Amphibious assault blocked by surviving submarine after sea battle

@daniel1980:

I came across the following scenario:

The attacker wants to conduct an amphibious assault on a land zone containing an airbase. He attacks the sea zone with planes only and wants to attack the land zone later using loaded transports and planes only. The defender has one destroyer and one submarine in the contested sea zone and scrambles one fighter.

Question 1) Does the submarine participate to the sea battle (even though it can neither attack nor get attacked)?

1. Yes the sub is part of the naval battle because of the def destroyer and scramble (can’t be ignored)

1a) If there wasn’t a defending destroyer in the sz the attacker could have ignored the sub if he brought in other warships (because you can’t ignore subs when attacking w/tpts only), but if the defender scrambles the ftr then the sub becomes part of the naval battle (can’t be ignored).

Question 2) Is the answer to Q1 still “yes” if no scrambling takes places (only destroyer and submarine defend)?

2. Because you must attack the dd to clear the sz the sub is also part of the battle. It could submerge but that would be unlikely because it can’t be hit, but could kill a transport and the amphib can’t happen if it stays on the surface

Now suppose that all defending units (the destroyer and the fighter) have been destroyed by the attacking planes during the sea battle, only the submarine remains in the sea zone (because it could not get hit by the attacking planes). The defending submarine was NOT submerged by the defending player using the “Submersible” rule form the rulebook (I think it could not anyway since there was no attacking warship in the sea zone, but just to be safe …).

Question 3) Does the surviving submarine block the transports after the sea battle (that means the attacker has to abort the amphibious assault)?

3. Yes the sub not only stops the amphib in this situation, it gets to fire at your transports (defends at “1”). When you attack the sz your transports are part of the sea battle and if the defending sub hits that would be applied to your tpts being the only ships in the battle. You would be able to retreat after the first round of the battle though,

Question 4) Is there any change of the situation if the attacker brings additional cruiser and/or battleships for bombardement?

4. Yes because the sub would probably submerge taking itself out of the battle. If the sub doesn’t submerge your cruiser/battleship could kill it clearing the sz, but those ships wouldn’t be able to bombard because they were part of the sea battle

Many thanks in advance!

Daniel

I’m assuming that you are attacking a Japanese territory (island) that has Kamikaze’s. That is why you are reluctant to take in your surface war ships. Just as a note Kami’s can’t hit subs or tpts, so if you had 2-3 subs in the attack with your tpts he wouldn’t be able to use his Kami’s, and he might submerge his sub. If he stays he defends at 1, and your subs would have a good chance of killing his sub and destroyer. I would only do this if I also had air power to insure I could take out his scramblers (and destroyer if the subs miss).

@WILD:

I’m assuming that you are attacking a Japanese territory (island) that has Kamikaze’s. That is why you are reluctant to take in your surface war ships. Just as a note Kami’s can’t hit subs or tpts, so if you had 2-3 subs in the attack with your tpts he wouldn’t be able to use his Kami’s, and he might submerge his sub. If he stays he defends at 1, and your subs would have a good chance of killing his sub and destroyer. I would only do this if I also had air power to insure I could take out his scramblers (and destroyer if the subs miss).

Yeah, but he still couldn’t land his troops for the amphibious assault if he took in just subs.

Marsh

@Marshmallow:

@WILD:

I’m assuming that you are attacking a Japanese territory (island) that has Kamikaze’s. That is why you are reluctant to take in your surface war ships. Just as a note Kami’s can’t hit subs or tpts, so if you had 2-3 subs in the attack with your tpts he wouldn’t be able to use his Kami’s, and he might submerge his sub. If he stays he defends at 1, and your subs would have a good chance of killing his sub and destroyer. I would only do this if I also had air power to insure I could take out his scramblers (and destroyer if the subs miss).

Yeah, but he still couldn’t land his troops for the amphibious assault if he took in just subs.

Marsh

Sure he can if he clears the sz and kills the defending ftr, dd and ss (or kills the dd & ftr and the sub submerges). You don’t need a surface warship to perform an amphib, you just need to clear the sz. There is a good possibility of clearing the sz with a couple subs and 3-4 planes. Even if the attacker loses both subs, as long as the defender lost all 3 units the amphib goes on (sz is cleared).

Unless he brings a destroyer, he can’t force the enemy sub to participate in the defense. The amphibious assault then fails unless he brings a surface warship with a combat value. The presence of the sub, submerged or not, prevents the amphibious assault.

On the other hand, if his opponent lets the sub participate in the defense, then yeah, it can die.

@Marshmallow:

Unless he brings a destroyer, he can’t force the enemy sub to participate in the defense. The amphibious assault then fails unless he brings a surface warship with a combat value. The presence of the sub, submerged or not, prevents the amphibious assault.

On the other hand, if his opponent lets the sub participate in the defense, then yeah, it can die.

I’m sorry but this is not true Marsh, a submerged sub will not stop the amphib. Look on page 18 of the Euro rule book (2nd edition). Under step 3 land combat first paragraph (I know this is a strange place for it because it took me a while to find it).

“If there was no sea battle, or the sea zone has been cleared of all defending enemy units except transports and submarines that submerged during the sea battle, and the attacker still has land units committed to the coastal territory, move all attacking and defending units to the battle strip and conduct combat……”

Maybe you are thinking about not being able to ignore subs with out escorting your tpts with a war ship, but it says war ship, not surface warship so you could use a sub to escort if you want to.

You got me there. Thanks for the clarification :)

Marsh

Not a problem, it happens to me too. You actually had me doubting myself thinking I either missed, forgot or just had a preconceived notion lol.  I read and re-read a dozen pages in the G40 Euro rule book between our posts before I finally found it.