Dawn Patrol

In my previous game of Spandau & Lewis I tried out the Taubes for the first time. In my next game I wanted to use the Bleriot XIs. They didn't seem to hang around on the Western Front for as long as the Taube did (at least not in any numbers) so it was harder to put together a scenario that allowed a mix of machine-guns and rifles. So I didn't. I just went for an all-rifle scenario.

It's early in the war and both sides need to check out what's happening around a village on the front-line.

The Germans send a couple of Taubes, escorted by an Albatros B-type. Escorting with aircraft just equipped with a rifle-armed observer does seem to be a thing. They seem to have just acted as a deterrent. 

The French send a couple of Bleriot XIs. They are escorted by a Morane L. The latter plane is a two-seater and the rear observer is equipped with a rifle. 

I varied the firing arcs for the planes. My rules pretty much give rifles free firing except to the front (on tractor planes) and rear (pushers) but really they were just as restricted as machine-guns, so I'm less generous these days.

Taube (Front-seat observer) - 2*,4,8,10*
Albatros B (Front-seat observer) - 2*,4*,8*,10*. All arcs are restricted because of all of the stuff in the way.

Bleriot XI (Rear seat observer) - 2*,4,6*8,10*
Morane L (Rear seat observer) - 4,6*8
I reasoned that the parasol wing on the Morane would restrict firing to the front.

I didn't take detailed notes, but here's everyone closing in on the two objectives. The Bleriots failed to notice any enemy aircraft for ages, and were pretty much scouting the targets before they saw planes with black crosses on the wings. Both sides kept their scouting planes on mission (of course) and sent the cover off to harass the enemy.

The Albatros and teh Morane exchanged a shot as they passed each other in the centre, mor for form's sake than anything else. 

One of the Bleriots finally spotted the Albatros, just as it passed alongside. A single shot rang out from the German plane and the French observer slumped in his seat, mortally wounded.

For practical purposes this now left the French down one plane and, to make matters worse, they now had an unarmed aircraft that had nothing better to do but go home, but had to avoid enemy planes whilst doing so. 

Both of the Taubes spotted a target, and one closed in on the second target. The other Taube swung wide (right of the picture). The operational Bleriot spotted both targets with ease and looked at heading home. A few shots were exchanged, to no effect. 

As the operational Bleriot turned for home its observer got of a couple of shots at he Albatros. One went home, doing some minor structural damage, but nothing more. 

Bothe Bleriots were heading for home unmolested, as did one of the Taubes. The Morane went after the last Taube, but couldn't line up a shot. 

The action ended with the Albatros and the Morane meeting briefly in the middle again. They both shot at each other to no effect, then went home. 

This was another German win, with a French observer killed and three observations brought back to their lines compared to the French who only got two. Still, they could have lost their Albatros to that shot from the Bleriot. 

This was a very sedate game, and made a change from the usual frantic dog-fighting you get with WW1 games. 

The Gunbus Scourge?

Having made some new planes it was time to christen them in a game. The problem with the Bleriot XI and the Etrich Taube is that it's hard to find a point where you can get some gameable aircraft combinations on the table, since by the time anything with useful weapons appeared they'd pretty much been withdrawn from front-line service.

Still, in early 1915 the combinations for this game would have been viable. 

On a quiet sector a couple of Taubes are on a reconnaissance mission. Two Taubes, two targets. Each in unarmed, but their observer carries a rifle. They are escorted by a new Aviatik C-type, whose observer has a machine-gun. It would be better if he wasn't also in the front seat, surrounded by the wings, but you can't have everything. 

But today's patrol is about to be rudely interrupted, for the British are unleashing a new technological terror - the Vickers FB5 'Gunbus'. Here's one of them. There's another on the other side of the board. 

Also new are the acrylic markers I ordered when I got my latest batch of plane bases. They're 1cm circles, 3mm deep and I got them in ten different colours. In this game blue markers show planes that are oblivious to enemy aircraft, whilst the dark grey markers show those that have  lost speed through a manoeuvre. I've made a small tweak to those rules, by the way, which I'll add below. 

Anyway, a Gunbus stalks a Taube. The Aviatik has spotted it and is rushing to it assistance. It needn't have worried. The first burst from the Gunbus, on an unwary target, at short range, from the rear, didn't inflict a single hit. 

Lots of manoeuvre sees three aircraft slowed down. The Aviatik closed in on the attacking Gunbus, whilst the Gunbus fired another burst at the Taube. 

This burst was more effective. However despite a 50% chance it failed to inflict a critical hit. The Taube was badly damaged, though. However it managed to get a good look at one of the targets. 

The second Gunbus had joined the fight now, dropping into the rear of the other Taube.  

The first Gunbus and the Aviatik zoomed past each other at close range. The Gunbus tried a shot but with that defection it didn't stand much chance of hitting, and didn't. 

