Proposed rule change to AA mechanics

Hello all,

While playtesting the new scenario's for carriers I've found a peculiar situation that is encouraged by the current rules for AA. I've been testing with multi-carrier formations because of the scenario and I've found that the best way to protect multiple carriers is to form them into a very un-historical formation with the escorts on the inside of the formation and the carriers on the outside to maximize AA coverage of the escorts.

Now, this is ofcourse a very odd way of forming up your ships, but because the rules only require the aircraft to be in range, this is the most effective way of forming them up to protect both carriers with all the escorts.

So after thinking about this I propose the following change to the AA rules and would appreciate some feedback on it

Original rule from the rulebook:
"All ships that have an flight from the attacking air group in range of their AA armament at the end of the attack run can fire their weapons at it. Listed on the RoF entry on their data card is the amount of AA dice the ship can fire this turn. Each time an attack run is made on a ship it can make AA attacks. "

Proposed change:
"All ships that are within AA range of the target ship, including the target ship, can fire their AA weapons in support of it. If the target ship is directly between the attacking aircraft and a ship conducting AA fire, resolve the AA after the attack but with a +1 to the dmg rating of the AA. Repeat this for every new attack run."

This puts value in the way your escorts are positioned and in the way your attack is set up. To compensate the loss of AA efficiency, the AA attacks that are made afterwards get buffed in dmg. One could imagine that bombers need to pull out of their dives and torp bombers need to regain height, therefore the AA can be a bit more lethal. Gamewise this is to compensate for the fact that breaking off after the attack has little value, and kills is all that matter then. By changing the measurements from the planes to the actual ship this effectively increases the AA range a bit and pre-empts some cheesy moves by attacking the tip of the ship to put escorts out of range.

Feedback is appreciated, some volunteers to playtest this a bit in addition to my own efforts is even better

My (very brief) impression is that I'm fond of the changes. I particularly like that they give the attacking planes more of a chance to launch their attacks, but afterwards are more likely to be destroyed. I'll try to add additional aircraft next game I play so that I can have more meaningful feedback.

Right, so while playing a lot more aircraft games due to the testing of the carrier scenario's I've come to the point to take a closer look at the rest of the AA mechanics.

Another thing that came to light is the restrictiveness of the 1-5 rating for the AA. This does not leave enough space to differentiate between ships. So I'm currently working on doubling the AA ratings while increasing the hit scores for the Aircraft. So instead of rolling 3 dice to hit on a 5+ you'll be rolling 6 dice to hit on a 6. The chances are the same, it just allows me to make a much bigger difference between the AA capabilities. Side effect is that there are many more dice to distribute between the flights, so if you'r REALLY lucky you can break off/shoot down more planes than before.

Parallel to this I've worked out a more precise classification for the AA. The old system was more or less based on the type of ship, DD got 1-2, Cruiser got 2-3 and Battleships/-Cruisers got 4-5, added to that was a bit clonky system for dealing with DP guns.

This will be replaced with a more detailed system based on the number of actual guns on the ship. Of course abstractions still need to be made, but I think we will get a lot closer to the historical differences this way:

# AA guns	Light AA (40mm or less)	DP AA
1	0-9
2	10-19
3	20-49
4	50-74
5	75+
+2		1-7
+4		8-15
+6		16+

The DP rating can vary with one more or one less based on the quality of the guns. So the US 5"/38 will generally get one extra rating while the Japanese DP Destroyer guns which were only DP in theory will get one less.

The amount of DP dice are now listed in the AA line, with the corresponding symbol for Primary/Secondary/Tertiary for reference. Damage to the main system will result in a halving of the corresponding DP AA dice.

Some examples (Low Quality renders):