How do you account for aircraft ground crews in wargames?
Where do you site them on the battlefield and how is that represented in the game?
What sorts of inherent defenses can/should they have, and how much interchangeability should they have as you increase the types / quantities of aircraft?
By: Brant
I don't play air wargames, so the only instance of something like this I can remember is the way the the "Central Front" series handled attack helicopter units. The unit was represented by a counter that was laid out like an artillery counter with an extremely long range; the counter itself was supposed to represent the FARRP and ground crews to run the point - so if it got overrun or damaged by artillery etc. then the helicopters would suffer by extension, and it had a very weak defense.
ReplyDeleteOther than FARP dudes, they will always be at the airbase and will never be part of airfield defense unless it is a SHTF scenario. I do not see them contributing much in terms of combat power as they are not trained to do that job nor do they practice it.
ReplyDeletewrench turners tend to be focused on their specific airframe and would take longer to work on a different one (meaning have to be in the tech orders/manuals to do anything). Thus they would not help turn an aircraft faster or repair damaged aircraft with any speed.
In Nam, the airbase staff had some basic defensive training, because of Charlie's constant attempts to infiltrate and perform SAS style attacks on the planes.
ReplyDeleteThis was pretty basic, though, and they really hated it.
One time there was an M-163 platoon that was assigned to base defence up in I Corps. The maintenance people barely knew what equipment the base had.
When the 163s finally got into a firefight with some infiltrators, the maintenance people went crazy.
The Vulcan auto cannon, in the dark, actually looks like a laser shooting pulses. It's really quite a light show.
Next morning, all these base people are poking around, asking "When did we get lasers? How come they're so well hidden?"