The Aviatik pulled off a tight turn and the observer got the Gunbus in his sights. A short burst saw a catastrophic structural failure on the British plane, and down it went!

The surviving Gunbus kept up the attack on the Taubes. The white Taube broke off from its reconnaissance run to try and shake off the British plane. The other Taube looked at observing the second target but instead turned for home, albeit whilst making a pass across the front of the Gunbus allowing a rifle shot that hit but did no damage. 

On the left one Taube is now safely heading home. In the centre the Aviatik had taken a shot at the surviving Gunbus with no effect. The Gunbus was trying to stay in the rear of the second Taube, and had taken a couple of shots as well, inflicting some damage. 

But in turning tightly the Gunbus lost speed, and the Taube decided to avoid further damage by heading home. In theory the Gunbus could have caught up with it, but the sensible move was really to break off at this stage. 

So a win for the Germans, with one observation returned home and one enemy plane shot down. Both Taubes were heavily damaged, but that was all the British could claim. That one lucky shot by the Aviatik crew turned the game, as the Taubes were unlikely to have done very well against both FB5s. 

And the manoeuvre change? In Spandau & Lewis you roll a D6 to see how well you can turn or sideslip. If  get a turn over 45 degrees (or a sideslip greater than 1") you have to make a power check to see if you lose speed. This is adjusted negatively for more extreme turns. The change that I added was that if your final manoeuvre  roll is 1-2 then even a 45 degree turn/1" sideslip forces a check, although it made at a +1. So there's an incentive to try and keep your manoeuvre modifiers as high as possible and a chance that even planes that can't turn more than 45 degrees (like the Taube) will suffer a loss of speed.  

For the next game I need to come up with something with which to christen the Bleriots. 

Niche Memoir '44

After his first games last week Daniel wanted to play more Memoir 44. And he fancied some off-beat scenarios. He rather liked the look of my Port Stanley 1982 scenario, so we started with that. It's not a great scenario, with limited options for the (British) defenders. But it's quick and plays well if you swap sides. Basically you get to see how each player gets to do against the overwhelming Argentinian assault.

Daniel took the Argentinians in the first game. You can see their main force bottom left and a couple of units at the very top. The British defenders are in a line across the middle. The 'rivers' represent coastline and are impassable, so most of that bottom section is sea. 

A win for Daniel. On the left he has ousted the defenders of the Research Station whilst on the right he finally took Government House after a long fight. The British still held Port Stanley, but only just. 

As the British I scored one medal to Daniel's four.

On the next game I played the Argentinians (represented by the German figures). Here they are starting their attack on Government House.

A lone unit from the main Argentinian force moved ahead of the others and quickly took the Research Station before then pushing on to ort Stanley itself. As the British Daniel went for the bold move of using one of the weak Falkland Island Defence Force units on the offensive, partially to take pressure off Government House. He almost destroyed an Argentinian unit, but it rallied (the Medics and Mechanics card) and hit back, taking out the Defence Force unit and winning the game 4-0.

For a second scenario I dug out one from the 'net - the 1935 Battle of Dembeguina Pass, part of the Italian invasion of Abyssinia. In this fight a force of Eritreans under Italian command and with tank support are blocking an Ethiopian advance on Dembeguina Pass. However they discover that the Ethiopians have also occupied the pass in their rear and that they are surrounded. It makes for a tough force, with the Italians fighting in two directions, whilst the Ethiopians are somewhat dispersed and have to try and concentrate forces to score a victory.

I took the Italians in the first game. Ignoring teh Ethiopians to my front I headed for the pass and attacked the defenders on the heights, ousting most of them. 

The Italians can call for reinforcements, which include more tanks. Despite a roadblock these bold CV35s pushed down out of the pass and attacked the main Ethiopian force, to give the Italians a win. It was a close game though - a final score of 6-5

We swapped sides. Daniel went for a defensive approach and I attacked with the main Ethiopian force in all three sectors. The fight for a mountain on my left cost me some troops, but I held off an Italian attack on by blocking force on the right. The main fight was in the centre. Daniel got overconfident and despite being able to bring up his reinforcements (which requires play of a centre-sector card) chose not to. Then, with the battle finely balanced, came the time he really needed the reinforcements, and he didn't have a card to deploy them with. I threw my Ethiopians into one final assault to pick up a 6-4 win, giving me a 12-9 victory overall. This was a really good scenario, and we both enjoyed it immensely. 

New Planes

I am expecting a delivery of French planes from Tumbling Dice at some stage, and that will keep me more than busy for a while once they arrive. But inspired by how well my scratchbuilt Farman Shorthorns turned out the other week, I had a go at some more planes the other day. I decided to put together some of the very earliest aircraft to be used by either side - for the French the Bleriot XI and for the Germans the Etrich Taube.  

