Variations on Convoy Disruption

Convoy Disruption:

Winning the War with Alternate Convoy Rules

Introductory Notes 

I am a big fan of the convoy rules in the original Europe and Pacific games as well as the 1940 editions. Convoys add additional strategy to the game and to naval battles. Nations have to protect land territories as well as sea interests. It forces you to build for land and sea. And it’s one more way to attack opponents, besides simply using the more traditional Strategic Bombing Raids.  If played correctly, Convoy Disruption and Strategic Bombing Raids can be used in tandem to essential take away an opponent’s entire economy. As satisfying as it is to invade a victory city, it is just as exciting to render the enemy’s economy impotent and turn another player into a bystander while the game continues without them.

When the concept was introduced in the original Axis & Allies Europe and Pacific games, it was mainly a way for the Axis to even the NPC earnings a little bit. There were not enough Convoy Centers on the board to render USA or USSR helpless. It was still a nice addition for strategy, and a way for German or Japan to delay the enemy while other conquests took place, but it wasn’t going to win the game.

There were, however, enough Convoy Centers in AAE so that Germany did have the opportunity to (almost) entirely cripple the UK economy.  16 out of 25 UK IPCs came from Convoy Centers. Based on the rules at the time, Germany didn’t even have to leave a unit in the Convoy Center. They could take away the IPCs while their navy moved on to fight other battles. The way the game was set up, Germany basically had to try and take away the 16 UK IPCs. It effectively removed UK from the game and lowered their earnings to the point that Operation Sea Lion could be attempted.

The AA 1940 Editions altered the rules in several ways. Every nation now had Convoy Centers. Axis and Allies alike could lose IPCs. Also the method of disruption changed – nations had to leave naval units in the sea space in order to cause the disruption. Later revisions also added dice rolling in order to determine if the disruption took place and just how many IPCs were lost.

AAE 1940 First Edition Rule

Each disrupted convoy can’t lose more IPCs than the total IPC value of controlled territories or islands adjacent to the sea zone.

AAE 1940 Second Edition Rule

Each disrupted convoy can’t lose more IPCs than the total IPC value of your controlled territories adjacent to the sea zone. Also, no single territory can lose more IPCs than its own IPC value from multiple disrupted adjacent convoys (for example, Scotland cannot lose more than 2 IPCs from disrupted convoys in sea zones 109 and 119). After these limits are applied, the final total is subtracted from your income for the turn.

Starving UK into Defeat 

In 1939, Cambridge physiologists conducted experiments to see if UK could actually be starved into surrendering to Germany. At the time UK relied heavily on food imports for their survival and the German U-boat threat was very real.

AAE 1940, this threat was considered so important that an alternate rule was even provided in the rulebook. 1^st Edition rules included the Churchill quote “The only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-Boat peril,” to help justify the optional rule to have German submarines cause 3 IPCs of damage, per submarine, instead of 2.

In reality, the study concluded that through proper rationing Britain would survive and “could stay fighting fit even if all food imports were lost.” While rationing did occur, USA and Canada were able to run the blockade Britain survived. You can read more about this study here: Laura Dawes wrote about this on The Guardian and George Dvorsky wrote about it on io9.

Using the Starvation Scenario in Gameplay 

Reading about the study instantly made me want to play a game where I, as Germany, could defeat UK entirely through convoys. But what rule changes would need to take place in order to provide Germany with this chance? Could you render your opponent ineffective? Could you make up a way to win the game simply by starving them out?
 

Optional Convoy Rule for Germany

The convoy rules of AA 1940 makes it so that Axis naval pieces must spread out to convoy centers around the map (Egypt, Canada, Africa, etc.). I wondered if you could revalue the two convoy centers in sea spaces 109 & 119 so that Germany could effectively eliminate UK with just these two spaces.

Instead of tying the amount that can be convoyed to the adjacent land territory IPC value, it would be very easy to simply remove the limit when it comes to Germany convoying UK. Instead of Germany being able to convoy only 8 IPCs from UK in these two spaces, they would now be able to convoy as many IPCs as possible.

Using AAE 1940 2^nd Edition rules, Germany will still need enough warship units to convoy the entire UK economy. This would still mean that Germany needs at least 8 or 9 warships, all rolling at “3” in order to disrupt all UK IPCs. Or it might mean they need 15-20 (or more) for situations when their rolls are only “1” or if “4” or higher is rolled, since “4” or higher rolls are ignored.

While it is less than likely that Germany could build a navy this large (early in the game), this rule alternation reemphasizes the danger of the German submarine blockade and allows for the chance of a memorable UK defeat. 

Drawbacks would stem from this being a very one-sided strategy. Germany would have to build all navy and mostly ignore the Russian frontier. This could create game scenarios where UK is effectively removed from play without Germany ever needing to fight a land battle or attempt Sea Lion. It could also mean that USSR barrels through Eastern Europe while Germany was too busy building navy. This scenario also forces UK and USA to focus first on the Northern Atlantic before pursuing other strategy options. 

Additional Victory Condition 

I am always looking for alternate objectives to use as Victory Conditions. This scenario could provide an additional way for Germany to win the game. What if they were able to convoy the entire UK economy before USA or USSR were even in the war? While the aforementioned study indicated UK could survive a prolonged blockade, altered gameplay does not have to be beholden to real world conditions. 

This would take an amazing amount of effort on Germany’s part to convoy the entire UK economy. They would need to destroy the entire UK navy, while building enough of their own navy to reach these two UK Convoy Centers. This would take dedication on the German player’s part, luck in battle in order to destroy all UK naval pieces protecting the Convoy Centers, and the luck of dice rolls to actually convoy enough IPCs to succeed. AND do it all before USA or USSR enters the war? So essentially this would mean Germany must complete all of this within the first 3 rounds of gameplay. Maybe they can get into place and attempt it on Germany Round 2, but likely they will only have one attempt to succeed on GR3.

Not likely. Not likely at all. But something fun to try. Win the war without EVER fighting a SINGLE land battle? I love that idea.