Can AAA defend sea units

@PrivateerPuffin

@PrivateerPuffin said in Rules question about Fighters in Sea battles:

1st question: Does the word may in excerpt #2 allow for fighters to be presumed as casualties?

No, but it allows for carriers to be.

2nd question: Does excerpt #3 mean that there can never be more fighters in a battle than you have spots on carriers (if there are no other islands or territories to land in).

Yes.

An example if my question is nonsensical.
Japan took Midway, Alaska, and Western Canada last turn. On the US turn. 4 US fighters from two carriers in SZ 56 used 2 movement to attack a fleet in SZ 64. 1 fighter from Western US then uses 3 of its movement to also attack the fleet. The Japan player says that isn’t allowed because the 4 fighters will need the carriers to land. The US player disagrees and says that they could take a fighter as a casualty, allowing for there to be an open spot on the carrier which the fighter from Western US can land on.

The Japan player is correct.

During combat movement, you must be able to demonstrate possible safe landing zones for all attacking fighters. Once the combat starts, you may take carriers as casualties so that these safe landing zones are not maintained, usually in order to maximize the effectiveness of the attacking force. Once combat is over, all fighters that can still be landed must be (attacker’s choice of exactly which fighters, if there is a choice), and any that cannot are lost.

@kpb66:

After AAAs have fired before regular combat begins, are they available to the defender to be taken as casualties during attacker hits?

That is, if the defending side has 4 infantry, 2 AAA, and 2 fighters and the attacker rolls 5 hits, can the defender opt to take 4 infantry and 1 AAA instead of 4 infantry and 1 fighter?

This came up last night in a game I played and just want to be clear on the matter before the next one.

Of course you can. Or take out 3 inf and 2 AAA to keep the defensive power for the next round of combat.

There is no “chosen last” rule as it applies for transports.

HTH  :-)

(Note: I accidentally deleted my posting from the second position in this thread, so added it back just here.)

LOL - The past 3 years, we have played under the assumption, that the answer to all of the above questions was no. :-o  :-o  :-o

It is gonna be very interesting game next time  :mrgreen:

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.

A factory has a built-in AAA-gun that defends against bombers.
The (factory-independent) AAA-unit defends against air-attacks on a territory (that means units in a territory).

Please ask, if anything remains unclear.

HTH :-)

I find the concentrated bomber strategy very interesting as an approach for the US, for the reasons outlined here - the cost of getting US infantry into the action is incredibly high, so much so that Air power compares much better vs. land forces  for the US than for other nations.

How many bombers is too many? I was picturing maybe 2 US bombers on US1, but for the purposes of strategic bombing, the early IPCs denied will be magnified throughout the game, so perhaps a US1 buy of 3 bombers makes sense?

Unless Japan was posturing in range of a US attack, I imagine I would build the bombers in western US and then send them directly to the UK for use in SBRs vs. Germany (or sinking/deterring a German fleet). Would you agree?

@MistuhJay:

One question, Hobbes: what’s stopping UK from sinking your battleship with its BMR/DD?

@Hobbes:

if the UK (and the US) focus completely on KJF and leave the German Med fleet alive and in position on SZ14 until G3… and the German fighter on Ukraine survives… interesting…

As I posted afterwards, lots of ifs for this strategy to work ;)