Combined arms suggestion

I’m not sure I’m grasping the concept here – but if I understand correctly, this seems to be saying that it’s easier for a battleship, cruiser or carrier to fight against two types of enemies simultaneously than just one type of enemy.  Realistically, it should be the reverse.  A ship that only has to deal with one type of engagement, either surface-combat alone or anti-aircraft alone, is dealing with a much less complicated problem than a blended-combat situation.  Surface combat and anti-aircraft combat require different types of maneuvering and different types of weapon-firing tactics.  A ship that’s faced with two different types of attacks simultaneously has to choose between two undesirable options; it can either use blended tactics, which is messy, or it can concentrate on just one enemy, which leaves it vulnerable to the other enemy.

YG,

I’m confused to. Is your suggestion to say that cruisers/battleships, whether or attacking or defending, if fighting both warships and air, would get to roll 2 AAA die @1 for 1 possible hit per ship applied to air units? Is this it?

@Young:

Sure, however… is simple terms, Cruisers and Battleships had large guns to engage ships and to shore bombard, as well AA guns to engage aircraft. You wouldn’t use the big cannons to hit aircraft, and you wouldn’t use AA guns to fight other battleships. So if a battleship is engaged in heavy battle with both ships and aircraft… it goes to figure that all guns are blazing and the chances of hitting a unit (whatever type) are greater than if the AA guns or the 15" guns are just standing by.

The probablilty that a battleship or cruiser will “hit a target, any target at all, regardless of its type” doesn’t automatically increase when you increase the number of guns that are firing.  In some circumstances it might increase, but in some circumstances it might actually decrease if the anti-surface firing (and tactics) and the anti-aircraft firing (and tactics) get in the way of each other.  Firing and hitting don’t have a simple linear relationship, and it’s not a relationship that only works in one direction (meaning “more firing equals more hits”).  Battleships and cruisers, incidentally, didn’t just have big main guns and small anti-aircraft guns; they also had intermediate-caliber weapons – like the American 5"/38 caliber gun – which could be used as dual-purpose weapons, meaning either in an anti-surface or in an anti-air role (but not in both roles simultaneously).

Leaving aside those technicalities, I guess what I’m really having trouble understanding is a more fundamental point.  “Combined arms” warfare is supposed to give an advantage to the side that’s combining its arms, and it’s is supposed to be detrimental to the side that’s being attacked by the combined arms.  Unless I’m understanding backwards what you’ve described (and it’s quite possible that I got it backwards), this rule seems to be saying that when Side X combines its arms to attack Side Y, the result is a situation that benefits Side Y (the defender) rather than Side X (the combined-arms attacker), which sounds counter-intuitive to me.

That makes more sense.  Though I’d just pair a fighter or submarine with a battleship (attack) or battleship/carrier (defense) for that ruling.  (Assuming the submarine or fighter is being a spotter unit).  Just off the cuff response, I didn’t put 4 hours of thought and research into it…

Interesting new path for Cruiser and BB.

And with CWO ways of seeing naval combat, you can see air-naval combined arms bonus like preventing Cruiser and BB to roll 2 dices and keep the best (like heavy bomber).
So, if only air or only surface vessels are attacking Cruiser and BB get two dice for defense.
If only surface vessels or aircrafts remains on defense, then attacking Cruiser and BB can roll 2 dice.
YG (all warship guns open fire) and CWO (single enemy-type more efficient warship tactic), you bring 2 opposite rationalizations and each can work with similar principles. It only depends on which is more appealing for a given group of players.

In both cases, it adds a layer of tactical warfare at sea. Nice and original, good works guys.

