BoB vs Late war question

[tinfish]

Hey folks.
Seeing as I'm new, and can't find stat cards for most planes, I'm not even sure if sharing them is allowed or frowned upon Each company has their own approach to that.
I've been wondering what BoB will play like in regards to damage? Everything I have right now, which isn't much I'll freely admit is firing B or C damage, and it barely takes a burst or two to end the game for one of the pilots.

So I'm wondering, does early war reign this in at all? Is there a chance a Hurricane or Spitfire could put a few bursts into the enemy and not inflict such serious damage? Or does it more or less stay the same throughout the conflict in WWII?

The only videos I've seen while deciding whether or not to buy into the game were WWI ones, it seemed people could take quite a bit of damage before going down, often seeing planes fire at each other over several turns before seeing one go down in flames and I'm wondering if it's different with my Late War planes because of firepower, or if it is by design to make the game faster to play?

I'm sure that once my HE111 arrives turns will last a bit longer, but we've found so far that the first person to fire usually runs up around 10 hits on average and no one survives a second round of fire.

Not complaining at all, it's just without having seen any cards but the ones I own, I don't know if earlier aircraft have less powerful weapons or higher damage to represent the difficulty of bringing down aircraft with what at the time were far less powerful guns. Right now I feel like I'm firing a MK108 whenever I draw a C damage I dread to think what higher cards could do.

I'm already sold on BoB, but wondering if I can expect it to take a few more bursts before a Stuka or 109 goes down in flames.
Although I must admit not every battle ends in 2 bursts, the last one took me within 3 points of dying with one, I 'won' because he flew off the table as I performed an illegal maneuver that left me with 1 hit point... Kinda reminds me of my time flying for the Russians in Il2, I spent more time spinning out of the sky due to badly timed turns than I did due to enemy fire

[OldGuy59]

Stephen,
WGS is a target-nasty game. Early planes are cruel to each other, too. There is a group of individuals on the Forum that beleive cannon armed planes are over-powered. I think any plane carrying multiple weapons is dangerous. So, I tend to follow the advice of flying two planes per player, if possible.

I always play with the Boom Chits, but they aren't the only instant killers. I have had a few players draw double pilot wound chits during individual firing instances, taking out nearly undamaged planes. So, if you are finding that planes are not lasting very long in some games, that is actually accurate to events the game is supposed to emulate. It is a combat game, after all. Yeah.

It's all in how you take it, I suppose. A new player to the game at a convention last year was flying a Bf-109 E-4, with two cannons and two MGs (2Cs and an A at close range). In her first encounter, she went head-to-head with a Hurricane Mk I, with eight light MGs (2Bs at close range). She, and the rest of us, thought the Hurricane was done for. They drew damage, the Hurricane survived. The Bf-109 ended up with two pilot wound chits, the only two chits in the entire B damage bin with pilot wounds. Down she went, laughing at fate. Respawn!

[Canestri10]

Another option is to just raise the health points of each plane to something you feel matches the armament.

[Marechallannes]

WGS games are fast, dynamic and deadly.

If you play 1 vs. 1 without altitude, the games are really fast over.


I think the damage system represents the historical background well. A Spitfire or Hurricane that manages to place two half distance shots in a row versus a Stuka, should bring it down anyways (BB + BBA with aiming).

Add atltitude to your WGS games and you'll see that the birds stay in air longer.

[Dan-Sam]

Early planes are not as dangerous as late war ones, but still: Keep off the enemy's cross.
My personal opinion is that WGF is about manouvering and WGS is about shooting. When we are choosing minis for WGF we are doing it according to maneuver decks and in case of WGS we care about guns and it is much harder to balance a game, especially when you are playing with bombers or another powerful target.

[Nightbomber]

Early planes are not as dangerous as late war ones, but still: Keep off the enemy's cross.
My personal opinion is that WGF is about manouvering and WGS is about shooting. When we are choosing minis for WGF we are doing it according to maneuver decks and in case of WGS we care about guns and it is much harder to balance a game, especially when you are playing with bombers or another powerful target.

