All I know is that I’m heading over to Larry Harris forum to get my $.02 in.
Lets Talk Paratroopers!
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Well for the 5-6 bucks if they miss rolling the 3 first round they are destroyed because they are as useless as transports at 0-1.
secondly, if the hit is selective they become saboteurs that blow up bombers and battleships, where using LL you need 2 of them (total cost is 10-12) blowing up a bomber.
Selective is bogus and leads to situations where ‘trick plays’ or what they call “Cheapos” occur. Id much rather the attack is preemptive like a sub, even having my armor void the preemptive, then have it like a normal infantry after that.
IN AA not all units have the same scale. So in some cases an infantry or armor could be a division, corps or army. Thats what Larry says about this and the time issue of turns, so you got to place some weight on that.
They have to have some attack ability after round one, or you let them stay in place and limit combat to own round. In NCM allow them to retreat if the territory was not taken by other forces during combat.
Also, in desperate situations they should be used as normal infantry if forces to defend.
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the point of them defending at one is so they are only used for defence in desperate situations
and airbourne units are like saboteurs and their meant to take postions that are usaully pertected, like an airfield.
excepet i dont know why you said they might take out battleships.the main thing i am hoping that can be argreed upon is airborne units should not have the same combat stats as infantry because they are very diferently equiped and have a very different purpose
if their should be a new unit it should reflect its historical couterpart and i dont know of any evidence that suggest airborne should have a 1-2 attack defence.
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the point of them defending at one is so they are only used for defence in desperate situations
yes but attack at zero? if they miss they die?
and airbourne units are like saboteurs and their meant to take postions that are usaully pertected, like an airfield.
excepet i dont know why you said they might take out battleships.you said selective attack, so if a bomber or fighter and a tank with infantry is defending and they hit they can select the bomber or fighter?
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yes airborne should be able to choose their target and pick who they kill
and hopefully their are some other units attacking with the paratoopers, but yes if the airborne units do not have anyone else helping them, and since they cant retreat they will die as is historically accurate. They will problaby be the first to be taken as causaulties anyways, due to their low attack, even if they have support, but that just makes sence right? Why should the most lightly armed units that are also most likly completely isolated have anything but low survivability?
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I can see part of our problem in agreeing (you and IL seem to agree fairly well) is that I am letting a nation build elite infantry that can also do airborne operations. You fellows just want some kind of airborne infantry. Another reason we don’t agree is that I believe if infantry is in its proper terrain, it can fight tanks. The spaces represented in AAR and AA50 are plenty big enough for the infantry to get suitable terrain even if not ideal. I would love someone to playtest these two approaches and report back which was more fun.
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well having them as per OOB 1-2 infantry is not really fun.
attack on first round 3 preemptive would be fun
attack selective at 3 would be too much fun for the player using it
say they cost 5 bucks each and you got Germany building 6 tanks and 4 men and thats all they have in Germany.
UK drops 4 airborne hits twice, USA drops 6 in hits 3 more and they all select tanks…. 10 bombers roll out and hit 7 times and Berlin is under USA control. and the Russians win the game because now bombers are killing more this way than by SBR… this is the new SBR method.
so perhaps we not allow capital drops and perhaps the selective thing is a no go, and preemptive is the way to do it?
I don’t see how airborne should select target. half the time they are not even dropped in the right spot.
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@Imperious:
I don’t see how airborne should select target. half the time they are not even dropped in the right spot.
I understand what your saying, but i want some way to show that they were meant to take out specific targets and had paticular missions, like capturing an airfeild, bridge or fortifications. not just attack forward like everyone else
and with a 3 or less attack intialiy and no attack later they are landing in the wrong spot half the time
also i dont think they should be tranported by bombers. because a bomber lookes somewhat like a transport plane therefore it carries airborne units is riduclous
they just pay 3 ipcs and they can move 2 spaces like an air unit except they can land in newly captured territory.
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hmm…
I like the idea of no bombers, but id rather keep the OOb rules intact and add/subtract from that point.
The OOB has them at 1-2 and dropped by bombers 2 zones away from friendly unit.
from that point we build/ construct/ deconstruct because we have to assume the OOB is balanced as is.
