Am I reading the rules wrong???

[Yankee]

Help. I think I must be reading the adavanced rules wrong. Twice my Bismarck has downed all my opponents swordfish aircraft in a round or so without them even dropping their torps.
If I'm reading correctly my AA may fire at all available targets. Hence all 3 swordfish flights coming at me.
I usually destroy or abort them all during the air defense step. I know aborted aircarft cannot attack during the air attack step and I believe that destroyed ones are removed. So,,, if i'm not misreading things... Then are aircraft really that impotent or am I just confused???

[Uncle_Joe]

Bismarck can only engage one of the Swordfish per turn. The other two get 'free rides' in.

Hope it helps. :)

[Kaufschtick]

Bismarck can only engage one of the Swordfish per turn. The other two get 'free rides' in.

Hope it helps. :)

Talk about making it tough for air to effect the BBs!:eek:

Yes, I'm with U_J, the anti aircraft fire only gets to shoot at one aircraft squadron per turn.:)

[afilter]

Help. I think I must be reading the adavanced rules wrong. Twice my Bismarck has downed all my opponents swordfish aircraft in a round or so without them even dropping their torps.
If I'm reading correctly my AA may fire at all available targets. Hence all 3 swordfish flights coming at me.
I usually destroy or abort them all during the air defense step. I know aborted aircarft cannot attack during the air attack step and I believe that destroyed ones are removed. So,,, if i'm not misreading things... Then are aircraft really that impotent or am I just confused???

Each ship can only fire AA once during the AA phase (exception USS Atlantan SA). If the Bismark is the only ship in the sector the most it could down is one swordfish if opponet is attacking with 3. in order to down 3 planes you would need 2 more ships (Karl Galster being 1) or fighters for additional AA.

HTH,

[Yankee]

Hum.. Well I can see that. Makes more sense. However if a BB can fire at more than one target then why must it chose to fire all it's AA at only one flight of planes? It does make airattacks better.. but one must always attack with "waves" of planes then to hit? Maybe I should only do carrier builds?

[Uncle_Joe]

BBs only have 1 AA attack. They can have multiple Gunnery attacks (some Main, some Secondary, some Tertiary). Each battery can select a different target. But the AA rating all attacks a single target/turn.

So yes, in practice that means that you generally have to swarm enemy ships with air to have a maximum effect. Note that even that isnt likely to get through some of the better AA defenses in the game. For example, the Iowa, an Atlanta, and a Wildcat can attack four squadrons in a turn with 9,8,8,7 dice respectively. That will generally abort many squadrons and occasionally kill one....

[afilter]

Hum.. Well I can see that. Makes more sense. However if a BB can fire at more than one target then why must it chose to fire all it's AA at only one flight of planes? It does make airattacks better.. but one must always attack with "waves" of planes then to hit? Maybe I should only do carrier builds?

This is why I am considering a house rule allowing ships to split their AA attack to 2-3 targets. Obviously not effective against a dauntless, but with 7-8 dice you have a real chance of aborting multiple devastators or Swordfish. Just an idea I am working on.

[IXJac]

Why?

It's not like aircraft are exactly sweeping BBs aside as it is. Why do you need to slant things even more in the favour of battleships?