2/04/08
These are my Battle of Britain wargame rules “Angels One-Five (enemy aircraft at 15,000 feet)”. They are a simplified (for movement) version of a set I wrote. (I mention this as you may see the title “revised movement” on some sheets- these are to let me know which are the ‘2nd edition’ sheets).
Each impulse represents approx 3 seconds of real time, a turn about 10 seconds. Each pilot simply writes what he intends doing for next impulse- turn, climb/dive. Then all movement is simultaneous.
Firing is a combined to hit/damage roll, with the possibility of further ‘critical’ hits.
These are just about complete- If I’ve forgotten anything vital let me know. Design notes etc to follow.
Updated 2 October 2008
PDF format added (at bottom)
Some people have asked about later periods- see the posts for my suggestions
Angels One Five Rules (Word)
As this is getting so long everything else is below the fold
playsheet-spitfire-mk-1-revised-movement1 (spitfire playsheet- reuploaded)
This will be enough to start you on dogfights. 5cm square ’tiles’ with top down views of the planes will be fine if you don’t have miniatures.
*** UPDATE*** PDF FILES****
If I got this right these should be the above files in PDF format, with 2 new aircraft.
playsheet-spitfire-mk-1-revised-movement
playsheet-hurricane-mk-1-revised-movement
playsheet-me109-revised-movement
playsheet-me110c-revised-movement - You will need a 8cm wide base for the 110.
playsheet-stuka-revised-movement
Usual caveat- they are free, but I still retain copyright etc. No selling them, stealing IP etc.
Wednesday, 2 April, 2008 at 9:27 pm |
1st (day after this was posted) was the 90th birthday of the RAF. Happy Birthday to the Brylcream boys.
Wednesday, 9 April, 2008 at 11:36 pm |
Rules look good , what do u think about figures can get 1:300 scale, cannot get spitfire playsheet up , any suggestions . Has anyone played this system ? what do you think.
Thursday, 10 April, 2008 at 1:14 am |
The Spitfire sheet should work now.
Can’t remember where I got my 1:300 from- try here- http://navwar.co.uk/nav/default.asp?MMID=49
I have used airfix 1:72. Easiest way is ‘topdown counters’. I got some silloettes from the ‘net, and used ‘paint’ to colour them, pasted them into Word, to size them to 5cm sq, then printed on to blue paper and stuck onto MDF to give them weight- use tiny dice as height markers.
Wednesday, 24 September, 2008 at 1:24 pm |
Great rules. How about some play sheets for other aircraft, FW190,, German bombers, Defiant
Sunday, 28 September, 2008 at 12:48 am |
I had some bomber sheets, but I can’t find them on the computer- I’ll have to check the back ups.
I did look at later planes. The rules were specifically designed for Battle of Britain. The later planes get so fast that would probably have to produce sets of playsheets specific to a time period, that couldn’t be used against a different period, or rework a lot of parameters.
The first of these is like this- a Mustang has a top speed of about 470mph, compared to a Spits 330, but they would have the same speed in the game (9), you just couldn’t put them against each other. The second option is to make the Mustang max speed of 16- and I would probably have to look at the way they turned etc as this means 6 impulses in one phase.
Until I find the Bomber playsheets I suggest this
All bombers fly straight and level at a speed of 6, height 5. 12 damage points
You will have to research the gunnery for the main types. Top turrets can only fire at same level or higher, bottom turrets only those below. Front rear and sides get 90′ arcs basically the diagonals are the boundaries. Turrets have unlimited ammo at ‘-1′ They always fire at the enemy who will be easiets to hit (exception- they always fire at an enemy heading towards them- ie able to fire at them, even if an easier target presents).
When we play this we run the Germans on autopilot- so unless the bombers have an escort, all the players are RAF. You could sole play this as well.
Wednesday, 1 October, 2008 at 9:43 pm |
Have recently tried the rules lot,s of manouvering plays quite well , however i cannot download the stats sheet for the spitfire as i do not have rich text documents any suggestions? any thoughts about other aircraft ie russian? think you could be on a winner their thanks
Wednesday, 1 October, 2008 at 10:16 pm |
Thanks for that Richard.The sheets are Word Documents, so unless I have done something weird without menaing to if you can open one you should be able to open all. I will see if I can locate the originals and convert to PDF.
As to other planes- The rules were originally written just for 1940. The problem is that within 5 years plane design went through the roof- by ‘45 pilots were begining to experience the problems of approaching the sound barrier (in dives).
