WW II Aerial Combat

Historical Background and Set Up

by Mic McGoldrick and Matt Fritz

Historical Background:
At the start of World War II some pilots were still flying obsolete bi-planes. By the end of the war Germany had entered the jet age. The Luftwaffe was an essential element in the early success of the German blitzkreig. The Battle of Britain was fought in the skies. The Allies had to gain air superiority before they could launch the D-Day invasion. German targets were bombed night and day. Eventually the threat of attack from the air was a major obstacle to German operations. In the Pacific the Japanese aircraft carriers dominated the seas. Only after four Japanese carriers (and many veteran pilots) were destroyed at the Battle of Midway did the United States turn the tables. Thereafter each island captured meant a new airfield to extend the range of US air power. The desperate Japanese resorted to kamikaze attacks. In the end, the war was ended with atomic bombs delivered by bombers.

Design Note:
The rules for WW II air combat were developed by Mic McGoldrick. This game is a variant of the WW I Air Combat rules from issue 2. I made some Pilot Licenses and paper plane models to go with Mic's maneuver cards. The only difference between the WW II rules and the WW I rules are the maneuver cards, so if you are already familiar with the old rules you can skip to that section and start playing. Mic has also developed some optional rules that model the different attributes of the fighters. They add flavor to the game.

Battle 1:
The rules have not yet been playtested with students. They are almost identical to the WW I air combat rules, however, so they should work just fine. I had a good time when I tried them.

The models:
Plastic model planes are readily available in 1/72 and 1/144 scale. The 1/144 models are about $6. You can also find die-cast planes from manufacturers like Corgi and Model Power. Corgi has a line of 3" planes for about $5.99, look for them at Wal-Mart. Several paper airplane models are included which you can print and use. Additional free paper airplanes are available from a lot of web sites, just look around. FreePaperToys.com is a good place to start a search. You can also get origami airplane models for $3 at Fiddler's Green (http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/).

Each Student gets:
1 airplane model and stand
1 deck of maneuver cards
1 Pilot License (laminated)
1 dry erase marker
5 six-sided dice

The Board:
The game is played on a 4' x 4' mat with a 5" hex pattern. The size of the hex pattern doesn't really matter, as long as the hexes are large enough to accomadate the planes. I used the vinyl "battle mat" that comes with the old Battle Masters board game. These can be purchased on eBay for $15 (a complete game is much more expensive, try to get the mat when sold as a spare part, or part of an incomplete game). Of course you can just draw your own hex pattern on a piece of felt by cutting a hex out of cardboard and using it as a template to trace the pattern. A 4' x 4' mat can handle eight pilots. With a larger group it's better to have a few separate mats rather than combing them into one big battlefield.

Airplane Stands:
I took a pin with a round head and clipped off the pointy end. Then I heated the pin in a flame and inserted it into the underside of the plane. I secured the pin with a drop of hot glue. The base of the airplane stand was made from a 4" round wooden plaque I purchased at A.C. Moore's for $1. I bought some cheap cell phone antennas at Radio Shack - this game doesn't take altitude differences into effect, so the exact type doesn't matter. The ones I chose were 13" with 5 sections. I cut the button off the end and replaced it with an alligator clip which was attached with hot glue. You will want to find a more secure way to attach the alligator clip since the hot glue isn't really firm enough to do the job (after two days of hard use three of my stands lost their clips). Drill a hole in the wooden base for the antenna and secure it in the hole with glue. I used permanent marker to draw an arrow on the wooden base to indicate the direction in which the airplane should point, and a letter for identification purposes. I experimented with adding weight to the base, but this proved unnecessary. The students can clip their planes to the stand, turn the plane to face the same way as the arrow, and adjust their antenna to any height they please.

