Making WWII Aerial Interception - Bomber Games Interesting

[Mako]

Planning on running some of these in the future, and am curious to see what people think would make them interesting?

Thinking about WWII and Cold War bomber raids.

Seems to me they can be a bit more challenging to get right, especially for multiple players on each side, since play-balance is an issue, but also potentially boredom, and a lack of action if no intercepts are made, or drudgery, if they plod on and on, endlessly. Very different than your usual furball I suspect.

I'm worried that in some cases no intercepts may occur at all, and in others that perhaps they'll be a bit too easy, or might drag on for too long, since some bombers can be difficult to knock down.

Might be possible to work around that a little by having each player responsible for several aircraft, so they've got more to do, and to have several chances at some action occurring. Perhaps, if pairs of aircraft or more are involved in different units, letting each player be the lead commander for one, and then acting as wingmen for the others.

Also thinking of perhaps some sort of map plotting/movement, and/or a planning phase to enhance the above, but keeping it fairly quick and simple, if possible, to keep most of the games focused on the minis on the tables.  Might even use a hex map for the squadron level interceptions, and tracking movement.

I've also seen where teams are sometimes set up, and the players get to participate on both sides of the game, e.g. acting as interceptors and bomber players, and pitted against one another individually, or in groups, to make the games a bit more competitive.  Obviously, you wouldn't be pitted against your own aircraft, so some organizational issues would need to be worked out, so that your interceptor squadrons go up against the bomber squadrons of your mates.  Then, you get points for destroying/damaging aircraft, preventing the bombers from reaching their target(s), destroying the target(s), etc..

In this case, you can rank the players by their scores, in three separate categories (four to six, if you want to be judgmental), e.g. best interceptor unit score, best bomber score, best combined score, and, for the last one, worst overall performance - interceptors, bombers, and combined.

Anyone done something similar, or wanted to do so?

What made or would make the game(s) more interesting for you?

[Westfalia Chris]

the cold war topic you started in the same vein would have got some input from me but a ww2 bomber game I cant help you with.

Please use this one for both periods, since the concepts are similar enough not to warrant double-posting (SAMs, AS-x and MIGs notwithstanding).

[carlos marighela]

 For USAAC European operations you could try the following.

 Any time the USAAC gets a bomb within five miles of their target, the US player may declare that he has placed a bomb in the proverbial pickle barrel. Award the player a major strategic victory.

Any time escorting allied fighters come anywhere within visual distance of an Eighth Airforce formation, the US player must immediately concentrate all fire against them. Any allied fighter shot down counts as two German fighters. At least that's the way the originals did it. 

[monkeylite]

You might wanna check out the boardgame Duel in the Dark, for some ideas (or just buy the game!).

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/27048/duel-dark

The rules are available here:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/22780/rules-englisheop-finalpdf

[Elbows]

I could see this working very well as more of a boardgame...as miniatures simply can't address swarms of Me-109s diving into 200+ bombers.  The problem is genuine interaction beyond a simple dice roll.

Ideally your bombers would have a set route and simply wouldn't deviate from it (allowing really only dice rolls to shoot down planes or accurately drop bombs).  That makes it a bit boring unless you let them design the route, choose the altitude, etc. Perhaps they have a hex mat and they have a starting airbase in England and a target. They have a certain number of hexes worth of fuel and they get to design the route before the game starts.  They reveal the route as they fly it, leaving the German players to re-act?

Add in varying amounts of fighter aircraft available to the German players, bad weather, and they get to pre-plan what hexes they want flak present, etc.  Maybe run two separate bomber groups on different paths to make it more interesting for the German players.  Heck perhaps the players are all German fighter command and flak --- playing against a bomber group run by the GM or AI?

[Mako]

Some good points there.  

Thanks for the suggestions, and please keep them coming.

The reason I posted here, and in the Cold War section is that I see the tactics used in many cases to be very different compared to most of WWiI, e.g. single aircraft, or vics of bombers which can wreck whole cities flying around over a continent, vs. squadrons, divisions, or an entire air force setting out for a raid on a single target, like Hamburg, etc..  

Granted, early in the war the RAF sent their bombers out individually, letting the pilots pick their courses, altitudes, and takeoff times, but when they got started in earnest, that ceased.

Not to worry, there are plans for raids over the Soviet Union as well, by Vulcans, B47s, B52s, and others in the works too.  Play balance again will be key for those as well, since depending upon the time period, their defenses will be overmatched by the weaponry available to the US, Great Britain, and France.

After doing a bit of thinking on this, I'm considering map movement of counters for the bombers and interceptors, due to the sheer number of them, and to make life interesting, and then perhaps switching over to the minis for tactical combat.

Right now, thinking about using Airwar: C21 for the miniatures rules.

I'm also thinking about adding in some rules for unreliability of nuke air-to-air missiles, and for the nuke bombs and cruise missiles too.  I played out this a while back, just using a home-made air defense map, and it was pretty interesting, especially when you get a bomber past the fighter and SAM defenses, to actually bomb, and then it ends up being a dud.  That's why they planned for multiple redundancy on key targets, back in the day, since reportedly, some warheads only went off as little as 20% - 25% of the time.  Generally though, 50% - 90% seems to be the norm, depending upon the weapons, and time period, but due to very limited, or no testing at all, even the experts didn't really know the true numbers.

[Elbows]

Personally I've always wanted to play on a replica board of the control table you see in all the war-rooms.



Use the sticks and everything.  Would be super cool.  (even more cool if you added some light up elements, etc.)

[Etranger]

For USAAC European operations you could try the following.

 Any time the USAAC gets a bomb within five miles of their target, the US player may declare that he has placed a bomb in the proverbial pickle barrel. Award the player a major strategic victory.
....

And 50 miles for Bomber Command...

[Etranger]

The forthcoming PSC game for the BOB has such a board.

[Harry Faversham]

And 50 miles for Bomber Command...

Steady on old chap...



 

[carlos marighela]

And 50 miles for Bomber Command...

Not quite and Bomber Command didn't really pretend that they were doing anything other than area bombing. The septics managed to bomb Zurich and Berne IIRC. Missed the target, missed the city and even missed the entire fucking country the target was located in. Quite an acheivement!

[Harry Faversham]

Close formation... A-Able P-Peter (Popsie) and R-Roger.



 

[zippyfusenet]

I recognize those models, Harry. They're Corgi Fighting Machines Lancasters. Just about 1/280 scale, plenty close enough for government work. I luvs me some prepaints.

[Vanvlak]

This is giving me a sense of deja vu - I seem to remember a very old board-sort of game in which a player piloted one single aeroplane - I think there were 2 options, a British and an American bomber, and I can't remember which aeroplanes or even whether they were WWII or Cold War. I have an idea the game came out in the 1970s at the latest, and was extremely detailed with care taken to reproduce the actions open to each member of the bomber crew. It's out of print, but I have an impression there was a pdf somewhere for the rules and a multitude of cards and a representation of the bomber too.

Trouble is it's a very vague memory - sorry, not much help there...   
I do seem to recollect seeing it on Board Game Geek too, though, if that's any help.

[Harry Faversham]

Not exactly repaints but I've tickled 'em up a bit for ops...

"Enemy coast ahead Skipper!"