I've been considering this in my free time for awhile. . . and came up with some "house rules," which I could use a sanity check on (sharpen your sticks, please!)
I've been using the bridge construction times as found on Pg 55 of
Campaign Operations and the Construction Factors of each rating of Bridge (as spelled out on page 115 of
Tactical Operations). I spitballed the CFs are good for
1,000 passes during normal use. A pass is one takeoff, one landing, or one taxi--a takeoff and landing (one launch and recovery) is two passes. Got an aircraft heavier than your runway's CF? Each 'heavy AC pass' counts as rounding up 1.5 times the AC weight divided by the heaviest CF of that runway.
For example: a 55 ton conventional fighter landing on a light runway is: rounding up (1.5 * (55/15)) = 6 passes. And that's just for
one landing.
After 1,000 passes, runways and taxiways need normal maintenance: rubber removal, joint resealing, sweeping, hairline crack filling, weed plucking, etc. You'll need to shut down the runway for "X" amount of days and perform the maintenance below after 1,000 passes. This is SOP in the Air Force, although the runways are built a little better, and the airfield is shut down for a few days every six months or so just to keep up with things. Regular maintenance eliminates the need for repairs.
Repairs are necessary if you exceed the maintenance schedule, or serious damage occurs to the pavement without destroying the hex. Damage basically turns the pavement into a rough surface by reducing the CF (conventional or STVOL can't use rough surfaces). Damage can occur by excess passes, burning or destruction on top of that pavement surface (i.e. a crash or unit destruction), deliberately aimed weapons fire that damages the pavement by reducing the CF (but not zeroing it out), etc. Your subgrades are still there, but your surfaces are in poor shape.
--My table (based on TacOps pg 115, CamOps pg 55, 10% rounded up and 50% rounded up): | Runway Type | | CF | | Construction Days/Hex | | Maintenance Days/Hex | | Repair Days/Hex |
Light | (1 - 15) | 4 | 0.4 | 2 |
Medium | (16 - 40) | 11 | 1.5 | 6 |
Heavy | (41 - 90) | 18 | 2 | 9 |
Hardened | (91 - 150) | 25 | 3 | 13 |
Rail | (151 - 650+) | 32 | 4 | 16 |
T'was a first stab at airfield construction and management, and I'm open to suggestion. I wanted to keep it within existing rules, and while liberties were taken, it got me to a good start. I used it to establish FARPs for conventional fighters, but I haven't used it yet on what I really want to play AtB with: forced entry for airfield seizure, and main operating base establishment. It did give me the opportunity to try to figure something out for repairing a bombed-out airstrip though.
Thoughts?
- Trip