Since air foces may be reworked At Some Point™ into another kind of ground unit, I thought it would be fun to come up with a plan for how that could work.
OrganisationI think that air formations should be treated separately to ground formations, as this would simplify administration. Ground units and Air units would have separate columns in the order of battle screen, the mockup included at the end of this post gives an idea of what this could look like. On the subject of mixing ground and air units in single formations, air formations which include aircraft equipped with anything besides air transport equipment (detailed later) should not be able to include ground units. Air transport formations should be able to include ground units, but will still be treated as an air formation for organisational purposes.
Unit Class DesignThe basic air unit body would be split into light/medium/heavy/super/ultra as with vehicles, though larger than a vehicle body, representing the increased size, basing and maintenance requirements of aviation. This would also somewhat balance the ability of aircraft to avoid the majority of ground forces weapons, since you'd have less shots and bodies for a given tonnage.
Aircraft would be able to use all components available to vehicles of the same size class with the exception of construction equipment and AA, which should be called air-to-air when used by aircraft partly for reasons of verisimilitude, and partly to avoid confusion given that AA has its own mechanics.
I also propose that a new aviation-exclusive component be added, called an air transport module. It would come in every size, each one having a tonnage rating. The purpose of this component would be to enable the Airborne Assault mission.
Aviation MissionsThe current system of missions for ground fighters is a good one, and I believe it should be incorporated into a future air combat system to simulate the wide variety of ways to employ aviation. This could be managed through the order of battle tab. Aviation formations could be considered rear echelon for targeting purposes, (so that they could be hit by heavy and long-range medium artillery, simulating strikes against airbases) and instead of changing their field position in the order of battle tab, one could change their assigned mission there.
My proposed mission types are these:
- Close Air Support
Equivalent to the current provide ground support mission, working with FFD to attack hostile elements in coordination with a ground formation. - Suppression of Enemy Air Defences
Equivalent to the current Flak Suppression mission, targeting enemy air defence elements regardless of their field position. (I consider this name more fitting because air defence is far more than flak, but that's just my personal taste) - Search and Destroy
Equivalent to the current Search and Destroy mission, targeting random formations regardless of field position. Additionally, since this rework means there will be aircraft on the body, search and destroy missions have a chance to hit enemy aircraft on the ground. - Air Defence
Since a rework of air combat to make air units a type of ground unit will involve opposing air forces on the same body, simulating combat between them becomes necessary. To that end, I propose two new missions. The first is Air Defence, where a formation equipped with air-to-air weapons functions like AA, engaging any hostile aircraft formation that attacks a friendly formation. Ideally this would happen before the enemy formation chosen gets to make its attack, simulating interceptions before enemy aircraft reach the point to launch their standoff munitions/go into strafing runs. - Air Superiority
This is the second anti-air mission aircraft could be assigned to. Air Superiority would be a mission where an air formation equipped with air-to-air weapons directly engages any enemy air formation, regardless of its mission, meaning it would target formations engaged in Air Defence and Airborne Assault missions. - Airborne Assault
This mission is how I propose airborne/paratroop formations be handled: To qualify to be used for Airborne Assault, a formation must have at least one aircraft equipped with air transport and at least one ground unit.
The total tonnage capacity of all air transport equipment in an Airborne Assault formation is compared to the total volume of all ground elements in the formation to produce its transport rating as a percentage. This percentage is the formation's chance of successfully performing Airborne Assault. If the formation is successful it can attack twice, separate to the breakthrough rules. It can also breakthrough by the normal rules, allowing Airborne Assault formations to *potentially* attack three times per round of combat. Additionally, Airborne Assault formations can attack formations in the support position as well as on the front line, simulating paradrops. These advantages are compensated by the need to assign much of the formation's tonnage to transport aircraft and its vulnerability to enemy air defence. If the formation is not successful in performing Airborne Assault, it simply attacks as a ground formation would.
A formation on the Airborne Assault mission would function as both a ground and air formation for hostile targeting purposes. Additionally, AA in the formation attacked by an Airborne Assault formation could fire on the aircraft in an Airborne Assault formation. - Logistical Airlift
This mission is how I propose aircraft logistics would work. An air formation with this mission and equipped with logistics modules would be able to supply GSP to any friendly formation on the body regardless of position in the hierarchy. Because aircraft would be larger than an equivalent vehicle this is less efficient than ground logistics, but it means that formations whose superior command formation was destroyed could still be supplied.
