Tuesday 18 September 2018

Flashpoint Alto Cenepa Wings at War Research


I've been mulling over the options for a Wings at War approach to the Alto Cenepa conflict, using  Flames Above the Falklands as a template but with bits grafted on from Thud Ridge and MiG Alley. As a starting point, I sat down and worked through the old Acig article that you can still find online, albeit minus the colour side profiles and maps:


This is a gold mine of useful information and has given me a lot of key details to incorporate into the rules draft. The key set up would be a standard 6' x 4' table divided lengthways down the middle by a  river, representing the Cenepa or a tributary like the Tiwintza and part of the disputed border zone. The long table edges would be the Ecuadorian and Peruvian sides of the battlezone and the starting line for most aircraft entering the table, although some might have to enter from the short ends, with the FAP from the South and the FAE from the North. The table would be covered in rainforest and have no other distinguishing features apart from a lot of trees, all of which could be represented by a terrain cloth or painted board.


There would be a number of terrain elements deployed by both sides for the initial set up including areas of high ground, as in MiG Alley and Thud Ridge, together with several strongpoints / fire bases and at least one forward helo airstrip each. The strongpoints / firebases  would be placed X cm on either side of the river by each player and the airstrips at a point X cm in from the table edge. The aim would be for both sides to use helicopters (Pumas, Mi-8/17 and UH1's) to re-supply the forward positions by shuttling to and fro, while launching ground attack missions against the enemy strongpoints, which would have their own MANPAD and AAA defences. There might also be FAC flights for artillery spotting in a similar style to MiG Alley.


To make things interesting, the ground attack aircraft (mostly A-37B, Strikemaster, Mi-8/17 Hips and Mi-25 Hinds, Su22M's, Tucanos and Mirage V's) would be intercepted by top cover fighters (Mirage 2000P, Kfir C2, Mirage V and Mirage F1). They could also target each other, obviously, resulting in some air to air dogfighting using limited aspect AAM's for the interceptors but just guns for the strike aircraft (I think the helos would be restricted to ground attack only in this case). I have also been thinking of night bombing missions by FAP Canberras and FAE C-47 Hercules paratrooper drops, even though the latter didn't actually happen. There would be an element of 'What If?' anyway, as I'd include Jaguars for ground attack missions, even though they didn't take part in the conflict. 

It's all a bit sketchy but I'm making some progress in the right direction I think?

6 comments:

  1. Nice work Jim, I'm a big fan of the simplistic bath tubbed approach wings at war take to modern air combat. You seem to have got the essence of the main points of the war sorted out.

    When is the first playtest then?

    Cheers,

    Pete.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You never have to ask if dropping paratroopers is a good idea, just do it! ;)

    V/R,
    Jack

    ReplyDelete
  3. This all sounds good to me; as Pete said, when is the first playtest?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Early days but I'm hoping to get the rules drafted sooner rather than later.

    ReplyDelete
  5. If you need a play tester let me know as I've some suitable models squirrelled away I could bump up the painting queue.

    Cheers,

    Pete.

    ReplyDelete

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