Landed Aircraft

Post by **George Geczy** » Jul 01 2003

(Topic continued from discussion in "LOS - miles and miles" thread - question by Juergen:)

"-I agree that planes on airstrips are at any rate more visible and more vulnrable than aircrafts sheltered in proper airfields
-while you might not directly see an aircraft in a shelter you DO know that it landed there,so I think that you should have a kind of "guess" whats inside the airfield

While we are talking about aircrafts and airfields I would also like to ask a few questions:

Could a fighter (like the F14) attack an aircraft that currently is on the ground at an airfield?
I think the target in question should be treated like a very light ground target,so the fighter shouldnt do much damage against it. "

About the first point, I don't think you really would be able to tell if a hangar or bunker were occupied or not - unless you actually saw the planes going in, it shouldn't really be possible to say if there is something in there. So I like the idea that Air Bases would conceal the number of air units that are parked.

Regarding landed air units at air strips or (for helicopters) in the open, when landed they are treated as very weak ground targets. Of course, if an air unit has fuel, it will take off to intercept and fight any incoming enemy units. However, it would be possible to, for example, send a few squadrons of F117s to attack an air strip and have them get off a first shot at the "sitting duck" landed units before being noticed.

-- George.

Slash78 · Post by **Slash78** » Jul 03 2003

If the aircraft at a field are out in the open any other aircraft with a gun could strafe them. While radar makes it harder to catch aircraft on the ground now, but not impossible, in WW2 it was often said that the easiest place do destroy the enemies air force was while it was still on the ground.

Empier4552 · Post by **Empier4552** » Jul 03 2003

I take Egypt Vs Israel. Egypt announced war, israel bombed their airforce ont he ground. Case closed

Juergen · Post by **Juergen** » Jul 04 2003

I think the point is that a landed aircraft should be treated like a ground target,and Im happy to hear from George that this will be the case

And as far a I understand this will mean that a B52 will be better at destroying them than a F14,exactly as it should be.
Strafing a few planes with a gattling gun is one thing,dropping dozens of bombs and CBUs is another

Just start up your favourite flight sim and try it for yourself

However it could be possible that the aircrafts in question could be in shelters,so this could mean that they have better protection values.
I dont think that a gattling would do the job here.

Another question would be how to handle "aircraft sheltering":
-Do we just asume that any airport worth its salt can shelter any ammount of aircraft so that all aircraft would automatically benefit from increased protection values?
-If they cannot shelter all aircraft then how many (90%,70%..) and which ones?
-How much protection would an air strip offer,if at all?
At any rate it would certainly offer a lot less protection than an airfield.

I think it is also safe to assume that all landed aircrafts and helicopters should be treated alike regardless of type.
The difference between a landed F-14 and a B52 isnt just that big,both would be blown to pieces should they be hit by any dedicated Air-to-Ground weapon.
So they should have the same values when they are landed.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Juergen on 2003-07-04 03:45 ]</font>

Slash78 · Post by **Slash78** » Jul 04 2003

Most 'airstrips' like the EAF (Expeditionary Air Field) at MCB 29 Palms has limited shelter for fuel and ammo only. While the air field there in perminant (or at least semi-perminant), it is set up like a temperary air field and can be disassembled. An 'Airbase' or 'Airport' would take months to build, tower, hangers, bunkers, etc. and would be hard to totally destroy. An 'airstrip' or temperary airbase has little to none of these facilities, the 'tower' is a trailer. The fuel and ammo storage areas have a berm around them. No hangers, no shelters, no really protection of any kind.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Slash78 on 2003-07-04 14:44 ]</font>

Post by **George Geczy** » Jul 04 2003

Good, it seems our implementation matches these ideas pretty well. The quicker-to-build airstrips will offer no 'bunker' protection, while the full airbases/airports (which take 110 days to build, I think) will have that protection.

We allow up to 7 squadrons to be "landed" at an airbase (that would be about 100 planes). More could be "in reserve", but these units would not be immediately available to be used (they would have to be deployed first, etc).

The "landed and ready" units would be more affected by strategic bombing or artillery than the reserve units as well, though both categories will be affected by such indirect fire to some degree.

So, I think we've got this area working.

-- George.

<Lead Programmer, BattleGoat Studios>