Fighters as interceptors for fighters ?

[Iain McGhee]

With fighter flights being regarded as ships for most rules is there anything stopping a supporting fighter acting as an interceptor (as with cap. ships) for another flight ? Can't see anything to prevent it and it would be pretty useful for the large bomber types with poor dodge scores.

Of course you could always target the supporting fighter first as it couldn't act as an interceptor for itself, but you could probably position the flights in such a way that only the supported flight was inside weapons range.

 

[Sulfurdown]

What about a series of fighters in support of fighters? (Is that possible? Having Flight C supporting Flight B which is in support of Flight A?)

 

[Iain McGhee]

Don't think that's allowed. Far as I know it can only be 1 fighter supporting 1 fighter, otherwise you could have a "fighter-conga" with your entire complement !

 

[Ripple]

There is no rule against a fighter supporting another fighter being supported in turn. Just because it produces a silly effect in some ways doesn't mean you can't do it under these rules. Look at the e-mine/dogfight ruling for you good example there.

Ripple

 

[nekomata fuyu]

A simpiler method is to have flight A support flight B, and flight B support flight A. Whichever one you shoot at, its partner gets to shoot down the incoming fire. Best of all, it even makes some form of sense too...

 

[Iain McGhee]

That's what I do with fighter pairs as well as it doesn't say anything in the rules about declaring which is supporting which until they are fired on or bounced by other fighters.

I'd be surprised if creating a "fighter chain" is allowed. There is a case for it as the rule doesn't seem to disallow it, but I expect that the intent is that only two flights can be used together like this.

With E-Mines (and exploding ships) attacking dogfights I prefer to treat all fighters involved in the dogfight to be mixed together in an area covering all the stands in the fight, same reason that you can't target dogfighting ships with direct-fire weapons, so that if any part of any of the flight stands involved are in range then all the dogfighting flights get attacked.

 

[Ryueokami]

Hmmm
interesting idea.
With this method one could indirectly (by destroying incoming shots) increase the dodge of the fighters (the heavy ones with 3+,... dodge)....at least against attacks with only a few dice.

 

[Ripple]

Not saying you couldn't house rule it to something else, but I just find it very funny that you have no problem with two flights supporting each other, but do have an issue with a chain of fighters. Neither one makes more sense than the other. This isn't a single fighter and his wingman, this is whole flights supposedly covering each others approach, why couldn't I have one flight after the other looking after the flight in fronts tail.

Just not seeing the realism issue if flights can cover for each other they certainly can cover the guy in front of them.

Ripple

 

[Iain McGhee]

I just don't read the rule that way. Not to say it isn't just as valid to play it the way you (and presumably others) do. Not so much a realism issue as ease of use. I'll shove a post on Rulesmasters and see which is the "official" take on it.

 

[Ripple]

I just saw you rulemasters post, I didn't want to post as Matt might not look then, but could you edit it to add in whether two flights can support each other? If not I'll add as a separate thread. It's a a related idea, and best to sort it out completely if possible.

We actually have only played it as a 'chain' once or twice as it did bring up some other questions about what is an attack, and what does happen if an intercepting fighter gets destroyed by an interceptable weapon while yet another flight is intercepting for it?

The same thing could be said in your covering each other scenario. As each fighter acts as an interceptor for the other does that mean interceptable weapons get two chances to be blocked? Or more likely does it mean a flight just lost if the deadly '1' comes up on the die.

I only used the word 'realism' because neko above used the terms 'makes some sense'. That always translates in my head to 'I could picture this actually happening if this were the real world'. I can picture wave after wave of fighters swooping in each cover the flight before it as easily as I can picture side by side flights that swap over each other to do interceptor work for each other.

Think also we need to work on terms a bit, are we taking 'supporting' as in dogfight support, 'supporting' as in will intercept attacking dogfighters or 'supporting' as in acting as an interceptor system for the fighter in question. I wish Mongoose would be more careful with it's use of terms as it can make the rules confusing if the same words are attached to different functions.

Ripple

 

[Iain McGhee]

Burger's asked about two flights mutually supporting already, I've clarified what I was asking as Bryan thought I meant supporting in dogfights.

I didn't mean that each flight could intercept for each other, only that the one of the pair that wasn't fired on could intercept for the other. If both were fired on with the same weapons system you'd have to either pick one to intercept (which then couldn't dodge incoming fire) or decide at the time not to use the second flight as interceptors that turn.

I'm uncertain as to whether two supporting flights can cover for each other. I'd think not, but hopefully we'll get a reply to the Rulesmasters query.

 

[Ripple]

Cool enough, I threw a thread up too, hopefully we'll get a response.

Was still hoping we'd see new terms

Supporting - dogfights
Escorting - block dogfights
Intercepting - acting as interceptor

Ripple