Landing Craft

This is a neat miniature to have around in the immediate aftermath of great movies like Dunkirk and Darkest Hour, which did heavily focus on the availability (or absence) of proper landing craft.

That said, landing craft fill an extremely niche role in the mechanics of an A&A game. The role of a landing craft is to make your amphibious assaults more effective, and so a landing craft isn’t particularly different from the “marine” unit, which most people find both more familiar and more entertaining. People like marines. Do you really need two different units whose purpose is to make amphibious assaults more effective? I guess if I had a huge unit roster, like 25+ unique units, then I might make room for the landing craft. One nice thing about a landing craft is that, unlike marines, it can presumably be taken as a casualty during a naval battle, serving as a useful distraction that helps you sink enemy warships. In the 1940s, landing craft were generally not equipped for travel on the open seas. They would have been used primarily around the Channel, the North Sea, and perhaps the straits of New Guinea, Indonesia and Singapore – they would not have been shipped all the way across the Atlantic or the Pacific. To represent that, I think landing craft need to have a movement speed of only 1 sea zone.

So, here’s one idea for a pair of house ruled units:

Marines

Cost: 4
Attack: 2
Defense: 2
Move: 1

Each cruiser or battleship can carry 1 Marine. Marines can also be carried on transports or landing crafts as if they were infantry. Marines do not receive bonuses from artillery.

Landing Craft

Cost: 6
Attack: 0
Defense: 1
Move: 1

Each landing craft can carry 1 infantry, artillery, mech. infantry, tank, or marine. During an amphibious assault, you may choose to take one of your landing crafts as a hit in either the sea battle or the land battle. If you take the landing craft as a hit in the sea battle, the landing craft’s cargo is lost. If you take the landing craft as a hit in the land battle, the landing craft’s cargo survives.

With landing craft, I would try to change the rules around where transports can hold two of them including two infantry or infantry and another unit and then buff something for the battle when infantry invade.

I really dont see this piece working unless its for like using in the D-day game where Transports ships are not involved but landing craft are.

All I can see is you can buy up to 2 landing craft for each Transport. This would allow you to carry only 2 extra inf, 1 for each landing craft and 2 normal inf, mech or tank on Transport. You are only using the landing craft for landing only the 2 extra inf. The Transport alone gets to land the 2 normal inf ,mech or tank it always carries. But if you want the 2 extra inf to land then you need to buy 2 landing craft for that bonus. The 2 landing craft inf get a +1 on Amph assault for the first round of combat. They get the bonus on A for the guns that are on the Landing Crafts for landing support.

US shouldnt get there Landing Crafts until at war.

If the Transport is sunk so are the Landing Craft before any landing.

A0 D0 M1 C5

I didn’t say that landing craft also carry infantry. I said that transports can hold two landing craft, and then either two infantry or an infantry or another unit.

Landing craft on their own seems stupid overall because landing craft are not blue water ships. They’re brown at best.

@Caesar:

I didn’t say that landing craft also carry infantry. I said that transports can hold two landing craft, and then either two infantry or an infantry or another unit.

Landing craft on their own seems stupid overall because landing craft are not blue water ships. They’re brown at best.

Then whats the sense for landing craft to be transported on Transports if they aint going to do anything. Its there for looks and it boost my inf or what ever on a landing. So the landing craft is free ? Why would I buy 2 landing craft and only get a +1 on attack for a ground landing ? I can buy special inf for that on a transport alone.
You trying to say for each landing craft boosts inf +1 on attack ? Then any special inf ( marines, commandos and so forth ) get there +2 on attack ?
I would then just place a token under Transport showing inf A +1 or spec inf A +2.

My suggestion was for carrying an extra inf per Landing Craft ( Transport carries 4 ground ) and if Landing Craft survives it can move 1.

If this is for the G40 OOB game then heaven forbid.

Just to add a few comments: it seems to me that the existing A&A OOB amphibious invasion rules concept implies the existence – but in an abstract sense, as part of the assumed background, rather than as a depicted mechanism – of landing craft.  They’re assumed to be “there”, but you don’t actually see them as a separate part of the game mechanics.  They’re assumed to be there because, in real-world terms, most conventional ships are incapable of running right up to a beach (they have a keel rather than a flat bottom, and their draft is too deep), and therefore you need smaller vessels (“craft” rather than ships) with a flat bottom and a shallow draft to ferry the troops and equipment from the ships to the beach.  Such landing craft are usually small, and have neither the seaworthiness nor the engine-power to travel anything other than short distances under relatively calm sea conditions.  They’re roughly the equivalent of the little luggage vehicles that airports use to transfer baggages from airplanes to the terminal: fine for short-distance, low-speed, short-duration, small-capacity applications, but quite unsuitable for hauling large amounts of cargo at high speed over long distances; that’s a job for a highway-suited semi-trailer truck, or at sea for a full-scale transport ship.  The Allies did have a few “landing ships” (as opposed to landing craft), such as the LST (landing ship, tank), which were roughly halfway between a ship and a craft in terms of design and capabilities, but generally speaking “landing craft” refers to very small, boxy vessels like the Higgins boat, famously depicted in such movies as The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan.

