Diving to extinguish fire

[MrWibbles]

Not sure if this has been covered elsewhere but I believe pilots would sometimes cut their engines and dive to try and extinguish the flames. As I was untimely cremated in my Spitfire Mk1 that caught fire in a game the other night, I've been thinking of some simple rules to reflect attempts to extinguish fire.

My thoughts were as follows.... If a pilot wishes to try and extinguish the flames then he should:


In the planning phase, plan a "Dive" manuever
When the dive is executed, the pilot may not shoot at any other plane - he's got more pressing things on his mind. Altitude is reduced as normal for a dive.
To see if the fire has been reduced, either draw an A damage or roll a die.

If the result is an even number then the pilot has managed to get some of the fire under control - remove a flame counter (without taking damage), this is done before normal fire damage is calculated. If the result is Odd then the pilot hasn't been able to reduce the flames this turn.


Providing the plane has enough altitude, the pilot can continue to plan dives to try and reduce fire damage even more if desired.

I hope the above makes sense.

[Bruce]

Well Steve, I heard much the same thing about WW I aircraft but it was in relation to using sideslip manoeuvres depending on which side of the engine/aircraft the flames were coming from.

So our local gaming group created an EXPERIENCE SKILL that allows the pilot to make 2 consecutive sideslip manoeuvres in the same Turn in order to have a 50-50 chance of extinguishing the FIRE.
We did not further limit the pilot's shooting as it is limited already by the FIRE and associated SMOKE and we thought that this was enough.

In our games (we keep a running score and aircrew records during a 7-9 game season) pilots and observers earn EXPERIENCE POINTS for: 1) surviving a sortie in which they were engaged (shot-at or shot-by) with the enemy (1 pt); 2) achieving a predetermined "mission success" objective (1 pt); and 3) sometimes for some other predetermined mission achievement (1 pt). Each 3 EXPERIENCE pts earns the aircrew 1 EXPERIENCE SKILL such as the aforementioned "Put-out-FIRE" SKILL. "Kills" do not earn Experience Points, but they do count towards ACE Status. An ACE for us is any pilot who scores 3 "Kills"; he then gets to select 1 ACE ABILITY for each 3 "Kills" he scores, including the first 3. We have developed our list of ABILITIES and SKILLs from an excellent list on this site; we modified it only a little bit.

I have also modified these lists of ACE ABILITIES and EXPERIENCE SKILLS for Play-by-e-Mail (PBeM) gaming because some of them were not at all practical in PBeM gaming.

But, getting back to your House Rule, I really like it too, but I think it's a matter of one or the other for Altitude games, and ours works well in non-altitude games which we play 80% of the time.

[Hunter]

I like it, Steve, we use a variation, but similar to your notes above for our WWI gaming. It works and everybody feels it is more realistic than the general 'Fire' rules.

[Marechallannes]

Think those extinguish rules are already included in the rules.

The pilot manage to extinguish the fire after 3 maneuvers (WoW I) or 6 maneuvers (WoW II)

Otherwise the fire wouldn't stop burning.

Maybe need a house rule that excludes some maneuvers while burning.

[MrWibbles]

From my experience so far with fire, 6 turns is an awful lot of A damage and on quite a few occasions, this is sufficient to destroy the plane. With my house rule, with diving to try and reduce the fire two factors should be borne in mind - a) the attempt isn't always successful and b) the pilot can't fire on the same turn whilst attempting this irrespective of whether or not his attempt to reduce the flames was successful. My intention with my house rule to give a pilot in a burning plane at least a fighting chance of reducing some of the potential damage and maybe save his plane in the process.

[CappyTom]

So guys what do you think of the fire rules in the new game Wings of Glory II? I've tried them out with a friend and it works great. The one thing you have to do I guess is use altitude. But I do that anyway. Looking forward to the new set.
:salute:
Tom

P.S. I believe they might have used some of your ideas guys. Good job.:thumbsup: