Matrix Games Forums

Here's the situation in which this can be recreated under patch 1.087

On German's first turn after the fall of France, move a transport to the Western Med. Now move a fighter onto Sardinia. The rest of the Italian fleet can sit in the Central Med. Now on the WA's turn the carrier plus air off the coast of Portugal can pass right into the Central Med without op-fire. Isn't the fighter on Sardinia supposed to have a chance of hitting the carrier air? If you stop the carrier in the Western Med then try to fly the carrier air into the Central Med by itself, then op-fire occurs. Its strange that that the carrier air can avoid op-fire by just staying on deck so to speak. Also I tried putting a German fighter on CAP in the Western Med along with the fighter on Sardinia. Now there should have been 2 op-fires if a carrier plus carrier air attempted to just pass into the Central Med, but in this case too no op-fire. What was occurring was that interdiction points were being accumulated instead.

I think it is assuming the carrier air is on board the carrier so the fighter has no chance to hit the planes (and can't hit the ship). When the carrier planes fly off the carrier, the planes can be attacked.

But don't you think that fighter air should be targeting carrier air in this case?

I'm ok with it the way it works now.

One way of looking at it Lebatron is that the CAG are on the carrier but below decks. The fighters can strafe the carrier decks, but little chance of doing any real damage.

I should add that this happened in a game between Lebatron and myself. I was able to force the Axis fleet out of the Central Med and into the Adriatic. Lebatron then stationed several aircraft in Southern Italy. On my next turn I thought about moving my fleet from the Central Med to attack his fleet in the Adriatic; but when I attempted this move I got the message that all of his aircraft in Southern Italy would get OP-Fire at me. I have no problem with this as I think it is logical, I note however, that the 4th paragraph of Rule 8.5.3 states "The exception to the above items is that a unit will never be Op-Fired at when it moves out of the area it occupies at the beginning of its turn (narrows Op-Fire will always Op-Fire, however)." Since the Adriatic is not a "narrows" the Rules would indicate that units starting their turn in the Central Med and moving to the Adriatic should not be Op-Fired at by air units in Southern Italy. But again I like the way the Rule operates rather than the way it is written. Anything to keep fleets honest is good in my books. I am curious though as to whether the Rule was always this way, or if it was changed in one of the revisions.

Harry,

I believe you are missing the errata from v1.033:

The exception to the above items is that a unit will never be Op-Fired (v1.033 #50) at by units in the area it occupies when it first moves out of the area it occupies at the beginning of its turn.

Thanks for clarifying that Jan.