Rules Only: Any advice on Aircraft Combat Rules in Traveller?

[atpollard]

I am thinking about trying to simulate something like the Battle of Midway type of combat.

Aircraft vs Aircraft with machine guns.
Ground Attack.
Anti-Aircraft Fire.

Has anyone used any Traveller rules for Aircraft Combat and found them good?
Just looking for advice on what works and what don't.

 

[gchuck]

TL 5-6, you could use 'Over the Reich' by Clash of Arms games. Moderately complex rules, but you should be able to 'port' it over to Traveller easily. Much less complex, would be the original 'Airforce' or 'Dauntless' by Battleline(?), not the Avalon Hill version with all the flashy colors, and half the aircraft 'cards'.
Both are long out of print, but Airforce shows up on E-Bay, and flea markets periodically. Airforce is pretty easy to play.
They're both 2D cardboard counter games, so altitudes are pencil notations. Not simulations!

There is a Battleline version on e-bay at this time.

 

[McPerth]

MT:COACC has rules, but I've never tested them...

 

[kilemall]

MT:COACC has rules, but I've never tested them...

Far as I know that is the only aerospace focused rules.

CT Striker and its spiritual vehicle descendants’ rules allows you to build planes and have stats for them to shoot at ground vehicles or grav tanks but doesn’t really get into energy maneuver play.

 

[Daidoji Dave]

Attack Squadron: Roswell has rules for air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. Based on Mongoose/Cepheus, but the combat rules are not a straight re-print, there is some adaptation.

I've never used it in play, or even tested it solo, so I can't speak to quality. But it might be of interest.

 

[McPerth]

Far as I know that is the only aerospace focused rules.

Well, as I said I've nevr tested them (in fact, not even read them in detail), but the tieles of the chapters are Air-to-air combat (page 48), Air-to-ground combat (page 56) and Ground-to-ait combat (page 70)...

Air-to-air has a simplified system and a normal system, where maneuvering, arcs of fire, and so on are importnt.

 

[kilemall]

There are quite a few air combat games for both the prop WW1/WW2 era and postwar jets. Depends on how much fidelity, effort and game experience you want to provide.

If it’s more narrative/movie you want probably a more abstracted version will do.

A little known gem in simplified air combat gaming came out in the 80s- Top Gun. Basic air combat maneuvering, very simple, and should scale to props as long as everything is similar tech. Just the sort of thing for RPG simplicity.

Looks like newer games designed for the franchise but I mean the FASA version.

Top Gun: The Game of Modern Fighter Combat

Jet-to-jet air combat game with scenarios inspired by the 1986 movie.

boardgamegeek.com

 

[whartung]

Air to ground and air to air are really different beasts.

Air to air is all about energy, and flight dynamics.

Whereas air to ground is much simpler. Badly armored fighting vehicles with lots of movement points and narrow, forward arcs of fire. After that, a tac missile is a tac missile. Targets sizes are target sizes, movement allowance is movement allowance (perhaps a "minimum speed" for aircraft, turn radius), maybe some modifiers for erratic flight.

Looking at Boots and Saddles, GDWs modern combat game in the Assault series, and helicopters are pretty much just "tanks" with no terrain requirements. (Not completely that simple, but, mostly.)

 

[Enoki]

While it's far from perfect, it's miniatures and it does work. I use a modified home grown version.

 

[PVernon]

Enoki, Is that the version you based your changes on? If so that is an old version, a newer version is at the Wargame Vault

Mustangs and Messerschmitts - The Art of War | Wargame Vault

Mustangs and Messerschmitts - This is a provisional copy of the last edition of the rules, made available upon request. If or when "we" (Roc

www.wargamevault.com

As a side note I am a member of the M&M playtest group. Also "Dead Game" has some points all wrong.

 

[Enoki]

Enoki, Is that the version you based your changes on? If so that is an old version, a newer version is at the Wargame Vault

Mustangs and Messerschmitts - The Art of War | Wargame Vault

Mustangs and Messerschmitts - This is a provisional copy of the last edition of the rules, made available upon request. If or when "we" (Roc

www.wargamevault.com

As a side note I am a member of the M&M playtest group. Also "Dead Game" has some points all wrong.

Russo never did the math right on some things in that game. The fixed distance vertical maneuvers for example. So, I revised things for myself and use a home-grown version instead. But I will say it's streets ahead of any other miniatures airplane game I've seen

 

[Rupert]

Air to ground and air to air are really different beasts.

