do it. Only needing a AB would probably make it pretty standard.

I think paratroopers are a lot of fun, but they are a gamechanger :)  What do y’all think ?

Map probably isn’t big enough to accommodate paratroopers (other than in the very limited way seen in the OOB tech version). My hunch is that it would be game breaking.

@barney:

Interesting bit about the AAguns and marines. If AA fires every round I’d say only 1 shot. I’ve always found AA units that fire every round to be too strong but that’s just my opinion. It would definitely promote people buying AAguns.

Speaking of, what do you want the AAtransport to cost Baron ? Provided I can get it to work that is :)

IMO, to really compete AAA C5 vs Infantry or Artillery defending @2, with offensive capacity or 2 AAAs vs 1 Fighter defending @4, A3, able to move 4, C10, it is necessary to have at least similar defensive values because AAA is an half unit with its no offense capacity, and NCM1 only.
The single instance you get these defense value is by giving up to 2 rolls @1 vs up to 2 planes each round, and even then, when only a single plane attacks, AAA defense odds is halfed.
Inf A1 D2 C3 defends like AAA D1 up to 2 planes C4 or 5…
A3 D4 C10 defends like 2 AAA D1 up to 2 planes C8-10 (if there is at least 4 attacking planes), no offense, no mobility like plane can provide.

On cost of TP A0 D0 AAreg 1, 1hit, I suggest 8 IPCs (same price as Classic TP) to be able to easily differenciate in play-test from defenseless TP7. If you are able to gear up such unit, it could increase action in water (warships will be better to destroy TP at no risk), with no auto-die results  and would change Axis bias toward Allies bias

@barney:

Anyway the elite units have been reformed. A2, D2, M1 C4. No arty boost. BB can transport 1. I’ll probably make a 5 dollar version too. They’ve also finished jump school and are ready for action.

Good news. Both 4 and 5 IPCs should be tested on play.

@barney:

Currently  there is a A0, D0, M4 +1 w/AB, may transport 1 elite into battle or ncm, C6 air transport. Which means you can’t transport them any farther by sea then you already can, although the Air can land with a land army, so you wouldn’t need a navy to protect it. UK/US will probably attack Normandy and Holland forcing Germany to defend, trade or in the case of Normandy leave it French. I know some peole do that already, which probably needs some sort of solution as it’s not really ideal. Italy could get some Med islands and canopen for Germany. ANZAC/US could use them against DNG. Japan could hit the Far East and Siberia as well hammer China. Germany out of Romania will force Russia to defend Caucasus and trade/defend Rostov, Ukraine. Russia can hit Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Could even canopen for UK/US.

If you go with the traditional drop from bombers The added range will put Stalingrad at risk of an Italian canopener. It will also allow Scotland and Norway to be hit along with several Pacific islands. The whole Med will be pretty much be reachable. I find them to be too powerful dropped from a bomber. It definitely promotes spamming. Being dropped from a transport with 6 range and then needing a bomber escort if the TT is defended seems better to me.

You could also use the current 2 units can M3 from a AB. Would reduce spam. You’d still have the problem of Italian canopeners in the Black Sea with a AB in Romania. Right now you need a factory, NB and protection for your transports to do it. Only needing a AB would probably make it pretty standard.

I think paratroopers are a lot of fun, but they are a gamechanger :)  What do y’all think ?

Difficult matter.
I still believe Air TP should be same cost as TP and able to carry only 1 paratrooper at 4 IPCs.
The issue is NCM at no risk, so AirTP becomes a way to rapidly bring more Infantry at the center.
Air TP A0 D0 M4+1 with AB seems a way to slow it down.

I agree, bombers drop is OP.
But first  enemy TT is good limitation on Paratrooper drop.

First play-tests should probably stay with Air Base drop based on Tech.

@barney:

I find them to be too powerful dropped from a bomber. It definitely promotes spamming. Being dropped from a transport with 6 range and then needing a bomber escort if the TT is defended seems better to me. […] I think paratroopers are a lot of fun, but they are a gamechanger

To me, the basic problem with paratroopers is that, to be realistic, the rules would have to ensure that they could only be used in situations in which ground troops could reach and reinforce them quickly; otherwise, the whole paratrooper force would be declared lost.  Paratroopers were tricky to use: they could carry out operations of great importance that were impossible for conventional troops (like seizing vital bridges behind enemy lines), but they didn’t have a lot of staying power because they were too lightly armed and carried too few supplies.  They were considered elite forces – in part because it takes a lot of nerve to jump out of airplane in the middle of the night over enemy territory, in part because they would initially operate without ground support, and in part because the ever-present possibility of scattered landings meant that they had to be able to function alone or in small groups if they couldn’t connect with the other men in their unit – but they weren’t indestructible and they didn’t have the firepower of a regular infantry division.  So using them was always a gamble.  Used correctly and relieved quickly by ground forces (as in D-Day), they could be a game-changer.  Used incorrectly (as at Arnhem), they were toast.

