Situation: A Hurricane has collided with a Barrage Balloon's CABLE on its 2nd FP (out of 6 FPs).
Is the Hurricane's movement terminated on the collision FP (the 2nd), and the following FPs (including actions like banking) ignored ??
NO - the aircraft completes its movement.
JD
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/2656) 29/09/2014
Is the balloon automatically destroyed if an a/c collides with its cables (and not the balloon itself) ?
There is no provision in the rules for colliding with just the balloons alone. Balloons and their cables are one and the same. A collision with the balloon and its cables destroys the balloons. Designer note - Balloons can be seen, they are not that big, it is the cables that are hard to see. At the scale of each hex, assume the pilot hits cables as he dodges balloons that he sees. There are some historical accounts of aircraft actually hitting balloons and more or less just ricocheting off them with no damage.
JD
https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/2656) 29/09/2014
Or, must an a/c collide with the balloon itself to destroy it and not with just its cables ?
See above. Balloon cannot be collided with alone. A balloon and its cables are either missed entirely, or collided with in such a way that the cables entangle the aircraft.
The massive decel potential is the result of dragging a large gas bag with your plane...not healthy activity for pilots.
JD
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/2656) 29/09/2014
If the plane continues its movement, a new question arise to me : Does the balloon's hex and altitude change ? Isn't the balloon "dragged" by the moving plane ?
The existing balloon and cable is removed from play when collided with.
JD
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/2657) 29/09/2014
Also, to your questions I would add another : What about balloons that were released from their ship because of an AAA battery lost.
This rule (releasing balloons) is not in the game, but a nice chrome idea by Wild Bill. You can invent your own fun rule for a drifting balloon. I would assume it would rise upwards at some rate, carrying its cables with it. If the surface wind were strong enough, it might actually shift a hex every 5 to 10 game turns with the wind. But this level of detail is beyond my desire to model and thus I leave that up to "ref house rules".
JD
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/2657) 29/09/2014
Do released balloons floating in the air and rising still represent a collision danger to planes passing below them (do the loose cables represent a danger ?) ?
Again - I don't have rules for how moored balloons would be treated when attached to ships other than the balloon should move with the ship when the vessel moves. It is not considered by my rules to be part of the ship's AAA, this is Wild Bill's idea. By strict game rules, balloons can only be destroyed by collisions with their cables and by being shot down.
JD
(https://groups.io/g/FW-Ref-Central/message/2657) 29/09/2014