Behind on scheduled maintenance

When exploring warfare on distant planets, far into the future, we seem to expect a lot from the protagonists. So, for example, it is claimed that modern fighter jets have been designed to withstand 8,000 total hours of flight time (on average) during their operational lifespan. This is a lot, at a sedate 20hrs peacetime flying a month, this gives them a thirty year life. The trouble is that in wartime, the twenty hours a month might happen in a few days. Suddenly you’re burning life expectancy like it’s going out of fashion.

Not a problem, with the proper kit you can rebuild and get your plane more hours. This tends to involve working closely with the manufacturer. Which is fine if you’re based on a world which has such things as manufacturers. But if you’re some backwoods world where your air force is picked up second or third hand from glorified scrap dealers, this level of support is a luxury you cannot even dream about.

And that’s military equipment where there are systems in place and people who have nothing better to do than to make sure stuff runs properly. Can you imagine what it must be like with the ordinary civilian kit?
In point of fact I can imagine it because I’ve had a lifetime in peasant agriculture. A friend of mine was in the Royal Navy and for part of his career was a naval officer responsible for Royal Marines. His general feeling was that Royal Marines and farmers have a similar attitude to health and safety, maintenance, discipline, and obeying orders. But then, as he used to say, at least they don’t issue farmers with automatic weapons and explosives. Mind you, if he’d had his way, he probably wouldn’t have issued them to Royal Marines either.

Still I fondly remember an old tractor we had that had a lever at the front of the engine block. If you lifted the lever up, it took the compression of the engine, so it raced. Then if you dropped the lever down it brought the compression back. So effectively you could ‘bump start’ the tractor without moving it.

It was an elderly tractor (older than me) and the start button no longer worked because a wire had come undone. But that didn’t matter because you held the wire underneath the button until it made contact with the terminal it used to be soldered to. That made the circuit and the engine would fire up.

On a cold morning the first thing I would have to do was to put the battery charger onto the battery. Not so much to charge it as to warm it. Then I’d come back ten minutes later, in the dark, with one hand under the bonnet reaching for the lever, lifting it up, and the other hand trying to make contact with the wire to get the engine to fire. Once it did I’d let in run for a while, drop the lever and hopefully it would roar into life. Never knock a system that works.

With that I’d unhook the battery charger and drive the tractor out of the building to where it was needed.

So I suppose that this set of rules/scenario is dedicated to that old David Brown tractor.

Whilst I use this scenario with Hellfire, you can tweak it for any rule set. The vehicle that caught my eye was the Vimana

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/450632/VIMANAS

For 6mm (although I know people who’ve printed it out in 15mm) it’s a pay what you want stl and well worth a look. Even if you don’t have a printer, it’s getting to the stage where most people have a friend who has one. At the very least I suspect Iliada Games Studio would print some out for you.

To me, just looking at it, the Vimana is obviously the local planetary workhorse. It (or local variants) are doubtless popular across scores of worlds where they’re too busy to worry about maintenance schedules and suchlike fluff. The Vimana is valued because it is rugged, (almost indestructible) and even somebody with only the minimum of mechanical aptitude can keep one flying. Admittedly they don’t fly at any great height. There are two schools of thought about this phenomenon. The first claims that those running a Vimana don’t want the expense of climbing when you’ll only have to descend. The other school points out that provided you’re belted in, a Vimana hitting the ground from a mere hundred meters is barely going to ruffle your hair or scratch the vehicle’s paint.

So let us assume that your two combatants are fighting over a largish but very sprawling town, or several villages. Mark out six different areas where somebody might want to make a Vimana delivery. Their cargos are mixed. It could be cut flowers, fresh vegetables, hides, metal ingots, parcel delivery, bagged night soil to take to a market garden. It could even be any or all of these simultaneously.

Then mark your table edges. I’m assuming a square or rectangular table with four sides. So mark the sides one to four. If you roll one of these numbers on a d6, that is the side where the Vimana appears. On a 5 or 6 then there is no Vimana this turn.

Obviously if you have a six sided table, to make it easier to transfer action from your campaign hex map, I suggest you roll a d8 or even a d10.

Which Vimana do you get?

Roll a d12. I suggest that you do this every move. I find it induces a comforting humility in players when they realise that the universe is filled with busy people with jobs to do, and they don’t have time to stop everything just because you’re having a brawl.

1) Due to faulty shielding, there is electrical interference within 20cm of the vehicle as it travels (at 20cm per move). Missile guidance systems and similar don’t work within the radius.

2) Moves erratically, 4d10 cm per move. There’s a shrieking noise coming from the drive at irregular intervals. Each move roll a d10 and on a 1,2,3,4 there is a shriek. Smaller remote unmanned vehicles (drones) within 20cm of the Vimana just switch off and crash to the ground. Larger ones with more processing power land first before switching off.

3) Moves at 20cm per move. Everything is fine, until it lands and opens its hatches. This produces a Repetitive electrical impulse noise (REIN) fault which stops all data transmission visible and within 20cm of the hatch that is open.

4) It travels at very low height, at 10cm per move. Every move on which it rolls a 1 on a d6 it produces a belch of thick black smoke which fills a 5cm diameter. This counts as machine smoke for blocking energy weapons, and obviously blocks visibility.

5) Travels at 15cm per move and seems perfectly innocuous. Except that units within 5cm of its flight path complain about a high pitched whining sound which breaks concentration. Anybody firing counts enemy in cover for that move. If they are in cover then they count as dug in as well.

6) Travels at a low height, at 15cm per move. Each move roll a d6. On a 1 there is radio interference within 10cm of it for that move. Basically you cannot use a radio in that turn.

7) Travels at 30cm per move, On a 1 on a d6 it produces a burst of Electromagnetic Interference which means that anything ‘fly by wire’ or even controlled by radio, loses contact if within 10cm of it.

8,9,10,11,12) OK so they’re not perfect but at least they have no obvious problems. They move at 20cm per move.

• Attempting to contact a Vimana is unlikely to work. If it has a working radio it’ll be tuned to the sport, the shipping forecast, or talking to a supplier organising the next load.
• Shooting at one is possible. If you do, count it as heavy armour. This is just an expression of the rugged nature of the vehicle. It has no defences and no weaponry. If hit and not spectacularly destroyed, it will land and when landed it will continue doing whatever it was doing that irritated you in the first place. This includes the black smoke in this case, but every move 🙂

Unloading and loading

The Vimana will reach its destination. It will then take d10 turns to unload and load. It will then roll to see what table edge it wishes to leave by.

Whatever failings it had when flying, it will exhibit when landed. (With the exception of the black smoke)

Have fun

♥♥♥♥

If you don’t know Hellfire, the rules are available from Wargame Vault as a pdf for £4.

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/361114/Hellfire

It’s also available from Amazon, £10 for paperback, £4 on Kindle.