1918 Bombing Mission

We played the game of Spandau & Lewis that was postponed from last week yesterday. This saw the debut of my new late-war French aircraft in the form of a bombing mission by three Salmson 2 two-seaters, escorted by a pair of Caudron R11s. They were being attacked by a trio of Albatros DVs and a single Fokker Dr1. 

Stuart and Jack took the French, whilst I ran the Germans. 

Here's the French approaching the target, and the Germans stalking them. 

The Germans attack. How great a start they made is shown by the red marker, which was a reminder that the plane had temporarily jammed its guns. 

The French zoomed past the DVs and headed for the target. I had foolishly sent the Triplane off on its own and as the French approached I saw just how silly a thing that was to have done. There's a lot of guns pointing in my direction there. 

The Salmsons organised themselves for their bombing run, whilst Stuart sent the Caudron escorts forward, one of them engaging the Triplane. 

Lots of pointing as things got a bit tight. As the French went in over the target the Albatri swooped in. And did very little damage. That said, one French plane failed to cross the target at all and another saw all of its bombs miss. 

The third Salmson did manage to get its bombs on target though. It was the one with a novice crew as well. It also got shot up by an Albatros. 

One of the Albatros fighters took an engine hit that slowed it down. 

And Jack used a Salmson aggressively to hunt down and finish off the Fokker Dr1 and its ace pilot. The Dr1 had been chasing the damaged Salmson and completely failed to shoot it down. 

As the bombers spread out a little after the target I managed to organise some attacks. Two of my fighters made heavy weather of attacking the one that hadn't dropped its bombs yet. 

But a shot killed the pilot and down it went. 

Sadly at the same time my damaged Albatros was shot down. 

Everybody looked at heading for home at this stage, but one of my fighters hung around just long enough to get shot down by a Caudron, just so Stuart could have a kill. 

So the Germans lost three out of four of their attacking planes and teh French got one load of bombs on target. The Germans shot down one French plane. It was a decisive French win.

Jack and Stuart kept a tight formation so they had loads of firepower pointing in all directions. I then attacked it piecemeal and paid the price.