Maneuver Cards:
Each student gets a deck of maneuver cards from which he can choose his moves for the turn. I designed the cards in MS Word so they can be printed on business cards. Each card names the maneuver, illustrates how to move the plane, and describes it in words. The maneuver deck Mic developed contains the following moves: 3 Right Turns, 3 Left Turns, 3 Straight aheads, 3 Right Slips, 3 Left Slips, 1 Straight Fast, 1 Immelman Turn, 2 Hard Right turns, and 2 Hard Left turns. This is the same deck as tthe WW I Air Combat Game with the following changes: Remove the stall maneuvers, add 2 Hard Right turns, and 2 Hard Left turns. There is also a Straight Fast move three hexes card which may be used (see optional rules). You can download the maneuver cards as a MS Word file ww2mancards.doc (117 kb) or as separate gif files page1.gif and page2.gif (print this page if you already have the WW I cards) , page 3.gif (Immelman Turn and Straight Fast 3 hexes for optional rules), page 4.gif (card backs). I suggest you write a different letter on the back of each deck so that when the kids drop or lose cards they can be returned to the right deck.

Pilot Licenses:
The pilot license is a sheet, about the size of an index card, where the students can record the damage to their planes and record their victories. They were designed to resemble baseball cards, with the name and picture of a WW II ace, his victory total, and a brief biographical blurb. The sites used in creating the licenses are listed in the resources section at the end of this page. The two most useful sites were Aces of WW II and WW II Ace Stories. I laminated the pilot licenses so they could be marked with dry erase markers. They should be printed in landscape mode.

    US Page 1: Gabreski, Johnson, MacDonald, Foss
    US Page 2: Bong, McGuire, McCampbell, Boyington
    US Page 3: Preddy, Hanson, Wade, Harris
    US Page 4: Meyer, Archer
    German Page 1: Hartmann, Barkhorn, Rall, Kittel
    German Page 2: Nowotny, Batz, Rudorffer, Bar
    German Page 3: Graf, Juutilainen, Marseille, Galland
    Japan Page 1: Nishizawa, Iwanoto, Sugita, Shinohara
    Japan Page 2: Okumura, Anabuki, Sakai, Sasaki
    Soviet Page 1: Gulaev, Pokryshikin, Kozhedub, Rechkalov
    Soviet Page 2: Glinka, Golubev, Popkov, Budanova
    RAF page 1: Tuck, Lacey, Pattle, Malan
    RAF page 2: Beurling, Caldwell, Closterman, Johnson
    RAF page 3: Finucane, Vale

Deployment:
The opposing sides start on any whole hex on opposite sides of the mat. You should line up the hex grain so the hexes run straight across from the opposites sides, not at an angle. Planes should be positioned so the arrow on their base (and the nose of the plane) point at a hex side, NOT a hex corner.

Resources:

Here are some useful resources for WW II dogfights

Aces of WW II website (www.frenkenstein.com/ww2/Aces.htm), source of most of the pilot pictures, and has links to information on most of the aces
American Aces of WW II website(www.acepilots.com), good place to read about aces
Aces of the Luftwaffe web site (www.luftwaffe.cz) by Petr Kucha, loaded with interesting facts.
WW II Ace Stories web site (www.elknet.pl/acestory/index.htm) by Dariusz Tyminski, source of much of the pilot info on the licenses. Warning: web page plays a midi song that sometimes jams up my browser
Watson's WW II Aircraft Museum website (wmilitary.neurok.ru/wwiiap.html), pictures and data about airplanes. Pictures on this site were used as reference material when drawing my paper models.
EVOlution Computer Design web site (www.onnovanbraam.com) by Onno van Braam, has blueprints of WW II planes.
Don Color Aircraft Camouflages website (www.jpsmodell.de/dc/luft_e.htm#listeflug) by Jens Popp, useful for deciding how to paint/color your planes
"Minimal Aerial Combat" by Pete Jones is a simple set of WW II rules available at the Free Wargame Rules web page (http://www.freewargamesrules.co.uk/)
FreePaperToys.com is a good place to start a search for free paper WWI aircraft models
Fiddler's Green website (http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/) has origami planes

WW II Aerial Combat

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