Somewhere Over The Gulf, 1991

[Just Jack]

All,

Okay, on to something new and different. I’m playtesting another set of rules, this time some air to air combat rules. In this, my first game with the rules, we have a flight of four USN F-18 Hornets taking on a flight of four Iraqi MiG-29s. For my purposes everything is equal: the planes are equally maneuverable, each carries four IR missiles, four radar missiles, and three sets of countermeasures, and the pilots are of equal quality (apparently these are the cream of the Iraqi Air Force, and a USN ROTC aerial club). In any case, the action picks up with each flight at opposite ends of the table, over barren Iraqi desert…

Furball developing on the deck at far right, while the other two sets of fighters cautiously feel each other out at altitude.

A helluva dogfight breaks out.

Ultimately the US Naval aviators splash three bogeys.

The game was played with Picoarmor 1/600 jets on about a 3′ x 3′ table in about two hours and ten minutes. I’ve already thought of a few tweaks to the rules, and if you’ve got the time I’d love it if anyone could give a read through and let me know what they think of the batrep.

Thanks for taking a look, and for the whole fight check the blog here:
http://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2015/03/somewhere-over-gulf-1991.html

V/R,
Jack

[kyoteblue]

Very good looking game, love the missile trails and chaff markers !!!

[Just Jack]

Thanks Kyote, I appreciate it, and I’m looking to get another game in this weekend, Israelis vs Syrians over the Bekaa Valley circa 1982.

V/R,
Jack

[Rod Robertson]

Just Jack:

Somewhere over the Gulf 1991 was an interesting AAR. The missiles were my favorite bit! Very creative use of pipe-cleaners. What distance does each hex represent? I never even considered doing modern military air combat because the engagement distances for modern radar-guided missiles are so long that the playing surface would be huge.

Last week I played some WWI air combat and now your AAR has me thinking seriously about moderns for the first time. What is the title or working title of the rules which you were play-testing unless that is confidential?

Cheers and good gaming.

Rod Robertson.

[Just Jack]

Rod,

Thanks man, I appreciate the kind words.

Regarding scale (your question as to the distance of a single hex), the answer is, I don’t know.  This is definitely not a rivet counting simulation of air combat.  I’d liken it more to a quick, down and dirty set of rules to play out air combat in the fashion of Paramount’s 1986 blockbuster, “Top Gun.”  That’s good enough for me.  I can say that, in the modern side of things, hex range 1-3 is guns only, with radar missiles being 4-16 (I think IR missiles are 4-12).

Regarding the issue of, ‘why are you dogfighting when real-world missiles have such long ranges,’ I could say ‘because that’s what’s fun about gaming this stuff,’ but the excuse for more realism is that 1) bad guys aren’t as technically adept (C4ISR), and 2) good guys have strict rules of engagement to visually identify their foes (wouldn’t want to shoot down a civilian airliner, or a coalition partner aircraft, would we?).  The bad guys also use this to their advantage; they figure their only chance is to ‘hug the belt,’ i.e., not allow the superior Western fighters to engage them beyond visual range, where Western technology would almost certainly result in them becoming smoking holes in the ground, so they look to close the distance and get into a dogfight to nullify the Western tech advantage.

Right now these are the “Generic Yet Action-Packed, WWI through Modern, Dogfighting Like Top Gun Rules” (GYAPWW1TMDLTGR).  With any luck, that is to say, if the rules work like we hope they will, GYAPWW1TMDLTGR will trade in its uncannily awkward name as part of its joining of everyone’s favorite Commissar’s 5Core family of rules.  But that’s still a long way off.

“Last week I played some WWI air combat…”
Hmmmm…  I searched everywhere, but was unable to find any photographic evidence of the referenced WWI air combat 😉

V/R,
Jack

[kyoteblue]

WW1 air ?????

[Just Jack]

“WW1 air ?????”

Why not?

They fly? Check.

They climb/dive? Check.

They turn left/right? Check.

They have differing pilot skills?  Check.

They have differing relative aircraft characteristics?  Check.

They try to shoot each other out of the sky?  Check.

