Transports as Fodder

[Maginot]

To most of you, the topic alone may have given away my Axis and Allies roots. Yes, I am an Axis and Allies gamer at heart, and I find few things more fun then me and four friends sitting around with a pizza and A&A. Anyhoo....

My question involves the use of transports. I don't have the manual with me, or I would look in there. Basically, can you use transports as fodder in this game? That is to say, sending in 2 Light Fleets, a Heavy Fleet, and 2 transport fleets with the hope the transport will absorb some of the damage? In Axis and Allies it was almost neccessary to send a fleet in with some transports as fodder. My gut says this won't work, but I gotta double check anyway.

[schury]

ORIGINAL: Maginot

To most of you, the topic alone may have given away my Axis and Allies roots. Yes, I am an Axis and Allies gamer at heart, and I find few things more fun then me and four friends sitting around with a pizza and A&A. Anyhoo....

My question involves the use of transports. I don't have the manual with me, or I would look in there. Basically, can you use transports as fodder in this game? That is to say, sending in 2 Light Fleets, a Heavy Fleet, and 2 transport fleets with the hope the transport will absorb some of the damage? In Axis and Allies it was almost neccessary to send a fleet in with some transports as fodder. My gut says this won't work, but I gotta double check anyway.

surely is.i can tell you the truth even if i have ever use a......
when my 6 subs attact those crusiers and carriers togather with transport ships,i just sink 4 transport ships,sigh......

[RodentDung]

ORIGINAL: Maginot

To most of you, the topic alone may have given away my Axis and Allies roots. Yes, I am an Axis and Allies gamer at heart, and I find few things more fun then me and four friends sitting around with a pizza and A&A.

Well said. Axis & Allies were the funnest times. One of my friends is a funny guy so he used to bring a 'surrender book' the losers had to date and sign.

[Dalwin]

That puts me in mind of one of my favorite old A&A stories.

I was stationed in Atlanta and my Brother was visiting. We were at a game store wearing the KGB tee shirts that he picked up as a gag at the px (he was in MI).

A pair of GBI agents (Georgia's state version of the FBI) challenged us to play A&A.

We destroyed them twice, refused to sell them our tee shirts, and happily drank up a bunch of their beer. We ended up going fishing with the same two guys the next day.

[Espejo]

Don´t remind me. In my textbook for captain stands: "Take out the most dangerous enemy first."[:)]


On the other hand many times the transports are harder to replace than light fleets in this pecicular moment.
[;)]


DEstroying the transports can leave a whole battlegroup stranded in sub infested waters

[AlvinS]

On the other hand many times the transports are harder to replace than light fleets in this pecicular moment.

How true. Nothing worse than being one transport short for an invasion. I protect my transports very well as they are much more important in this game than axis and allies IMHO.

[Dalwin]

ORIGINAL: AlvinS

On the other hand many times the transports are harder to replace than light fleets in this pecicular moment.

How true. Nothing worse than being one transport short for an invasion. I protect my transports very well as they are much more important in this game than axis and allies IMHO.

I agree. In fact I think the rest of the naval units primarily exist to protect your transports and destroy those belonging to the other guy. I don't like the idea of using my own transports to soak up losses.

Another point that makes this less viable than in A&A is the way combat works. In A&A you got a fixed number of hits regardless of who you were firing at. In other words, defense was not taken into account in the combat system.

Here a shot that hits a transport might easily miss a light fleet altogether. So, instead of using your transports as subsitute casualties to avoid losing the more expensive fleets, you might often end up losing transports instead of losing nothing at all.

[Traveler]

Unfortunately yes. There seems to be little or no priortitizing of targets. So those 4 subs you sent into the carrier group will spend all their torps sinking transports and never even take a sot at the single most valuable unit in WW2.

[eMonticello]

ORIGINAL: Maginot
My question involves the use of transports. I don't have the manual with me, or I would look in there. Basically, can you use transports as fodder in this game? That is to say, sending in 2 Light Fleets, a Heavy Fleet, and 2 transport fleets with the hope the transport will absorb some of the damage? In Axis and Allies it was almost neccessary to send a fleet in with some transports as fodder. My gut says this won't work, but I gotta double check anyway.

Although I haven't tried Japan or US yet, I suspect that the transports will become far too valuable as fodder if you play with advanced supply and turn off autosupply.

[marc420]

from that infamous source ... the manual.

Transports in an attacking force will not participate in surface combat (but will retreat if
the attcking force retreats). Defending transports may be engaged in combat if not
sufficiently escorted to shield them against the number of attacking Fleets that are
allowed to fight in the combat. In determining the number of fleets in a region (the value
of N in the previous paragraph), attacking transports are not counted into the total.
Defending transports are not counted if their escort of Heavy and Light Fleets is equal to
or greater than the Attacking number of Heavy and Light Fleets. If the escort is smaller,
than ½ of the defending transports are counted when determining N. If there is no escort,
then all of the defending transports are counted when determining N.

[Traveler]

ORIGINAL: marc420

from that infamous source ... the manual.

Transports in an attacking force will not participate in surface combat (but will retreat if
the attcking force retreats). Defending transports may be engaged in combat if not
sufficiently escorted to shield them against the number of attacking Fleets that are
allowed to fight in the combat. In determining the number of fleets in a region (the value
of N in the previous paragraph), attacking transports are not counted into the total.
Defending transports are not counted if their escort of Heavy and Light Fleets is equal to
or greater than the Attacking number of Heavy and Light Fleets. If the escort is smaller,
than ½ of the defending transports are counted when determining N. If there is no escort,
then all of the defending transports are counted when determining N.

PLAYER_UN transports are realy effective at sinking subs if the transport to sub ratio is above 2:1.