Good point as always Marc.
At A&A strategic level of play, I find that First enemy TT drop and 3 TTs away drop from ABs seems more realistic.

Do you know if US para units were shipped in UK by transport only or if some divisions were making the trip by airflight?

If no WWII army division were moved by plane in fact, it seems gamey to allow Air Transport to load and unload units in Non-Combat Move.

@Baron:

Do you know if US para units were shipped in UK by transport only or if some divisions were making the trip by airflight?

If no WWII army division were moved by plane in fact, it seems gamey to allow Air Transport to load and unload units in Non-Combat Move.

I’m not sure, but my guess is that in WWII the US 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions probably crossed the Atlantic to the UK by ship rather than by plane.  They were in no hurry (since the D-Day buildup took about two years), and plane range and capacity in those days isn’t what it is today.  (There was a documentary made in the 1980s that showed the modern 82nd Airborne taking part in a NATO exercise in Europe, with the 82nd taking off from its base in the US, crossing the Atlantic nonstop, and parachuting directly into its zone of operations, but that was beyond the capabilities of WWII.)  Transport planes in WWII were great if you wanted to get small payloads (including human ones) somewhere in a hurry, provided that cost was no objection, but in general practice ships and trains and trucks were cheaper (but slower) ways to move large loads over long distances.  I don’t know if regular infantrymen were much transported by plane in WWII, but on the flip side the 1949 movie Battleground shows men of the 101st Airborne being deployed to Bastogne by truck.

The only air transport of troops that comes to mind was Franco’s being packed across the med in their civil war. When the Germans conquered Crete I believe they were initially reinforced by air as well.

I’ve used paratroopers a few times in the past and found them to be overpowered at the end. Once your air is built you’re basically only limited by the number of Paras you can produce. I’ve also used limits which seemed to work ok. If you don’t want limits you need to find the right price combination to make them worth buying but not spammable. People already spam bombers so obviously it’s hard to do. Just have to try some different combinations and see if you can make it work.

Perhaps a general solution that could be applied to all elite-type units (not just to paratroops) to keep them from being overpowered would be to give them combat values (including some sort of casualty-determination modifier to the combat procedure) which would combine two features.  One feature would the advantage that elite forces tend to have, and one would be the disadvantage the elite forces tend to have:

• The advantage: elite units “punch above their weight”, in the sense that they are more effective than normal troops at doing certain things.  For example, Marines are better than regular infantry at making amphibious assaults.

• The disadvantage: elite units (for example Marines, Rangers, paratroopers, and units that are used as “shock troops”) tend to suffer much higher casualty rates than regular infantry because of the jobs they are given are often exceptionally difficult and dangerous.  Examples include the Marines at Iwo Jima, the Rangers at Pointe-du-Hoc on D-Day, and the D-Day paratroopers.  When Eisenhower visited the paras prior to the departure, he’s reported to have been quite emotional when he watched some of their planes taking off because it had been predicted that (if I recall correctly) they would suffer casualties on the order of 60% – which is about 6 times the percentage of casualties that a normal infantry units might be expected to take before cracking and retreating.  One of the things that characterizes elite units, however, is that they are actually prepared to take those levels of casualties yet keep functioning.  For example, the paras who were visited by Eisenhower were actually the ones who gave him a pep talk (“Don’t worry, General, we’ll take care of this thing for you”) rather than the more traditional situation of a commander giving a pep talk to his subordinates.  And if I’m not mistaken, the USMC’s combat doctrine has recognized for a long time that Marines can expect to be given very tough objectives to tackle, and that taking these objectives may involve high casualties and may imply trading lives for time.  (Incidentally, Japan’s WWII-era Special Naval Landing Forces, or SNLF, were sometimes described as “Japanese Imperial Marines,” but in actual fact they were basically just Navy personnel armed with Army weapons.  They were apparently less capable than regular infantrymen, not more capable).

