Amphibious invasions

[KDG]

No. When D-Day comes, you invade along the entire coastline of France, bringing most of your western army ashore at once. Surely you can't claim that to be realistic?

Maybe vs. the computer. Usually the human player has some units on the coast, which limits which areas are actually available.

[Lars]

Originally posted by Exel:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Lars:

I liked the "land anywhere" part of SC. And on that scale it worked.

Did it, really? Somehow it's just too much for me to see the Allies land their whole army at once along the entire French coastline. It just aint right. </font>

[Desert Dave]

The Axis player wishing to re-create Fortress Europa is going to have a whole new set of daunting challenges, and severe limitations, to include:

1) Build limits: since you can no longer build as many corps as you want, it is going to truly difficult to cover every invasion site, and not only in France.

2) Build delays: no longer can you simply and immediately place 3 or 4 corps when you first notice that the invasion is under way. Now you have to... anticipate!

3) Op Moves: the Allied player will likely bomb the French cities to the extent that they will be less than size 5. Now you will not be able to op-move units directly from the Eastern Front and place them where they are most needed. They'll have to arrive at or near the closest city and march to the invasion site.

4) Fortifications: you CAN build fortifications all around the coast of France, but what good is that if there aren't enough units to put in each and every one? If you do that, I am fairly confident that your Eastern front will have many holes for the T-34s and new mech units to blitz through, not to mention inadequate garrisons to prevent the partisans.

5) Macro-Economics: no longer will the German player have a lot of spare MPPs to simply and immediately gear up for EVERY threat that is presented. They will be hard pressed to apportion their (... by this late date... shrinking) available MPPs to meet these ever increasing pressures from the Allied player, whether it be in Italy, or Russia or France.

And, there are several more troubling problems for the Axis Strategic Commander, which I'll leave for others to discover.

[Exel]

Originally posted by Lars:

What, you really wanted to push it all through one hex?

No, but through two, three or maybe even four hexes, just like you have to do in Italy.

The game is an abstraction, not a 100% faithful reproduction. As long as the end result is the same, I don't need to refight D-Day in every detail.

But the end result isn't the same. Unless you count liberation of France and Axis surrender as the end result. Having to fight for the beach head and for the success of the invasion makes things a lot more interesting - or would make. Knowing that only one turn later your entire army is ashore and suddenly occupying a decent slice of France really isn't something that does it for me.

[ April 20, 2004, 12:30 PM: Message edited by: Exel ]

[Bill101]

Will a unit landing on an enemy coast, the tile where they land being unoccupied by enemy troops but having fortifications in it, suffer higher landing casualties than one landing on a clear tile?

[Lars]

Originally posted by Exel:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Lars:

What, you really wanted to push it all through one hex?

No, but throughtwo, three or maybe even four hexes, just like you have to do in Italy.

The game is an abstraction, not a 100% faithful reproduction. As long as the end result is the same, I don't need to refight D-Day in every detail.

But the end result isn't the same. Unless you count liberation of France and Axis surrender as the end result. Having to fight for the beach head and for the success of the invasion makes things a lot more interesting - or would make. Knowing that only one turn later your entire army is ashore and suddenly occupying a decent slice of France really isn't something that does it for me. </font>

[Yohan]

Originally posted by Exel:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Lars:

I liked the "land anywhere" part of SC. And on that scale it worked.

Did it, really? Somehow it's just too much for me to see the Allies land their whole army at once along the entire French coastline. It just aint right. </font>

[KDG]

No, but through two, three or maybe even four hexes, just like you have to do in Italy.

Now that fortifications can be built, the Axis can build a couple on the coast, plant a couple corps, and guess what, you're limited to 4-5 spaces for your invasion.

And, there are several more troubling problems for the Axis Strategic Commander, which I'll leave for others to discover.

Dave, I need to know now. More info, more more more.

[John DiFool the 2nd]

Originally posted by Desert Dave:

4) Fortifications: you CAN build fortifications all around the coast of France, but what good is that if there aren't enough units to put in each and every one? If you do that, I am fairly confident that your Eastern front will have many holes for the T-34s and new mech units to blitz through, not to mention inadequate garrisons to prevent the partisans.

Will the act of building a fort cost MPPs (aside

from the initial outlay for the engineer unit)?

That might be a good idea so that fort hexes

are only used in vital areas and not scattered

all over creation...

John DiFool

[Bill101]

Yes John, I've read somewhere else on the forum that it will cost MPPs to build fortifications.

[Desert Dave]

As originally posted by Bill101:

Will a unit landing on an enemy coast, the tile where they land being unoccupied by enemy troops but having fortifications in it, suffer higher landing casualties than one landing on a clear tile?

Sorry for the delay in answering this, and it's been a couple weeks I realize, but I can now tell you that the answer is... YES.

(... I rarely forget questions, and in fact write most of them down in a notebook so that I won't forget them, but sometimes I am not always clear on the answer and will wait until I am "pretty doggone certain," etc )

Hubert IS planning some additional cost for when the landing unit assaults a "built fortification" that is empty at the time of the invasion.

Makes sense to me as well, given that a "coastal fortification" would necessarily include a small, permanent crew manning the big & small defensive guns aimed out to Sea.

Not to mention the beach obstacles that would be part of the fortifications... as was the case with Fortress Europa, which Rommel himself inspected and somewhat improved upon.

_______________________

In a related area... and this question was asked sometime by somebody, can't remember who or when, but... invasion assaults into MOUNTAIN tiles WILL also be more costly to the invader.

Although every "mountain tile" does not imply that the difficult mountainous terrain extends right down to the beach, the tile as a WHOLE would offer better vantage point in terms of spotting, and over-all defensive positioning than a "clear invasion tile" would.

[Edwin P.]

invasion assaults into MOUNTAIN tiles WILL also be more costly to the invader.

There goes the cookie cutter conquest of Greece and that city on the Eastern coast of Spain.

[ev]

There should be a difference between naval transport and amphibious assault transport. Amph Assault should be more expensive.

Furthermore, the total number of amph assault transports should be limited, so that the attacker cannot land simultaneously 20 armies. The limit could be a function of either of the following: the total number of ports controlled by the invading power, the production of those ports, the total number of naval units owned by the invading power, or the total production capability of the invading coutnry.

I would allow naval transport to land in any friendly hex, even if it is not a port. But only units transported by amph assault should be able to land in an enemy controlled hex.

In addition, I would create an amph tech research area. Amph tech would be critical when landing on an occupied enemy hex. In fact, I would not allow landing on an occupied enemy hex unless the attacking country had reached level 1 on amph landings tech. At tech level 0, amph landings should be allowed only on enemy controlled hexes - not on enemy occupied hexes. (Note that amph assult points would not be necesary when landing in a friendly non-port hex).