LIGHT AA.

[Tim Niesen]

I must admit that these observations all come from Don Deibler. My own ken does not involve WW2. Don knows more than anyone I know about a few things: German tanks and planes in WW2, as well as directors, both naval and air in WW1 and WW2. You folks underestimate how difficult it is to hit, let alone, shot down a fast aircraft. Let Don tell you about British air directors in WW2.

 

[Tim Niesen]

Don related to me that in the 1930s the U.S. Navy, after extensive testing against the quite inferior aircraft of that period, replaced the almost totally ineffective 50 Cal MG with the 20L. Tim

 

[klasmalmstrom]

Personally I don't see any problem - the odds with a HMG - a 2/3 DR is usually low enough one considers using the HMG for other purposes anyway. In ASL Air Support is heavily abstracted anyway.

 

[wsrt]

Much of ASL is "design for effect". An ASL Light AA "elimination" is a "mission kill". It causes the plane to be removed from the cardboard battlefield immediately. Shot down is not the only effect that might be simulating.

 

[volgaG68]

You folks underestimate how difficult it is to hit, let alone, shot down a fast aircraft.

I do not underestimate the difficulty at all. I simply play a board game called ASL, not designed by me, whose designers did their best to cover all the bases and eventualities. Do you think that one in every 12 times a MG fired, it broke down? Hardly! But, if you take out all of the 1:12 things that can possibly happen in ASL because they realistically occurred at far less of a frequency.....you have just deleted a large portion of what makes ASL a fun and unpredictable game. Imagine, realistically speaking, only checking for MG malf every 6th time a '12' was rolled. Boy, that recordkeeping would be not fun! They simply found the least obtrusive way they could to include the possibility of minor eventualities.

Reality arguments are nothing new, and we have all found ways in which ASL strays from reality at some point, but it is what it is. I don't have the time nor resources to design my own WWII tactical-level gaming system, so I go with the best one I have found. I'll still argue a 'reality point' now and again, but the result is always acceptance, and a helluva good time!

 

[DonHalsey44]

I can only imagine that the relative strengths of light AA fire in the game represent either play balance, or ease of play. The 0erlikion 20L's (in all their variations) represent a dedicated anti-aircraft weapon system.....with all the appropriate sights and ranging equipment. I am not aware (but will stand corrected) that either the US Army .50 cal., or the Soviet HMG's were even equipped with AA sights. As ground fire vs. aircraft occurs so infrequently, it's possible that no one really bothered to fix it. Perhaps a 'to hit-to kill' system (aka land vehicles) might be more appropriate.

 

[Brian W]

Odds, like beauty, are in the eyes of the beholder.

Yes, we should play poker one night. Bring lots of money, you'll need it.

 

[Brian W]

the US Army .50 cal

The Navy dropped the half inch AA gun from their ships around 1940-41 as too small to be effective, switching to 20mm, then later to the 40mm, another big increase in knockdown power. Here's a water cooled .50cal. of the kind the navy and army ditched for the 20mm.

 

[Brian W]

Here's one being used.

 

[Tim Niesen]

Brian, I would not underestimate me in a Texas Hold-Em game. Seven Card Stud not so much. Tim

 

[Tim Niesen]

In the case of the 20L vs the 50 cal, one key weakness in the latter is that the small but powerful shells tend to pass through the enemy aircraft, while the 20L simply blows a much more destructive big hole. Tim

 

[Tim Niesen]

When a game has a 20L platoon having a much less effective capacity than a MG Company, in an anti-aircraft role, that is the crux of the issue. Tim

 

[Tim Niesen]

Trivia question: Last year my friend Don Carlucci bought a new BAR from the still functioning factory for $4,300. What is the only military force in the world to still use the American BAR? Tim

 

[DonHalsey44]

Geeze, you're going to get in trouble for 'off topic' ! Who?

 

[von Marwitz]

In the case of the 20L vs the 50 cal, one key weakness in the latter is that the small but powerful shells tend to pass through the enemy aircraft, while the 20L simply blows a much more destructive big hole. Tim

Especially the Germans used a mixture of not only tracer and penetrating rounds but also explosive shells for 20L armament (also in aircraft-mounted guns). So there was something to ignite, something to do structural damage to something like engine-blocks and something that was quite dangerous for the enemy aircraft's crew.

von Marwitz

 

[Brian W]

Here's what the US aircraft carriers looked like by the end of the war with 20mm AA guns. Let's call that a IFE of 56, ROF only 2 though.

Here's a Russian .50cal (US) triple mount AA, on an armored train I think.

 

[Robin Reeve]

Odds, like beauty, are in the eyes of the beholder. A one in twelve chance of a kill seems high to me, for something that so very rarely happened. Perhaps his hundreds of eyewitness reports are not enough of a sample. A tank is easy to hit, a plane not so much. Tim

1) How much scenarios have you played with Aerial support?
2) How much opportunities have you had to use an HMG vs. a FB?
3) Among those opportunities how many times did you decide not to use the HMG vs. non Aerial units?

My answers : 1) Some - there are not many ; 2) A handfull ; 3) Perhaps once.
Low odds, no ROF, is enough for me not to use an HMG vs a FB making an attack.

 

[DonHalsey44]

My Answers: 1) A few 2) None 3) Perhaps once. As mentioned above, the US Navy literally festooned their combat ships with '20's...sometimes even connected to the ships secondary gun directors. But the saying went 'by the times the 20's start going off, it's time to hit the deck'. All were landed in 1945. Not enough stopping power (to stop a Kamikaze) , and too manpower intensive. TV and movies notwithstanding, Strategic bombing was not as dangerous as CAS. Low, slow, and dangerous.

 

[Tim Niesen]

1. Few.
2. Seldom
3. Don't remember.
The problem is that we are preparing to play a campaign game with potentially lots of airplanes. And this time we want to play correctly. With the quite limited impact of our three 20L in AA, I recommended that we use them in their anti-infantry capacity.

 

[Robin Reeve]

Well, rather than wading into the troubled waters of reality arguments, why not simply play along the rules as written?
ASL is just a game.
If you are wanting to change the rules system on that quite marginal aspect, why not change them on much more important ones?
It could be a frustrating and unending path to follow.