Offshore bombardment

@DarthMaximus:

With Cruisers and Battleships, do the defenders get to fire back if hit?

Also, what abbreviation do people use for Cruisers?   :-)
CC (like BB and DD), CS, CR, other   :?

CG

How the crap did a “G” end up in the abbreviation for Cruiser?

@DarthMaximus:

With Cruisers and Battleships, do the defenders get to fire back if hit?

Yes.

@DarthMaximus:

Also, what abbreviation do people use for Cruisers?   :-)
CC (like BB and DD), CS, CR, other   :?

Official US Navy designations for cruisers:

CA - heavy cruiser
CL - light cruiser
CC - battle cruiser

CA is generally used as the “generic” cruiser reference.

From page 17 in the rule book…

‘Roll one die for each battleship and cruiser. Battleships hit on a “4” or less, and cruisers hit on a “3” or less (their attack numbers). For each hit, the defender moves a defending unit to the casualty zone of the battle board (used for land combat below). These casualties will be able to defend during the land combat step before they are eliminated.’

It doesn’t make sense to me that casualties taken as an effect of bombardment are allowed to defend.  Offshore bombardment, historically speaking, was done BEFORE the actual landing.

The problem is that no matter how effective pre-invasion bombardment was, it was never completely effective.  I can’t think of a single historical instance where all resistance was wiped out by bombardment.  Unfortunately, this is what tended to happen in the Pacific in playtesting after cruisers were added to the bombardment mix, and as a result island defenders were nearly always wiped out without firing a shot.  It didn’t make for very exciting play, and amphibious assaults shouldn’t be a cake walk.

One infantry piece represents a lot of men. Conceptually, it may be better to think of shore bombardment as helping the invading troops to eliminate those units, rather than completely obliterating them on its own. Under that assumption, return fire makes sense, and it can be argued that denying it makes bombardment overly powerful. Two infantry attacking one with a battleship backup still gives the attacker a significant advantage even with the defender returning fire.

Bombardment can still only occur once during an amphibious assault (the first round), correct?
Thanks.

Yes.

and the bombarding ships cant be hit by defending fire right?

Right.

Question…

On Italys turn I amphibious assualt Egypt with 1 infantry and 1 tank. I also bring my fighter and the 2 infantry from Libya. My Cruisers and my BB come along to bombard the coast. Are all 3 allowed to fire since I have committed 5 units to land combat or are only 2 allowed to fire since I only had room on my transport for 2 units???

Only two can bombard.

If thought of that way wouldn’t it make more sense to change bombards to function similar to artillery? Just allow 1 BB to support 2 inf, cruisers 1?

actually, would be hilarious if defenders could fire back at ships who give openingsfire
‘oh no, i missed and that inf now killed our battleships!’
think it’s better now
in revised, japan landed 1 inf and killed 2 with openingsfire
and i also liek the rule : 1unit= 1 openingsfire, 2 units= 2 openingsfire