New Transport Defense

Here is 12 of n for discussion of my Classic House Rules

So, we have a big pile of new units and new rules, how shall we set up the board? I propose the following new setup for A&A Classic.

List of abbreviations:
ACav - Armored Cavalry
AirT - Air Transport
AKA - (sea) Transport
BB - Battleship
Bmbr - Bomber
CA - Cruiser
CV - Aircraft Carrier
Ftr - Fighter
HArt - Heavy Artillery
Para - Paratrooper
SS - Submarine
Trpr - Trooper

This setup assumes that you are playing with the Cruisers from Post 1 (links to relevant posts added below), the Paratroopers and Air Transports from Post 2, the Armored Cavalry and Troopers from Post 3, and the Heavy Artillery from Post 4. The setup for Armored Cavalry, Troopers, and Heavy Artillery is ‘inspired’ by Ralph Boerke’s original setup for his Armored Cavalry, Troopers, and Heavy Artillery. This setup will place 1 Paratrooper and 1 Air Transport in the capital territories all nations, Germany will receive 1 additional Paratrooper and Air Transport in Rome (Southern Europe). This setup also assumes use of the “Boats Valve Fix” (BVF) proposed by D. A. Harrell from the mists of A&A history (I read about it from the re-post on Thrasher’s A&A page, which should give some history for those who remember Thrasher…). Also, this setup assumes the use of the variable British Sub setup. Furthermore, all CVs will receive a full complement of aircraft (2 Fighters) at setup; all sea zones with Transports or CVs will receive 1 Cruiser at setup, and all sea zones with Battleships will receive 1 (additional) Transport at setup.

@Boat:

In short, the Boat Valve Fix changes three things about Classic A&A - 1) optional “No Attack by Russia” made mandatory, 2) increase the number of German Subs in the Atlantic (off Western Europe) from 1 to 4, 3) increase the number of Japanese Transports in the Philippines Sea Zone from 1 to 4.

First, setup the game as normal. Nothing will be removed from the original setup. Then, add the noted pieces to the following territories as listed below:

Union of Soviet Socialists Republics
Russia (territory of) - 1 Trpr, 1 ACav, 1 HArt, 1 Para, and 1 AirT
Karelia - 1 CA with SS and AKA already there
Sov. F. East - 1 Trpr and 1 ACav

Union of Soviet Socialists Republics

Germany
Germany (territory of) - 2 Trpr, 2 ACav, 1 HArt, 1 Para, 1 AirT, 1 CA and 1 SS with SS and AKA already in the Baltic
Eastern Europe - 1 HArt
Ukraine - 1 ACav and 1 HArt
Southern Europe - 1 Para, 1 AirT, 1 CA and 1 AKA added to the BB and AKA already at sea
Western Europe - 1 ACav, 1 HArt, and 3 SS added to the 1 SS already at sea
Libya - 1 ACav

Germany

United Kingdom
United Kingdom (territory of) - 1 Trpr, 1 HArt, 1 Para, 1 AirT, 1 CA and 1 AKA added to the BB and AKA already at sea
Eastern Canada - 1 CA with AKA already there
India - 1 Trpr and 1 CA with AKA already there
Gibraltar - 1 AKA added to the BB already at sea
Egypt - 1 ACav, also - (The UK player has the option to move the 1 UK SS already off the coast of Egypt from the Med to the Red Sea (aka, the other side of the Suez Canal) at setup. Once USSR starts taking its turn, choice is set for that game.)

United Kingdom

Empire of Japan
Japan (territory of) - 1 Trpr, 1 ACav, 1 HArt, 1 Para, 1 AirT, and 1 CA, 1 SS, and 1 AKA with BB and AKA already at sea
Manchuria - 1 Trpr and 1 ACav
Fr. In. Burma - 1 ACav
Phil. I’s - 1 CA and 3 AKA added to the AKA already at sea
Kwangtung - 1 ACav
Caro. I’s - 1 CA, 1 Ftr, and 1 AKA with BB, CV, and Ftr already at sea
Solo. I’s - 1 SS added to the 1 SS already at sea

Empire of Japan

United States of America
Eastern US - 2 Trpr, 1 Para, 1 AirT, and 1 CA with AKA already at sea
Western US - 2 Trpr, 1 ACav, 1 HArt, 1 CA, 1 SS, and 1 AKA with BB and AKA already at sea
Hawaii - 1 CA, and 1 Ftr with SS, CV, and Ftr already at sea

United States of America

Posts
Post 1 - Cruisers - www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=41100.0
Post 2 - Paratroopers and Air Transports - www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=41101.0
Post 3 - Armored Cavalry and Troopers - www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=41157.0
Post 4 - Heavy Artillery - www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=41158.0

One more post (Neutral Countries and what to be done with them), and I think I’ll have posted about all of my personal rule collection for Classic. Looking forward to wrapping all of this up and putting together a comprehensive rule book of changes.

