Bombers In The Evening

We watched a couple of episodes of the 1976 BBC TV series 'Wings' last night, which is a drama about members of the RFC in 1915/16. So far we've just had the recruitment and training episodes, but they had a boxkite, BE2 and Avro 504 on screen, and they were all lovely. As I recall some of the later flying sequences were done with radio-controlled models where they couldn't get actual aircraft; no CGI in those days, kids. Anyway, we might watch a few more episodes and see how it goes; it's OK in a plodding BBC Sunday evening drama kind of way.

Afterwards I still found time to play a game of 'Spandau and Lewis'. This time I got ot the bombers; a trio of Friedrichshafen G.IIIs, escorted by a couple of Halberstadt CLII two-seaters.

The RFC bounced them with a couple of SE5s and a couple of Camels. The SE5s came in first, dropping out of nowhere (I kind of randomised the British start positions).

They swept past the escorts, exchanging shots as they did so, then latched onto the bombers, flying into a hail of fire from their defensive guns.

In the distance you can see the Camels moving around to intercept the bombers.

The Halberstadts had been caught flat-footed, and spent a couple of turns trying to turn back into the fight, whilst the bombers tried to fend off the British attack. The Camels  were ahead of them, but one took damage from the Friedrichshafen gunners.

The SE5s concentrated their fire on the lead bomber.

Their shooting scored hits, but wasn't outstanding. And soon the SE5s were low on ammunition. They broke off ro allow the Camels a go, turning to use their remaining ammo in keeping the Halberstadts at bay.

The lead SE5 inflicted some serious damage on one of the escorts.

Meanwhile the Camels kept up the attack. Two of the bombers were seriously damaged

But the Halberstadts were keeping up some steady defensive fire, whilst the SE5s had trouble keeping them away, and both Camels had soon taken more damage.

The rear-gunner of one of the bombers finished off the lead Camel. The other Camel flew through a storm of fire to escape, with just one hit left.

Two bombers were very seriously damaged now, though, and one more concerted attack might finish them off. The SE5s had a little ammo left and dived in for one last attack. A bomber fell from the sky.

Another was hit, but not badly.

The lead bomber was on its last hits, and an SE5 closed in with its remaining rounds, but couldn't finish it off. With the escorts coming up in support, and the SE5s out of ammunition, the British broke off the attack.

I used a 'rolling road' board for this game. When a plane exited off the target edge I moved everything back half a board, and did this twice to essentially double the length of the table. If anything was displaced off the back I counted them as having left the table and diced for their return on subsequent moves.

The changes to how observer guns fire worked quite well, with fire from the bombers less deadly than it's been in the past. A plane can risk a pass, but if they hang around too many bombers for any length of time then small accumulated hits will be a problem. The bombers are a pretty static target though. If a plane can get on their tail, it's hard to shake it off, so using the escorts effectively is essential (or bringing in support fire from other bombers). I assumed that the bombers were on a deadline, though, so they didn't manoeuvre that much; some of my issues may simply be scenario design ones.