Air to air is all about energy, and flight dynamics.

Historically it's been mostly about blowing the other guy's ride out from under them before they know they're under attack.

 

[Timerover51]

The old Battle of Midway game from Avalon Hill was a good one. You might find a copy on eBay. There is one quirk in the rules that I liked to exploit, until the rest of the group got wise. That is if you sink the one cruiser escorting the landing force, the Japanese then have no landing force and cannot capture Midway.

I did do a fair amount of work with a couple of game companies, including Larry Bond, on Pacific War board games. I worked up some air-to-ground and anti-aircraft fire tables if you might be interested. They are based on percentile dice so would have to be adapted if you wanted too. Would you like to see them?

Are you thinking of using the data for the actual aircraft used in the Midway Battle? That would include the Marine's Vindicator dive bomber, the USN Devastator torpedo plane, a small number of Avenger torpedo planes operated off of Midway, along with 4 AAF Marauder medium bombers used as torpedo planes. For fighters, Midway had Wildcats and Brewster Buffalos.

 

[atpollard]

The old Battle of Midway game from Avalon Hill was a good one. You might find a copy on eBay. There is one quirk in the rules that I liked to exploit, until the rest of the group got wise. That is if you sink the one cruiser escorting the landing force, the Japanese then have no landing force and cannot capture Midway.

I did do a fair amount of work with a couple of game companies, including Larry Bond, on Pacific War board games. I worked up some air-to-ground and anti-aircraft fire tables if you might be interested. They are based on percentile dice so would have to be adapted if you wanted too. Would you like to see them?

Are you thinking of using the data for the actual aircraft used in the Midway Battle? That would include the Marine's Vindicator dive bomber, the USN Devastator torpedo plane, a small number of Avenger torpedo planes operated off of Midway, along with 4 AAF Marauder medium bombers used as torpedo planes. For fighters, Midway had Wildcats and Brewster Buffalos.

I just finished a Traveller game that was all “figure out the mystery” with secrets and strange events in the background and missions to raise money or acquire parts to get an an old starship flying again. I wanted the next PbP game to be something completely different. Less thinking and more action.

I watched the movie “Midway” and thought that shooting at an incoming plane from a machine gun looked like fun. A dogfight between two WW2 fighters looked like fun. So I wanted something leaning in that direction.

Having started fleshing out the idea, I am leaning to an Escort Carrier and a 30 Liberty ship convoy as a post-apocalypse survivor community in the Pacific Ocean with a Nuclear Zombie “enemy” force to protect the fleet against.

I like the Brewster Buffalo and F4F Wildcat as fighters for the Carrier and the early Zero for the enemy force. I was planning on making Torpedoes ineffective (most of the early ones did not work, so a post-apocalyptic community probably could not build the intricate parts), but I liked the external dive bombs. I think that would make for exciting battles. No submarines … too hard to maintain. I was aiming for more of a 1939-1941 tech.

So far, I have looked at several rules and like Striker and COACC (MT) for craft design. Between the two, I have been tweaking the constants in the rules to recreate the actual Buffalo and F4F from the era. I will use the new constants to create some flying boats modeled after existing ones for Cargo Planes. COACC has combat rules (the simple ones) that look like a good start for PbP complexity.

 

[Timerover51]

Let me know if I can be of any help, AT. I have studied the Battle of Midway a bit, including the intelligence background.

 

[whartung]

Well specifically with regard to air-to-ground bombing, does the plane actually "matter", in the big picture, to the success of a bombing strike?

As we've mentioned, dogfighting is all about energy, and the planes designs and powerplants were key to their performance in the air.

But for the bombers? Particularly dive bombers, was one dive bomber dramatically different from another? If the payload was the same, would a Dauntless be better, in the attack scenario, than, say, a Stuka. The basic technique was, literally, dive on the target, very high angle of attack, I imagine line up some sighting device on to the X, and release the bomb.

Now, afterwards, the performance of the plane may affect how fast it can pull up, how high it must release from, how fast it can get out of the defensive AA bubble of the target. And, of course, there's pilot skills (as well as temerity to hold the line and push the attack with explosions going on all around your head).

But, all said, would a Dauntless have a 50% chance of an on target success vs a Stuka that might have a 40% chance? (Just making up numbers, what do I know about dive bombers?). Similarly with torpedo bombers.