And here they are, with the Farmans I made as well. I bought a new batch of acrylic bases from Back 2 Base-ix, so could finally get them all flying. 

The Farmans finally take to the skies. 

The Etrich Taube. This had a distinctive swept-wing design, and used wing-warping to shape the wing in a similar way to a bird. For all its looks it was slow and clumsy, although very stable as an observation aircraft. As the first properly armed aircraft took to the skies in the spring of 1915, they were withdrawn from active service. They were unarmed, naturally. In a game you'd give the observer a rifle. In Spandau & Lewis terms they'd be: Speed 3, Manuever E, Hits 5, Power 0 and have a rifle for the observer firing 2*,4*,8*,10* (all arcs restricted).

The Taube was Germany's first mass-produced military aircraft. The Bleriot was France's. Based on teh design Bleriot used to cross the channel, there seem to have been several variants of this type, including single-seat and two-seat military versions. I made two-seaters - the single seater would be slightly smaller, but probably not to a level where you'd care at this scale. Like the Taube they were quickly withdrawn from front-line service as they were also slow and too stable for air combat. They'd have the same stats as the Taube in Spandau & Lewis, but I'd give the rifle arcs of 4,6* and 8, since they had an observer in the rear seat. There are also suggestions that some carried a Hotchkiss machine gun, firing forward well over the propeller arc. I'd probably just count that as a pivot gun firing into the 12 arc only, and maybe limit the ammo to 4 instead of the usual 8. 

These new additions have limited application for games, but since you all know that I like a bit of early-war air action I'm sure I will have them out on the table from time to time.

Ten Years Ago - September 2016

Ten years ago I did a trip Out West to go to the Priscilla Festival in Broken Hill. It was a lot of fun and as well as the festival itself we did some tourism. As part of this I collected some photos about the infamous 1915 attack on the Broken Hill Picnic Train, which is often regarded as the first terrorist attack on modern Australia. 

So for this look back in time you get a little bit of history and a few nice frocks. 

The Picnic Train And Priscilla

Memoir '44

We had a very quiet club night last night, with only three of us turning up. We played Memoir '44. Caesar has played in the past, but Daniel was new to the game, so I just took the basic set with me reasoning that the scenarios in it are pretty simple to pick up.

Daniel spectated to pick up the game whilst Caesar and I played the first game. We did the St Mere Eglise scenario, with Caesar taking the Americans whilst I took the Germans. This is is a fun one because the Americans get to drop figures on the board to simulate a paradrop. Caesar ended up with four units in my right-flank sector, some in cover.

Fortunately I had plenty of cards for that sector, despite only having a four-card hand, and I was able to mount a strong attack. That's where I picked up most of the kills for my 4-2 win. 

Daniel then stepped up to the plate and we reran the scenario. He took the Americans as well. His paradrop was in front of my left-flank reinforcements and initially he had me trapped in a corner. But I rallied and used a Their Finest Hour card to open up the flank and get my armour into play. This then hunted down paratroopers in the centre. Daniel cam back using a Behind Enemy Lines to take out a single-figure unit I had on my baseline, to put him one medal from victory, but I used a Counter-Attack to return the favour and knock out one of his weak units for the win. 

Daniel and Caesar then played each other. They chose the Operation Luttich scenario because it had tanks on both sides as well as some artillery. Caesar took the Americans, who are in a decent defensive position. Daniel's Germans have lots of armour, including heavy tanks, but armour's not brilliant against units in towns and bocage. 

Here's the setup.

Daniel attacked on his left, away from the US artillery, and his armour was able to overwhelm the first US position, then burst into the rear of their lines. Two more units fell as the Panzer Grenadiers came up in support, and a quick move onto the objective in that part of the board saw a lightning German victory. 

Great fun as always, and Daniel wants to play again next week!

Mission De Bombardment

I have ordered the newish collection of WW1 French planes from Tumbling Dice, along with more bases to put them on, so sometime in the next ten years I will have a substantial French force to go with my British and German planes. It will also give the bases on which to mount my new Farman Shorthorns.

However I do have a few French planes, so whilst I was in the mood I gave them an outing yesterday. I ran a bombing mission set around September 1915. The French had two Farman F20s and providing cover for them was a Morane L fitted with a machine-gun and some Garros wedges. The Farmans had bombs and a front-mounted machine-gun. Each had one load of bombs. There were two targets and they could hit either of both of them. 

Originally I was going to have the Germans appear randomly according to the threat generation system I've used elsewhere, but in the end I simply randomly placed them so that they came on in the centre of the three edges that weren't the French baseline. The Germans had one Fokker monoplane, and an Albatros C with a rear machine-gun. 

The bombers failed to spot any Germans for a good while, but the Morane and Fokker saw each other and angled in on each other. 