-Midnight_Reaper

Here is an example of the failure of bombing a small coastal emplacement at Normandy:

"SAINT-MARCOUF : THE CRISBECQ BATTERY
GERMAN COASTAL DEFENSE

The only heavy battery on the eastern coast of the Cotentin Peninsula, the Crisbecq Battery, was located 2.5 kilometers from the shore on a crest overlooking all of Utah Beach. From Crisbecq, the Germans could see and defend the entire coastline from Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue to Grandcamp.

Although it was never completed, the Crisbecq battery was the keystone of this portion of the German Atlantic Wall with three, long-range 210 mm cannons and a garrison of 400 men. The Allies dropped over 800 bombs on Crisbecq between April 19 and June 6, 1944. This unrelenting aerial attack climaxed on the night of June 5 when 101 four-engine bombers unleashed 598 tons of explosives on the battery. On June 6, the surroundings were unrecognizable, but the guns were still intact.

At 6 am on D-Day, as GI’s were landing on Utah Beach, Crisbecq opened fire, sinking an American destroyer.

The battery held out for several days, despite shelling by U.S. battleships and attacks from the American Infantry in hand-to-hand trench combat.

To repel the Allied assault, the German commander of Crisbecq radioed to the Azeville battery and requested that it fire on his position. Crisbecq was finally taken at 8:20 am on June 12, after the German commandment ordered its troops to evacuate to La Pernelle, between Quettehou and Barfleur. The fierce German resistance momentarily halted the Allied Advance to the north. "

Just pulled that off of a google search on D-Day.  I’m not trying to be a chump with this post, just noting that “bunkers” were built to be hidden (maybe not all of them) and to withstand such an attack even if discovered before ground operations.  I mean if 101 heavy bombers in one mission the night before D-Day have little impact why should a SBR inflict damage on a bunker?

I personally like to keep with the idea of allowing each nation to have the possibility to access each of the new units, because Even Japan and Italy had some heavier tank designs and prototypes, but they just never had the production to actually put them into full production. With the research system proposed however it does accomplish your goal to an extent. Since each research would be 4 stages to progress through, if a country has no bonus to what stage they start on it can take quite a few turns and money to get some researches especially if one has to roll a 6 or a 5+ with one die to progress one stage. Italy does not have the money to spare, and Japan probably wants to spend more money on ships and taking islands and tank upgrades wont suit them unless they are trying to crush Russia. I could also add another research of mass production which the US, and probably Russia has a bonus in, and it will reduce the cost of all of their units by one IPC.

You can find some good light tank pieces on Historical Board Gaming, they are about 0.65 cents per piece

Thanks for the inputs I think I will go with the advanced mediums, and I am currently taking a look at the board to see how some of these could be included in the starting setup

@Black_Elk:

Japan’s starting IC violates the island prohibition, even in the OOB game, which always struck me as inconsistent.

Japan is not an island, its a continent like Europe, Africa, Greenland or Australia.

Nice ideas. Thanks for posting. You have probably seen that many here do the same thing.

@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.

What would you think if I merged Belgium/Holland, Albania/Yugoslavia, and make Switzerland an impassible territory?

@Loki:

I heard someone mention the idea sometime of allowing tanks to take their second move after combat if they had one left. That might be interesting because in essence it would allow tanks to strafe like fighters can do. Maybe it would suck, I don’t know.

Its fun playing like this, definetely makes Germany better, but also helps the Soviets repel the Japs and Nazis after they move into one of their territories and it keeps Tanks with a def of 2, which means the enemy will probably use their fighters to bomb them when the bulk of your infantry is in the next territory blocking the enemy from hitting your tanks. I dont see tanks as a 3/3 unless they’re the heavier versions that appeared towards the end of the war (tigers/IS-2’s etc…)