"simplest fun rules for large engagements?" Topic

I'd like to try some WW2 aerial battles for a change and I'm wondering which ruleset to use. I hope to play relatively large battles (the more planes the better) with a ruleset that is not overly complex (please no pre-plotting moves).

I'm flexible as to the theatre but ideally the rules would cover Eastern + Western Europe and the Pacific.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

John Stanoch's Blue Sky rules are what you want.

Originally published as 'Squadrons' and made for the
Battle of Britain, John has published separate rules for
Russia, the Mediterranean, the Pacific, the heavy bomber
campaign in Europe and Europe early war )Poles, French,
etc.)

I've used these rules to do parts of Midway (Kaga and
Akagi's airgroups versus Enterprise and Hornet's
AG's, a little over 100 aircraft for each side, with
about a third as escorts or interceptors).

I've run B-17/B-24 raids on Berlin/German industry
with about 72 bombers escorted by 24 fighters and
with 32 interceptors.

Similar actions in the Med and Russia, although smaller
numbers of aircraft (due to limitations of my collection)

Good rules !

Yea,I agree.

Blue Sky is an excellent choice.

I would suggest the Junior Generals free rules.
link
Here is an AAR of a scenario I ran with some friends.
TMP link

Lacquered Coffins Would work great for this, designed with large games and simplicity in mind.

There's also a battle report here, the game took about 2 hours with plenty of breaks and banter:

TMP link

Another vote for Blue Sky series.

Where does the name "lacquered coffins" come from? I assume it must reference something that I am unfamiliar with (or it would be a very strange title indeed).

Where does the name "lacquered coffins" come from?
I read somewhere that it was the nickname for an early Russian AC given to it by Russian pilots. I forget the make of AC but I'm pretty sure it was wooden?…

Yep, Ceterman has it right, The Soviet LaGG-3 fighter was named after the designers of the aircraft (Lavochin Gorbunov and Gudkov), but the rumors are that some soviet pilots implied it stood for "lakivovany garantirovany grob" which translates to "guaranteed, lacquered coffin". This was partially due to the perceived poor performance and the large losses suffered in this aircraft, and the fact it was made mostly from wood.

Coming up with the name for this WWII air combat game was the toughest naming challenge I have faced so far in my game design career… Eventually I settled on Lacquered Coffins because it was unique, accentuated the dread pilots felt when climbing into their single seat fighters day after day, knowing that any day it would be their tomb, and also because it has an eastern front flavor which I tend to favor for WWII games (our WWII company to battalion level land game is called 'Ostfront')

An LaGG-3 fighter:

interestingly enough, the aircraft on the cover of Lacquered coffins is not an LaGG-3, but an La-5 fighter.