air support questions

Hello,
I have some ‘air support’ questions

Do you resolve a timed airstrike in the same way as a timed artillery strike?
I mean; you go directly to ‘fire for effect’; no need to roll for spotter round accuracy and so, no deviation at all?

The rule book says that in case of a timed airstrike, the aircraft is on the table just for this one turn; dropping all its bombs at once and then it’s removed from the game.
In case of a ‘normal’ aircraft arrival (so no timed airstrike; you pulled an ‘aircraft’ counter), I read on this forum (answer from Warwick iirc) that the aircraft does not have to drop all its bombs at once but can do it one by one…
In the case of for example a Stuka Ju-87D (over Kursk), with its 5 bombs (1 large + 4 small) + 2MGs;
It can drop one bomb per turn and stay another 3 turns using its MGs for strafing? Meaning it could stay for 8 turns over the battlefield…?

In the Questions & answers in ‘dispatches 2’, the use of aircraft is explained in some more detail;
It says that if you want to do a bombing run, and a FAC is present, you roll a communications check for it to talk to the aircraft; If not successful, no bomb run this turn…
BUT if you have NO FAC, you skip this step, the pilot acts on its own initiative and can bomb… no communication check necessary…
So having a FAC reduces your chances of making a bomb run… and, yes, I know that without FAC you roll an extra die for the deviation distance, but still… seems a bit strange…? (or I’m missing something of course…)

Then a question concerning the effect of bombs on tank riders (and this would also apply to artillery hits actually); in the last scenario we played, a Stuka dropped a large bomb and 4 small bombs all at once (timed Stuka strike), and in the blast radius were several T34’s all with tank riders on top.
We rolled for accuracy and the large bomb scored a pinning hit and the 4 small bombs 2 direct hits and 2 pinning hits.
We applied the hits as follows;
1st hit: direct hit (large bomb) on the closest T34
2nd hit: direct hit (small bomb) on the tank riders on top of this closest T34
3rd hit: pinning hit (small bomb) again on the closest T34
4th hit: pinning hit (small bomb) again on the tank riders on top of this closest T34
5th hit: pinning hit (small bomb) on the 2nd closest T34 (and the tank riders on top take no hit)
Did we do it correctly?

And assuming that instead of tanks and tank riders, there would have been a bunch of halftracks (all with passengers on board) in the blast zone, then all 5 hits would hit the halftracks; since passengers cannot be targeted separately, no?

Thanks for any and all clarification!
Edwin

We did this in the last game: Stuka came in on time, dropped the large bomb then the small ones next turn - but we were very likely in error there and it should have been just one salvo and done. No strafing runs though and the aircraft flew home (we got that bit right!).

Timed air strikes will always arrive, FAC present or not. If you have no FAC then the aircrew needs to acquire the target themselves - as we know, this means that bombs dropped (using the standard artillery rules) roll one extra d6 for deviation. The presence of an FAC just means you have more chance of an accurate bombing run, or a much better chance of an aircraft arriving at all, in the case of an air counter drawn.

It looks to me as though you adjudicated the results correctly in the rules as written. In reality though, anything the size of an aircraft bomb - even a "small" 50kg one will blow a T.34 into the middle of next week, along with tiny bits of anyone and anything on or around it. If the first bomb hit the tank, there would be nothing left for the second to hit, except some pink mist and a big hole in Mother Russia https://i.imgur.com/s2OLxaj.jpg

Edwin:

All of your statemens are true. You proceeded as the written rules.

Regards,

Diego

Well, mostly true, I believe each bomb type dropped would be a separate weapons system, Just like every other unit In the game with different weapons, and should be treated as such. Even if all bombs are dropped of different types are dropped at once. This way it still follows the core rules without having special case rule.

Stuka timed airstrike with 1 large and 4 small would go something like this.
1) Plane arrives on turn
2) Ambush fire happens
3) bombs drop
4) roll for hits.
5) 1 bomb type first, either the small bombs or large one
6) bombs effects
7) repeat for second bomb type.

This works out tremendously well. Bombs should be devastating and this plays into the realism.

Also, when the airstrike chit is pulled and you get a plane with bombs of different types, again we treat all as separate weapons systems. Following that either all bombs or all bombs of 1 type must be dropped.

This would be very historically accurate, as most planes would become extremely hard to fly if they had only one bomb strapped to a single wing. Several planes the pilot had no choice, if the button was pushed all the bombs on the wings would drop.

But that's just how we play it, it make sense to us and feels right with the rules as written.

That is right, bombs use the standard artillery rules so you roll for hits and pins, allocate each one and work that through to conclusion. Where several bombs are dropped simultaneously, we use different color dice to denote which are the large and small bombs