Intercept Vector 2025 (Jet Aerial Wargaming)

 ....because I only have 6 projects on the go, I decided to revise one of my homebrew rules (as per my New Years resolutions)...

This is called "wo-crastination". It's procrastinating a job while doing another, similar job. Much more defensible than ordinary pro-crastination. 

Anyway the blog regulars know my eternal (hopeless) quest - fast playing jet rules that giver a feel of aerial combat. Where you can go "fwoooosh!" with your mouth while moving handfuls of models around. More Ace Combat and Top Gun than super strict sim. It's like Forza compared to iRacing.

Actually Blood Red Skies (Mantic) has attempted something like this for WW2 (and even uses a similar high/low energy system than what I do), but I don't enjoy the "throw handfuls of dice and only count 6s" - I feel it has stripped too much out. It also has lots of special rules in an attempt to differentiate the rather samey planes. It does, however, handle quite a few fighters.

Jet combat is a bit of a conundrum. There's a lot going on. A lot of natural complexity. Gravity/height, energy management, maneuvers, radar/EW, missiles, limited fuel/ammo, pilot skill. The fast paced nature of combat is also at odds with this. An Age of Sail 74-gunner may take a while to ponderously complete a move. I want to pick up a jet, swoop it across the table with pew pew noises, and plonk it down. I find space fighter games far easier cos I can handwavium away what I choose.  It's fair to say streamlining aerial wargames are a knotty problem.

 "We do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard we thought it would be easy"

Most aerial wargames (think Check Your Six as typical) track every minute throttle adjustment and stick movement in detail that would be considered insane micromanagement if you applied it to a ground skirmish wargame. In Top Gun, they call out general instructions like "break left!" and "evade!" not "move the throttle 3/4 forward and turn left at a precise 45d angle." Pilots should be following general instructions like those given by a wingman over radio not a godlike omniscient being guiding their every finger twitch. 

So what do we simplify/abstract?

Where I'm up to in 2025's version:

1. There is a detection phase where planes can roll to spot any in a short/360 arc (visual) or a longer/60d frontal cone (radar). Whether to bother to roll or not should be visually obvious in most cases. Any undetected jets are marked as such and treated as "stealth" in a conventional wargame i.e. you can't attack them or react to them and they get attack bonuses.

2. Starting with the highest energy plane/best pilot etc, players take turns activating jets. A jet can move normally for free, but attacking or a special maneuver (like a reversal) uses an action. Jets have 1 action unless they pass a pilot test to get a 2nd action. A failure stresses the pilot (like suppression). So only good pilots can reliably, say loop AND fire guns. A wingman can attempt to follow on and move directly after his buddy. Moves are pretty simple; like "turn up to 60d then move 2-6" - no charts or special tools are needed - it should be similar in complexity to moving an Infinity model or similar skirmish wargame.

3. Special maneuvers like Immelmans, yo-yos or scissors require a pilot test. Failure could stress the pilot and result in a more mundane maneuver, or even result in a spin. Planes are marked with high, normal or low energy. Energy is abstracting together altitude AND speed. Controversial I know - I wouldn't do this for a earlier era (WW2/Korea) game but with 1:1 thrust to weight ratios more common I feel altitude is less important now.   Most special maneuvers should allow you to trade energy for better position.

4. An enemy jet can react to a visible active jet IF they have more energy or equal energy and some advantage like a better pilot, on their tail etc. There is a contested Infinity-esque dice roll for this and many other actions. This makes energy state and detection pretty important.

5. Firing missiles is "shooting" and a dogfight is "melee." 

Missiles are pretty normal. Roll to lock (radar vs target EW), then roll to hit (missile accuracy vs flares/evasive) etc.

Dogfights are a bit more unusual. 

Basically you push the models together like a normal skirmish wargame, take into account relative energy/approach angle, roll a contested roll then mime how the results play out while swooshing your hands around with afterburner noises. The jets are likewise swooping and twisting around the general vicinity.

6. Energy is a resource to be spent/gained for positional advantage. There are three levels - high, medium and low energy. Violent maneuvers like reversals cost an energy level. A low energy plane that spends more energy can stall and crash. A dogfight bleeds energy for both combatants. Certain moves - like a slow steady climb - can regain energy. Jets with powerful thrust can regain it more easily. 

 

 This is an example. As you can see I use hex bases because (a) they are cheap and (b) handy to define relative positions/turns. Note the use of F-18s due to my recent watching of Top Gun: Maverick.

 

 The dogfight shows the end positions, but is assumed to include cool maneuvers around the general area of where the models met. 

It must be accompanied by lots of hand gestures and explaining "and the F-18 cuts onto his tail - fwooosh!" "Fox Two!" or "he fires the Vulcan - tracer spews towards the MiG!"

7. Finally there is a "fuel pool." Basically this is a slider (a 1m ruler for me) that tracks combined fuel/ammo expenditure for all jets - a token on each side for both forces. 

This is because I have noticed many air combats are broken off due to one side having expended fuel/ordinance.

How it works is each jet contributes to the combined pool; perhaps 1 each 200km range, 1 each 2 missiles or 1 each 500rds of ammo. Now whenever ANY jet regains energy or fires a weapon, it removes "fuel" from the pool. 

Certain jets cost more to spend from the pool - a jet with only 2 missiles "limited missiles", or 400km range "limited fuel", or only 250 rounds "limited ammo" uses TWO fuel each action. This means although you don't track individual fuel or ammo usage, you will be more sparing when firing missiles from say a F-5A with 2 AIM9s then a fully loaded F-15 - so it has the same effect.

The checklist:
(  ) Detection matters

(  ) Pilot Skill matters

(  ) Plane Stats matter/differentiate (thrust/top speed/agility/toughness/radar) 

(  ) Energy = resource to manage: Swaps height/speed for position/advantage/initiative.

(  ) Fuel/ammo matters

(  ) Speed and Simplicity - can handle 4-8 planes per side; similar to Necromunda/Infinity

(  ) Minimal recording and table clutter