- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
We played two games last night for “Sunday Night FITS”, including the historical mission from Aerodrome #166, “The Bristols Arrive”.
In “The Bristols Arrive”, Jim B, Andy P, Kevan S and John B had the Bristol F.2A’s. They faced three Albs flown by Graham, Carl F and Jeff Mc. There were a couple of “bids” to be the German flight leader, but Graham was the only one willing to bring up an ace, so he got the red Albatros (his pilot was 19M, 5K). The Bristols rolled quickstart first, getting a “5”. Graham knew the pressure was one … so he announced that he was pretending his quickstart roll was a “to hit” roll, and promptly rolled a “6”. With the special +1 for the Germans from the mission setup, the Albs started 700′ above the Bristols.
Turn 1 set the stage for the entire mission. Jeff moved first, keeping his altitude advantage, with all four Bristols moving next. The Bristols dove enough to make sure there were no side or bottom shots (yeah, yeah, we could have overdived — they said the same thing) and they all formed up. Carl and Graham dove close, but didn’t line up shots.
Jeff moved first again on turn 2. Kevin and Jim were next, and again they dove a lot. Graham and Carl dove a bit, giving the last two Bristols close range shots, which they took. Both Andy and John attacked Carl, hitting him 8 times in total, and spreading out the damage. On turn 3 Carl beat both wingmen for numbers, but both of the Bristols stuck to him. They hit him 12 more times, and now he was up to 8 right wing hits (out of 11).
On turn 4 Carl lost both his tailers with a dive (ironically), and Andy dove back to form up with Kevan. But Jeff got a shot on Jim, hitting 6 times, finally giving them both mission credit. Jim reversed Jeff’s tail on turn 5, and could have lined up a 200′ shot. But with Graham and Carl moving later, Jim dove again, back to the safety of his wingmen at a much lower altitude. In the history of aerial combat never have so many tried so hard to avoid an altitude advantage!! Turn 5 did see Graham finally get a shot — a 500′ bottom shot on John, which he missed. That meant just Kevan without mission credit.
Things got interesting on turn 6 — meaning something finally happened! Jim dove much farther away (of course), and then Carl and Jeff formed up, facing opposite directions in the same square, with Jeff 50′ higher. Andy came in for the angle tail shot on Carl, looking for the kill. He hit, putting the 9th hit in Carl’s right wing, and cutting his dive by 150′ with a critical hit. John got a long range top shot on Jeff. Kevan flew as close as he could get, looking for credit and tempting Graham, who obliged with a 50′ bottom shot. Graham hit 7 times, smoked Kevan’s engine, and wounded his pilot (light)! At the end of the turn, Carl shut down his engine to glide. Graham also jammed one of his guns on a long burst.
On turn 7, Kevan, Andy and John triple teamed Jeff, each putting 4 hits into his crate. Nothing too bad, though, and Jeff pulled through. (Carl was gliding, Jim was trying to claw his way back to the fight, and Graham had moved early, trying to clear his jam.)
Turn 8 saw some more excitement — Kevan failed the consciousness roll. He overdove 200′, broke apart, and both crewman died in the crash. Graham landed 1 hit on Andy, and Jeff took an aileron hinge hit to go with his 7th right wing hit. Jeff shook his tailers on turn 9, and put a bit of distance between him and the Bristols. Graham tailed Andy, but couldn’t keep up with the Bristol, so settled for a 250′ bottom shot. He hit 4 times and put a critical into Andy’s aileron. Jim B, finally back in the game, got a 100′ shot on Graham … and missed!
The game wrapped up on turn 10. Carl turned his engine back on and escaped, over a chorus of threats from the Bristol pilots. I’m not sure gliding will be very safe for Carl in the future. Graham and Jeff both beat all the Bristols on numbers, and made good their escapes. All of the remaining aircraft landed safely at home base. So while the Bristols swept the skies, they did suffer the only casualties, with both of Kevan’s crewmen killed.
Final scores were: Graham (+69), Andy (+41), John (+35), Jim (+7), Jeff (+6), Carl (+4), Kevan (-34). No a high scoring affair, for sure. No one was scoring for the Ace of Aces competition, though.
We started game two a bit after 10pm eastern time. I should have gone to bed instead!! It was a September 1918 battle, with two French SPAD XIIIs (Graham and Carl) fighting three German LVG’s (Jeff, John and Ken S, who joined us for game 2) on a ground attack mission, low over the front. The LVG’s surprised the SPADs on turn 1, rolling a 6 for QS versus Graham’s 1. John lined up a tail shot and tailed Graham, with Jeff and Ken attacking Carl (and Jeff tailing). They dished out a bit of punishment, but nothing too serious. Things changed on turn 2. Ken moved first. Graham, shaking John’s tail with a falling leaf, lined up a 400′ bottom shot on Ken. Then Carl circled, reversing Jeff, who dove down for a 150′ top shot on Graham. Both of Jeff’s crewmen hit, and his pilot put a bullet into Graham’s pilot, giving him a critical wound. Graham promptly fell unconscious, which isn’t a good thing to do at 1,600′ in a SPAD XIII. He rolled an overdive, plowed into the earth, and died. Graham’s triple SPAD ace, Michel Laval (39/17) had fallen under the guns of an LVG!!! Congrats, Jeff.
Carl stayed and fought on for one more turn, jamming his gun in the process. He then made good his escape, while the German pilots returned safely to base.
Next scheduled game is tonight, September 1st.
Graham
Ironically my LVG pilot jammed his gun firing a long burst at Graham ace. I wasn’t able to unjam it after that.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.