If you want to try to put new planes in the ‘40 sheets are all based on a Spitfire as ‘Average’, and everything adjusts round that. 1 speed is [i]approx[/i] 35mph. The +3 represents a 3 second burst from 8 machine guns (hence the final +2 Hurris and spits carried 14 seconds of ammo)- each Phase equals approx 3 seconds.
The turn circles are basically reading a lot of (conflicting) reports and deciding which to make a tighter turner. You’ll note all the turn templates divide precisely into 360 (partly to make the maths easy when drawing!) an ‘F’ template would be 18′ (20 turns to the circle) ‘G’ 15′ (24 turns).
You can amend the Hurri template for a Spit (which is all I did for each kind of plane)
Throttle 3, Max speed 9, Damage points 6, Ammo +3/+3/+3/+3/+2
Thursday, 2 October, 2008 at 9:13 pm |
Have tried to open document but to no avail would be appreciated if you could put on site as an pdf format , are their any other rules systems you could reccomend as space is a premium at our club ,cheers.
Friday, 10 October, 2008 at 10:14 pm |
Hi don,t know if you got my last mail , but it,s regarding the immellman , this is the scenario i have declared an immellman at the srart of the turn however i am at very highh already so i move forward 7, next turn i stay stationary , next turn i dive to get behind a spit on its tail but according to the rules i cannot fire is this correct could you please clarify thanks richard.
Saturday, 11 October, 2008 at 12:03 am |
I did think about this at the time, and I relooked at it now.
The rationale is that each phase represents 2-3 seconds, and the position that you explain is right of the end of the third phase after a High-G maneoveur taking 4-7 seconds. You have come out and in a fraction of a second have the Spit in front of you. The pilot is disorientated (and possibly dizzy). The final position represents the last fraction of a second. The fact that you got on the tail of the Spit means you are in an excellent position next turn.
It is the same reason that there is no ‘pass through’ or ‘oppotunity’ fire- you can only fire at the end of a phase, think of it as someone flashing through the gun sight before you can react. The maneuver is basically there to allow quick chages of facing.
If you want to allow shooting, I would suggest only on the phase you come out of it, and then at a minus.
Saturday, 11 October, 2008 at 2:37 pm |
Thaks for that may tweak the rules to allow aces to fire after special manouveres, but as yu say at a minus , cheers richard.
Saturday, 11 October, 2008 at 11:25 pm |
How about 1d6, Plus pilot skill, 7+ to get a shot off? The pilot would have to be better than average to succeed.
Interested to know how you found the rest of the game.
Wednesday, 24 June, 2009 at 11:25 pm |
Hi after a protracted absense would it be possible to update different aircraft sheets ie -yak9,s focke-wulfs, early 30,s aircraft westland whirlwinds henschels etc any response greatly appreciated.
Thursday, 25 June, 2009 at 1:19 am |
Hi Richard
I’m not really enough into those planes to do the sheets- sorry! I specifically wanted to do 1940 dogfights, and the rules are written fairly tightly around the performances of the Spitfire and 109 (the Hurri was easy to fit in). It took a lot of research before I was happy with the turning between the two. That research seems to lean towards the 109 being as maneuverable as the Spit, but harder to fly (a Spit appeared to be more stable according to the pilots from both sides who flew the both) thus leading to the larger turning gauge I have given it.
Your best bet is to decide on matched planes from a period, and set one as the ‘base’ plane, making it speed 9, turn circle B, then judging the others off of that. Fuel will be very much theatre dependent. The other option would be to divide top speeds by 30 for maximum game speed.
1 ammo box is 3 seconds of ammo. My base line was +1 to fire is 8 x .303 for 1 second. Everything else was trial and error to what ‘felt right’ (How do you compare 8 mgs to 2 20mm cannon?)
Keep the damage/critical system, but you will need to decide if other planes can take less/more punishment.
If it was me doing it I would set up an idelaised position Spit tailing 109 at ‘x’ cm, and calculate chance of kill. Then decide what the chance of kill vs ‘new plane’ was, and adjust the DP. I would then decide on chance of New plane killing the 109, and adjust the gunnery accordingly. When you have a matched pair (say 190 vs Mustang) I would put them in the same situation and calculate the odds of the shoot downs, and see if that feels right.
Remember that guns that fire father/faster will have higher gunnery adds, even if Rate of Fire and damage are the same as an earlier gun because they will be less affected by the range mods.