Re-imagining air combat

At the moment, air to air engagements for A&S are fairly predictable and ordered in their conception (but frantic missile fests once the enemy is in range). In short, Short range IR missiles will do 5 damage, meaning you need 3 to kill a target. Longer range tend to be 6HE, with some around 7 or 8 and even an couple of 9's; the end result is - no single missile hit will kill a target, but, typically 2 hits are always a kill, except if its two IR missiles.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

There's enough explosive in the Aim-9 to turn any aircraft inside out :

Then again, planes have made it home following hits from missiles like the sidewinder

And there are plenty of missiles with considerably larger warheads than the Aim-9

But even the 'telephone pole' sized S-125 and BUK missiles, which proximity detonate, rather than impact detonate, aren't guaranteed a kill when they go off. Shot placement matters a lot.

So, what else could be done?

At the moment, Critical effects are rare (5-10% chance) in Wargame, but since the missile accuracy values tend to be kept only for missiles (important, since crit chance is bound to the weapon accuracy setting) Crit chances could be increased considerably; to, say 50% chance for 50% acc missiles, 75% chance for 75% acc missiles, and so on.

Then, the critical effect table can be edited to include more 'add damage' results with 2 in 10 chances of +4 damage. 2 in 10 chances of +6 damage and 2 in 10 chances of +10 damage

Then, Base missile damage can be set down to 2 or 3 damage.

So what is the result? Higher accuracy missiles have a much better chance of landing a crit, and all missiles have a chance at a one-shot kill. Missile saturation will still do a little damage, and probably quickly stun a jet and cause it to flee for the hills. At most, planes will be able to take 5 or 6 'too close for comfort' hits before dropping out of the sky. It'd be different, but is it what we want?