Differences in weaponry in WGF are simplified: A or B, Front/Rear guns. Armament in WGS is an issue to some extent and in this field the game is not that realistic when you consider armament values against versatility of a target (well it is a game!). Let a Beau dogfight with a more versatile historical enemy of the era and I bet the Beau will emerged victorious in 8-9 cases out of 10. That is why I personally prefer early war period with smaller "calibers" preffering duels/dogfights over a head on passes with mutliple C/D token drawings.

[Dan-Sam]

Said a man who flew through formation of four B-17s with Bf.109K-4 with additional cannons (CCCCD) and survived
Just joking, I like BoB too

[Nightbomber]

Said a man who flew through formation of four B-17s with Bf.109K-4 with additional cannons (CCCCD) and survived
Just joking, I like BoB too

[Lord_Ninja]

Let's look at Hans Joachim Marseille and his September 1, 1942 10-17 kills in one day. We have three sorties in which he claimed 17 aircraft (of which, only 10 match up with records). In one sortie, there are 4 confirmed victories while he was flying a Bf-109F. Why do I being this up? Because the 109F was more lightly armed than the 109E. Marseille's 109F4 had two MG17 with 500 rpg and one 20 mm Mauser MG 151/20 with 200 rounds. The MG17 fired at a rate of 1,200 rpm and the MG151/20 on average a rate of 675 rpm. That's 18 seconds firing time for the cannon and 10 seconds for the MG17.

Now I write all of this to make a point about WoG. If Hans did not fire both types of weapons at a time that's a total of 28 seconds of lead flying allowed. That would be four aircraft downed in less than 28 seconds firing time (spread out over several minutes of air to air combat but he could only hold the trigger for 28 seconds). That's seven seconds of firing time allowed for each aircraft.

Roughly in WoG terms, that's a pilot with maybe the "perfect aim" or "sniper" rule shooting down an 17-18HP aircraft in roughly two-three turns of play with an airplane that would have firing of AC close range and B long range (according to unofficial committee stats).

Yeah, early war planes can be pretty darn lethal.

[Lord_Ninja]

Or the point should be, it's okay for Early War airplanes to be super lethal.

[csadn]

There's also the matter of *where* the guns were mounted -- wing guns have to be aimed to converge at a specific point in front of the airplane; a target outside that spot isn't going to get the full effect of the firing unit's weapons. Conversely, if the firepower is on (or near) the centerline of the acft., there's no convergence-point problem. It isn't coincidence that the USA's two highest-scoring aces both flew P-38s....

[DarrylH]

As far as Battle of Britain aircraft are concerned, the two RAF fighters' armament, while identical, was set up following two completely different philosophies. The Hurricane's eight .303s were set to converge (IIRC) about 200 yards in front of the aircraft, while Supermarine used more of a 'shotgun' approach with the Spitfire's guns. It's not for nothing that the Hurricane I was often considered a much better gun platform than the Spitfire I was.

[Jager]

Ground crews often changed the convergence of the wing guns, in both the Hurricane and the Spitfire.
The hurricane was a more stable gun platform, though not as good a dogfighter as a result
Karl

[Jager]

It is interesting the gun layouts nations choose.
German fighters extensively used center-line weapons, including prop-hub mounts and wing guns synchronized through the prop.
The Russians followed this practice, possibly more so.
I can't think of any British single-engine fighter with hub/synchronized guns.
The US used a mix pre/early war, but after 1940, no new designs of single-engine fighters had any but wing guns.
Karl

[tinfish]

Didn't the Cobra have a nose mounted option? I don't actually know if the Americans used it, I'm positive I remember the Russians having nose mounted cannons on the Cobra.
I could be imagining things again

[Jager]

Didn't the Cobra have a nose mounted option? I don't actually know if the Americans used it, I'm positive I remember the Russians having nose mounted cannons on the Cobra.
I could be imagining things again

I consider the P-39 a pre/early war design. They did produce it through the war, with improvements (up to the Q model), and a "new" one, the P-63, most of those were shipped to Russia.
A shame, as I think it would have been an invaluable ground attack plane for the NW European theater.
Karl