From: "D. Holte" Subject: OBJECTIVE: NORWAY; Answers from Tony Curtis Matthew Bace had the following questions, and I forwarded them to Tony Curtis for a reply. Here it is: I just started playing Invasion Norway and I came up with a few rules questions that were not covered in the official errata (which I found on the grognard web site). I hope you can answer these for me: (1) Based on my reading of the quickstart guide, my understanding is that units which are transported (via air or sea) may not move in the following land movement phase, although they make attack with their full attack strength in the following combat phase (unless they have participated in an amphibious, parachute, or air transport assault). I couldn't find this restrictions in the games rules. Is the example in the quickstart guide correct? REPLY: The Quickstart is incorrect. Those landing w/o engaging in some form of combat get to move. (2) In the replay in C3I #7, the Norwegian coast guard intercepts two German APs in the Naval Segment of the April 2 turn. However, the scenario rules (18.??) state that no Norwegian unit (land, air, or sea) may move, attack, or intercept during the pre-invasion turns. Is the example in the replay correct? REPLY: The example is correct.You may want to check your counters again, but you aren't going to find Norwegian coast guard or patrol boat counters. If detected, export and tanker counters are removed. They are removed because units too small to be included in the game (coast guard and patrol vessels) have stopped and detained these ships. The C3i article has simply put the game mechanic into narrative form. (3) When an amphibious, parachute, or air transport assault is conducted and there are friendly units adjacent to the target hex, may they join in the assault (forgoing the land movement and combat phases)? If so, does the 2L column shift for amphibious assaults still apply? REPLY: Yes. (4) When a stack of naval units attempts to initiate combat in a Port, must it fight its way through enemy naval units that are located in another port closer to the sea, but along the same inlet or fjord as the target port? For instance, suppose the Allied player wishes to engage the German naval units in Trondheim. Must he first destroy any German naval units at Agdennes in order to get through to Trondheim? If so, can the same Allied stack that finished off the Agdennes units continue on to Trondheim, or would a separate stack be required? REPLY: Stacks of naval units exiting the strat map go directly to the port of their choosing and are not required to stop and fight at the first enemy occupied port they come to. In the example above, if the Allied player has targeted Trondheim, then the stack goes straight there, by-passing ant German naval units at Agdennes. If the Germans have the coastal battery at Agdennes operational, the stack would be obliged to run the battery and engage it. (5) I think I have discovered a nasty (and perhaps unintentional consequence) of the rule that prohibits naval units attacked in a port from withdrawing. Because there can be no withdrawal from naval combat in a port and because the number of rounds of naval combat is unlimited, a singled damaged CL, for instance, could run into a port and finish off a huge stack of non-combatant naval vessels there. In a game I was playing, on the April 5 turn, a single Norwegian TB point managed to run past the Bolarne coastal battery and sink 6 AP points in Horten. The Norwegian ML unit managed to get past both the Bolarne and Oscarburg batteries to sink 7 AP points and 3 AO units in Oslo. Both Nowegian units had been in the Kattegat since successfully intercepting a German stack on the April 4 turn. The German player (rightfully) conceded after this debacle, since more than half of his sealift capacity had evaporated in one fell swoop. Is this really the intention of the port combat rules? REPLY: Yes. It seems that there ought to be a check on this type of thing. Perhaps there should be a limit on the number of rounds of naval combat (5 might be a good number) or perhaps naval units defending in a port should be allowed to withdraw after several rounds of combat have passed (maybe after 2 or 3 rounds). REPLY: You have played the Norwegians incorrectly due to the vagueness of the rules. The Norwegians don't get to intercept on the 4 April turn either. The Norwegian Surrender Table would be meaningless if the Norwegian player got the chance to intercept on GT Apr4. What right-minded Allied player would keep his Norwegian units sitting in port? You certainly didn't. The next time you play, keep them in port, and the German invasion forces will probably kill them all off. If one is fortunate enough to escape into the Kattegat, remain undetected, safely pass by the two German occupied coastal batteries and find the equivalent of 15 to 20 German freighters and tankers docked and unloading, then yes, it could and should sink them all. A single Norwegian torpedo flotilla would have the weaponry to do exactly that. The statistical chances of this ever happening again in one of your games is very low, but if it does, it is allowable. The game design for port combat was structured to replicate what happened in very restricted waters such as the fjords and ports. A lone armed naval unit such as the Norwegian TBs could and would sink a lot of unarmed merchantmen. Combat between Allied and German naval units would be bloody - and final - due to the point-blank range and lack of manueverability. By the way, you mention running in a CL to do some of this Allied dirty work. Remember that no non-Norwegian Allied naval units are allowed into the Kattegat. This was a historical Allied command level decision that we kept in the basic game design. If you wanted to experiment and see what would happen if the ban on non-Norwegian Allied naval units were lifted, the results could be interesting. Any Allied units detected there would be terribly vulnerable to German air, but if they survived they could do considerable execution to the German merchant shipping. I hope I've answered your questions. Tony Curtis