What AARe boils down to: Convoy raids?

The split sea zone in the Adriatic is a good idea for both reasons you mentioned.

While the convoy any territory is interesting I wouldn’t be a fan of adding NO’s to convoy ability of the territories. Probably a better approach would be to add a few more convoy zones or just add to convoy ability to zones that contain a capital. Change the die roll to 1-4 or keep the same value and add a die in a capital convoy zone.

There’s always options.

As the Baron points out, modeling air superiority contests in a relatively simple wargame like A&A is quite a challenge! I think there are actually several different phenomena that go by the name of ‘air superiority’ that a good house rule would pay attention to. One is that if your air force is totally unopposed, your ground units will have advantages in terms of recon, surprise, flexibility, etc. because your planes can survey the lay of the land and strike quickly at the point of maximum impact. Another is that airplanes tend to kill each other first, before killing ground units. A third factor is that when fighters intercept bombers, the bombers tend to be less effective – it’s not just that the bombers get killed accomplishing their missions; it’s also that the bombers fly at higher altitudes, fly at faster speeds, and fly on more evasive flight paths to try to minimize their risk of getting shot down. Even when the bombers survive, they do less damage if they’re being harassed by fighters.

Here’s my take on a set of rules that could capture all of those dynamics:

After all attacks are declared, the defender may scramble up to 3 fighters from anywhere on the board, plus up to 2 more fighters from each airbase. Scrambled fighters can move to an adjacent territory or sea zone to participate in a battle there, and then (if they survive) automatically return from whence they came. The same fighter cannot participate in more than one battle per turn.

Attacking and defending fighters roll their dice separately from other units. When fighters score a hit, that hit must be assigned to a plane if possible. The victim can choose which plane is killed. Even though fighter casualties are assigned separately, they are resolved at the same instant as other casualties. For example, suppose a German force of 4 inf, 1 tnk, 1 fighter, and 2 bombers attacks a French garrison of 3 inf, 1 art, 2 fighters. The Germans score a hit with their fighter, and 3 hits with their remaining forces. The French score one hit with their fighter, and 2 hits with their remaining forces. The Germans would have to lose 1 plane and 2 units of their choice – they would probably choose to lose 2 inf, 1 ftr, leaving them with 2 inf, 1 tnk, and 2 bombers. The French would have to lose 1 plane and 3 units of their choice – they would probably choose to lose 3 inf, 1 ftr, leaving them with 1 art, 1 ftr.

If at any point you have at least one plane in a territory, and your opponent has no planes or AAA guns left alive in that territory, then your infantry and mech. infantry in that territory get +1 to their dice rolls. This is cumulative with the artillery bonus. For example, if you have 2 inf, 1 mech. inf, 3 art, and 2 bombers attacking in a territory, and your opponent is defending with only 3 inf, 1 tnk, then your infantry would score hits on rolls of “3” or less – 1 for their basic offense, +1 for the artillery, +1 for the air superiority. Defending infantry can also benefit from air superiority if the defender has air superiority. For example, if your force of 4 inf, 1 fighter, 1 bomber is being attacked by 3 inf, 3 tnk, then your infantry will hit on rolls of “3” or less – 2 for their basic defense, +1 for the air superiority.

Before each combat starts, match each fighter in the combat with one enemy bomber. At the end of the first round of combat, remove that bomber from combat. It no longer rolls dice to try to score hits, and it can no longer be taken as a casualty. This represents bomber pilots’ efforts to avoid interceptors by flying high, flying fast, and then going home. The bomber can be returned to a friendly territory as normal during the non-combat move. If, in any given territory, you have more bombers than your enemy has fighters, your ‘excess’ bombers participate in the entire combat as normal.

To help adjust for the increased mobility of fighters and for their ability to preferentially target (expensive) planes, the combat value of a fighter is reduced to a “2” on offense and a “3” on defense.

My play group has just recently, which resulted in a land-slide victory for the Central powers, and the discovery of some rule flaws. Rules changed:

Romania and Arabia now have different mobilisation objectives. (by Flashmans request)

Italy and USA now have much more static entrances.

Colonial mobilisation has been  limited. (Can only mobilise units equal to IPC value of that territory)

Portugal can now be a colony.

Neutral Greece’s entry is now more historic.

Persia no longer has rail-roads. (Flashman)

Given the British dominion a transport capacity of 3. (simple error)

Colonies can only mobilise convoys under the same owner as the territory.

ALL neutrals (including aliened) are now full neutrals. (they can only be mobilised at certain points in the game)

Serbia now has 5 Infantry.

Made it so powers don�t start with ‘convoys’. (Simple error)

Railed in units now attack @ full strength. (players found it more fun this way)

Feel free to suggest rule changes.

@Yoshi:

But isn’t this choice only for the jet fighters hits ?

no, jet ftrs can intercept Rockets AND bombers…. unless the bombers are shielded via more escorts than jet ftrs.

@Yoshi:

Otherwise, if the defense player has 1 jet fighter and 1 AAGun (say attacker does not have Long Range Air Craft tech, but he got Rockets tech), then the bomber would be more protected that if the defense wouldn’t have jet power (2 hits@1 needed to kill the bomber).

More protected with less defending jet power?  I don’t think so. 
Jets can intercept both rockets AND SBRs.

Your example negated the bomber interception since you had escorts (LRA).
By allowing the attacker to choose the casualties, the attacker is rewarded for having rockets AND LRA.

@Yoshi:

Thank you for the answers. I know that this is a very special case, but I encountered this point (of the beginning of the thread) in a friend game.

You are welcome.  And it’s not a problem, I will support Enhanced when ever I can.

Thanks axis_roll!

Trusty

@axis_roll:

@Cmdr:

I believe I have found an effective counter to the allied destroyer strategy.

Need a new opponent to test it on though. :P  Bean’s in school! hehe.

it is definitely a beatable strategy

Let me redefine my statement, I have found an EFFECTIVE counter to the allied destroyer strategy.  I know there are ways to stop it by shooting yourself in the foot with the axis.  But I think I have a way to do it without selecting National Advantages specifically to beat it and not racing for technologies specifically to beat it (though they make it easier.)

In other words, a very slight modification from the game as normally played.

Actual units would encourage a lot more naval action. Germany would have a reason to attempt a complete naval blockade of the U.K., and the United Kingdoms would have to actively produce a navy instead of stacking their capitol.

http://www.shipwreckregistry.com/index4.htm Looking at this list there were close to 200 convoy routes used during WW2, and the attack.defensive of these convoys was an important part of the war effort. I find it strange that such a large part of the war is only commented on in Germany’s NA - Submarine Interdiction.

But Shinano (same hull as Yamoto) took 1 submarine with 1 torpedo spread (one torpedo hit the I beam supporting one of the torpedo blisters and turned the I-beam into a battering ram that went through the boilers…)

While Yorktown was hit at Coral Sea, damaged, limped back to Pearl, and then fought again at Midway.

In both cases these carriers lost their battle with little against them… so id keep the one hit idea. If a Yamato class carrier can be sunk by a sub and the yorktown plus those 4 japanese carriers go down by a few planes i dont see why these ships need a two hit thing. The battleships should however. Do you not aggree?