Aircraft Movement

[Faron Bell]

A question for you vet VaS gamers:

Have you found that allowing one side or the other to move all of its fighter aircraft at one time puts the player moving second at a huge disadvantage?

In smaller games with just one carrier on a side (say maybe 10-15 flights per side), what would be the pros and cons of alternating air movement, much like ship movement?

Too time consuming?

thanks,
Faron.

 

[Happy_Wanderer]

Hi Faron,

we haven't got into larg-ish aircraft actions yet, but as you say it might slow the game down somewhat.

By having all the aircraft move at once it does impart some degree of IGO-UGO in a grand tactical sense that enables one player to get the jump on another eg carrier attacks at Midway, etc.

The only problem with that, is the intiative die roll becomes all important so perhaps looking at that die roll and any potential modifers could make it seem OK. There already are mods for convoy laden forces. Perhaps not having any air support (spotters) could effect this and would be a more historical use for in-game spotter planes than their rather large benefit to firing they give.

It has been said the VaS turn is approx 20-30 mins. Therefore the above actions of one side moving then another doesn't seem to bad.

 

[Keith]

I think it just means you have to be careful how to place your aircraft; you have to thimk ahead to the next turn as well as the current one.

One rule you might toy with is the possibility of allowing bombers to withdraw in subsequent turns if (and only if) any enemy fighters in contactct are being engaged by escorting fighters.

Additional Point 1:
As the rules stand aircraft are uneffected by bad weather. Was this actually the case? They can also operate at night. This was definitely not done, if only because of the technical impossibility of a WWII carrier recovering its aircraft at night.

Additional Point 2:
Unless I am missing something the rules, as they stand allow bombers and torpedo plannes to initiate dog fights. I believe there is no historical president for this. Consequently we currently have a house rule that states that only fighters can initiate air to air combat.

 

[resQscooter]

Why would strike aircraft want to initiate a digfight with dedicated fighter aircraft anyway? I guess the only situation I can think of is "gamey" in that I have two flights of strike aircraft, one of which has expended its load. This one now becomes an "escort" for the other and tries to keep the fighters away from him. Come to think of it not an altogether unrealistic tactic, as I believe Ens. Gay in his AAR of Torpedo 8's demise repeatedly indicated that torpedo pilots in general wanted more offensive/defensive air capability but the designers kept it away so they wouldn't "go cowboy" and disregard the mission.

 

[Faron Bell]

One rule you might toy with is the possibility of allowing bombers to withdraw in subsequent turns if (and only if) any enemy fighters in contactct are being engaged by escorting fighters.

We have played that if a fighter is contacted by a fighter and bomber, then the fighter must engage the enemy fighter first - if it survives, then it gets to fire at the enemy bomber. We have also played fighters as having only two bursts/shots of ammo before having to return to the carrier to re-arm. If they are out of ammo, then they may defend but not initiate dogfights as per the David M. mods.

We do not allow bombers to initiate dogfights.

Thanks for the input!

 

[juggler69uk]

If you think dogfighting bombers etc is bad

What about dogfighting observation planes, the one with the most obs planes could just place his obs plane in contact (dogfight) with the opponents and then they wipe each other out (no combat rating so automatically destroyed)

Unless of course anyone knows different

The cheese goes on

 

[Keith]

If you think dogfighting bombers etc is bad

What about dogfighting observation planes, the one with the most obs planes could just place his obs plane in contact (dogfight) with the opponents and then they wipe each other out (no combat rating so automatically destroyed)

Unless of course anyone knows different

The cheese goes on

Intersting, but totally unrealistic, tactic which could also be used to delay enemy bombers a turn as the rules stand. This is why we only allow fighters to initiate air to air combat.

 

[resQscooter]

Geez, Juggler... Who do you play against :shock: ? I would never have thought of that one!!!