The rules are set up to give a fun, quick game that takes into account all the varying aspects of aerial combat without requiring you to 1) go to flight school to be able to handle the intellectual load, and 2) not have you pre-plot maneuvers or conduct some other time-consuming activation process that slows down and draws out the game.

I’m certainly no aviator, but my (admittedly limited) understanding of the difference between a WWI dogfight, a WWII dogfight, and a Modern(-ish) dogfight is simply speed and distance; there are maneuvers that were come up with in WWI that are still in practice today, and really the only thing a fighter can do now that it couldn’t do then (with respect to maneuvers) is a vertical climb, which is really used only as a tool of disengagement (assuming your plane has the advantage).  But if you focus the rules not on a set time/distance scale, but simply make the time and distances relative to the other aircraft, I think it works.

Or at least that is what GYAPWW1TMDLTGR set out to prove.  I feel these rules are well-placed, that there is a niche for gamers that want to play out dramatic dogfights in a less technical fashion than some other rule-sets out there.  Certainly they won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, as experience has shown there are gamers out there that love nothing more to sit down and spend five hours playing a game that features every single data point humans have on that particular technology/era/aspect.  They want an immersive experience and that type of thing checks all their boxes.

But I happen to know there’s at least one guy out there that wants to play a set of rules like this, so I say again Sir, why not? 😉

V/R,
Jack

[kyoteblue]

Hum….

[Rod Robertson]

Just Jack:

GYAPWW1TMDLTGR? That is a catchy acronym. I’m sure everybody will use it when the game gets popular.  Well, I thought the game looked great and Jack, you sound like you had great fun playing it, so those are two very valid reasons to embrace the GYAPWW1TMDLTGR.

Over the last two weeks I played many games with real human opponents and minimal rugging. I had a WWII Skirmish game (Canadian Recce Motorised Assault Platoon in C15TA armoured trucks vs. German fugitives in the race to the Seine River after Falaise), A bunch of short WWI aerial combats, a shockingly violent and bloody samurai skirmish game (about Japanese peasants and thieves trying to kidnap an already- hostage Japanese princess from her Ronin captors while also trying to rob Samurai guards of the ransom gold) and a thoroughly enjoyable steam-punk game of “In Her Majesties Service” (pitting 19th Century Prussians vs. Victorian Brits.). You will find no evidence of these games on the interweb from me (others may have posted on LAF) and the sweet irony is that I took lots of pictures of some of the games! Ha-ha-ha! You’ll never get piccies out of me, mate!

Kyoteblue:

I know that WWI aerial combat stirs distant memories of your ancient youth and may open certain scars of your then-oh-so-young psyche, but WWI air combat is great! It’s all twisty and turn-y and you can do nifty maneuvers like stalls, slips and even immelmanns vs. Max Immelmann! And the planes are so pretty and colourful that it almost makes you forget that you’re trying to simulate organized mass-murder in the skys when playing such a game. What’s not to love. And who can forget Snoopy! He finally got the Red Baron (Not the Brits or the Canadians or the Australian infantry) Here the painting was done by hand and not by radar, so to me it is a far more human (albeit not humane) gaming experience.

The Baron Von Roddy

[Just Jack]

“That is a catchy acronym.”
Indeed it is, indeed it is.  Dare I say, eloquent?  I will state that the rules will not stay “GYAPWW1TMDLTGR,” that was just something I thought was funny.  Recently I’ve been leaning towards Poor Bloody Blitzkreig Chain of Crossfiring Flames in the Air (PBBCoCFitA).  Let me know.

Rod – Your claims to game carry no water with me, Sir.  Nor do your claims to have taken plenty of photos, though your taunt of not posting (your imaginary) photos I find simply despicable 😉

“…WWI aerial combat stirs distant memories of your ancient youth…”
But that was priceless.  You shouldn’t have to take that, Blue.  I mean, at least get your timeline straight, Rod!  Everyone knows Kyote spent his youth fighting off the Persians.

V/R,
Jack

[kyoteblue]

I am Spartacus !!!!

[Rod Robertson]

Kyoteblue:

Well that’s a cross you will have to bear!

Rod Robertson

[Author]

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