How do submarines work?

@morvill said in Submarine & Fighter attack, Fighter DD defense - Retreat Rules:

To me, it seems like because the 2 defending fighters have a valid target, that being the 1 attacking fighter, this condition is not met. And it does not specify “All units of a particular type”, so we can’t say the destroyer was “all units” in any sense. I don’t think I’ll see any disagreement on that. Thus, another round of combat will ensue unless the attacker chooses to retreat. The submarines cannot submerge at any other point than step 2 of the General Combat Sequence, thus for the subs to remain in the sea zone, another round of combat must persist, otherwise they must retreat “with” (the fighters remain the sea zone as part of their retreat) the fighter. Yet, if the attacker chooses to press, the subs do not have any valid targets for the next round of combat. Again, they could choose to submerge, but you could also surprise strike at “no units”, which to my knowledge is neither allowed nor disallowed by the rules, at least in this context.

Correct. It doesn’t matter whether or not all units on both sides have a valid target, only that at least one on each side does. If the attacker decides to press, all units will remain in the sea zone, even those that don’t have a valid target (the subs). If the attacker decides to retreat, all attacking units must retreat. As you say, the subs can submerge in the next combat round, but the only reason for them to do so would be so that they can remain in the sea zone if the attacker decides to retreat at the end of that round, as they are effectively out of the fight anyway.

Not sure if this is relevant, but per the rules:

Sea zones are either friendly or hostile. Friendly sea zones contain no surface warships (this doesn’t include submarines and transports) belonging to a power with which you are at war. Hostile sea zones contain surface warships belonging to a power with which you are at war. (The presence of a surface warship
belonging to a power on the other side with which you are not yet at war doesn’t make
a sea zone hostile.) pg. 8

The friendly/hostile state of the sea zone has no bearing on combat. That is relevant only to movement.

@ampdrive

Thank you for clarifying!

The follow up conversation has been moved here:

https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/36451/submarine-movement-and-customized-map

You’re welcome. Enjoy the game.

@Moller A submarine is a sea unit with an attack value and a defense value. What makes it special are its “Special Abilities”/unit characteristics as described by the rulebook(s) and (partly) outlined by @WindowWasher above.
Those are:

An enemy destroyer cancels those unit characteristics marked with an (X).

@Moller said in Battleship/cruiser with destroyer vs submarine:

I tought without a destroyer you can’t detect a submarine so you can’t attacked the submarine.

This is not part of the rules, sorry.

@kcdzim:

I can help too, but Gamerman is usually first to the scene…

You can and you’ve certainly answered a question or two that I’ve asked in the past. It’s just hard to remember how to ‘spell’ your username, so I went with the two I knew. No slight was intended.  :wink:

@kdfsjljklgjfg:

To be fair, I always like to hit NItaly once as Allies in order to knock that complex down to a minor and limit Italian ground troop production.

That is an excellent strategy.  I just recently started using it myself.  My gaming group, myself included, was always stuck with the notion that you didn’t attack a territory, especially an important one with an IC on it, unless you could hold it.  If the enemy takes it right back, we felt you just wasted your troops.  They thought I was crazy when I would take a territory with a Major IC on it but only have a little force left that was easily destroyed.  That is, until they realized that they could no longer produce 10 units.  Then they have to either spend 20 IPCs to restore the major or suffer with only 3 unit builds per turn from then on.  I have gotten away with it for a couple of games now while my opponents still shied away from it so I didn’t get any retribution from them.  I’m sure my next game will change that if they get the chance.

I think the best bet for Sealion would be to risk it by attacking both BB fleets(since the UK will also lose massive air) and building a CV, which adds 2 planes to coastal defense. However, the extra infantry makes it more costly than it was OOB.