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True gun aircraft stats

 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 6:50 pm 
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I don't know. Perhabs someone with real military experience can elaborate?
IIRC in the Gulf War the USA had suffered great losses of Attack Helicopters due to small arms fire.
IIRC the  A-10 "Wardhog" has the same problem.
I'm not sure but this was one of the reasons the Commanche project was canceled.





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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 7:09 pm 
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I  think that would open more problems than anything else BL, mainly because aircraft will be taking inordinate amounts of BM for being shot at.  It wouldnt be necessary to kill them, just make suure you have  enough formations that can lay BM to put them out of action.

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 7:18 pm 
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Well...you would waste the firepower of a whole formation to just shoot down a formation of two to three Aircrafts :)
A loaded transport Aircraft would be a juicy target...or a big Squadron of Ork Fightabommer. But the other aircrafts? Hmm...

Dedicated AA formations like the Hydra Squadron would become much more useful.





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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 8:01 pm 
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oh, are you suggesting that aircraft would operate in the same way as all other formations and that to snap fire you would need to be on overwatch then? I see, i was presuming that it would operate in the same way as the AA rules, ie you can shoot at incoming aircraft without wasting an activation..

Sorry, but the more I think about it I really dont like the idea- AA should be an umbrella that intercepts anything that comes near, and the current rules work well in that role.

Having said that I do like your upgunned Aircraft stats.  Perhaps the best way to balance things would be to similarly upgun the AA stats?

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue Mar 18, 2008 8:14 pm 
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Not restricted to overwatch, every action where the formation can still shoot would be viable.

But i see why the current rules work well :) I'm just tossing out ideas :)

And modifying AA stats...

I took a breakdown of the system the Rulebook units work in this regard (the Swordwind units differ there somewhat).

Currently a ground Aa units weapon has a reduced range by -15cm because it has a greater fire arc than Fixed Forward (see rulebook Thunderhawk Twin Heavy Bolter stats).
and it seems that ground AA ALSO has and additional -15cm to its range either because it has toshoot high up into the air and/or because the gunner has to split his awareness to the air and the ground (he can shoot at ground targets and multiple(!) Aircraft formations simultaneously).

In Wh540k the Hydras Longbarelled Twin Autocannons hav a range of 72". Same as a Battlecannon. This would translate to 75cm in Epic. But because of the reasons above it can only shoot 45cm.

A split profile could be:
2 x 75cm AP4+/AT5+
and
2 x 45cm AA5+

If you ignore the -15cm because of fire arc (which i recommend on Aircrafts too) it would be:
2 x 75cm AP4+/AT5+
and
2 x 60cm AA5+

Much more reasonable.

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:24 pm 
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(BlackLegion @ Mar. 18 2008,18:50)
QUOTE

IIRC in the Gulf War the USA had suffered great losses of Attack Helicopters due to small arms fire.


You are probably referring to this incident:

http://www.boston.com/news....q_risky

"In the early hours of March 24, 2003, the 11th Attack Helicopter Regiment flew a spectacularly unsuccessful deep-strike mission against Iraqi armor and artillery south of Baghdad. Of the 30 Apaches that took part, 29 returned with small arms or anti-aircraft artillery damage; one Apache was forced to land due to ground fire, and the two pilots were captured."

That?s one lost and the rest returning home damaged but on their own power. While those were obviously no longer combat worthy in various degrees "great losses" is something different. Apparantly the choppers suffered mainly from RPG fire: These auto-destruct after almost a kilometers flight, spreading shrapnel, which can be a substitute AA weapon if you get the distance right. ?




(BlackLegion @ Mar. 18 2008,18:50)
QUOTE

IIRC the ?A-10 "Wardhog" has the same problem.


Definitely not. The Warthog/Thunderbolt is as close to invulnerable to small arms as something flying can get. You?d have to be very, very lucky to damage one with small caliber weapons.




(BlackLegion @ Mar. 18 2008,18:50)
QUOTE

I'm not sure but this was one of the reasons the Commanche project was canceled.


