by Larry Bond
When Harpoon was created, the Gun Attack Strengths assigned to different aircraft armaments were assigned subjectively. This worked as long as the number of different configurations was small and the number of aircraft covered didn't get too large. As of HNR 2000, the master list covers 359 aircraft, and more will be added when we write High Tide. The aircraft have a much wider range of armament types than the first edition, and we've gotten smarter as well. After coming up with a formula that describes energy on target for WW II weapons, it's a no-brainer to apply it to modern weapons as well. This does not mean aircraft guns in Harpoon will be on the same scale as Command at Sea. That would call for rules changes, and I'm reluctant to do that. This table lists the aircraft armament configurations used in Harpoon, their old attack and damage point values and their new ones. Some of the older values are missing because these weapons were not listed, or in some cases, not provided. In addition to placing the weapons on a more "scientific" footing, I found a lot of new information at several excellent web sites. I recommend the Russian Ammunition Page at www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Base/ 1852. Another, at www.canit.se/ %7Egriffon/aviation/text/ sv_akan.html, has extensive data on aircraft guns used by the Swedish Air Force. There is an extensive discussion of aircraft cannon design and develop-ment (as well as specs) at www.geocities.com/Cape Canaveral/Hangar/8217/fgun. (By the way, if anyone wanted to compare these gun attack values with the ones in CaS, they'd have to multiply them by 2.5 to get the CaS equivalent.) Country, Cannon Configuration, Old Atk, New Atk, Old DP, New DP France 1 GIAT M621 20mm pod -- 0.5 1 1 BT Back to The Naval Sitrep #18 Table of Contents Back to Naval Sitrep List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by Larry Bond and Clash of Arms. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com |