air/naval combat, when does it end?

[smckenzie]

Suppose all of my opponents Naval Units are dead/retreated, can his air units stay in battle or does the battle end?


P. 25
>If all of the defending units in the battle were eliminated during the previous round of combat, the attacker may not withdraw and is forced to remain in the sea zone. The same rule applies to the defender. If all attacking naval units were eliminated during the previous round of combat, the defender may not retreat and is forced to stay in the sea zone.<

IIRC, the way we played it in Anchorage, when all of the defending naval units were gone, the battle ended and you could not simply continue with air units.

Is this correct?

Does it apply to the defender also.

Above under defending it simply says units, but attacking it says naval units?

What I have is I am about to attack a loan destroyer that is adjacent to a lot of land based air.  So does the battle end when the destroyer sinks/retreats, or will I have to continue fighting the air units until they retreat/die or I retreat?

[Yoper]

Unlike land battles, the attacker can continue to go after defending ships without accompanying attacking ships.  Also, the defender could stay in with only air units if the attacker still has naval units in the battle.

Once all naval units have been destroyed/retreated, then the battle ends.

[smckenzie]

OK.  Thanks.  Think we have been playing it wrong.

[John D.]

Yoper is correct! - as usual...

[qxxx]

Although why the defender would wish another round of air to air combat and AA gun fire is beyond me 

ken

[Yoper]

I was just pointing out what is allowed under the rules, not making a value judgement as to what is the best course of action.

The rules as they stand make it advantageous for air over naval units.  Our group's rule change concerning naval AA makes it tougher on air attacking naval units. 

[qxxx]

I agree

thats why i changed the rules as well

thanks
kenb

[Darkman]

Well that is how it was.. air units were real naval killers.. and ww2 showed that air units killed the radio star.. ähh battleships .. they weren't useful any longer 

[Yoper]

Yes, air power was decisive. 

But in this game, the all purpose fighter is too powerful.  A "3" against naval units is a bit much. 

Either you need to introduce a naval air unit (which I have proposed in another thread) or you need to downgrade the attack value to a "2" against naval units.

Another way of dealing with it is how we are presently doing it, by changing the naval AA fire to include killing fire from the targeted naval units and abort fire from the untargeted naval units. 

Presently, the air units can just pick out the transports without any repercussions.  There is no running the gauntlet of the escorting vessels.  A large amphibing fleet shouldn't be at the mercy of one sacrificial DD and a crap load of responding air.

Now that also brings up the latest game we just scraped where we are going over the thought again of allowing air to respond to an amphib even without the need for a sacrificial surface naval unit in the seazone, but that is another discussion.

[qxxx]

I agree with yoper on the types of aircraft, I have a land fighter and a naval fighter.

I came up with the following idea for Naval AA and Land AA,  Naval AA fire can be either screening or focused, it depends on how the attacker chooses to attack. If the attacker targets individual ships, the defender may screen with up to 2 other ships on AA fire (any 1s destroy the aircraft). If the defender chooses to attack with aircraft on the board as a general attack (same as ships) then only focused AA fire may be used - each aircraft is targeted as in the rules one die only per plane.
 
Land AA fire is either Focused or Shotgun - by the rules, each AA gun is allowed up to 3 shots, this is determined by the defender. If the defender wants to target certain aircraft it is focused fire and the defender rolls one die per aircraft, but on any 1s rolled, the defender gets to choose which aircraft are destroyed. If the defender is willing to let the attacker determine losses he may fire shotgun and roll 3 die per AA gun.   I will say that most of the time the defender rolls the 3 per AA gun and lets the attacker choose, but if air transports with paratroops are in the mix, then the defender usually opts for focused fire.

thoughts comments?
kenb

 

[Yoper]

Explain your land system in more detail.

I don't see any difference in the two types other than who gets to choose what is hit.  What incentive is there for the use of the "Shotgun" method?  What extra benefit/tradeoff is gained by the defender if he allows the attacker to choose the hits?

[smckenzie]

"Although why the defender would wish another round of air to air combat and AA gun fire is beyond me 

ken"

My particular situation was the Italian navy moving next to girbraltar to block any allied invasion of Italy (Allied fleet on the opposite side of gibraltar).

North Africa had been largely conquered and I wanted to destroy the Italian fleet, and preserve the invasion opportunity.  I had my one allied destroyer aginst a bunch of Italian ships, which faced destruction in the allied counter attack, but destroying them right away was preferable.

Actually, stuff like that comes up all the time.

Some objection to a lone destroyer and a pile of air units, but actually, there are optional rules for air defending and controlling sea zones without surface ships.

One of the big things is for the Axis to keep up their air production to delay/defeat the invasion of normandy.

Historically the allies had massive air superiority.

I wonder...

What is the historical proposition...that the axis did not max build their air but the allies did.  In many games that I have played the big issue on the invasion is the allies gaining air superiority.  In many of the games I have played both sides were close to maxing out on figters.