Author Topic: (Answered) Squadron air-to-ground attacks  (Read 3562 times)

ArcFurnace

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(Answered) Squadron air-to-ground attacks
« on: 16 December 2021, 16:53:26 »
The rules for fighter squadrons are found on pages 25-32 of Strategic Operations: Advanced Aerospace Rules. In particular, page 29, third paragraph describes how to make a ground-to-air attack using a fighter squadron. However, I don't quite understand the described rules, particularly the first sentence:

Quote
Fighter Squadrons conducting Air-to-Ground Attacks are treated as individual Standard Rules fighters each making a separate identical attack (Bombing, Striking, Strafing) on the target or hex.

What exactly is meant by this sentence? Do you take the individual Fighter Data entries from the Squadron Record Sheet and use it to make individual attacks on the target(s) for each fighter, including splitting weapon bays back into individual weapons? This seems counter to the purpose of the overall Squadron Record Sheet of clustering many units into a single, easier-to-manage unit. The "identical" phrase is also confusing, as it is possible for different fighters within the squadron to have different weapons, therefore not being capable of making "identical" attacks, unless that simply means the whole squadron must make either a Strike, Strafe, or Bomb-type attack (which would make sense).

My first thought on how squadron ground attacks should work was: make the Strike/Strafe/Bomb attack using either the weapon bays (Strike/Strafe) or bomb loadouts (Bomb) for the overall squadron; then, if making a Strike/Strafe attack, rolling on the cluster table (as normal for squadrons) for each weapon bay that hit to determine how many of the weapons in that bay struck the target, then dividing the total damage from each bay that hit into 5-point clusters (as specified in the second sentence of the third paragraph on page 29) and rolling hit locations for each cluster as normal. However, the quoted sentence had me thinking that this was not correct, so I wanted confirmation of how it was actually supposed to work.
« Last Edit: 27 January 2022, 16:14:07 by Xotl »

Xotl

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Re: (Research) Squadron air-to-ground attacks
« Reply #1 on: 27 January 2022, 16:13:59 »
Quote
Do you take the individual Fighter Data entries from the Squadron Record Sheet and use it to make individual attacks on the target(s) for each fighter, including splitting weapon bays back into individual weapons?

Correct.

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The "identical" phrase...simply means the whole squadron must make either a Strike, Strafe, or Bomb-type attack

Correct.
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ArcFurnace

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Re: (Answered) Squadron air-to-ground attacks
« Reply #2 on: 27 January 2022, 23:33:42 »
Thank you, that works.

Given that each fighter is effectively making an individual attack, does the following sentence of "Damage from a successful Strike or Strafe attack is divided into 5-point Damage Value groupings" still apply?  Guessing yes, given that there would be no other reason for that sentence to exist, but wanted to confirm.

A downside to offset the focus-fire-preventing defensive benefits of being in a squadron, I suppose, along with the additional -1 to hit the overall squadron.
« Last Edit: 27 January 2022, 23:43:51 by ArcFurnace »