Ebb and flow part 1 1985

 It was Greg and I the last Friday in May, he valiantly volunteered to take the plunge into 1985 Europe for our first learning session of the Battle for Germany game.  I had sold this session as a learning game for just the air phase.  Compass Games sure can make a big game!  We made it through an air combat segment, one of which precedes every ground turn.

Follow along for a view of some of the components.  I spent 4 hours on that Thursday popping out and organizing the four full sized sheets of half inch counters.  It would have been 5 hours but the French forces were consigned to a baggie as they only show up in the full campaign game, and then in waves anyway.  Have nothing but praise for the graphics,  however there are a lot of the little things! 

 

Over the weekend, I found the missing boxes so now the French are also included in the stowage system, if not the alliance.

 

 I found the boxes retail in the US, at Michaels or Hobby Lobby, purchased in anticipation of this sort of use.

 

I decided to set up the second scenario in the booklet, Fulda Gap. It uses only part of a map, and small,  by the game's standard,  of the OoB for both sides. The air rules will only be a part of the battle,  but we should get that part correct. 

  map of Fulda senario

 

  Fulda is near the middle of the map, the scenario area concerned is about 20 hexes wide by 15 deep.

 That said, the situation is iconic to those of us serving in Europe back in the 70's and 80's.  If we get through a couple turns in a short afternoon I will be thrilled. To the rest of you, the WARPAC is looking to drive from right to left across the map and any NATO unit that tries to get in their way.

 

Anyway,  on to the air forces and planning. Both sides are blessed with plenty of squadron formations, of various abilities that are from the equipment.  All squadrons are homogeneous by type of aircraft.  Each aircraft type is rated for various tasks.  There are under a dozen squadrons available for either side in the Fulda scenario.

 

 

 NATO Air ops sheet

    'clikken to enbiggen'

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  WarPac air op sheet

 Central to the air support section of the game is the mission sheet.  This play aid lists in order the types of missions available for each side, from ground support to nuclear weapons delivery. You station various squadrons onto available airfields. Come mission time,you simply put the squadrons in the mission box and run through each type of attack.  Well, almost simply, there is an order in which missions get assigned and fought. 

First you disperse your aircraft to the airfields available. Each scenario designates how many are usable.

The available airfields can be reduced or eliminated by  Nuclear attack, Chemical attack, Spetnatz activity or good old being over run by the enemy. Any degradation of an airfield reduces take off capacity, down to zero. Aircraft beyond the airfield launch capacity must stay grounded.

The second step is to scramble your planes from each airfield, as allowed.  Determine if NATO gets  AWACS advantage or not.  The WARPAC allocates aircraft to missions first if NATO gets AWACS advantage, second if no advantage to NATO. In the Fulda  scenario, the first turn NATO airfields were allowed  to launch three  planes.  The WARPAC were allowed the same. 

Okay, now ready for the meat of the process. Each aircraft is given capability ratings for certain missions. F-15's and Mig 29's can fly air the superiority mission. SU15's and A-10's cannot. However, certain planes like the latter perform ground support.  The capabilities of any aircraft are listed right on the air sequence sheet. In fact, that is the only place listed.

Mission choices for non superiority fighters include anti SAM sweeps, recon, interdicting tactical HQ's, ground support attacks, and everyone's favorite-nuclear attacks.  Squadrons with the correct capability that are not tasked with the air superiority can fly these missions.

Air superiority is the first mission. Head to head , the best rated planes roll shots against the best rated available enemy planes. Hits 'flip'  the squadron counter to the damaged side and the squadron goes to the damaged box.  This continues until all the squadrons have had a chance to attack, or one side is left with no opponents but unused squadrons.  These are used as available to 'bounce' enemy squadrons attempting other missions.

Then each type mission is rolled for ,in order appearing on the sheet. SAM missiles are hazards in some, but not all cases. All strategic missions, followed by tactical missions are finished or affected by fighters from the 'bounce' box attempting to intercept and cause the mission aircraft to abort.

I hope this gives a general picture of what an air segment is like.  I have no doubt the full campaign version is a barn burner, with dozens of squadrons on both sides.