Lack of a proper enemy (The Soviet Union) and spiralling costs even beyond what the Pentagon was willing to spend were behind this. It eventually lost its backing in the US Congress and was scrapped. Google for more info if you like to.

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:30 pm 
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(BlackLegion @ Mar. 18 2008,20:14)
QUOTE


If you ignore the -15cm because of fire arc (which i recommend on Aircrafts too) it would be:
2 x 75cm AP4+/AT5+
and
2 x 60cm AA5+

Much more reasonable.

Hardly.

I encounter Hydras with almost every IG formation that can take one. My opponents have zero problems covering every angle with at least 2 Hydras to begin with, this would not only greatly increase IG AA coverage (probably to 3-5 Hydras firing on any aircraft entering the IG side of the board) but also add a de-facto place-BM-within-75cms ability to all IG formations.

They?ll even hit something half of the time!

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 1:24 am 
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Hadn't heard of the Apaches, but before that the only aircraft I heard of that were "savaged" by ground fire (as opposed to dedicated AA) were in WWI and some in WWII. Most notably, Manfred Von Richtofen was killed by ground fire from an Australian formation.

Back on topic a second, if we agree the air rules work reasonably well, what is the point of these proposed changes?

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 12:07 am 
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Because new aircrafts introduced to the game have the problem of overgunned weapons.
If you put the same weapons as on groundunits on aircrafts you will entcounter a too long range and/or to good a to-hit value as seen recently with the Chaos Hell Blade and Hell Talon.

So you have to
a) artificially downgrade aircraft weapons, even go so far that the weapons aren't wysiwyg as can be seen on the rulebook Thunderbolt.
or
b) upgrade the range of ground AA units to the proper values so that aircrafts can have wysiwyg weapons which have the same characteristics as their ground counterparts plus an eventually AA-value.

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 1:58 am 
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One thing has always bugged me about EA aircraft and AA. They're exactly like warhammer fantasy magic phase. Bear with me...

In fantasy, quite often people would like to play an army with no wizards, but if you do that you will be savaged by someone who does bring wizards. Therefore every army you play with has to include at least one token wizard for magic defense.

It's exactly like that in epic. You're forced into taking some form of AA else you'll be savaged by a plane heavy army.

How is this any different to, say, bringing no AT fire and facing a tank based army? It's different for one simple reason. You can deal with tanks without AT fire, whether by laying blast markers till they break or by assaulting them. Without some form of AA you can't do anything about planes, at all.

However, that said, I'm not keen on the idea of allowing all weapons to shoot at planes. It's just not practical. I just wish more units had meagre AA which allowed a chance at dealing with planes without taking dedicated AA.

Every necron list has to include at least 1 pylon, as that is the only AA available. If another unit, say the Heavy Destroyer, had an AA6+ (or even 7+) shot, there'd be another option available.

Why can't lascannon armed support platforms have an AA7+ shot? If there was more general AA we wouldn't be stuck playing rock, paper, scissors and forced to undergun planes.

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 9:00 am 
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Don't arm yourself with a knife if you go to a gunfight!

In WWII it was a nasty surprise for the Polish airforce when they found out that the Germans had AA attached to almost all units. The Polish army on the other hand was not prepared to defend itself against the air support the German ground forces could call in.

If you do not have AA capabilities you can not defend yourselves against planes. Where is the problem?


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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:47 am 
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(Warphead @ May 27 2008,09:00)
QUOTE
If you do not have AA capabilities you can not defend yourselves against planes. Where is the problem?

The problem is that some lists have one one AA unit. That means EVERY list for that army has to include that unit, which to me is a poor idea.

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:53 am 
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Seriously i have no problem with this.

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 Post subject: True gun aircraft stats
PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 12:15 pm 
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BL why would an air platform and a ground platform have the same range and firepower? Are you telling me a .50 cal on a fighter has the same AA range, ground attack range and shots on target as a jeep with a .50 call in 15 minutes?

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