Shore bombardment

11.16.2 Shore bombardment

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You ignore any shore bombardment factors (after any reduction and halving) that exceed the total (modified) combat factors of attacking land units which are either invading, paradropping, or are in a coastal hex (on the same sea zone which the bombarding ships occupy) which shares a partial land/sea hexside with the defender's hex. For instance, if you bombard with 5 shore bombardment factors, but units totalling 7 factors are attacking across a river along the coast, you would only count 3.5 of the bombarding factors. If none of the units were attacking along the coast or invading, no shore bombardment would be possible.

After the combat is over, all ships which provided shore bombardment are flipped face down and moved down to the 0 box immediately. Any face up CV, SCS, or air unit in the same sea box as the shore bombarding ships may also move to the 0 box if desired.

Background/Purpose: the big guns on warships could range far inland, but they could not effectively coordinate attacks with units attacking from inland back towards the coast for fear of subjecting those units to friendly fire. Dropping to the 0 box after the battle is an abstract way of indicating that enemy units have a good idea where to look for ships which just participated in shore bombardments against their ground forces (especially true if using the naval search modifiers).

Dave's Notes: massive shore bombardment is no longer the solution to every Allied problem. Some people like to allow intercept port strikes against ships doing shore bombardment (or naval ground strikes), but I find that break in the usual naval combat method unpalatable. Using the above with naval search mods will give the enemy a greater chance, possibly as much as 30% greater, of finding units which have bombarded this turn. Moreover, if they do find them, the ships are now in the 0 box and will be in a disadvantageous situation for surprise points. This is because the ships have wandered close to the coast and given away their position by bombarding -- of course they are making themselves vulnerable! However, any unit which is still face up, say a FTR, and had been with the battleships in a high box can drop to the 0 box with them for protection.

Dean's Notes: