MiGs vs Meteors

Whilst there are plenty of scenarios available for Instant Thunder, I was poking around the 'net the other day, and came across various PDFs of scenarios written for older SPI air games such as Foxbat & Phantom and Air War. One of them caught my eye because it featured Australians, so I bodged a quick Instant Thunder version of it yesterday and gave it a go.

Set in 1951 it features a small group of RAAF Meteors fighting superior numbers of MiG 15s, which were nominally North Korean but may have actually been Russian. It's very unbalanced, but the victory conditions make it interesting - the RAAF wins if they can finish the game with at least one plane still flying and have also inflicted as many kills as they have lost planes. For the North Koreans to win they must either shoot down one Meteor whilst losing no aircraft themselves or shoot down all four Meteors.

The RAAF have four Meteors. The North Koreans have eight MiG 15s. All pilots are average. There are three clouds. On the first turn all aircraft can deploy in two-aircraft formations. After that they deploy individually. The game lasts eight turns. Aircraft leaving the board do so temporarily only.

First turn deployments saw the Meteors fairly safe from attack aside from a couple of MiGs on the row above them.

And they got lucky - one Meteor managed to climb to that row and get a shot at a Mig. And destroyed it!

So now the game was on. The RAAF could win by avoiding no more than one casualty, whilst the North Koreans had to shoot down all four Meteors for a win.

On the next turn the MiG at the top right got a clear shot at the Meteor on the left end of the row below. And downed it. Both sides had now lost a plane each.

(Note the MiG and Meteor sharing a square - neither than shoot at the other or be shot at, and there's no collision, so flying close like this is a good strategy for the Meters when trying to avoid being shot down)

I think this is the third turn, but I forgot to advance the marker until it was finished. There was lots of flying around, but no hits were scored. A few time in the game the Meteors actually lined up shots and scored hits, but then got no damage.

And so it went - Meteors dodging and MiGs trying to score kills ...

Actually the Meteors didn't dodge much. Their flight numbers, which affect jinking, are quite low, so I started playing the odds. If a plane jinks it can't attack, so if a Mig had the initiative on a shot I was sometimes better off taking the risk of not dodging so I could maybe get a return shot.

That worked OK until the fifth turn, when another Meteor went down. The North Koreans kept drawing Aces for damage, and I was using the optional Critical Hit rules which reward Aces. Needless to say the RAAF kept drawing low cards that weren't Aces.

Turn six saw the surviving Meteors mobbed by the MiGs (those that had ammo left, since the MiG's cannons only get three shots). Another Meteor was lost.

Two turns left and only one Meteor was flying. A win for the RAAF was unlikely; it would have to shoot down two MiGs for that. But they could play for a draw by surviving the next two turns. And that was helped when deployment saw the Meteor placed in a cloud. Aircraft in clouds can't be targetted, so there was no point continuing with the rest of the turn; the Meteor would be safe regardless of the North Koreans' actions.

Last turn. MiGs facing down have no ammo, so can be discounted. They were just targets. A couple had a chance of catching the Meteor though.

One lined up a disadvantaged shot, but the Meteor got a good draw on its movement and was able to flee to the safety of some cloud-cover.

So the action ended in a draw. the North Koreans shot down three Meteors (two by scoring critical hits), whilst the RAAF accounted for one MiG shot down and one damaged. They actually scored several hits, but couldn't convert them to real damage, so were a little unlucky there.

Low performance planes such as the Meteors are quite frustrating to use - they have about a 25% chance of being able to act each turn - but it made for an interesting game. One scenario in the rules (Israeli Meteors vs Egyptian Vampires) actually has a solution for this when using small numbers of aircraft, where the scale of the game is effectively halved, but it wasn't viable for this game as the adjustments would make the MiGs into super-weapons. However this was a time when the role of Meteors as real fighter-aircraft was on its way out, and the scenario helps you see why; even with even numbers they'd seriously struggle*.

*Although they carry a lot of ammo for their cannons - over twice that carried by the MiGs. I'm not sure if there's a misprint - either too much ammo or that their 'cannon' are actually MGs in game-terms.