New Strategic Bomber (for SBR exclusively)

Wild Bill wrote,

“Like I said before although Russia needs help, I’m not in favor of Russia getting an NO bonus if the western allies make landings stick in Europe. The Russians are already getting the benefit of Germany fighting two fronts, therefore axis will have less to spend on the eastern front (that is the real bonus).”

Would you be willing to test the Russian NO before simply scrapping the idea? I think both ideas, the Russian NO and the Lend Lease idea might be a way to end the Allies “bidding.” By the time an Allied landing can stick, its usually too late for the Axis to really dislodge them anyways. This might help to end a game that really takes too long. However, it might result in quicker landings that actually fail, (resulting in no NO for Russia), and then actually make Germany stronger, because they secured “fortress” Europe.

In another thread by YG, he asked about changing the turn order to let the US go last. That might also be a good way to end the bidding process. Also, it sounds historical since the US was the last major country to enter the war.

Hi all!
I made this new research table breakthrough for A&A Global, cause i think the original ones was too weak. Stuff like War Bonds or Improved Shipyards are strange concepts imho (spend money to recieve money back overtime ? :? ). Those rules can be used of course on every A&A game, not only Global 1940.

I just want to share this new research with you all, and listening at your feedbacks, you veterans!  :-D
Please let me know what do you think!
Enjoy!  :lol:

(N.B.: 1,2,3 Ground and 1,5,6 Air/Naval are the same of standard rules)

NEW RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT RULES BY ZAIBACH

Research and Development sequence
1. Boost research
2. Roll research dice
3. Roll breakthrough dice
4. Invest in research

1. If you don’t have any research token in your reserve, go directly on step 4. If you have at least one research token, you can choose to boost research for that turn. If you do so, spend 5 IPCs: only for that turn the research is boosted.
2. Roll a die for each research token in your reserve, +1 die if you boost the research for that turn. If you score at least one “1”, you made a breakthrough: remove all research tokens from your reserve and go to step 3. If not, skip step 3 and go to step 4.
3. Choose one table and roll a dice to determine the research you’ve gotten.
4. You can choose either to invest or do not invest in research. If you do not invest, you lost all the research tokens in your reserve. If you do invest, you spend 5 IPCs and add one research token in your reserve.

Example:

On first turn Japan starts with 0 research token and so go directly on step 4. He decides to invest in research, spending 5 IPCs and taking one research token. On second turn Japan decides to boost his research, spending 5 IPCs. He then roll two dice, one for the token and one for the boost. He scores 2 and 5, no breakthrough. He then decides to continue investing in research, spending 5 IPCs, acquiring a second research token. On third turn Japan decides to not boost his research, and then roll two dice for the two tokens he has. He scores 6 and 1, breakthrough! He remove all the tokens and got a research. Then he decide to continue investing in research, spending 5 IPCs. He now has one research token in reserve.

GROUND TABLE

1. Advanced Artillery. Each of your artillery units can now provide greater support. One artillery unit can support up to 2 infantry and/or mechanized infantry units per attack. Up to 2 infantry and/or mechanized infantry units when coupled with 1 artillery unit have attack values of 2.
2. Rockets. Your air bases can now launch rockets. During the Strategic and Tactical Bombing Raids step of your Conduct Combat phase each turn, each of your operative air bases can make a single rocket attack against an enemy industrial complex, air base, or naval base within 4 spaces of it. This attack does one die roll of damage to that facility. Rockets may not be fired over neutral territories.
3. Paratroopers. Up to 2 of your infantry units in each territory with an air base can be moved to an enemy controlled territory 3 or fewer spaces away that is being attacked by your land units from adjacent territories and/or by amphibious assault. When moving, paratroopers must obey the same restrictions that air units do. If the territory being attacked has AAA (antiaircraft artillery) units, the paratrooper infantry units are subject to antiaircraft fire in the same way as air units. If attacking along with land units from adjacent territories, paratroopers may retreat as normal.
4. Improved Factory. Each of your industrial complexes can now produce additional units beyond their normal production ability. Major industrial complexes can mobilize up to 12 units, and minor ones can mobilize up to 4 units. Also, your industrial complexes have now built-in Artillery. Major industrial complexes have 2 built-in Artilleries and minor ones have 1 built-in Artillery. You can use this Artilleries in battle only for defence. This special Artilleries are added on the battle board but can’t never be taken as a casuality. If in any round, after remove casualities, there are no other defence units except for built-in Artilleries, they are immediatly removed. In any case, at the end of the battle, remove them from the battleboard.
5. Accurated Bombardment. Your Artilleries can now be parried with Fighters. This improve the Artillery both Attack and Defence by 1 (from 2 to 3). A single Fighter can both be parried with an Artillery and a Tactical Bomber in the same moment.
6. Fast Tanks. Only on the first cycle of combat, your tanks can support infantry/mechanized infantry (just like artilleries).

