AA36: Third World Meets First World

As Major Suvorov's  Mig 23MLD lifted off of the runway, he considered that after all of these years, this was his first real combat mission.  He had once intercepted an American intelligence gathering jet, and then there was the time that he managed to sneak up on a pair of Tomcats, but this would be the first time he knew in advance that he would be using his R-23 missiles if the opportunity arose.

Four Mig 23s closed with the Uwandan F5s which were patrolling the sky over occupied Mugabian territory near Objective B41.  The Migs were each armed with a pair of medium ranged R-23 and a pair of short ranged R60M.

The Migs had not yet detected any airborne radar, so they did not yet know if they were facing F5As or F5Es, though it really didn't matter.  Once their targets were within radar range, the Migs would fire their missiles, dispatch their new found enemies, and return home.
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In my first game using Missile Threat rules, I found that it just wasn't that easy.  The rules are more abstracted and easier to use and manage than my home-brew dogfight rules, but the abstractions still leave a lot of flying to the player, and despite my reservations about some of the mechanics, gave very reasonable results through each step of play.

The scenario was created by my campaign system for my African imagi-nations, and thus, I did not use some of the initial set up and scenario duration rules from Missile Threat.
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The Migs approached from due east, while the F5As were heading roughly northeast to southwest.  The Migs were directed into battle by Mugabian ground radar, while the Uwandans had no radar coverage.  As a  result the Migs had the initiative over the F5s, which had no radar and were each equipped with a pair of AIM-9B Sidewinders and their guns.

On the first turn of movement,  Migs closed with F5s to find that they were just out of radar range and could not fire.

Then on the next turn, had overrun their prey, and could not fire missiles as they entered the phase too close and over-running their targets

 

A couple turns of movement later, despite my struggle at rolling radar locks, the first Mig finally achieved a lock-on, fired a pair of R-23s, and got his first kill.

The targeted F5 was in the process of failing a missile lock on another Mig, so did not have opportunity to evade the two inbound missiles, which destroyed his plane and killed the pilot twice.

The Major had no time to consider his accomplishment.  The F5 in 

front of him ceased to exist, and he simply moved on to the next 

target and continued the fight.  A time for reflection would come later.

The fight swirled on for a few turns with a bunch of failed radar and missile lock rolls (I needed 4+ or 6+ on 2D12, and failed on 10 of 14 rolls overall as near as I can figure).  Another F5 got hit and knocked out of the sky, and one missile that did make it off of the rail failed to hit its target, as it was fired too close, and lost sight of the target after launch.

The last kill came on the last turn as the two remaining F5s were trying to leave the fight.  Unfortunately another pair of R23s badly damaged the aircraft and killed the pilot.

The end result is that Uwanda lost 3 F5As and their pilots, while the Soviets lost no Migs.  The F5s never even managed to get a missile lock.  The Soviets may have bought Mugabia some time, and both sides will have to consider the result of this battle and decide how to proceed.

Missile Threat seems to work well, though I need to learn the rules a lot better, so that I can avoid situations like the Migs experienced early on, when I bumbled their potential first shot and a lost their initial advantage.

Sorry about the photo quality, my phone had fits with my lighting and I still don't have a proper table cover, using the backside of my "ocean" cloth.