Debut Of The Giant

I finally got my Zeppelin-Staaken RVI on the table the other day, as it flew along the table towards London under attack by various British planes. I used the same setup as with the Gotha scenario from the other day, but with a different mix of planes to reflect the later period. 

This time the selection was:

1 - Sopwith Camel
2 - Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter
3 - FE2d
4 - BE12
5 - Armstrong-Whitworth FK8
6 - Sopwith Triplane

I got five attacking aircraft.

Here's the bomber.

First to appear was a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter in the bomber's rear.

A Triplane appeared soon afterwards. (Yes, they are new. I painted them during the week).

The Triplane turned quickly into the attack, only for its guns to irreparably jam. It turned out of the fight having done nothing.

But a second Triplane appeared, diving in from the bomber's front. A lucky shot from the Giant's front-gunner damaged the Sopwith's engine.

But a quick turn saw the Triplane drop into the bomber's rear. The 1 1/2 Strutter was also closing in, nicely positioned on the Zeppelin-Staaken's tail. 

A fourth aircraft had also appeared - an Armstrong-Whitworth FK8 - but it was a long way behind the bomber and flying the wrong way when it did so, and had spent several turns laboriously turning towards the fight. The fifth plane to appear was another two-seater - an FE2d.

This also took a lucky engine hit from the bomber's front-gunner. The two gunners to the bomber's rear had kept up a steady fire on the two Sopwiths, and had inflicted a few hits. But the British machines were accumulating a steady stream of damage on the German plane as well.

The bomber was nearly at the end of its run now, and only a lucky shot would bring it down.

They didn't get it.The bomber escaped.

In fact the bomber was almost out of ammunition for its guns (I still restrict each gun position to eight shots), and had taken nearly 75% damage. So the British planes didn't do too badly and, had the first Triplane been able to maintain its attack, they may have brought down the Giant between them.

I did try another variant of the scenario a couple of days later (undocumented) where I used one board (instead of two rolling boards) and the bomber had targets to hit for VPs. Within a certain distance of the targets it would come under AA fire (as would any British plane that was in the zone, although at a reduced strength). In that game the bomber managed to bomb two targets, but couldn't turn to hit each one again with its remaining bombs in order to score more points. Three British planes attacked, but the fortunate roll of a Sopwith Camel was offset by its pilot being killed by the first shot the bomber made at it. The other two planes - an FK8 and a Triplane - kept up a steady attack on the bomber and the AA fire did some damage as well, but the bomber was able to escape. The FK8 was shot down, simply through accumulated damage (mostly from the bomber, but its own AA accounted for a couple of hits), whilst the Triplane simply ran out of ammunition. The actual bomb-runs were poor though (I rolled a D6 for their effectiveness), so the mission was something of a draw. I have started looking at a more defined VP system for this mission.

Another change I have been looking at (and trying out) is to divide the two side arcs into a front and rear section, thus giving me six firing arcs. Front and rear are still 45 degrees but each side arc is now only 22.5 degrees. I have had to fudge various rules to restrict side-arc firing and this change removes those fudges, actually making the rules simpler since it's easier to define arcs of fire. It will need me to update my plane stats, but I already have to do that for the increased hits anyway.