Infantry backed by artillery, and Tanks backed by Tactical Bombers, now that are true combined arms. Battleships and aircrafts are not. Ships and planes really should roll dice in different phases. Aircrafts can spot and reach ships at a far distance, long before ships can reach other ships. A&A miss a dedicated air to air and air to ground phase before the general combat. In this initial combat phase with dogfights between planes, and the surviving planes attacking ships, I figure the surface warships could roll Anti Air fire with a roll of 1 as hit. Much like the SBR thing, dogfights, AA fire from facility, or in this case a ship, then bombers target the ships. Only in one case during WWII did a battleship sink a carrier, when Scharnhorst sank the carrier Glorius in a blizzard off the Norwegian coast during winter. The planes could not take off because of the blizzard. But this was a one time case, to confirm the rule that carriers are superior to gunships

What if the three previously mentioned ships were to preemptively fire AAA at a 1@1 (up to one per participating ship of those three kinds)? That would make it less altering while still using the AAA capabilities.

@Tamer:

What if the three previously mentioned ships were to preemptively fire AAA at a 1@1 (up to one per participating ship of those three kinds)? That would make it less altering while still using the AAA capabilities.

The problem with that is that an A&A Fighter unit represent 1000 real life aircrafts, while an A&A Battleship unit represent one or two real life Battleships. That would be like the Battleship Bismarck shot down 1000 aircrafts before any of them could drop a bomb on her. That would be insane nonsense and derogatory bedlam flat out crazy in the real war. As we know, one single Swordfish WWI plane crippled Bismarck with one obsolete torpedo in the real war. A rule like the suggested one will only make sense if an A&A unit represented 100 ships or 100 aircrafts, and the aircraft unit had a range limit, like it could only combat move 1 or 2 sea spaces. With the current rules, an unlimited number of plane units can cover all the oceans of the world, and if the real world planes could do that too there would be no surviving ships after 1939. It would be like millions of single engine fighters would circle the globe and sink everything, except when one ship got lucky and downed thousands of planes with one lucky AA shot. It would not be the war we know from the history books.

While I do agree that ships represent just a few, I have to disagree on the planes.  Large carriers can only carry two plane units in the game, and most of them in real life had a compliment of about 72 planes, thus each plane can only represent approximately 32 planes, a decent sized squadron.  Perhaps this ability can only be available for battleships for a balanced compromise?

How do you know that a carrier piece doesn’t represent an entire carrier group of fleet carriers, escort carriers, seaplane tenders, tankers and destroyer escorts, and that then, the fighter is more like dozens and dozens of operational aircraft of various types?

Step 7, deploy imagination :D

Ultimately we are all playing a game.

And as a game mechanic - combined arms should only reward the side that has combined arms. (So as to encourage its use).

Implementing rules to discourage fundamental activities is generally a poor practice.

Whilst I don’t support this concept as written, I am a strong supporter of cruisers and possibly battleships getting typical AAA capability.

Cruisers and battleships aren’t purchased often enough if ever, and giving them AAA capability, would ENCOURAGE thier purchase.

Aircraft carriers don’t need this ability, as they are already a standard purchas3 with powerful capabilities.

@Tamer:

thus each plane can only represent approximately 32 planes, a decent sized squadron.Â

Now that is some expensive planes, 10 IPC for 32 planes, while you get a Panzer Corps with 500 Tanks and 50 000 men for 6 IPC. And if you are correct, I think the game start set up is short of some hundred aircraft units, since a power like Germany had more than 10 000 planes when the game start in 1940. I figure a fighter unit represent something between like 250 or 500 planes, and a Bomber unit maybe 50 units, or I could be wrong of course

@taamvan:

How do you know that a carrier piece doesn’t represent an entire carrier group of fleet carriers, escort carriers, seaplane tenders, tankers and destroyer escorts, and that then, the fighter is more like dozens and dozens of operational aircraft of various types?

Step 7, deploy imagination :D

I always pictured ships being 1 for 1 with the exception of transports. An aircraft piece to me is a wing.

@Gargantua:

Whilst I don’t support this concept as written, I am a strong supporter of cruisers and possibly battleships getting typical AAA capability.

Cruisers and battleships aren’t purchased often enough if ever, and giving them AAA capability, would ENCOURAGE thier purchase.

Aircraft carriers don’t need this ability, as they are already a standard purchas3 with powerful capabilities.

