Joel Williams and I ran an Air Strike scenario at last year's ORIGINS in Atlanta. It was like an Olympic exhibition eventif it goes well, it becomes part of the regular tournament format. The actual scenario turned out to be a massacre for the players but they seemed to have fun anyway and JD turned it into a turkey shoot the next day so they would feel vindicated. As a consequence, there will be an Air Strike tournament at this year's ORIGINS in Baltimore, designed and run by our fearless leader, Mr. Webster.
However, I believe that the event last year pointed out some shortcomings in the tactics of Air Superiority gainers who try to play Air Strike only occasionally. I hope to remedy some of those shortcomings in my next few columns. My playtest group in LaGrange flew strike missions almost exclusively during the 18 months or so that the 2nd Edition rules were being tested. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that we were the only playtest group testing the new air-to-ground rules, but it made us some of the most experienced Air Strike players around.
In fact, I still claim (and JD agrees if you get him in the right mood) that my LaGrange group can plan and execute an Air Strike scenario better than the designer himself. He does have us beat on planning and executing real missions, but then we don't fly A-7s so we don't care.
The scenario we set up at ORIGINS last year would have been a good, balanced scenario for my playtest group. Joel and I worked on it for a few hours and we ran about halfway through it once to convince ourselves that we weren't missing anything. The players got slammed because they used tactics which we abandoned long ago in the playtest stage. If you fly strike missions all the time, you learn fast. And there is an enormous difference in ability between novice and experienced strike pilots-much more than their sky- fighting counterparts in my opinion. So, as a public service, I'm going to try and share some of our hard- won experience and get you up to speed on moving mud.
Rule 1: Plan!
There is no substitute for planning ahead. Most fighter pilots in Air Superiority just strap on their favorite hot rod, plug in the burner, and play it by ear. This is probably the correct approach when so much depends on your opponent's actions. But a strike mission flown off-the-cuff is an invitation to disaster.
You should examine your mission in excruciating detail before you even start to load out the planes. Where are the likely SAM sites? How will they be supported by AAA? Are there obvious (or multiple) lines of approach to the target? Can the flight be split to provide cross-cover (see Rule 4 below)? What terrain masking is available? How much lead time does the defense suppression element need? Will there be enemy fighter cover? Can they be engaged outside the enemy SAM envelope? Who gave us this target, anyway?
You must give long thought to contingency planning as well. What if you lose a defense suppression aircraft early? What if your strike element needs a second pass to destroy the target? Can you use bumer in the target area, or will fuel and IR SAMs prohibit it? Can aircraft taking hits on the run-in get to cover quickly? How will you respond to heavier enemy fighter coverage than expected? How many aircraft is the target worth? Actually, as we'll see below, the answer to the last question is usually zero.
Rule 2: No Losses
In LaGrange, we played a lot of campaign scenarios. In any multiple-scenario game, it is crucial to preserve your assets so it is not surprising that I should state this as a rule. But I would argue that this is a general principle and should guide your thinking even in single-scenario Air Strike games.
One of the problems that arose in the ORIGINS game was a defense suppression pilot who got too aggressive. After his wingman got torched by a SAM he should have avoided (he stayed up to launch a Maverick rather than dive to T level and shake the missile), he decided to become Sgt. Rock of the skies and bored in on the nearest ZSU-30 gun to drop cluster bombs. ne gun torched him and left the remainder of the strike group exposed to the full suite on enemy defenses.
If both pilots followed this rule first, I think the scenario would have turned out differently. The first aircraft would have survived the SAM shot by relying on a break-lock (a sure thing) versus trusting to his chaff and maneuvers (a dicey proposition). The second pilot would have stayed away from the gun envelopes and used his standoff weapons (Mavericks) to destroy some enemy SAMs while placing himself in no danger. This would probably have enabled the remainder of the strike to get through since they would have been dealing only with AAA and not the much deadlier combination of AAA and SAMs.
The nature of this rule is contrary to the fighter pilot's natural aggressive nature. Sky warriors face an opponent who is comparable in most ways. Both sides need to maneuver to employ weapons, both have limited shots, each side can potentially secure a rapid advantage over the other. Ground-based air defenses are another story entirely. You can't "get behind" a SAM site. Those 30mm guns can shoot at you all day while you have maybe one or two racks of Rockeyes you can use against them.
Most importantly, air defenses are cheap. The crews aren't expensive, the guns and SAMs are free by comparison with high performance jets, and the damned things are scattered all over the battlefield, usually in fight little IAD networks. It's bad economics to trade even one aircraft for even a whole mapful of SAMs and AAA.
And lest you think a policy of no losses is inconsistent with achieving mission objectives, let us recall that allied aircraft in Desert Storm had an 80% efficiency of damaging targets with a loss rate of less than one aircraft per 1000 sorties. That's equivalent to losing less than one plane in every 200 Air Strike games (or so)!
I'll continue this discussion in the next issue. In the meantime, give some thought to dragging out your copy of Air Strike and trying a game or two. If you approach it with the right attitude and knowledgeof tactics, it's even more enjoyable than splashing MiGs!
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© Copyright 1991 by J.D. Webster
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