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7/30/2019 Airborne Rules
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/airborne-rules 1/3
US airborne forces made a number of combat drops
in 1942 and 1943. The first were by 509th Parachute
Infantry Battalion who made an uncontested drop
near Tarfarquay airport outside Oran, before
dropping on Youks les Bains airfield (also inAlgeria) to reinforce its French garrison and staging
a platoon-strength raid on a bridge at El Djem in
Tunisia.
The first large-scale combat jump was made by the
82nd Airborne Division’s 504th and 505th Parachute
Infantry Regiments on 10 July 1943 over Sicily.
They later jumped over Salerno, but this time they
dropped into the beachhead behind friendly lines
as reinforcements and marched into battle on foot.
The 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion made the
final mid-war combat jump at Avellino, near Salerno
in Italy, where they jumped behind enemy lines to
disrupt reinforcements and supplies.
This document allows you to recreate these epic
battles using your Parachute Rifle Company from
Stars & Stripes. You will also need the Death From
Above mission from Diving Eagles and the Night
Fighting special rules from Desert Rats. If you do
not have these two books, the mission and special
rules can be found on the Flames Of War website
(www.flamesofwar.com).
Night Attack
Unlike the German airborne forces, the US electedto make their combat jumps at night to minimise
casualties.
When a Parachute Rifle Company attacks in Death
From Above, the game starts at night with the night
fighting rules in effect. At the start of turn three,
the defender rolls a die. On a score of 4+, morning
has broken. On any other roll, the defender rolls
two dice at the start of turn four, three dice at the
start of turn five, etc, until morning breaks on any
roll of 4+. The turn that morning breaks, the night
fighting rules are no longer used and it is daylight
for the remainder of the game.
Airborne Assault Forces
When creating a force for air assault missions you
cannot take any Support platoons except a Parachute
Field Artillery Battery, a Parachute Engineer
Platoon, and an Anti-aircraft Artillery Platoon.
If you take an Anti-aircraft Artillery Platoon, you
must replace all M1Bofors guns with M2 .50 cal
AA guns and lose all vehicles for +5 points for the
HQ Section and +5points per Automatic Weapons
Section. The Anti-aircraft Artillery Platoon is rated
as Fearless Veteran though.
Also remember, if you are playing the Death From
Above mission, you receive 25% more points as
the attacking force.
AIRBORNE ASSAULTS
Airborne assaults require a little more preparation
and work than a normal battle, but you wouldn't
have passed jump school if you were afraid of hard
work! The steps to follow are:
1. Select your flight line.
2. Determine the wind direction.
3. Organise your platoons into sticks.
4. Select your drop points.
5. Roll to find the landing zone.
6. Deploy parachute platoons.
7. Roll for casualties on landing.
After that it’s on to the first turn of the game!
1. Select Your Flight Line
With so many aircraft trying to drop troops in the
same area, they must all follow the same route to
avoid collisions. Since they are only over the
battlefield very briefly, you don’t need to model
your transport aircraft.
You must choose a line running across the table as
your flight line. All of your aircraft will fly parallel
to the flight line. Place an arrow or a pencil on the
table to mark the flight line.
2. Wind Direction
Although you can plan your flight line beforetakeoff, you can't control the wind. The strength
and direction of the wind is one of the least
predictable aspects of an airborne assault. However,
since your parachutists will drift down wind while
descending, the way the wind is blowing has a
major impact on your airdrop.
To determine the wind direction, the airborne player
chooses either long table edge as their own, then
rolls a die and checks the Wind Direction diagram
on page 86 of the Flames Of War rulebook to
determine where the wind is blowing from.
3. Organise Your Sticks
To fit in a pair of Douglas C-47 Dakota transport
aircraft, each platoon is split into two ‘sticks’, each
containing an officer.
Normally a parachute platoon operates as a single
entity with the second command team operating as
a normal Rifle/MG or Carbine team unless the first
is destroyed. However, if the sticks are widely
separated on landing, they operate independently
until they join up again.
At the start of an airborne attack, divide each platoon
into two evenly-sized sticks, each containing aCommand team. Treat each stick as a separate
platoon until they are landed and in Command
Distance of one another at the start of a turn. At
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DEATH FROM ABOVEALL-AMERICAN STYLE!
7/30/2019 Airborne Rules
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/airborne-rules 2/3
After all of your parachute drop points have been
selected, roll a die for each platoon.
• On a roll of 3+, the pilots have found the right
drop zone and the command teams and their
sticks will land as normal.
• On a roll of 1 or 2, the pilots drop the platoon far
from the drop zone. Remove the command teams
and container from the table. You still need to rollfor casualties on landing.
Roll a die at the start of each turn. On a roll of
6, the platoon finds their way back to the table
having found the correct drop zone having
recovered their container.
