paulderynck
Posts: 8201
Joined: 3/24/2007 From: Canada Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets An ATR can start empty or carrying another unit/cargo for an air transport mission. For a paradrop mission, it has to be carrying a qualified unit/cargo. Let’s call its starting hex O for point of origination. The weather in the hex O does not matter for either air transport or paradrop missions. The weather in the destination hex, D, does matter, and may prevent either mission type from being flown. For air transport missions, the ATR may start empty in hex O and pick up a unit/cargo in hex D. Whether dropping off or picking up cargo in hex D, the air transport mission requires that the ATR be capable of landing in hex D, though it does not have to actually land there. For instance, normally the terrain in hex D could not be mountain. So far so good. quote:
For paradrop missions, the ATR has to be capable of landing in D, if D is a friendly controlled hex (explicitly stated in the rules). Implicit from that statement is that a paradrop can be made into hex D, even if the ATR can not land there, but if and only if the hex is enemy controlled. No, the ATR does not have to be capable of landing in hex D for paradrops. quote:
After completing their mission in hex D, both air transport and paradrop missions fly to a return hex, R. Since both air transport and paradrop missions are subject to air-to-air and anti-air combat in hex D, they might be aborting their mission when they fly to R. Now the tricky bit is that an ATR is forbidden from returning to R with cargo if the weather in R is bad (storm/blizzard). Note that if it is empty, the ATR can return to a bad weather hex. And if the weather isn’t bad, the ATR can return with cargo. The abort result can produce a situation where the ATR still has its cargo and has to find a return hex with acceptable weather. So my question is what happens to the ATR and its cargo that has been forced to abort, with cargo, from an air transport or paradrop mission when there is no viable return hex due to bad weather? One partial solution is that for an air transport mission the ATR be forced to land in D, which has good weather and where we know it is capable of landing. This does raise the question of what ‘abort’ means for an air transport mission. For example, the ATR might have been simply trying to fly its cargo from O to D. Even though it is aborted over hex D, is it still permitted to land/deliver its cargo there? I would say yes. But I do not know whether that means it is subject to a second round of air-to-air and anti-air combat? - which would be true if its return hex R is not D. The more difficult case is for a paradrop mission where the expected mission was to fly from O (which has bad weather) to D, drop the paratroop unit and then return to R (which has bad weather). In fact, R could very well be O. Two solutions are: (1) force the ATR to return to O, so there is no advantage to the phasing player, or (2) destroy the cargo unit and let the ATR return anywhere it likes. I sort of doubt that the crew of the ATR would be capable of pushing all the paratroopers out of the plane, just so the ATR could return to base safely. My preference is for #1. About the second round of of AtoA and flak after a combat abort, I had never thought of that before and brought it up on the Yahoo Rules Group. Patrice and I and one other member discussed this and concluded that there is no second round because: 1. The combat abort takes the ATR (and its cargo) out of the normal Air Transport sequence. The ATR aborts, it and its cargo flips and it cannot be intercepted again. 2. Another problem with intercepting a combat abort is that it would open the door to a potentially (but of course unlikely) endless chain of re-aborts and re-interceptions. Of course if the ATR clears through then the Air Transport sequence continues and it may be intercepted later when it returns to base. As there is presently consensus on the Rules List about this, it will not likely be asked of Harry. About the abort going to a bad weather hex, the present recommendation to Harry is that this only be allowed to occur with cargo onboard if (a) there is no other choice that has acceptable weather and (b) it goes back to its origin. But of course Harry must still approve this version of the clarification as of this date.
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