Can AAA defend sea units

Here is the end of our series breaking down the rules for Sea Combat. Part 5 brings the series together to discuss Amphibious Assaults. Enjoy!

Let us know if you have any questions or comments! Next up, Air Combat!

https://youtu.be/t0gULH9QyJM

In most cases, you just want to lose in order from the least valuable unit to the most valuable.

Exception;

If you are the defender and you have 1 destroyer and 1 cruiser

The attacker has 2 subs and hits you 1 time

If you lose the destroyer, you are vulnerable to a surprise shot during the next round, and you would not get a reply, so losing the cruiser before the destroyer might be the smartest move.

Another example;

You have 3 bombers and 2 infantry.  Enemy attacks you with 2 fighters and 1 bomber and hits you 2 times.  You may want to lose one or more expensive bombers (defend;1) before infantry, in the hopes of keeping the better defenders alive now to drive off the enemy as the combat rounds go on.  Once all the bombers are dead, however, the enemy will probably just leave.

Another example;

AAA guns cost 5 but they can’t fight after they do their special shot, so lose them first no matter what.

…

Carriers are weak attackers, and expensive, but in some editions they do have 2 soak hits.  However, if you lose or damage a carrier first, they cannot collect planes after the battle, reducing your defensive posture and possibly giving your planes no where to land. While Battleships should always soak a hit first, carriers probably should not.  Note that losing carriers first keeps your combat power high (attack 1 or 0 lost vs losing a cruiser or fighter at 3).  It can be tempting to dump the carrier first, but you may regret this after combat is fully resolved…

Correct, Transports do have the "Chosen Last "-characteristic…

@ruelbook:

Chosen Last: Transports can be chosen as casualties only if there are no other eligible units. Normally this will occur when
only transports are left, but it can also occur under other circumstances. For example, air units attacking transports and
submarines will hit the transports because they can’t hit the submarines without a friendly destroyer present.

… that AAA does not have.

In the 1984 version of the game (Milton Bradley) you were limited to the pieces in the game. Looks like they managed to find a copy of the old rule book online.  Nothing more than trivia though at this point.

It’s not exactly related to any strafe, but a move I sometimes enjoy is to hit sz61 and sink the destroyer there, then send your Aussie sub to sz37 and dive immediately (no combat). This can be annoying for Japan, especially if you put your bomber in range, and kept your fighters at the ready for a UK2 attack.

It’s not as painful as trying to kill a Japanese carrier in the first round, and it gives you some naval flexibility against the IJN in the second round, without requiring you to risk the destruction your own navy in the process. If no good attacks vs Japan present themselves, then your sub can bounce towards Suez and just hang out there until more British aircraft arrive to make it effective.
;)

If the Japanese destroyer in sz61 is sunk on UK1, there is no way for Japan to attack this sub, so it’s safe camped out in sz37 by the Japanese battleship/carrier group (going anywhere the Japanese can go) at least until J2, when it can either attack a target of opportunity or withdraw towards Africa.

I’m very wary of an opening move that leaves the second Japanese transport alive, because it allows Japan to bring their ground units into the fray much sooner. Not attacking sz61 would seem to be a requirement of the sz37 attack, whether you’re going all out or just trying some kind of strafe move. A British bid can change my outlook, another sub or destroyer or fighter bid to UK can make the sz37 trade much better, but OOB it still seems real dicey to me.

Yep, that’s why both destroyers have to be sunk. If the transports in sz 11 survive its ok, the attack on London is still a go, but in sz 10 you really need to kill the destroyer and the transport (so UK can’t bring the Canadian tank to defend the capital.)

It’s a pretty tall order.

The alternative to all this, is what you might call the “Late game” Sea Lion. Where you try to slowly build up a surface fleet without drawing too much attention, and then drop a bunch of transports all at once, to exploit a weakly defended London. But there is no real consistent strategy for how that can be accomplished, since so much will have changed by the time you get into later rounds.

Afternoon Malachi. Hope you have been well and had a good weekend.
Remember we can play any time soon now!

Am I the only one that thinks you shouldn’t be able to reinforce on the same turn as you repair the IC? Seems like a “double move” from a sequencing standpoint…like moving land units then letting them load on transport -or- fighters in combat landing in newly captured territories.

We always play house rule that you have to reinforce the next turn, but also adopt SB interceptor rules, so you can dissuade SB runs.  It also curbs just packing in all your units into VC’s with mindless stacks.