When the platoon finds its way back to the
table, roll another die as if determining the wind
direction to decide from which table edge or
corner they will arrive. If they arrive from a
corner, they must enter the table within
16”/40cm of the corner, otherwise they may
arrive anywhere on the table edge. Place the
this point the two sticks reunite into a single platoon
and fight on as normal.
4. Select Parachute Drop Points
The next step in a parachute drop is deciding where
you want each platoon to land. Despite the skill of
your transport pilots, this isn’t a precise art. The
strength of the wind and the effects of anti-aircraft
fire or poor navigation can easily result in your platoon landing well off target.
Place each platoon’s command teams side by side
8”/20cm apart on the table to m ark the platoon’s drop
points. Place the platoon’s container half-way between
them. A platoon’s drop points may not be within
8”/20cm of another platoon’s drop points (otherwise
the transport aircraft will collide in mid air!)
5. Finding The Landing Zone
US transport pilots were not given specific training
for parachute operations and frequently had
difficulty delivering the paratroops to the right place, especially at night.
Unlike their German counterparts, US paratroopers
jump carrying their personal weapon (usually an
M1 Garand). However, they still need to drop their
machine-guns, mortars and other heavy equipmentin containers and collect them when they land.
Each parachute platoon has one container marker
dropped with it. Until the platoon recovers its own
container, they only have their personal weapons.
Consequently they shoot as a Rifle team if they are
a Rifle or Rifle/MG team or as a Carbine team in
other cases. The platoon cannot observe for artillery
bombardments until it recovers it equipment.
Recovering Containers
To recover the platoon’s container, a team from the
platoon must start a turn In Command and adjacent
to the container. At that point the team adjacent to
the container and all other teams that are In
Command are armed and immediately revert to
their normal type of team. Remove the container
once it has been recovered.
With two sticks, it is not unusual for part of the
platoon to recover the container while out of command distance of the other part. In this case,
the remainder of the platoon remains Rifle or
Carbine teams until they rejoin the armed part of
the platoon.
Moving Containers
Any Infantry team starting adjacent to a container
may drag it up to 4”/10cm in the Movement step.
The container cannot be moved in the Shooting or
Assault steps (so your opponent’s cannot move a
container with their Stormtrooper movement!) This
allows a team that has recovered its own weapons
to drag another platoon’s container back to it. It
also allows enemy platoons to steal your containers
and make off with them.
Weapons Containers
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command team at the edge of the table to indicate
their arrival point and move the platoon onto the
table from this point in the Movement step.
6. Deploy Parachute Platoons
The platoons that do find the drop zone now jump
from their aircraft. As the aircraft reaches the drop
point, the dispatchers drop the container and thecommand teams and the rest of the paratroopers
jump in rapid succession.
Roll a die and multiply the result by 6”/15cm and
place the platoon’s container that far down wind.
Roll a die for each command team to find out how
far the paratroops drifted before landing. Multiply
the roll by 6”/15 cm and move the command team
that far down wind.
Each stick deploys in a column along the flight
paths of its transport aircraft. Starting with the
command team, place the remaining teams in the
stick 6”/15cm apart along the flight line from the
command team. The platoon should now be
deployed in two parallel lines.
7. Roll For Casualties
Landing injuries are not uncommon in airborneoperations and losses of up to 25% are common.
Roll a die for each team landing by parachute,
requiring a score of 2+ to land safely in Open
Terrain or 4+ to land safely in Rough Terrain. Any
teams that land off the table or that don’t find the
drop zone need to roll 3+ to survive their landing.
Any roll less than these results in the loss of the
team and its removal from the game. Teams lost
this way do not count as destroyed for platoon
morale, so keep them separate from later casualties.
Being seriously tough, Company Commander
teams, Warriors, and containers are never casualtieson landing, so you do not need to roll for them.
Landing On The Enemy
Any teams landing within 2”/5cm of an enemy
team must move further away from the enemy at
the first possible opportunity. A team that lands
directly on an enemy team is immediately destroyed.
Landing Off The Table
Sometimes, either through misjudgment or
particularly strong winds some or all of a platoon’s
teams or its container will land off the table. In this
case, the airborne player has two options. Either count them as lost (but not destroyed) and out of
the game, or remove the whole platoon (but not
their container) as they search for the missing teams.
If you remove the platoon, place the command
team at the table edge as a marker where the platoon
landed. Move the survivors onto the table from this
point in the Movement step of the first American
turn. If the container landed off the table, the platoon
has recovered it when they return, otherwise they
must still do so.
3
Death From Above - American Style
Command teamsdrift with the wind
DropPoints
Flight
Line
C-47 DakotaWind Direction
4”/10cm 4”/10cm
6”/15cm
6”/15cm
6”/15cm
6”/15cm
6”/15cm
6”/15cm
6”/15cm
6”/15cm
Containers driftseperatly