The Commander Series Forum

In the recent Hannover CWC bash we had SAMs firing only once per turn as per ATGW - reading the SAM rules this morning it says 'any unsuppressed AA/SAM unit' can fire.

Does this mean SAM units can fire at ever incoming aircraft? If so then in the size of game we had airpower would have zero effect as there were dozens of HQ, shoulder fired SAMs and dedicated SAM launchers in range as well as the lower dice gun units. Maybe 30-40 dice per incoming plane so kind of pointless having the air assets.

I think a single shot per launcher per turn is the way to do it - my SA-8s have reload vehicles as do my recently acquired SA-4s but nothing else does and I guess reloading a Chaparral/Rapier etc. is time consuming.

Thoughts welcome.

Never had this problem in the games we play, even the very large ones. Remember high area terrain,hills and woods all block line of sight for AA.

We were on a billaird table at our end of the map with a wide river and only a couple of woods so maybe that accentuated the issue.

I think with the posts about ATGW fire being limited due to weight and reload time that SAM fire ought to have the same restriction - relaoding an SA-2 can't be quick!!

Hello,

I think SAM unit can fire multiple time per turn, once per airstrike, as said in the rules.

This is the interest of sending multiple aircraft in one airstrike, SAM unit cannot target all of them.

Multiple aircraft were not an option - had to target 1 position and resolve, maybe that is where we went wrong!! Merci mon ami.

AA (command stands, guns and missiles) fire at each air attack.

Hadrien and sgraham are both right.

So, in the rules as written, if you have 3 ac on call, it's better to have them all arrive as one request (with a -1 per ac after the first, hence -2 in total) and "swamp" the air defence. All AA units must choose an ac to attack, so if you have 3 ac and 30-40 dice then it's perhaps 10+ dice attacking each ac. AA with say 4 attacks cannot split its attacks - its all 4 dice on one ac.

IF they come in one at a time with one request for EACH ac (a better chance of the first 2 arriving since this is a base roll, then a roll on -1, the third ac will be on -2).

Sounds like you had just 1 "doomed" ac?

If high area terrain etc blocks line of sight and hence firing by AAA, why on earth would helicopters use a pop up attack? In my ignorance, I had assumed pop ups were designed to use the local terrain as a way of avoiding AAA, but this assumes there is a benefit to using it, which is surely that they are vulnerable to AAA if they don't use the pop up attack. The logical extension of this is that all AC are vulnerable to AAA as only helos from 1985 on can use pop ups. At least that's how we interpreted it at a recent game down the club.

Cheers, Andy

Nope, had plenty of air assets - 1 ended up shot down the rest were ok but lower attacks resulted.

I think this was more related to the terrain etc. but in really large games the prevalence of infantry SAMs will be an issue.

Ok, just to throw a spanner in - ATGW fire once per turn only, SAMs any number of times so where does ADATS sit? Can it ripple fire SAMs and then only take 1 shot at a vehicle? Same missile in dual role so kind of a discrepancy......

This is from the rule notes for next years game relating to AA.

Anti-Aircraft Fire.
Anti-aircraft fire is calculated against each aircraft unit, with the following units being eligible to fire:
i). Any unsuppressed command unit within range and line-of-sight (LOS) of the hit point.
ii). Any unsuppressed and deployed AA/SAM unit within range and line-of-sight (LOS) of the hit point.
To calculate anti-aircraft fire, total the number of attacks of each AA, SAM and command unit firing. There are no modifiers, so roll the required number of dice. One hit is achieved for each score of 5 or 6. If the aircraft has a save value, roll one die per hit. One hit is saved for each score equal to or greater than the save value of the unit.
If there are sufficient hits against the aircraft to equal or exceed its hits value, it is knocked out and removed from play, otherwise roll on die for each hit taken. If any of the dice score 5 or 6, the attack is aborted and the aircraft unit is removed from the table, otherwise the attack goes ahead.
Reduce the attacks of the aircraft by one for each hit taken. The reduction in attacks only applies to the current air strike and is not carried forward into subsequent turns
Rule Clarification.
Case 1. A British FAC successfully calls in a Harrier strike on the advancing Russians. He then calls in a subsequent Jaguar strike on the same target. Any AA/SAM or command unit range can target the Jaguar even if it previously fired at the Harrier.
Case 2. A British FAC uses a single order to call in three Harriers to hit a vehicle in the middle of an advancing Motor Rifle Battalion. Each AA/SAM or command unit may only fire at one aircraft. This represents the use of co-ordinated air strikes to distract or swamp the local AA defences.

Cheers

Richard P

Richard,

Sounds good - do us Pact types get any benefit from doctrine in terms of ordering a bunch of units on the same target??

Steve B

no

Richard, any rules for Wild Weasels vs SAMs?

Cheers, Andy

Hi Andy,
Working on some other house rules at the moment, once they are done will get them out to players for playtesting.
Cheers
Richard P

Think I have some on the aircraft cards - something like it attacks the SAM before the SAM attack is resolved, likewise radar guided guns. Wont hit MANPAD as these are optical.

We also need some clarification for standoff attacks, from outside missile range.

IanS

For corwin:

The web says that the star streak hvm can be used against ground targets, but this is a desperate last resort. It's a kinetic energy system with 3 darts per missile, though each dart does contain a small he blast warhead. It certainly isn't an ATGW and wouldn't do much at all to anything like an mbt.

http://www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/starstreak.html

Not sure how accurate this is in terms of penetration but they are pretty nasty looking darts!!

I have seen these when I worked in MOD and they look impressive to ay the least - never saw a ground target test fire though.

The question is still there - if a dual role missile can fire only 1 shot at ground targets why can it engage multiple air targets in a turn?

Crikey! That link says: "In brief, the Starstreak darts can each penetrate over a metre of armour (presumably RHA) at a range of 6000m - nearly twice the range of a TOW."

If that is right it's better than a 120 mm gun with APFSDS, even though it's lighter and travelling slower? (~1000 m/s, vs 1400 m/s)

It comes down to the simple problem that in the rules there are no such things as AA/AT dual use missiles I guess.