Aeroplanes for Colonial-era Gaming

Aeroplanes

Since 1:72 models of pre-WWI aircraft are very difficult to find, the group uses Revell or Airfix models of odd or early looking planes from the Great War. These are heavily weathered to reflect their duties as scouts in remote frontier areas.

The main British aeroplane is the DH-2, a charmingly primitive-looking pusher-prop single-seater. The Germans use an eindecker Fokker, actually a relatively sophisticated WWI fighter, but which has lines reminiscent of earlier aircraft.

Airco DH-2
buzzes the baggage train. The model was built by David from a plastic kit and painted to resemble the DH-1s used by the British in Palestine. The Lewis gun is removed; the pilots of our pre-war scouts are armed only with woefully inaccurate hand-bombs for ground attack, and revolvers for the occasional air-to-air duel.

Fokker E-III
was built by David from a plastic kit, painted and brush-weathered. Since the plane is a gaming toy which must withstand handling, the delicate rigging from the body to the wings was omitted. The propellor has been replaced by an acetate disc.

Below: The eindecker at a field aerodrome, tended by a horsedrawn fuel wagon.

Movement Stands
for the planes are disposable plastic champagne glasses from a party store. To create a stand, invert the glass and throw away the base (which is a separate press-on part). Cement a short length of brass wire into a hole drilled in the top of the stem. Drill a small hole on the underside of the plane model at the center of gravity (balance point). The wire, plus a dab of Fun-Tack (a sort of tacky putty for sticking papers temporarily to the wall), will hold the plane fairly solidly, but allow easy removal when the plane needs to land on the tabletop.

Using Aeroplanes in a Game
Because the flavor of the game is essentially 19th century (although some scenarios venture into WWI and beyond), we use aeroplanes as a dramatic and visual enhancement, rather than as an effective weapon. The idea is that these are early planes, used primarily for scouting and only minimally effective in direct combat.

The pilots may be allowed a limited number of hand-bombs to fling over the side, but these are very inaccurate. Typically they hit the target point only on a doubles roll on 2D6. Otherwise, the dark die is direction (1 L Rear; 2 L Front; 3,4 Forward; 5 R Front; 6 R Rear) and the light die is distance from the target point in 1.5-inch increments. A roll of double-1 means the pilot has fumbled the bomb and it's loose in the cockpit. Draw a card or roll a die at once, and each movement turn thereafter, until the pilot secures the bomb, or the plane blows up.

Aeroplanes are low and slow. They can be brought down by rifle fire out to 12" or machine-gun/gatling fire from 12" to 18" (because the early MGs can't elevate enough for anti-aircraft use). Any unit being bombed gets a chance to fire before the bomb is dropped. Depending on your rules set, you can design reasonable modifiers or card draw combinations to make the planes vulnerable, but not sitting ducks. Plane-to-plane combat is done with revolvers at close range.

Aeroplanes can have other duties. One side may not know where its objective actually is until a plane has flown over the possibile sites and returned with a report. An aircraft might cause any native units which it flies directly over to take a morale check. A field aerodrome might be one objective in an attack; the airplane would have to roll each turn to see if the motor starts, as the fighting gets closer.

Aeroplanes are probably most useful in campaigns. They can scout strategic areas for objectives or signs of enemy presence, and armies can move more quickly through areas which have been scouted by plane beforehand.

Airships
Three soft-drink bottles form the basis for a German Zeppelin
and a commercial alternative for non-do-it-yourselfers.

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