The Fokker got the jump on the Morane and scored some damage. 

The Morane actually maneuvers OK, but is slow. Whilst it turned around - slowly - the Fokker got in on the tail of the Farmans. They had actually spotted the Germans by now, but were doggedly aiming for the target. The rear bomber took some hits, and its pilot was wounded. 

As the first bomber lined up on the target the Albatros entered the fight, ranging up alongside a Farman and firing an ineffective burst from its gun. 

The Fokker suffered a gun jam!

The observer of the lead Farman had time for one burst before having to line up his bomb run. It was a good one. The Albatros's engine started spouting thick black smoke, and down it went. 

The first Farman got its bombs on target. The second Farman was now in trouble again, as the Fokker cleared its gun jam and came in for the kill. Trying to bomb the target would be fatal at this stage, so the Farman started to turn hoping that the Morane would come up in support. There was always the other target, after all. 

The Morane finally came back into the fight as the damaged Farman had to turn away from the second target, unable to approach it due to the Fokker's unwelcome attentions. The other Farman was doing a wide turn beyond the targets and trying to bring its gun to bear on the Fokker.

Once again the Fokker dodged the Morane. The damaged Farman started for home.

The Fokker sped off in pursuit. It's faster than the Morane and a lot faster than the Farmans. 

The Farman dodged as best it could. And, in doing so, it forced the Fokker to slow, giving the other French planes a chance to catch up. At least the other Farman. Once again the Morane was making a meal of the simple process of turning around. 

However it couldn't dodge forever.

It fell apart in the air.

But the Fokker's victory was short-lived. The second Farman was in range, and a quick burst from its gun destroyed the German monoplane. 

So it was a bloody fight, with three out of five planes destroyed. The crew of the surviving Farman had two kills to their credit, including an Eindecker, whilst the pilot of the Morane had contributed little to the action. The French had got one load of bombs on target as well, so on the whole could claim a win here. 

I tried out a few rules changes, which I will do some more with going forward.

The first is a mechanism change. I'm still not sure criticals come up enough (deadly though they generally are). So instead of just rolls of 6 counting towards the critical number, any hit on the red dice will count when testing for criticals. Only rolls of 6 will count on the white dice.

The second change was to try and represent the limitations of the Garros wedges. Not in terms of the propensity for shooting off your propellor; that would just be an extra test I didn't want to deal with. But it wasn't as efficient in terms of gunnery as synchronisation or interrupter gear. Whilst there's not a lot of granularity in my firing mechanism, I thought something might be possible. So whilst it still counts as a fixed gun for firing, it can only count one roll of 5 as a it. Other dice must hit on a 6. This makes it slightly better than a pivot fun, but not as effective as proper fixed guns. This system could be applied to early improvised gun mounts and also to planes with a top-win Lewis as their main weapon, such as the Nieuport 11. 

The third change was to bombing, which I wanted to make more random. When a plane is over the target it can declare that it is dropping bombs. If you have a dedicated observer doing this and they are doing nothing else then you get 1 dice. If you have an observer and they are busy then no bombing run can be made. You get one additional dice for each of being at speed 3 or less and flying in a straight line (no turns or sideslips). Roll the dice and take the highest score. If it's a 5 then the bombs score a partial hit. If the highest roll is a 6 then it's a direct hit. Direct hits score more points if you're counting such things. Note that a plane bombing without an observer, such as a Camel with bombs, gets the one or two dice for speed and being straight and level. 

And finally, I need to look at planes, such as the Farman F20, that have a top-speed of 3. There is a maneuver modifier of -1 if a plane chooses a speed of 3 or less. Since these aircraft already have a low maneuver value, it seems odd to give them and additional penalty as well. So my thought is that they only get the -1 modifier if they move less than 3. Other planes, with a speed of 4 or more, are still penalised for going at 3 or less. I just need to work out some clear wording for it. 

I tried this scenario again later in the day, but didn't take any pictures. This time the French failed to get any bombs on target, but the Morane did better, shooting down the Albatros, whilst the Fokker fell to a Farman again. The French had planes damaged, but all got home. 

Farman Shorthorn

Somehow I convinced myself that what I really needed to add to my 1/600th WW1 air collection was a Farman MF11 Shorthorn. I have no idea why, since I already have three Farman F20s, which are similar, but there it is. So I spent far more of my weekend than was healthy designing and building a couple. 

The booms were really fiddly to do, since they are both angled, one set from the top-wing down and another from the bottom wing up. I had to glue them to the wings and then carefully bend them to meet where the tailplane would be. The first one took me over an our of frustrating trial and error.

I spent some of yesterday painting them. 

They're not on flight stands because I'm currently out of the clear acrylic bases I use. I have more on order, as well as the entire 1/600th French WW1 collection from Tumbling Dice. So expect some French-themed action at some time in the future.