Trench Strafing Rules Draft

These are the special rules that I've devised for ground attacks in the club WW1 aerial games, which use the club's own rules, Knights of the Sky. I'm not sure about the rules for observer machine gun fire, which I have disallowed for ease of play, but the rest is pretty workable, at least as far as I can foresee. I've asked for some feedback from the grizzled grognards at the club, so we'll have to see if they agree with me or not?

Trench Strafing

Trench Strafing attacks can only be made at altitude level 1. The strafing aircraft must make an Ahead (S) manoeuvre and perform a Dive in the turn in which the strafing attack is made. The aircraft must cross the hex that is being targeted in a straight line but should not end the turn in the target hex.

To resolve the strafing attack, a number of Ground Attack dice equal to the number of machine guns fired should be rolled i.e. a pilot with two forward firing machine guns should roll 2 dice. Observer machine guns cannot be used for strafing attacks. Strafing cannot be combined with low level bombing. Cross off ammunition fired. The results of the dice roll should be cross referenced with the Strafing table:

Code	Effect
Target	Target Hit and Destroyed
A/J	Gun Jam (refer to rules for Ace Shots and Jamming)
Blank	Miss (no effect)
D	Damaged by ground fire (roll a General dice and 2D6 applying the effect to own aircraft)

Low Level Bombing

This applies to ground attack by aircraft equipped with hand dropped bombs or light bomb racks e.g. 4 x 20lb Cooper bomb racks. Use the procedure for trench strafing, rolling one Ground Attack dice for each bomb dropped on the target. A bomb rack with multiple bombs e.g. 4 x 20lb Cooper bombs may be emptied in a single attack or the bombs may be dropped individually or in a salvo up to the total loaded. An A/J result means that a bomb has been released but has failed to explode. All other results are the same as trench strafing.

The Ground Attack dice will have: 2 x D / 1 x A/J / 1 x Blank / 2 x Target

There are two D sides because loss rates were very high from ground fire but two Targets because ground attack was very effective as a whole. However, I might change the ratios if it turns out to be too hard or too easy to hit the target or to avoid being shot down.

Duck!