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in that instance, yes, but you'd be hard pressed to end outside of range of the russ. a better example would be for a regular infantry company, without access to 75cm battlecannons.
the instances where this would have any likelyhood of occuring, would be if you ended, or flew only say, 50 cms away from the marines in a squad, but still in range of the hunter.
The rules, as it goes, do not say "when shooting at aircraft, range is measured at any point of the move" but rather that "AA can fire at vehicles so long as they were in range at some point in the move"
This, I feel, is likely an oversight, and that the intention is that if you ever fly within 45cm of a tactical marine stand, then that marine stand is counted for the matter of suppression, though the direction of suppression is still taken to be "where you stop moving" and not "where you approach the outer range of the flak field from" which is a seperate issue entirely.
As it stands (with suppression based on aircrafts "final" (which is to say, mid turn) position) it is possible to game flak suppression in some pretty stupid ways. Take, for instance, a hydra at the edge of its formation. a fighter plane flies in on a ground attack, and ends its movement anywhere atleast slightly beyond midway through, but still within the formation, relative to the hydra.
In this situation, because the hydra is now the furthest away from the target, it is the first unit suppressed. However, because it was also the first unit on the approach path of the aircraft, the aircrafts attacks are resolved upon it first. (resulting in a situation where a unit is considered at the front of the unit for one instance, and at the back for another instance)
Best solution is to resolve the situation as "aircraft complete their movement, but resolve flak attacks against them as though they occur during the first point of the approach move during which time the aircraft is within the range increment of the weapon involved" (while also wording it in such a way as to make it clear that this applies to non AA attacks for the purposes of suppression. i.e: that if you fly straight at a hunter, right over the top of it, and end your move 50cms behind it, the suppression for the hunter is worked out from the direction of approach at 60cm from the hunter, the suppression of the devastators is worked out from the direction of approach at 45cm from the devastator stands)
this, of course, results in complications when an aircraft turns within the flak bubble but before reaching the general fire bubble
but, as always, the situations where an AA attack from a formation outdistances the regular ranged attacks of that formation are fairly small in number, and if you're aware of the situation prior to moving the aircraft, it can be noted as they move along.
what this means, is that you work out suppression from the direction of attack, in the same way as you work out firing from the aircraft, firing to and from the aircraft are treated at the same point.
honestly though, probably the best solution would be to do the following changes:
Aircraft move onto, and off, the board, as part of their one activation. they can perform assaults or shootings at any portion of that move, and then continue to move. anti aircraft fire is taken by formations as soon as they enter the fields of fire of that formation (with all units in the formation counted for supression, range being irrelevant as they cannot shoot anyway)
this would, of course, require that: CAP-A-CAP be allowed, and that Intercept be removed from the game, with simply the option for aircraft to, at the beginning of the game/turn, declare themselves to be on CAP (though doing so would prevent them from activating in any other manner later that turn. this would change "aircraft as stall activations" a fair bit. I guess one could allow CAP'ed aircraft to activate in a Stand Down order only, mid turn, meaning they become useless for that turn, but burn an activation to do so)
It would also require Landing, and the collection of troops, to be handled differently. which is to say, landed aircraft would be unable to take off again that turn, which is currently true of the thunderhawk that launched assault if troops return to it, but not true if the troops do not, and equally stupidly, not true of the second thunderhawk that lands and collects the troops. Should it be required, the rule about jump troops dismounting from a transport could be ammended to allow this aircraft to not participate in the assault, and not land (or continue to fly about and land elsewhere)
but the end result would be a much less stupid aircraft ruleset, and remove most of the current wrinkles in the aerospace rules section (just need to stop aircraft from barging, or make it so that landing aircraft stop counting as aircraft and starting to count as skimmers at 15cms out from their point of landing, thus requiring them to follow the ZOC and movement restrictions currently balancing out the barge rules)
blip: you absolutely do count non AA capable troops when working out where to supress aircraft. but currently, do so only from the direction of the point when the aircraft pauses movement. meaning that if you end your movement with the flak furthest away, you're safe, even if you flew about all over the place
berkut: I suspect, from that statement, that you've never been strafed. In all likelyhood, Aircraft should apply additional blast markers on formations (certainly any BP weapons should. this might, in fact, go some ways towards making up for the lack of sustained bonus on barrage chart)
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Last edited by Jaggedtoothgrin on Tue Sep 03, 2013 12:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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explains the situation. For instance, this position results from WE transport landing to perform an assault on the ground formation, or any A/c assaulting a different target that is lower down the page. Also note that the final range between the AA and A/c is irrelevant, it is sufficient that the A/c has passed within range of the AA during it's movement.