Will there be airpower be included...

[The Gnome]

Ditto the F-15 - if it's the C version. I'm not sure if that even carried any air to ground munitions. If it's the E version, then it falls under the comments Blackhorse made about the F-111.

[IronManBeta]

F-111s and F-15s - yes, I know, I know! Once you start though it is easier just to keep going and do a whole bunch of them. If I had left them out it would have been worse for me.

Most modern aircraft of course have 2 or more roles and are reasonably capable of even more if the right people are around and the need is pressing enough. While browsing secondary roles and possible tertiary roles I threw in the towel and just included everyone except the B-52s. Was this wise? Time will tell.

At around this time the whole air support sub-game threatened to get out of hand and become as complex as the ground game and that is when I had to straighten out my thinking. Steve Newberg, the designer of Main Battle Tank which was the specification for this game was very helpful ("Cripes, Rob, just keep it as flying artillery and don't garbage up the design.") as were various playtesters and forum participants. It is a lot more detailed then the original game and I think what is there now is consistent with the viewpoint of the player as the overall ground force commander.

BTW, my understanding is that the forward edge of battle area (FEBA) is about the last place on earth any airforce would really like to operate. The problem is that it would just be too darn dangerous on the Central Front. Aircraft are immensely valuable, irreplacable and there is absolutely no way that one would be committed if there was a cheaper and/or more certain way to get the same effect. Long range arty shading up into SSM would be the preferred solution in every army. Off the top of my head most doctrine didn't want air strikes within 40 km of the FEBA but don't quote me on that. They were only slightly less reluctant to use helicopters there and they are a whole lot cheaper. I found this very disillusioning for some reason but I guess it makes sense. Even so, nearly every scenario has some aircraft in it. We like them!

Air was much more valuable doing deep strikes and interdiction missions. Helos were flying trucks for desanti and raids, and attack helos were the modern day horse cavalry waiting in the wings to retrieve some rapidly worsening situation. Just to doodle around the battlefield with any of them was to ask for useless losses.

The A-10 fits into a whole different category of course - they were made for the FEBA and it showed. This might be a good time to mention that these ratings I use are semi-log, ie. an "8" is twice as good as a "7", which in turn is twice as good as a "6". To go from a "7" to an "8" is a 100% increase, not a 14.3% increase in value. All of the attack and defense ratings are semi-log. This was the best way to scale everything from a well thrown rock to a 10 kiloton nuclear release into an easily manageable scale. A protection rating of "8" for an A-10 is a big deal. For comparison, the M1 has a protection of "11", an M-60A3 is an "8", and a T-80 is a "10".

Must run, ta, Rob.

[Blackhorse]

ORIGINAL: RobertCrandall
BTW, my understanding is that the forward edge of battle area (FEBA) is about the last place on earth any airforce would really like to operate.

That strikes me as a very accurate read of the situation.

The A-10 fits into a whole different category of course - they were made for the FEBA and it showed. This might be a good time to mention that these ratings I use are semi-log, ie. an "8" is twice as good as a "7", which in turn is twice as good as a "6". To go from a "7" to an "8" is a 100% increase, not a 14.3% increase in value. All of the attack and defense ratings are semi-log. This was the best way to scale everything from a well thrown rock to a 10 kiloton nuclear release into an easily manageable scale. A protection rating of "8" for an A-10 is a big deal. For comparison, the M1 has a protection of "11", an M-60A3 is an "8", and a T-80 is a "10".

OK, I get it. A Warthog with double the defense of an F-16 makes sense. FWIW, I'd still like to see the A-10 get an increase in accuracy (ground support was their primary - nay, sole - mission . . . for other aircraft ground strikes were secondary or tertiary missions).

As an ex-M60A3 platoon leader I should probably be offended that an A-10 has the same defensive rating as my tank, but I'm not. [8D] I understand that a/c are being rated against a different threat.

Three questions, if I may. First, are you going to assign different probabilities based on aircraft type? ( the chance of A-10s arriving in the FEBA should be much higher than an F-111.)

Secondly, do aircraft arrive individually, or in larger tactical units? IIRC, A-10s were committed in pairs (or fours)

Finally, is aircraft support specific to nationality, or is there a chance that German Tornados may bail out a US unit?

[Catgh_MatrixForum]

Blackhorse,

Let me make a stab at your three questions.

Aircraft, and all units are either in the scenario or not. There isn't a probablity whether or not they arrive. The scenario designer says when they arrive to be available for the player to use. Once they are in the game play, they are then called upon by the player to strike with a search radius and time on target. Whether they make the strike as scheduled though is up in the air, but once they are made available to the player they are there.

Aircraft can be setup to arrive as indiviual aircraft or "flights of aircraft". In the stock scenario set you will typically see at minimum 2 A-10's in a flight. If a scenario designer wants he can set up "game-counters" that represent one plane if so desired.

Aircraft support is not specific to nationality necessarily. There is at least one scenario that has mixed nationalities of forces on the game board. The scenario designer can put in A-10's supporting BAOR forces.

[Blackhorse]

Catgh,

Thanks. It sounds . . . realistic. Good design decisions.

[IronManBeta]

Yes Catgh nailed it. I originally had aircraft in units of 4 but found that 2 felt better for the scale of the game. Ultimately it is whatever the scenario designer decrees, and you can take any of the scenarios, change them and save them as new scenarios if you like.

The exciting part for me will be to see what kind of scenarios are created by the players. For some reason I drew a major blank when it came to crafting scenarios from scratch. I fell back on the original SimCan group and after a quick conversion handed them off to Catgh for updating and polishing. He (along with a couple of the other playtesters) did a magnificent job of getting them ready.

Only the surface has been scratched though and the number of additional possibilities is almost endless. I look forward to seeing what comes out.

Cheers, Rob.

[Dunedain]

So, has the original protection value rating of 8 for the A-10 been proven in intensive
game playing to accurately reflect the plane's difficulty in being acquired, resistance
to ground fire and general toughness, or has it been changed?

[CapnDarwin]

Both aircraft and SAM related ratings got "tweaked" some time ago to better reflect the capabilities of the various systems within the framework of the current combat model. In simple terms, we worked the number to get a better "feel" in the game. Even a tank like an A-10 can get shot down if it bounds over a hill into a group SAM and AAA units. Like the real thing some planning and luck goes along for the ride.

[Dunedain]

Hi, Capn Darwin. Do you happen to know if the A-10 got tweaked up or down
relative to where it started? Just been wondering about that for some time.

Thanks for any info.

[CapnDarwin]

In the scheme of things it is about where it was before at the top of the protection heap and top of the firepower heap too.