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Post by greenbeanie on Dec 14, 2017 22:53:39 GMT
Following the hard cover rule book, AQMF time line is 1908 to 1914. Scott Washburn's book trilogy takes us thru the same time line. Now WW1 was from 1914 to 1918. The three major powers (England, France and Germany) started the war with aircraft little better than the Wright brothers flying machine. After four years of war the aircraft became fighters, bombers and recon planes. The aircraft started with pusher engines and became more sturdy with front mounted engines and machine guns with interrupter cams so that they would not shoot off the propellers while flying forward. Now you would think in the Martian wars the aircraft would develop faster also. I feel they would be more sturdier and have wings with hard points to launch rockets from outside the heat ray range to make the aircraft more survivable along with the crew. During WW2 the British Fleet Air Arm used the Swordfish torpedo bomber with wing mount rockets to attack U boats. The planes where launched from Escort Carriers. Now in WW2 the Germans kept the obsolete JU-87 Stuka in service my mounting a 3.7cm canon on each wing and a five round clip and used the aircraft as a tank buster. The British RAF did the same thing with the Hurricane and mounted 40mm canons in the wings. In the Normandy Campaign more German armor was destroyed by JABO's (Fighter Bombers) than any other means. I would think that in over five years of war with the Martians a tripod busting aircraft would have be developed and have been survivable for the pilot. Your thoughts my friends?
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Post by David N.Tanner 07011959 on Dec 14, 2017 23:16:38 GMT
I agree completely. I think the problem is working them into the rules.
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Post by boxholder on Dec 15, 2017 0:09:24 GMT
I think Brother Tanner has a very good point. It is hard to work aircraft into the AQMF battle system. You almost need a complete "sub-game" to accomodate aircraft.
They are on the order of 5 to 10 times or more the speed of anything else, so keeping them on the game table is a problem. And that speed makes the double turn design in AQMF let them escape scot-free after an attack run.
In order to keep them from becoming omnipotent, flittering about the table and striking at will, you will need to limit the ammo available to them or limit duration over the target. Another approach would be require the aircraft to halt movement if it fires, foregoing its next movement phase. (Rationale: Pilot is focused on the attack, not on fancy acrobatics. The attack run will be a more predictable straight path rather than wildly jinking.)
Even the sturdiest aircraft structure will be have to be relatively light and so frightfully vulnerable to heat rays. Fuel, pilot and ammo are also tightly packed to keep the size (= weight) down to something that can fly. All-metal aircraft structures were only beginning to be explored (Junkers J-1) and did not enter service durng the WW-1.
Of course, the pressure of war accelerates development and integration of technology, But the technical base must be there in metals, propulsion, fuels, etc. Development of the tech base takes time and money. The WW-2 Manhattan Project is a great example: about 4 years to move from a technical base reaching back 200 years to weapons, but at tremendous cost in money, people and resources. The perpetual technical dilemma:
GOOD-FAST-CHEAP Pick any two.
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Post by hardlec on Dec 16, 2017 17:24:06 GMT
The first combat aircraft were recon planes. recon planes began to carry weapons and became fighters. Bombers came rather late, as making an aircraft big enough to carry a significant bomb load was pushing the envelope.
Lighter-than-air craft were also viable options in the teens and into the 20s.
Could the technology be pushed forward? Yes. What keep the whole flying machine genre restricted in the early part of the 20th century was lack of funding. Give the aviation pioneers the resources, and they can make it work. Here's my issue:
The Attack Aircraft that already exists, the Burgess-Dunne Flying Wing and the rules for it do very well.
Bomber Aircraft are out-of-place on a tactical battlefield. Just like a B-17 really has no place in Flames of War. Any sort of airship is likewise too big for the skirmish-tactical table that we use for AQMF.
Joe and company are too talented to have "vanished." Europa is coming, and with it the possibility for the addition of a larger battle scale. This is the place for bombers and massed formations of aircraft.
The Heat Ray is all-to-effective in an AA role. It is an art to get a projectile to the point in the sky where the airplane is going to be when the bullet gets there. There is no art to hitting an aircraft with a heat ray. See it, zap it. The only defence an aircraft has is range. Even an A10 Warthog, vintage 1980, is little more than flying toast to a heat ray. Humans can fly, Martians can't, but human flight will not overwhelm Martians.
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