Bombing had a modest start in the ancient First World War of 1914 to 1918 AD. In this war, combat aircraft themselves came into their own, but in the beginning they acted only as artillery spotters and reconnaisance. Airplane duels were fought with pistols and 'bombs' were no more than standard hand grenades placed in glass jars or tin cans. As the war progressed, the frail planes were equipped with underslung bomb loads, initially dropped by pulling a string and eventually evolving into more reliable mechanical means.
However, these underslung munitions played hell with the neolithic airfoils of the time. In the period between World Wars One and Two, aircraft designers, equipped with more powerful engines, better all-metal construction, and bigger fuselages realized that more and better bombs could be stored internally. A large, empty aircraft could be fitted with doors at the bottoms and filled to the gunwales with metric tons of bombs. Such bombers, designed to fly high and drop indiscriminately, became classified as "strategic bombers." Being ineffective at attacking "tactical" targets, such as tanks and small units, they were used to attack "strategic" targets such as munitions factories and civilian populaces. Such strategic bombers as the B-17 Flying Fortress, Dornier D0 19, Heinkel H111, and Avro Lancaster bombed most of civilian Europe into a bloody pulp. The German city of Dresden was totally annhilated. A B-29 Superfortress strategic bomber, the Enola Gay, was the first to launch nuclear munitions in war, at the Japanese major civilian population center and military fabrication complex of Hiroshima.
Although the atrocities of strategic bombers caused an international backlash, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union meant that bigger and badder strategic bombers were the wave of the future, finally culminating in the B-52 Stratofortress and the Tu-95 Bear, massive bombers with worldwide range and nuclear capability.
Fortunately, the Cold War came to naught. Technology advanced to guided missiles and "smart bomb" guided munitions. If nuclear bombs were to be dropped, supersonic bombers such as the B-1 and the Tu-22 Backfire were to be called in. Large-scale bombing campaigns were performed by jet fighters on tactical missions equipped with under-wing ordinance while the big bombers stayed back and fired cruise missiles. Stealth aircraft still used internal bays but used them to mask radar signature rather than carry massive bombloads (which were no longer neccesary).
So it has remained to the present in the thirty-first century. However, Aerospace fighters are tremendously burdened by external bombs, often slowing to stall speeds under maximum loads. Therefore, TME has converted certain fighters, such as the TME-13-C, to carry internal bomb loads. As these bombs are covered by the craft's tonnage and do not constitute additional mass, the fighter can maintain its normal speed. The bomber can carry additional under-wing bombs if it chooses.
GAME RULES
As bombs take up cargo space instead of slowing the craft, internal bombs are calculated by mass instead of number. Any combination of bombs can be mixed in any number, as long as it does not exceed the aircraft's cargo space. Additional under-wing munitions can be carried. One ton must be devoted to bomb bay door equipment.
BOMBS |
|
Bomb Type |
Tonnage |
| Any Aerotech 2 Bombs | 1 |
| Arrow IV Cruise Missiles | 5 |
| Original Aerotech 10 point bomb (10 damage) | 1 |
| Original Aerotech 20 point bomb (20 damage) | 2 |
| Original Aerotech 40 point bomb (40 damage) | 4 |
| Original Aerotech 60 point bomb (60 damage) | 6 |
| Original Aerotech 80 point bomb (80 damage) | 8 |
| Original Aerotech 100 point bomb (100 damage) | 10 |
| Subatomic Bombs (expand in rings, -20 damage per ring) | +.5 |
| Microatomic Bombs (expand in rings, -20 damage per ring, reduce terrain in impact hex by one level (crater) and eliminate terrain features (buildings, woods, roads, etc.), auto-kill unarmored infantry in blast radius) | +1 |
More bombs may appear in future.