NAVAL/AIR TABLE

1. Super Submarines. The attack value of your submarines is now 3 instead of 2.
2. Antiaircraft Cruisers. Your Cruisers have now a built-in AAA (antiaircraft artillery).
3. Torpedo Bombers. Your Tactical Bombers are now equipped with a single Torpedo. Only during the first round of a Naval Combat, both Defending and Attacking Torpedo Bombers roll an extra dice called “Torpedo”. Those dices have attack and defence value of 2 (3 if coupled with a fighter). Enemy aircrafts cannot be hitted by “Torpedo” dices. When you have to allocate hits, first of all allocate “Torpedo” dices, and then proceeds with the others.
4. Dreadnought Battleships. Your Battleships now have long range cannons. Before a naval battle begins (even before AAA phase), there is a single special round fight. In this special round only Battleships attack and defence with a value of 2, and submarines and aircrafts cannot be taken as casualities. For each Fighter on your side you can increase one Battleship attack and defence to 3. Casualities are immediatly removed and cannot take place in the normal battle.
5. Long-Range Aircraft. All of your air unit’s ranges are increased by one space.
6. Heavy Bombers. Your strategic bombers are now heavy bombers. When attacking, whether in a battle or a strategic bombing raid, roll two dice for each bomber and select the best result.

Torpedo Bombers, Example:
A Japanese Aircraft Carrier and an American one are standing in the pacific ocean. They have both one Fighter and one Torpedo Bomber.

During the Japanese turn, the Japanese attack with his Fighter and his Torpedo Bomber on the sea zone with the American Aircraft Carrier. The Japanese has 1 dice of 3 for the Fighter, 1 dice of 4 for the Tactical Bomber, and 1 more dice “Torpedo” of 3.
He rolls and obtains 6, 4, 2 respectively, inflicting 1 normal hit and 1 “Torpedo” hit.

The American has 1 dice of 2 for the Aircraft Carrier, 1 dice of 3 for the Torpedo Bomber, and 1 dice of 4 for the Fighter. His “Torpedo” dice is lost, because there aren’t ships on Japanese army.
He rolls and obtains 5, 5, 3 respectively, inflicting 1 normal hit.

The Japanese assign the hit to his Fighter, which is destroyed.
The American first of all have to assign the “Torpedo” hit, he has to assign it to the Aircraft Carrier, because it has to be assigned on ships, which is now damaged. Then he assign the normal hit at his Torpedo Bomber, which is destroyed.

At this point the Japanese decide to pull back with his Torpedo Bomber, returning on his Aircraft Carrier.
The American Fighter cannot land in the Aircraft Carrier, because it’s damaged, and cannot also land in any place, so it’s destroyed.

With this attack the Japanese, losing only 1 Fighter, has inflicted a devastating blow to the American fleet, destroying two Aircrafts and damaging an Aircraft Carrier!

@Black_Elk:

it becomes a full mod and an entirely new game.

Here’s a radical suggestion which you might want to consider – either as a practical project, or just as a way to generate some out-of-the-box lateral thinking.

There are many aspects of the Global 1940 game (and of other A&A games) over which people have expressed dissatisfaction and for which they’ve proposed house rule alternatives.  Some of these proposals have targeted just one or two specific game elements and have involved changes of a very modest nature (such as adjusting the turn order and nothing else).  Other proposals have been more wide-ranging in scope and more intricate in nature.  Generally speaking, however, all of these proposals have operated under an implicit restriction: trying to stick as closely as possible to the OOB game in order to keep things recognizable.  It’s a valid design principle, with the advantage that it makes proposed changes acceptable to a broader base of players, but the downside is that it acts as a straightjacket: it severely limits what you can change.

So here’s an alternative you might want to think about: remove the self-imposed restiction of needing to come up with the same game.  Rather than starting from the premise that the end result of the design process has to be a game which is essentially the same as G40, eliminate this predetermined end result from the equation.  Instead, draw up an inventory of: 1) all the things about the game that you absolutely want to keep; 2) all the things that you’d be flexibily prepared to either keep or modify or discard, depending on what works best; and 3) all the things that you feel don’t work properly in the OOB rules and that you feel absolutely must be improved or replaced, whether by minor tinkering or total reconceptualization.  Then try to come up with a redesigned version of the game that addresses all of your issues and which works well on its own terms, regardless of how closely it adheres to the OOB game or how far it deviates from it.

The thing to keep in mind here is that, in the redesign of any existing system, you can only make so many adjustments to the system while sticking to its original basic architecture.  Beyond a certain point, the original architecture becomes a constaining factor rather than a help, and instead of an improved version you end up with something that’s even clunkier than the unsatisfactory version which you were trying to fix in the first place.  So beyond a certain point, you have to throw out that constraining architecture, start with a clean slate, focus on the specific things you’re trying to achieve, find the solutions which achieve your aims, and then let those solutions dictate the eventual new architecture of the revised system.

Most times simple is better.  Production and economics with AA although simple, provide enough richness to allow for economics to be part of a war game without putting us to sleep.