So if we give them a 3 attack on first round, this must cost 2 more IPC ( using Attack @1 and Defend @2 =3 ipc infantry)
If we further add selective note that this is stronger than preemptive…
What value would a land units be with preemptive?
what value would a unit be with selective hit capability?
when we have this answer then the cost can be assigned. Also, if the selective hit is only against a land unit vs. an air unit in the same space this would be a lower cost.
if preemptive i say 1 cost add…so thats 6 IPC for airborne
if selective i place this at 2-3 if selective means no air can be selected, and at least another 2 if you can select air as attacking hits.
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What’s OOB? Did it allow bombers to attack with the infantry?
An opening fire round strike is certainly in order to simulate a night drop. If they stay at 1-2, perhaps just an opening fire hit on 1.
I don’t think any inf should defend for less than a two. Even the 101st w/ low supplies still held back the Germans during the Bulge.
If airborne cost me 5, I’d just buy a tank. Tanks via transport is much cheaper and more effective, since tanks attack and defend on 3 till they are taken out.
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Out of the box, and yes Bombers also get to attack with the 1-2 infantry, unless they decide to perform SBR.
If they stay at 1-2, perhaps just an opening fire hit on 1.
Thats the OOB rules…
since they are at 3 and are 1-2 units, to make them a 3 ONLY on the first round would cost 2 more IPC, so these would be 5 IPC units.
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Are you making a “Points of Power” argument? A 1-2 inf has (1+2 =) 3 points of power, therefore 3 IPCs. 3-2 inf is 3+2= 5 IPCs?
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right the cost will be determined though play testing but my main points are
1. it shoud attack and defend at 0-1( just becasue an the 101st defened a small town in the middle of nowhere does not mean they have the same stats as inf and it does not mean they are inf, plus the 101st was one of the best equipped airborne units of the war and even their defence is probably not deserving of a 2 or less, just because a unit one means that it hit,not that it had a high chance of hitting )
2. it should have to pay to do an airborne attack, but does not need other units for assitance
3. It has some kind of attack where it chooses the enemies casaulty, or something else that represents its irregularness
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Are you making a “Points of Power” argument?
yes sort of. But also taking the original Airborne rules as the base point and building the new unit from that point by determining what each new value/ ability it will have and adding cost on that basis.
Making it 0-1 is reducing it from OOB, which is strange because the size of what a unit is is not established uniformly by the designs intent. Larry has stated this is a varying level.
For example the SS waffen units made up at one point 25% of the Wehrmacht forces and its not represented in the game.
Artillery are not separate units but integrated in infantry and armor. So what could be represented and is not is also possible which can allow for units of other various types to be included.
I would say a commando unit would be able to select target, but airborne unit is not a commando unit.
Airborne units are ‘shock value troops’ to control key spots for a short period.
They are also trained infantry that have specialized training in drops in addition to more use of automatic weapons, so they are normal infantry otherwise. When used as infantry they have the same values as infantry.
if they are defending they should be treated as normal infantry because they are not jumping when defending. Its not correct to assume they are smaller units, because if you buy one of them it could represent from 1 division to even a corps of airborne.
examples:
Operation Market Garden of September 1944, involved 35,000 troops dropped up to 100 miles.
The Soviets mounted only one large-scale Airborne operation in WW2, despite their early leadership in the field in the 1930s. The largest drop was corp-sized, and was not successful (the Vyaz’ma Operation, the 4th Airborne Corps)
if they are attacking its either gonna be a 2 or 3 followed by a 1 on 2nd round and latter. I would say that if they were used with other units in the attack that combat loses go against the airborne first before other land units for the first round only.
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When i was saying an airbone unit would represent a division, i was thinking that in your average invasion of france 2-3 if not more airborne units would be used, about 3 airborne divisons were dropped into normandy so there for an airborne unit is a division.
i would still say airborne units are more commando that shock.