The A-10 excels in ground attack if for no other reason that it can come in slower to keep on target compared to an F-16. That makes it, perhaps, easier to make a successful attack (at least a gun run) with an A-10, perhaps, than an F-16. But most modern ordnance delivery is well influenced by the computers. I dunno if an A-10 is better at delivering a 250lb bomb than an F-16.

 

[Timerover51]

But, all said, would a Dauntless have a 50% chance of an on target success vs a Stuka that might have a 40% chance? (Just making up numbers, what do I know about dive bombers?). Similarly with torpedo bombers.

Based on my analysis of World War 2 dive-bombing attacks, the Dauntless was probably the best dive bomber of World War 2, with the highest likelihood of placing its bomb on target. The Stuka was a good dive bomber if you looked strictly at dive bombing, but was a sitting duck for any fighter resistance. The Dauntless had to contend with the Japanese Zero. The Dauntless replacement, the Curtiss Helldiver, was not as good in the dive bombing role when it came to accuracy, that being on par with a well-trained fighter-bomber unit. The British Skua was responsible for the first ship sunk by dive bombing in World War 2, the German cruiser Königsberg during the Norwegian campaign. It had a limited load, however, and was intended for use as both a dive bomber and fighter. Its performance in the fighter role and the limited aircraft load of the British carriers lead it to be retired fairly quickly. The Japanese Val was limited to a 550 pound bomb load under the fuselage, and typically also carried a couple of 110 pound bombs underwing. Those had limited damage capability against larger ships, but could be effective on destroyers, as demonstrated by the sinking of the U.S. De Haven by what was apparently 3 bomb hits, although one hit did touch off the aft magazines.

As for torpedo planes, the best torpedo plane of World War 2 was probably the British Swordfish based on successful attacks. After that comes the U.S. Navy's Avenger, again, based on successful attacks. The Avengers did the primary part of sinking both the Yamato and the Musashi, with the dive bombers basically eroding the air defense systems of the ships. The Devastator was quite successful in sinking the Japanese carrier Shoho, putting the incredible total of 7 torpedoes into the carrier, along with the dive bombers scoring 13 hits. Note, those are hits based on the Japanese reports, and probably are the minimum number, as the carrier sank within 15 minutes. The Japanese Kate was a good plane, but simply did not score that many hits outside of the Pearl Harbor attack. Survivability was a major problem there as well.

If you want to see some of my accuracy charts, for both dive bombing and torpedo attacks. along with anti-aircraft fire results, I would be will to post those. Again, all this is based on operational analysis.

 

[mike wightman]

Something I found alarming was the casualty rates of carrier bomber pilots. I'll see if I can dig up the numbers but a bombing run in a ship equipped with half decent ack-ack was not something for the feint hearted.

 

[Black Vulmea]

Has anyone used any Traveller rules for Aircraft Combat and found them good?

"Striker Variant: Foxhound" in JTAS 14 and "Airstrike: A Close Air Support Rules Module for Mercenary" in JTAS 17 together are a good starting point since they're actually written for Traveller. The former includes dogfighting between Rampart starfighters and atmospheric jets with missiles and cannons and the latter strafing with machine guns, firing rockets, and dropping bombs.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Since I read a lot of games, if not play them, I came across a method of play from Battletech. If this is already in the other games consider it reinforcement to use this method of play:

Because of the slow speed of Mechs, things get weird when you introduce Aerospace assets. So they adopt the two board system. Mechs stay in place in a ground scale board. Aerospace units are so fast they typically can fly the equivelent of several entire ground scale boards from one end to the other, per turn. So they developed strafing rules and how many turns it takes a an air group/wing/whatever run to return for another go. Because it is sci-fi, only energy weapons can return fire Dogfights are conducted on the aerospace scale map, with your with refuel/reload rules abstracted and offscreen.

But since you are doing actual carrier battle, just add another ground scale map whatever distance in aerospace hexes away for the opposing fleet. You generally wont need to worry about ground movement on the aerospace scale as navy elements are generally too slow to move (x turns for carrier to move 1 aerospace hex) except to visually present relative position. If you have an asset like a battleship that can directly affect impact the other ground hex, just work out the distance. and if the scales are between ground and aero are tuned right maybe the ground units can ack-ack with lead. Just KISS.