I've been thinking about a better way to represent aircraft with mixed armament i.e. an upper wing, drum fed Lewis gun on a Foster mount and a cowling mounted Vickers machine gun, as fitted to the iconic SE5a scout and a handful of other RFC or RNAS types.
In the rules this is done by giving an initial FF of 3 dropping to 2 after the first burst, after which the drum needs to be reloaded before it can fire again. Not only does the Lewis only have a FF of 1, it also is a one shot weapon before reloading, despite having eight rounds per drum. This is an easy way to do it but doesn't seem very realistic or very fair, especially when up against a twin Spandau equipped Albatros or Fokker?
I'm suggesting that the upper wing mounted Lewis gun gets a FF of 2, as it does when it is the only armament mounted, as on the Nieuport 17, or when it is fired by an observer when mounted on a Scarff ring. It would also operate as a normal machine gun for firing, giving the player three possible options. When calculating burst length you would:
a) choose just to fire the Lewis
b) choose just to fire the Vickers
c) fire both but split seconds of fire between the two. If even split 50/50, if odd split with the majority on the Vickers.
For gun jams, you would dice off to determine which gun has jammed. The Lewis can be reloaded when it runs out of ammo as before but it gets its full effect when firing. I reckon this would be a much better way to represent the capability and tactical use of the SE5a in particular but will wait and see what other ideas or suggestions pop up on the Algernon Pulls It Off! group.
For Spandau & Lewis I just class certain planes as having a supplemental gun which allows them to reroll a firing dice in certain circumstances. So essentially it's assumed that you're only using the main gun (the Vickers on the Se5 for example) and that the Lewis is used sometimes to get a shot you wouldn't normally be able to do. I also use the mechanism for the guns mounted on the underside of some of the German big bombers.
ReplyDeleteThat makes a lot of sense and keeps it simple. The trouble with Algy is that the system for firing Lewis guns doesn't really work in a realistic way. Although if you're not too bothered about that it's perfectly functional
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