So an IC built in Egypt can build two units for an infrastructure investment of 15 IPC.  But that same 15 IPC when spent in Western Europe allows the owner to build six units.  The same 15 IPC provides for two different results.   Why?  Is this fair?  I’ll use the map for '42 for examples.

Fair enough.

The argument that because the host territory has a value of six versus two provides for the basis of my defense of this.  The sizx income represents a pre-existing level of infrastructure versus that of Egypt’s two.  The 15 IPC investment leverages the pre-existing level of infrastructure.

But…

There is a big difference between an IC in Egypt pumping out two battleships per round for the current owner Japan compared to an IC in Western Europe owned by Germany pumping out 6 infantry per round.

What about factoring in the value of what is being produced at the IC?   Allow a base multiplier to be spent say (3-5 IPC) * (Max # of units that can be built at the IC in this location).  This value would represent what could be spent at that IC with no production penalties.   A couple of brackets larger than this value would be created to allow for more money to be spent at this IC with a financial penalty increasing per bracket.  This penalty would represent the loss in productivity per IPC spent to ‘over-drive’ production levels ie over-time etc.  A top end cap could be established.  Japan can spend 20 IPC in Egypt for example but not 40.  Yes, you can build one battleship or two fighters per turn in Egypt, but the infrastructure there would never support two battleships per turn in production.

It would make it a bit more expensive to save up your money then drop several turns worth of savings down in one build of 12 bombers in Western USA, indeed, you could build 12 fighters but only 10 bombers, your IPC cap there might be 120 IPC of production costing you 125% of 120 with the 25% production overdrive penalty.   You could still spend 60 IPC per turn with no penalty.

It would make SBRs a bit more effective.  It would cost the victim of SBRs a bit more to just save money for 2-3 rounds then max repair the IC and build a stack of tanks and fighters.  Indeed, the repair costs to the IC could be included in the  totals and caps.

I would be interested in what others think about this.

I think you are still reading it wrong. According to the proposed system you get to pick the exact tech you want to roll for. Once you buy the researchers, it is only a matter of time before you get the tech (and only that tech). Due to the escalating nature of it, it should only take roughly 2-3 turns to get it. (1-2 for 3 or 4 dice) I honestly don’t mind playing with house rules. I am an avid fan of AARe and am not interested in competitive play using OOB rules or LHTR. I still like to play good people (I’d love to play AARe with axis roll or replay pagan sometime) I hope we can develop this rule set to get enough recognition to be generally accepted as more than one players house rule.

BTW anyone know what happened to pagan haven’t seen him since the WOTC board died?

the cost of building bombers to deliver 1 infantry to a battle is too much to suatain during the early rounds, unless a game would go for around 20 rounds or more i could not entertain the logistics, the longest game that i played went on for 9 rounds top’s

First, I am assuming that all submarines in A & A attack from periscope depth, not the surface.  That is the only way that the first strike rule for submarines can be justified.  If all subs are attacking on the surface then aircraft should be able to attack subs without a destroyer present, and all surface ships should get a free shot at the sub with no chance of reply, as most successful torpedo attacks occurred at ranges of less than 2,000 yards, point blank range for surface guns.  The attack chance is based on a submerged sub attacking a sub running on the surface, not submerged.  WW2 boats spent most of their time on the surface, submerging only to attack or avoid aircraft and surface ships.  The snorkel only came into use by the Germans in mid-1944, and did allow for diesel running while submerged.  If you wish, I will post a detailed discussion of WW2 submarine tactics and operational proceedures.  If you argue that all subs are always submerged, then they should have a movement of 1 sea zone every two turns, to reflect the very low speed of submerged running.  You cannot have it both ways.

OK yes submarines attacked at periscope depth and then immediately submerged at the first sign of trouble. And what the ‘first strike’ idea is supposed to model. However, fighters didn’t have the tactic of attacking subs down until the mid war period and up until that time reconnaissance planes ( in our case bombers) were used as spotters for convoy or for wolf packs to hunt convoy system. Those snorkel types you mentioned are the type XXI Walter U-boat turbine system which could travel in some cases underwater faster than some allied destroyers ( about 16 knots). Also you have to know that a turn in AA is something like 4-6 months which is plenty of time to move around and not really effect its movement. The 2 movement point thing is for play balance issues because if naval vessels had unlimited range it would mess up the game because its already a highly abstracted strategic system.

As for a submerged submarine sinking a submerged submarine, the HMS Venturer sank the U-864 while both were submerged on February 6, 1945.  This is the first recorded case of a submerged sub being sunk by another submerged sub.  Both the US and the UK in the immediate postwar period began the development of hunter-killer subs designed specifically for submerged ASW engagement.  During WW2, British submarines sank 35 enemy submarines.  I will need to check on the totals for the other countries.

I knew you would bring up that example: but the game is representing one submarine as something like 20-40 submarines for each ‘piece’ and that is only one example near the last days of the war. Hardly anything to base a major principle of naval combat on IMO. The game has to reflect what actually happened as a matter of normal affairs during the war . All postwar developments wont help us model WW2.

still a small AC Bomber could take out BB