So I don’t think that a special landing craft unit really ought to have any capability to travel from one sea zone to another, even at a lowly speed of 1.  It would be more realistic to assume they are being transported aboard transport ships for sea travel, then to offload them during the amphibious invasion process.  But in terms of exactly what their function would be as a depicted unit, rather than as an assumed part of the background, I’m not sure what the best answer would be.

n l@CWO:

Just to add a few comments: it seems to me that the existing A&A OOB amphibious invasion rules concept implies the existence – but in an abstract sense, as part of the assumed background, rather than as a depicted mechanism – of landing craft.  They’re assumed to be “there”, but you don’t actually see them as a separate part of the game mechanics.  They’re assumed to be there because, in real-world terms, most conventional ships are incapable of running right up to a beach (they have a keel rather than a flat bottom, and their draft is too deep), and therefore you need smaller vessels (“craft” rather than ships) with a flat bottom and a shallow draft to ferry the troops and equipment from the ships to the beach.  Such landing craft are usually small, and have neither the seaworthiness nor the engine-power to travel anything other than short distances under relatively calm sea conditions.  They’re roughly the equivalent of the little luggage vehicles that airports use to transfer baggages from airplanes to the terminal: fine for short-distance, low-speed, short-duration, small-capacity applications, but quite unsuitable for hauling large amounts of cargo at high speed over long distances; that’s a job for a highway-suited semi-trailer truck, or at sea for a full-scale transport ship.  The Allies did have a few “landing ships” (as opposed to landing craft), such as the LST (landing ship, tank), which were roughly halfway between a ship and a craft in terms of design and capabilities, but generally speaking “landing craft” refers to very small, boxy vessels like the Higgins boat, famously depicted in such movies as The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan.

So I don’t think that a special landing craft unit really ought to have any capability to travel from one sea zone to another, even at a lowly speed of 1.  It would be more realistic to assume they are being transported aboard transport ships for sea travel, then to offload them during the amphibious invasion process.  But in terms of exactly what their function would be as a depicted unit, rather than as an assumed part of the background, I’m not sure what the best answer would be.

I only put the move 1 space for landing craft because outside of US the other landing crafts could travel 60 to 100 miles. So as I stated in earlier post it be almost impossible to put in game. I just suggested that if you wanted to have the landing craft piece on display on map then you can buy 2 craft with 2 extra inf for amphibious assaults only per transport.  Now your transport can haul 3 inf and 1 other piece. Make cost for ea craft 4 icp. Cost you 4 icps to transport 1 extra inf.

I mostly agree with CWO Marc – I think the landing craft token should represent the LST, not the Higgins boat. It’s assumed that transports carry as many Higgins boats as they need, anyway; the extra piece would represent an upgraded, specialized landing craft that’s designed to carry heavier equipment through sonewhat heavier seas.

Even 1 move is a stretch for even an LST, but the unit makes no mechanical sense at all at M0. If you like you could say a landing craft must remain in sea zones that border some type of land at all times, like the old friends from Civilization.

When I think of landing craft in the context of Axis & Allies I think of the landing craft that Table Tactics had in their “A&A Accessories” set. These are the rules for those landing craft:

@A&A:

{Attack 0, Defense 0,} Cost 3, Move 2. Landing Craft have no combat value but can be used as a loss in land battles. Landing Craft must begin and end their move on land, and cannot cross a sea zone that is enemy occupied; also, they cannot be used in navel combat not even as cannon fodder. Landing Craft carry the same unit combinations as Transport Ships. Example of Movement: If no enemy ships are in the sea zone at the beginning of your turn. In this example, it is the United Kingdom move, and they can launch an attack using Landing Craft against Finland Norway. What they cannot do is carry those troops to Germany or Karelia because they do not have the range and could not end their turn on land.

Now, the ones made by Table Tactics looked like Higgins Boats:
(Source: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/275667/axis-allies-accessories).

In my mind, that is the base mark of landing craft. Something cheap and short ranged, which could be used to dash to or from an island stronghold (UK attacks German-held France, USSR attacks Japan, Germany attacks UK, etc…). While what R DiStefano printed out looks similar to what Table Tactics did 20 years ago, that doesn’t mean that we have to slavishly follow in their footsteps. But I do know that I’m not buying landing craft that cost the same as transport ships but carry fewer land units…

-Midnight_Reaper

As I said before, just make landing craft give some kind of boost for landing infantry, like they attack at 2 on the first round, something like that.

Also, I agree landing craft are pretty much already in the game due to transports even existing however if you want to add landing craft, you can then “imply” that the transport without them are just docking at some port.