Some friends and I played axis and allies for the first time yesterday. But there is one thing we couldn’t find a good answer to in the rule book. When you attack e.g. an island with a battleship, a destroyer and a transporter with a couple of land units (There is no hostile ships in the area, just 2 soldiers on the island). Will then the boats also go into battle against the hostile land units, or will only the battleship get a opening fire and then just the land units will fight the rest of the battle? Will the ships be taken off the battle board when the defender (two soldiers) defends himself, or can the attacker take a hit on the battleship for instance? I find it quite hard to fully understand how the different units interact to each other. Logically tanks and infantery could only attack land units, and boats only attack boats etc. But I find the rules quite diffuse in this area.
It would also be great if someone could explain to me what happens if you have a scenario where ships, land units, planes and anti aircraft goes into battle. Will you then have to battle it out between the ships first, so the land units and so on, or will all the units be placed on the battleboard and you fight it out in one big fight? I believe this could be explained better in the rules, for instance with a scenario with multiple units battling it out.
In the rules that is covered under the several sections on Amphibious Assaults.
With the exception of Battleships (and Destroyers if you have the Consolidated Bombardment technology), NO naval units can participate in land combat.
So, assuming no technology, in your example:
The fleet sails up to the island.
The Battleship fires a single salvo onto the island while the TRN’s offload to the beaches
Attacker first combat roll is the BB and the offloading land units.
Defender fires for their 2 INF.
Second and subsequent rounds of combat are your offloaded land units against enemy units with no further BB shots.
If you had a Carrier along with FIGs on it, the air units could also participate in the battle.
If you did have the Consolidated Bombardment technology, both your Battleship AND the Destroyer would fire an openning salvo and then would be removed from the battle.
See page 15 of the OM for Battleship openning fire info
Pages 19-20 for Amphbious Combat
Page 9 for Combined Bombardment
Hope this helps :-)
Sry, but I’m not into the lingo… BB? Battleship fires opening fire onto the island, and then the Defender Infantery can fire back at the battleship?
If there are planes in the battle, can then the defending infantery fire at the planes?
The BB (Battleship) fires, and then is removed from Combat. It can NOT be hit by defender fire. Any hits scored by the Defender MUST be taken on the land units that were offloaded from the TRN (Transport).
If there are FIGs (FIghters) flown into the battle, they ARE subject to being hit by the defender’s fire, BUT the attacker chooses what was hit, so you can;t actually fire “at” the FIGs, you simply fire and score hits, and the attacker assigns which units are killed. (just like the defender chooses which units are killed on their side)
It is my understanding that any causualties from a BB hit are removed from the game (Remove Opening Fire Casualties) before proceding to the attack by land forces.
Combat Sequence
1. Place units on battle board
2. Conduct opening fire (BB, Subs, AA guns)
3. Remove opening fire casualties (Hits from BB, Subs, AA guns)
4. Attacking units fire
5. Defending units fire
6. Remove casualties
7. Press attack or retreat
8. Capture territory
Please correct me if I’m wrong.
JSP4563 You are correct.
It might be worth mentioning that BBs and AAs fire only once each combat and subs fires each round, to clear out any confusion for new players.
-Daniel
