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aircraft combinations on the table, since by the time anything with useful weapons appeared they'd pretty much been withdrawn from front-line service.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.