I lobbied for an AA ability for cruisers when people were discussing the worth of cruisers vs. their cost. This would give each ship class a certain ability and maybe make cruisers more worth the 12 IPC cost.
Submarines = surprise strike and convoy raiding
Destroyers = ability to cancel submarine abilities
Cruisers = anti-aircraft ability and shore bombardment
Battleships = 2 hits to sink and shore bombardment
Carriers = 2 hits to sink and carry planes

Any time a naval force that includes aircraft attacks an enemy naval force that includes cruiser(s), the cruiser(s) act like anti-aircraft guns and roll 1 die per attacking aircraft and hit @ 1 before regular combat round. Any hits are immediately destroyed.
Also, you could limit each cruiser like the AA guns on land to only 3 shots per cruiser.

@knp7765:

@Gargantua:

Whilst I don’t support this concept as written, I am a strong supporter of cruisers and possibly battleships getting typical AAA capability.

Cruisers and battleships aren’t purchased often enough if ever, and giving them AAA capability, would ENCOURAGE thier purchase.

Aircraft carriers don’t need this ability, as they are already a standard purchas3 with powerful capabilities.  Â

I lobbied for an AA ability for cruisers when people were discussing the worth of cruisers vs. their cost. This would give each ship class a certain ability and maybe make cruisers more worth the 12 IPC cost.
Submarines = surprise strike and convoy raiding
Destroyers = ability to cancel submarine abilities
Cruisers = anti-aircraft ability and shore bombardment
Battleships = 2 hits to sink and shore bombardment
Carriers = 2 hits to sink and carry planes

Any time a naval force that includes aircraft attacks an enemy naval force that includes cruiser(s), the cruiser(s) act like anti-aircraft guns and roll 1 die per attacking aircraft and hit @ 1 before regular combat round. Any hits are immediately destroyed.
Also, you could limit each cruiser like the AA guns on land to only 3 shots per cruiser.

This is off topic of YG’s post. But I see the cruiser AAA idea as always coming back.

It’s really hard to overcome Naval superiority and achieve a good outcome as an attacker. In order to win naval battles, you have to tip/take carriers as casualties to preserve the dice throwing units for the 2nd/3rd battle round. It’s hard to determine the amount of lost planes (carrier casualties) is the right amount or not. If play aggressive on your attack to ensure you win the battle, you could lose a ton of planes (pyrrhic). If you attack conservatively, you could maybe lose the battle because you were taking dice throwing units as casualties rather than 2 hit points per carrier.

Therefore, if I were playing that house rule idea of the cruisers getting up to 3 @1 dice AAA shots, I’d want it as a defender AND attacker.

PS:  Ironically, destroyers, carriers, battleships, and cruisers are the ships with the most/best effective AAA in real life in that order (cruisers lest effective AAA).

@Ichabod:

PS:  Ironically, destroyers, carriers, battleships, and cruisers are the ships with the most/best effective AAA in real life in that order (cruisers lest effective AAA).

I’m having trouble grasping the rationale for that description.  On an individual-ship basis, and talking about the real WWII rather than the A&A rules, battleships would arguably be the best (because carried the greatest number of AAA guns), destroyers would arguably be the worst (because carried the smallest number), and cruisers would be somewhere in the middle.  On a collective basis, and still talking about the real world, destroyers would arguably be the best and battleships would arguably be the worst (and cruisers would be somewhere in the middle) because destroyers were cheaper to build (and thus could be built in larger numbers, and deployed in a fleet in larger numbers) than cruisers, with the same relationship applying between cruisers and battleships.  So from both perspectives, cruisers are in the middle of the AAA effectiveness scale rather than at one end of it.

Actually, that could perhaps be an angle to use to solve the A&A cruiser problem: create for destroyers, cruisers and battleships some kind of two-factor relationship (how much each unit costs and how much AAA firepower each unit has) which, when the two factors are put together, results in cruisers having an AAA cost-benefit ratio which is superior to the destroyer AAA cost-benefit ratio and the battleship AAA cost-benefit ratio.