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This question came up earlier in the week so I thought I'd ask...

The Halafax has this SA:

Hi-Level Bomber: Whenever this unit makes a bombing attack, it only scores hits on 6s. This unit can't hit destroyers or torpedo boats with bomb attacks.

The question being, does each 6 count as a hit against the target's hull or is this card misprinted and the word "hits" should be replaced with "successes"? For example, if my Halafax attacks a battleship and rolls three 6s, does the battleship indeed take 3 points of hull damage (3 hits), or it this counted as 6 successes which probably won't cause any damage at all.


My second question is about the B-25 Mitchell. Was this unit intended to be the weakest strafing unit in the game or was it's rules written prior to the "Strafing" rules being created? It has a SA for a strafing attack which requires it to take a -2 armor/vital penalty, effectively making it a 2/6 (worse than a Swordfish). I'm curious if the "Expert Strafer" SA was forgotten on this card since in reality a skip-bombing run wouldn't be that much difference from a strafing run in terms of vulnerability.

Hmm, I think we're reading from two different "Clarification" docs. My copy from Feb4 says,

Aircraft can make Gunnery attacks against Ships only if they were committed to a Strafing mission during the Air Mission phase.
• When you place an Aircraft in the Air Mission phase, you must announce whether it is Strafing. To indicate this, place the Aircraft so its base straddles the bow or stern of the ship being strafed, or place some other type of marker.
• A Strafing Aircraft suffers a -2 penalty to Armor and Vital Armor.
• A Strafing Aircraft cannot use its Escort special ability.
• An Aircraft that isn't Strafing can't use its Gunnery value in the Air Attack phase.

Bold added by me. I think it used to say fighters, but that was changed at some point which hosed the Mitchell. Where did you find the one that said "fighter" instead of "aircraft"?

The Halifax's Hi-Level Bomber SA should use this wording: "Whenever this unit makes a Bomb attack, it scores successes on 6s only. This unit can't attack Destroyers or Torpedo Boats with Bomb attacks." This has been added to the clarifications doc (dated 02/27/09).

The B-25 does not have the Expert Strafer SA, so if you use it to strafe a ship in the same sector, it will be easy to shoot down. When attacking a ship in the same sector, consider using its bombs instead.

Steve

AH_Fellblade wrote:

So to clarify, the Strafing rules were changed from "Fighter" to "Aircraft" to address this one unit? Seems odd.

Fighter was the term used in the strafing portion of the draft "Official Gameplay Development" rules back in the Summer of '07. After some more discussion, the term was changed to aircraft before being placed in the 2nd rules update, dated 25 Jun 07. The B-25 did not cause this change.