So as far as house rules go, the upshot could be that elite forces cost more than regular troops, have more fighting punch than regular troops (or have specialized kinds of fighting bonuses, depending on the type of elite force involved) and therefore can potentially bring special advantages to a combat situation…but they have a built-in casualty rate probability range that’s very high.  This high casualty rate would keep them from becoming overpowered (because they’re always getting killed off in large numbers), so such elite forces would definitely come with a sizable cost/benefit trade-off that would make a player think twice about buying them in large numbers.  After all, elite forces by definition are always a small (and expensive) subset of a country’s armed forces; otherwise they’d be called standard forces.

@Baron:

Good point as always Marc.
At A&A strategic level of play, I find that First enemy TT drop and 3 TTs away drop from ABs seems more realistic.

Do you know if US para units were shipped in UK by transport only or if some divisions were making the trip by airflight?
If no WWII army division were moved by plane in fact, it seems gamey to allow Air Transport to load and unload units in Non-Combat Move.

One way to limit Air TP spam is to limit them to move CM or NCM Elite unit only, no reg Infantry.
I believe this can be easily done in TripleA.

Barney, do you know if it is possible to limit Elite production to 1 unit per major IC per turn?

A similar defense factor than Infantry but higher cost maybe can be enough to simulate the higher casualty rate of Elite, shock troops.
Whether it will be 4 or 5 IPCs, it remains a unit with Defense 2.

@Baron:

higher cost maybe can be enough to simulate the higher casualty rate of Elite, shock troops.

Elite forces have a double-barrelled problem, and this kind of cost-based simulation would only reflect one-half of this double-barrelled problem: the fact that they cost more than regular troops.  I think it would make the player’s decision to buy elite troops too easy.  In my opinion, the decision to buy elite troops would be a much tougher (and more realistic) judgement call if the house rule simulated both halves of the double-barrelled problem with elite forces: the fact that they’d cost more than regular troops and the fact that the player would be guaranteed to lose a lot of them in combat.  Seeing your forces getting killed off in large numbers is not fun – especially if they’re expensive forces – but that’s the psychological price that a player ought to have to pay in order to gain the benefits of using elite forces that deliver much more performance per man than a standard infantry unit.  Elite forces shouldn’t be “lots of gain for very little pain” because that would make them too attractive; if there’s no significant downside to buying and using elite forces, then there wouldn’t be much point in buying regular troops.

(That’s the potential problem, by the way, with adjusting the combat value of any unit, regardless of its type, in order to make it a more attractive purchase.  If one or more of its values is boosted, the logical question that follows is: what’s the downside of this boost?  What trade-off was made to give the unit this boost?  If the answer is “The cost went up,” that’s fair enough. If the answer is “One of its other combat values was weakened,” that’s fine too.  If the answer, however, is “There is no trade-off;  everything else stays the same,” then that’s a problem because it’s unrealistic to achieve a pure gain at no cost; it lets the player have his cake and eat it too.  WWII tank designs illustrated this principle well: at that time, boosting one or two tank capabilities [like armour protection and firepower] meant weakening another capability [like mobility] because the technology of those days couldn’t produce a tank design that excelled in all three areas.)

Good Points CWO. when I use marines hitting at 3 w/arty and have a build restriction I find the marines take the most casualties. Unless it’s a big invasion there usually aren’t infantry along. If there in normal land combat, say in China, I’d kill them off so they could be rebuilt next to a transport. They were only 3 bucks though so with no build restriction IDK that that would be the case with a more expensive/unlimited unit. I think unless they’re part of a large invasion paras and marines should suffer pretty high casualties since they’ll probably be the only units attacking other than air/bombards.

Yea Baron the AT only packs elites. Right now I’m trying them at C4 M5 with ATs at C7. This forces you to have a AB to get a roundtrip range of 3. While Russia will need to defend in depth more in the Black sea, Germany will have to do the same for Norway, Normandy and Holland. We’ll see how it works out.

@Baron:

A similar defense factor than Infantry but higher cost maybe can be enough to simulate the higher casualty rate of Elite, shock troops.
Whether it will be 4 or 5 IPCs, it remains a unit with Defense 2.

To see what I meant in numbers:
12 IPCs basis, on defense
3 Elite D2 C4 vs 4 Infantry D2 C3
19% vs 78 % odds of survival against Elite.