When i think of shock i imagine 100,000 Russians armed with PPsh’s and grenades riding ontop t34’s charing german lines.
shock is more like putting all your eggs with the intial attack, and while airborne operations are similar they are operating completly indpendently form the other units, where as true shock units might be supported with aircraft and artillery.also i wouldn’t say airborne have the same traits as infantry when they are on the ground. They might have more submachines guns, but infantry have more heavy machine guns and light artillery which i think should be considered part of the infantry peice and not the artillery peice.
so becasue airborne have almost no artillery or heavy weapons if any, it is not unresonable for them to normally attack at 0. and a defence of 1 represents airborne’s inabilty to hold against heavy firepower, a primary example would be operation market garden
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so becasue airborne have almost no artillery or heavy weapons if any, it is not unresonable for them to normally attack at 0. and a defence of 1 represents airborne’s inabilty to hold against heavy firepower, a primary example would be operation market garden
ahh but that was my previous rule about armor units negating the 3 attack and reducing it back to one or eliminating the preemptive strike. The Arnhem drop was on top of SS Panzer troops resting and the heavy equipment was key in eliminating them.
Remember the assault against the 2nd Battalion at Arnhem bridge? It was armored units and it was repulsed. That would be the part in the movie Bridge to far where you see all those halftracks and tanks getting shot to pieces trying to cross the bridge to take the other side.
I have a new idea…
The airborne attack starts at 3, then 2, then 1, then 0?!!! This would reflect diminishing supplies and model this unit.
What do you think?
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well you could incremntally decrease their value each rounds like that, however
1. that makes it slightly more complicated
2. If the airborne units are not being resupplied they will have likly used up all most all of their ammunition in the time that represents the the first time they attack. After the first round of combat i think we can imigine the paratoopers have linked up with at least part of the main force. so they would be getting supplies its just that the weapons they are given do not have the firepower to take out tanks or entreanched positions like all the other units have. Airoborne units can surpirse and that’s why they should have a selective attack
3. the first round is the most important round of any battle in axis and allies, so puting extra detail that i dont even think is accurate into the subsequent rounds of combat is sort of a waste.
I mean airborne units couldn’t have brought supplies for more that ten days of fighting and would i would say each round of combat represents 10-30 days.
basically if the intial attack is a succes it is is a win, otherwise the airborne units are chewed up my armor which they dont stand a chance against just like in arnhem
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ok then how bout this:
if used as a paratrooper (dropped from the air) attack:
1st round at 3
2nd round at 1
3rd round at 0as normal infantry sitting around they attack at 1 and defend at 2 no matter what as per OOB.
no additional cost and they must be dropped by bomber ( 1:1) as per OOB.
Note: this makes only two changes from OOB 1st @3 and 3rd @0
These rules make it as simple with a little bit of flash. yes no?
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I don’t have AA50. What are the OOB paratrooper rules? Are they nation specific? Are the part of a set of optional rules?
I still wish you would consider another perspective on paratroopers. Paratroopers are used in combined operations where during the initial phase they sieze key objectives to disrupt and delay the enemy preventing them from counter-attacking in the initial phases of a new campaign. The best example is the Normandy invasion, a campaign reasonably close to the scale of AAR. In this role, the airborne troops did much more to the enemy in their part to assist in the invasion than a single equivalent sized grunt infantry unit. Yes it is true that they were “relieved” in short order, but I view their participation in the same way that I view artillery as helping the effectiveness of infantry. I do not think the rules you are steering toward capture this relationship that airborne are part of a bigger battle.
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They are optional and comprise of part of the technology tree.
The rules for AA50 can be downloaded from the Avalon Hill site or from some link under AA50 section.
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i dont like them being transported by bomber
and i dont see how airborrne units which are basically light infantry attack the same way infantry do
I think my rules reflect exatly how airobrne units act. they have an intial attack that takes out key targets then they delay the enemy mainly by sacrficing themselves, then if they survive they are put in the rear and are not a main defensive unit unless in exteme circumstances
i think we should wrroy about how this effects tech later, the main thing is that they are not transported by bomber becasue that doe snot makes any sence
i dont like the slowly decreasing offensive firepower, as soon the first few day of battle have passed and the enemy knows where the paratoopers are they are done for.
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