Simple Air Combat Rule?

[Jennifer]

My dogfight rule, back in the day of numerous and plentiful face to face games, was that each defending fighter neutralized one attacking fighter or bomber.  Neither were killed, they just did not participate in the battle.

In that case, if the land was taken, the defending fighters could move 2 spaces to find a legal landing zone (instead of the one given to sunken carriers and their fighters.)

The good part was that you didn’t lose expensive aircraft.  The bad part was that America always had more air power than whoever was defending!

[Imperious Leader]

Yes but the solution to American air power or allied air advantage, is to alter air combat values. The normal rating is against ground targets, in AARHE we use a 1,2,3 system which does not chew up air power because you roll a 1 or 2 instead of a 3 or 4, so less stuff gets killed. Air hits do go against air targets, but most of these will miss. WE also allow the defender to retreat his planes and that minimizes loses too.

[WILD BILL]

Are you saying rolls at 1 & 2 are assigned to air units but 3 & 4 goes to ground. Or that its air vs air, with hits at 1 & 2 only when both sides have air in land battles and 3 & 4 don’t hit any thing?

[Imperious Leader]

no.

air units roll out at hit only other air units:

fighters 3
dive bombers 2
bombers 1
jets 4

so 3 fighters vs 4 fighters defending is 3 rolls of 3 or less vs. 4 rolls of 3 or less.

If you remove optional DB unit then its 2’s and 2’s

once one side with planes retreats the other side can now roll his own planes using normal air values.

each air combat round runs concurrent with each land combat round, so if land retreats, the air must as well.

This way no air gets chewed up too bad.

[WILD BILL]

Ok I see. So its possible for you to score more hits then enemy planes in the air part.  Say you are attacking w/ 6 ftrs @ 2 vs 2 ftrs @ 2, you score 3 hits. Do you lose the extra kill or reassign extra hits to ground units?

[Imperious Leader]

Say you are attacking w/ 6 ftrs @ 2 vs 2 ftrs @ 2, you score 3 hits. Do you lose the extra kill or reassign extra hits to ground units?

Extra hits ‘spill’ over to land targets.

I would modify the defender @ 2 and attackers @1, which is like the Air escort rules.

So if you bring in air its a 2:1 advantage for defenders, but should also limit loses because of the low combat values.

[WILD BILL]

Thanks IL, I’ll bring it up next time we play. Might be an easier sell if we use the same modifiers in dog fights & escorts. We also have been experimenting with defender retreats after 2nd round of battle. This also helps save planes and other units.

[allboxcars]

@Imperious:

WE also allow the defender to retreat his planes and that minimizes loses too.

Hey it worked for Saddam Hussein….  :-D

Definitely can see the value of air retreat option.

Anyway, thinking that in the absence of “dog fight to the death” the fighters shouldn’t have their full Attack/Defense values as long as enemy fighters are present… sort of like tactical dispersal and still watching their six while strafing keeping them at diminished intercept values… IMO

[Imperious Leader]

The reduced values are realistic because the target is a fast moving plane and not a slow moving tank. Thus the ability to destroy this equipment cannot be the same if we are ranking the various combat values under the same system. This is why lower air combat values are needed. Even Larry added that escort rule using 2 for defense and 1 for attack. This is just a step up from that.

[allboxcars]

@Imperious:

The reduced values are realistic because the target is a fast moving plane and not a slow moving tank.

My point is: if you don’t dominate the skies, then you can’t loiter around doing the damage required to neutralize a dug-in infantry division, for example.

IMO, there should be some decrease in fighter lethality if enemy fighters remain in the battlespace.