On offense,
3 Elite A2 C4 vs 4 A1 C3 Infantry
57% vs 40% odds for Elite.

15 IPCs basis
3 Elite D2 C5 vs 5 Infantry D2 C3
5% vs 94% against Elite.
3 Elite A2 C5 vs 4 A1 C3 Infantry
33% vs 65% against Elite

IDK which 4 or 5 IPCs will be prefered.
But, in both cases, Elite infantry on defense is never the optimized choice.

On offense, 4 IPCs Elite is better than regular Infantry.
But 5 IPCs Elite is 2 times worth for the same IPCs investment.
So, just wanted to note that both cost and combat value must be taken in account.
A similar defense for a single unit doesn’t consider the effect on hit taken due to higher or lower cost.

Even Elite vs Inf+ Artilery gives interesting  results.
7 Elite A2 C4 vs 4 (Inf A2 + Art A2) C7
23% vs 70% against Elite units.

7 Elite A2 C5 vs 5 (Inf A2 + Art A2) C7
5% vs 95% against Elite units.

@CWO:

@Baron:

higher cost maybe can be enough to simulate the higher casualty rate of Elite, shock troops.

(That’s the potential problem, by the way, with adjusting the combat value of any unit, regardless of its type, in order to make it a more attractive purchase.  If one or more of its values is boosted, the logical question that follows is: what’s the downside of this boost?  What trade-off was made to give the unit this boost?  If the answer is “The cost went up,” that’s fair enough. If the answer is “One of its other combat values was weakened,” that’s fine too. If the answer, however, is “There is no trade-off;  everything else stays the same,” then that’s a problem because it’s unrealistic to achieve a pure gain at no cost; it lets the player have his cake and eat it too.  WWII tank designs illustrated this principle well: at that time, boosting one or two tank capabilities [like armour protection and firepower] meant weakening another capability [like mobility] because the technology of those days couldn’t produce a tank design that excelled in all three areas.)

Based on what you said Marc,
I’m opened to even reduced defense factor of Elite if 5 IPCs seems to be more balanced to keep such Infantry unit at 4 IPCs.
So, if actual Elite A2 D2 C4 is too OP,
I would rather prefer a more historical units, than costlier one:

Elite Infantry (reduced sustainability)
Attack 2
Defense 1
Cost 4
Move CM1-NCM2
Load 1 on AirTP or 1 on Battleship.
Can load 2 on TP, or 1 with any other ground unit.
No combined arms, such as with Artillery.

To see what I meant in numbers:
12 IPCs basis, on defense
3 Elite D1 C4 vs 4 Infantry D2 C3
4% vs 96% odds of survival against Elite Infantry (reduced sustainability).

On offense,
3 Elite A2 C4 vs 4 A1 C3 Infantry
57% vs 40% odds for Elite Infantry.

@Black_Elk:

From a gameplay standpoint I think elites would be most interesting with a mobility advantage, eg as a special way to get another pip into the fight that wouldn’t otherwise be available with normal infantry. That’s why I like the concept of loading one onto a battleship ‘marine’, or being able to jump 3 tiles from an airbase ‘paratrooper’ or paired with mech to blitz ‘ranger/stormtrooper’ basically able to make a specialized combat move that normal infantry can’t make.

I’m not convinced of the need for an air transport unit. I’m sure we could create one that worked well enough, but it seems a bit overkill to me for sculpt requirements when we could just use the AB and restrict the range to a 3 tile jump, with a limit on the number of paras that can jump tied to the base directly.  Tiles could include both land territories and sea zones, I think 3 tiles would be more than sufficient.

To keep with CWOs point about support from regular ground, you could say that such jumps can only occur in territories where a normal ground attack is occuring. This would prevent paras from skipping around and unrealistically capturing entire regions by themselves.

I suppose to capture the idea that elites have strong specialized combat effectiveness but high casualty rates, you could approach them like the AAAgun unit. You know, where they get a strong ‘opening shot’ capability, after which point they can serve only as fodder. This would give players a reason to take their first casualty hit’s on the elites after the opening salvo, whether it’s a jump, a blitz, or an amphibious assault.

Perhaps the player must choose whether to use the elite unit as a ‘shock troop’ for a specialized attack, where they get a strong opening shot but no attack in subsequent rounds of the combat phase (similar to the aaagun), or use elites as normal infantry in which case they fight the way regulary infantry do?

This is exactly how the “airborne attack” tech already works in G40. It allows you to drop up to two infantry 3 spaces away from an airbase into any territory where a ground attack is already happening.

