Bush Wars in the Jet Age

 

Guidelines for Bush Wars in the Jet Age

These guidelines are to help develop game scenarios that are fun for everyone. If you want to field wildly superior aircraft to take on an opponent’s plane that was developed in the 1940s then the performance inequity between the two should be balanced by other means.

Imaginafrican (IA) nations can support more aircraft, and models that are marginally more advanced, than what actually occurred in this world, but not by a lot.

Advanced aircraft can be kept flying by foreign advisers and technicians, but at the cost of your sovereignty (hey, those great and super powers aren’t going to invest their personnel in your tin-pot nation for nothing)

Aircraft can be chosen from a given national vendor (Soviet, British, French, Chinese, some other Europeans) if they were developed before by the 1960s. US aircraft can be sourced if they were developed in the 1950s or earlier. The US is recovering from its wounds in other foreign involvements and is largely not engaged in IA, just as it wasn’t in the terrestrial equivalent.

Western aircraft were often more complex than their Soviet/Chinese equivalents. The latter were designed to be serviced by inexperienced technicians and were consequently simpler and more robust. Therefore MiGs up to the 21 are a good option for Eastern-leaning IA states.

Aircraft are chosen from a single vendor (USSR, China, US, UK, France, Argentina, etc), and are not sourced from several different countries. The exception to this is lightweight prop planes used for ground support. Moscow won’t be upset if you want a Piper Cub carrying a pair of 2lb bombs to support your extremely reliable political militia as they hunt down rabbit poachers in your president-for-life’s vegetable garden. If you want to make a case for why you have MiG-21s flying CAP to support A4-B Skyhawks performing close air support then submit it to the Bush Wars Umpire Team (Fly, Stephen and Geoff).

Note that you can select from some amazing aircraft out there, but finding a 1/200, 1/285 (Jet Age) or 1/72 (Wars of Insurgency) scale model of it may preclude you putting it on the table top in a game.

The IA Radar Rule applies in circumstances except for small gun-ranging versions. When an aircraft attempts to operate a search radar to spot the enemy, a D6 is rolled for each attempt with the following results:

·         5-6: radar operates normally and radar search roll is then made

·         3-4: the screen flickers and the equipment fails to work as intended, no radar search roll can be made this turn

·         1-2: the pilot smells burning plastic. No further rolls may be made for this radar again during the game.

If a game is run with wildly mismatched aircraft then pilot quality scaling should occur to decrease the capability of the better aircraft’s crew then, if further scaling is needed, increase the quality of the lesser aircraft’s crew. The same effect can be applied with numbers unless part of a set air campaign. Eg: if you insist on flying F-4 Phantoms (too advanced under these guidelines so subject to both the Radar Rule and the Engine Rule) against MiG-17s, the scaling will occur in two stages.

If a player insists on an aircraft with complex powerful engines (BAC Lightning, MiG-25, F-104, F-4, etc) then the Engine Rule applies. Similar outcomes as the Radar Rule will take effect if the jet attempts an extreme turn or climbs more than one altitude level in a turn. A result of 3-4 forces a lesser climb/turn, while a result of 1-2 results in the aircraft damaging its engines as per the battle damage results.

It’s IA people (see Mr Goldyn's 14/11/19 post): no-one uses radar homing missiles, and the big kids are dumping their old unused AIM-9B Sidewinder and AA-2 ATOLL (or Matra R-511 for you crazy Francophiles, PL-2 for purchasers of Chinese goods, or the AAM-1 Type 69 for those whose predilection is for Japanese electronics) missiles on the continent. Aircraft can carry a pair of those heat seeking missiles if desired, but that’s about it. Otherwise, it’s aircraft cannon at 2000m.

Variable Rules, providing some colour for each scenario or pick-up-game, will be published for use in Bush Wars Jet Age games. The aim is to give players the chance to have something good, or not, happen to their forces from the start of the game.

For more Bush Wars campaign detail players can choose to nominate aircraft/flying characteristics that their country is better than average at, accompanied by a concurrent worse than average characteristic. A country can either be average at everything or have a strength and a weakness. If you’re really into game technicolour you can chose two weaknesses. The characteristics to choose from include:

·         Airframes and skin

·         Camouflage and deception

·         Electronics

·         Engines

·         Fuel and fuel systems

·         Pilot skill

·         Tactics and doctrine

·         Weapons/armament

Remember that the aim of Bush Wars in the Jet Age is to provide some guidelines and balance for enjoyable games and help drive the ImaginAfrica narrative. You can do anything you like in the campaign if you really want, as long as you’re willing to play fair, inclusive and equitable games.