As for elites dying in large numbers, I’m not sure why this is a dynamic we would want to go out of our way to create (to the point where we’re constructing elaborate rule-sets around it). If the unit costs enough and/or has other limitations (e.g., no artillery support), it won’t be spammed.

@regularkid:

@Black_Elk:

From a gameplay standpoint I think elites would be most interesting with a mobility advantage, eg as a special way to get another pip into the fight that wouldn’t otherwise be available with normal infantry. That’s why I like the concept of loading one onto a battleship ‘marine’, or being able to jump 3 tiles from an airbase ‘paratrooper’ or paired with mech to blitz ‘ranger/stormtrooper’ basically able to make a specialized combat move that normal infantry can’t make. I’m not convinced of the need for an air transport unit. I’m sure we could create one that worked well enough, but it seems a bit overkill to me for sculpt requirements when we could just use the AB and restrict the range to a 3 tile jump, with a limit on the number of paras that can jump tied to the base directly.  Tiles could include both land territories and sea zones, I think 3 tiles would be more than sufficient.
To keep with CWOs point about support from regular ground, you could say that such jumps can only occur in territories where a normal ground attack is occuring. This would prevent paras from skipping around and unrealistically capturing entire regions by themselves.

This is exactly how the “airborne attack” tech already works in G40. It allows you to drop up to two infantry 3 spaces away from an airbase into any territory where a ground attack is already happening.
As for elites dying in large numbers, I’m not sure why this is a dynamic we would want to go out of our way to create (to the point where we’re constructing elaborate rule-sets around it). If the unit costs enough and/or has other limitations (e.g., no artillery support), it won’t be spammed.

I agree with bolded quotes.
I prefer Air Base dropping Elite/paratrooper because it seems a better way to figures how it worked in WWII.
Para units must be moved via land or sea in AB’s TT then use for airdropped attack as support for bigger land invasion.
No way to transport such unit via Air Transport.
Easier to implement on TripleA.
Air Transport should stay optional house ruled. (I have my own HBG set of ATPs.)
In addition, ATP increases the complexity level of balancing things out.

@regularkid:

As for elites dying in large numbers, I’m not sure why this is a dynamic we would want to go out of our way to create (to the point where we’re constructing elaborate rule-sets around it). If the unit costs enough and/or has other limitations (e.g., no artillery support), it won’t be spammed.

Part of what was behind the idea of the high casualty rate, though I didn’t really explain that part in detail, was to simulate the fact that paratroop operations are high-risk gambles (a concept that could be extended to other operations by elite forces).  The purchase price of a unit, no matter how high it might be, is a stable element that’s easy for a player to calculate and that stays the same from round to round.  The player knows that if he wants to buy x number of paratroopers, it’s always going to cost him y dollars per man.  So there’s no risk or suspense in that kind of decision-making.  Casualties are a different matter because of their unpredictability.  Purely for discussion purposes, let’s say that that elite forces have a built-in casualty bracket ranging – just to invent some figures – from a minimum of 40% to a maximum of 80% when they’re used in combat (meaning the total percentage losses suffered by an elite unit in a given map territory during the entire battle from start to finish).  The player knows that his elite forces will deliver an extra-powerful punch (that part is certain) and the player knows that he’s going to lose a lot of those elite troops (that part is certain too), but he doesn’t know exactly how many he’s going to lose (since that part is uncertain).

One way to look at it would be to express the cost/benefit ratio of elite forces in terms of percentages, in the following way.  Based on their high-performance combat values (a predictable advantage that never changes), on their high cost (a predictable disadvantage that never changes), and on their high casualty probabilities (an unpredictable disadvantage that changes from battle to battle), a player who suffers 40% elite casualties in a battle could be considered to have “won” his gamble (gotten great value for his investment), a player who suffers 60% elite casualties in a battle could be considered to have “broken even”, and a player who suffers 80% elite casualties in a battle could be considered to have “lost” his gamble (paid a disastrously excessive price for his investment).    Which is the whole point of a gamble: the potential high gains have to be large enough to compensate for the potential high losses (because otherwise players would never take the risk of using elites), and the potential high losses have to be large enough to offset the potential high gains (because otherwise the player would always automatically use elites, since he’d be foolish not to use a unit that gives lots of bonuses and whose use involves no risks or negative consequences).

One way to increase risks and the casualty odds on paratrooper as Marc suggested should be to consider paratrooper as special flying unit which must submit to preemptive AAA fire @1 before its attack roll.
So each Elite Infantry airdropped unit would suffer an additional 1/6 (17%) higher casualty rate compared to regular ground units.
Of course AA defense is still limited in number and would apply to plane before paratroopers.
Ex.: OOB AAA get up to 3 preemptive @1, if 2 Elites from AB and 2 planes are attacking, if all 3 rolls get 3 hits (very lucky shots), then only 1 Elite will survive and can make its attack roll @2.

That way, UK may prefer to use his Elite Infantry as Marines via TP or BB instead of paratroopers but, if there is not enough TP space, use them as paratrooper at risk of being AA fired becomes an option.

What do you think people?

For Marines, I rather consider that optimized attack Elite+Tank on 1 TP, imply that first casualty will be higher at 4 IPCs than usual 3 IPCs for Inf+Tank on 1 TP.

@Black_Elk:

From a gameplay standpoint I think elites would be most interesting with a mobility advantage, eg as a special way to get another pip into the fight that wouldn’t otherwise be available with normal infantry. That’s why I like the concept of loading one onto a battleship ‘marine’, or being able to jump 3 tiles from an airbase ‘paratrooper’ or paired with mech to blitz ‘ranger/stormtrooper’ basically able to make a specialized combat move that normal infantry can’t make.

Is it the Elite Infantry you prefer, instead of the other which gets M2 paired with Tank or the last Elite which gets M2 for NCM only?

Elite Infantry/Marines/Paratrooper:
Cost 4
Attack 2
Defense 2
Move 1-2
Sea movement bonus:
1 Elite unit can be carried on 1 Battleship.
Transport can load 2 Elites or 1 Elite Infantry plus any other 1 ground unit.

Air movement bonus:
Up to two Elite Infantry can start from an active Air Base to make a paratrooper attack drop up to 3 TTs away in an enemy territory attacked by other ground units.
Land movement bonus:
Gets move 2 if paired 1:1 with Mechanized Infantry (only).

No other combined arms.

Pay attention. First, if Elite units should have a production cap, then so should tanks and battleships too. There are no good reason a nation can spam the map with Bombers or Battleships, but only build one or two Elite units during the game. Second, if Elite units must be taken as first casualties, then so should tanks and planes too. It is very ahistorical that after a great battle, millions of infantry are dead but all the tanks and bombers survived. Actually in the real war it was the other way around, so the idea is not bad, but it sure break the old A&A tradition of owner picking casualties.

Paras should be like this, up to 3 Paras can combat move up to 3 spaces away from a working AirBase. I know the OOB rules says 2 units, but it can scramble 3 fighters, so lets keep numbers that everybody can remember.

Yes, Marc is correct, Paras are light armed, but sometimes surprise is stronger than heavy guns. I figure the surprise factor justifies a first roll of 2 or less as hits.

Of course you can drop Paras only in any territory within range of your AB. They don’t need a back up force coming from adjacent territory. In the Battle of Crete, the Italian amphibious assault failed, because the Brits had a lot of battleships in the seazone. Then the Germans dropped Paras from planes. The first men in chutes would usually capture an airfield, and the following up forces would land on that airfield, so 3 Paras from an AB don’t just represent 100 000 men with chutes, it represent men landing in gliders or air transports landing on newly captured airfields too.

The attack on Norway was pretty much the same. After the coastal guns sunk a lot of German ships, thousands of paratroopers that had been stand by in Germany would cross the North Sea, which is a long distance, and drop in Southern Norway. After the battle of Narvik got stuck, the Germans got reinforced by paras that jumped out over the mountains and snow. In this case Paratroopers would follow up and reinforce the initial amphibious assault. Not the other way around.

When it comes to Marines, I think all surface warships can carry one Marines unit. Both Germany and Japan used Destroyers to let infantry cross short seazones, because they were short on Trannies, and Destroyers were more suitable to carry infantry than Battleships. On the Amphibious Assault on Norway, thousands of German infantry would ride on the deck of Destroyers. But important to remember, they can only do this for a short distance. No warships can cross the Atlantic or the Pacific with infantry on the upper deck, they would freeze to death. That’s why they build Trannies.

In case you want my IMHO, the current amphibious assault rules have room for improvement. The A&A 1914 rules are way better. Defending artillery should fire pre-emptive against the landing party.