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. 

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. 

1915 And All That

Inspired by his recent visit to the Hendon collection, Daniel asked if I could run a game of Spandau & Lewis last night. Originally I was going to run some balloon busting, since that suits two people rather well. But with two other people signing up I needed a larger game. Since Daniel had been rather taken with the Vickers FB5 at Hendon I decided to rerun my 1915 scenario.

This is a fairly standard game with both sides having two scouts and two reconnaissance aircraft looking to observe objectives on the enemy side of the table. The fun comes in the choice of aircraft. In 1915 both sides were looking at how to arm their aircraft, so the game mixes up a number of solutions.

In terms of  'scouts' the British had a Vickers FB5 'Gunbus' (famously the first aircraft to be built specifically to shoot down other aircraft). This is a two-seater pusher with a flexible Lewis gun firing to the front. Their other combat plane was a Bristol Scout armed with a front-firing Lewis gun on an improvised mount that would attract a firing penalty. Their observing aircraft were a pair of BE2c two-seaters. One was unarmed aside from a rifle, whilst the other had a Lewis gun firing to the rear. 

The German scouts were an Albatros C two-seater equipped with a machine-gun covering the rear arcs, plus the height of 1915 technology, a Fokker EII equipped with a synchronised front-firing machine-gun. Both of their observation aircraft were Albatros B types, unarmed aside from a rifle for the observer.

Daniel and Geoff took the British whilst Stewart and I took the Germans. We took one 'fighting aircraft' and one two-seater each. 

I went down one side, running the Albatros C. I was initially up against Geoff with the Bristol Scout and the machine-gun armed BE2. We spotted each other fairly quickly. I sent the Albatros B towards one of the objectives as fast as possible and sent the Albatros C to intercept the Bristol. 

(The Albatros C was played by a Roland CII, to keep it distinct from the Albatros B's)

Stewart also sent his B type towards the objective. Both of his planes spotted the approaching British, but were not spotted in return. This gave the Fokker a chance to pounce on the British. 

This he did. He bounced the Gunbus, and inflicted a hit on it. He then turned and shot at Daniel's BE2, inflicting another hit. The Gunbus turned to engage the EII and managed a hit. 

Meanwhile I managed to get my Albatros C into a position to shoot at the Bristol Scout - a tricky job when you only have a rear-firing gun. I didn't score any damage. 

Our side of the table broke up a little. Geoff sent his BE2 towards an objective, trusting that I wouldn't be able to make an effective pursuit with my two-seater. The Scout sped off towards the British side of the lines to engage the German two-seaters who were currently unopposed. 

A broad view after the initial encounters. To the bottom-left The Fokker EII is chasing Daniel's BE2. Despite tailing hm for a few turns Stewart rolled terribly when firing and inflicted virtually no damage. In the centre the Gunbus and the Scout are hunting Germans, but haven't closed up on anything. My Albatros C is to the right, also looking for a target. And at the top of the picture the Albatros B's are both doing their job - observing objectives. 

The luckiest BE2 in the world. 

To add insult to Stewart's injury, the observer on the BE2 managed to get a rifle shot on target and score some real damage to the EII! Both planes were now half-damaged, but really that BE2 should have been wrecked on the ground. 

On the plus side the fight did make it hard for Daniel to turn onto and observe the target.

I's observed one target and was moving up on the second. Stewart had had some issues lining up a good run, but was also now in place. However the Bristol Scout was closing in. My observer popped away at it with his rifle, a couple of shots coming close. The Scout failed to do much in return.

Another set of observations for the Germans. My Albatros B crew had nerves of steel and did their observations with the Scout right on their tail. But again the dice gods failed Geoff and he was unable to convert his advantage to damage. 

With the game over halfway through both sides were looking at whether to turn for home, or hang around for more observations or possible kills. The Fokker EII was briefly out of the fight, but returning. Daniel had abandoned his mission, but Geoff's BE2 had managed to observe both targets. Geoff decided to return home with the Scout. The Gunbus hung around briefly trying to intercept Albatros Bs as they headed home. In fact Stewart sent his Albatros B after the second objective. 

The Fokker returned and briefly chased Daniel's BE2 again, but the British plane ducked into some cloud and escaped. 

With that everyone headed for home. However Stewart's Albatros B had lingered fractionally too long over the targets, and failed to make it off the board by a single inch when the 20 turn limit was reached. So whilst not counting as lost he counted as having failed to return the observations to base. 

VPs were 3VP for each returned observation, 3VP for shooting down an enemy aircraft, 1VP for each half-damaged enemy and 1VP for each enemy still over the board when the time-limit was reached. Both the British and Germans got two observations home, for 6VP. The British had two planes badly damaged (both of Daniel's) so that was another 2VP for the Germans. But the Fokker EII was also badly damaged (thanks to that lucky rifle-shot) and Stewart's Albatros B hadn't got home in time, thus conceding another VP. So that was 2VP for the British as well.

So both sides ended up with 8VP - a draw. And despite our best efforts, and a great expenditure of ammunition, no plane was shot down. 

It should be noted that the last time we played this the Germans won a decisive victory, with the Fokker shooting down both BE2s and the Albatros Bs getting three observations home. So I think both sides were just very unlucky in this game not to score some fatal damage. 

Get Yer Gothas Out!

After my Handley-Page bomber game from last week I had a request to get the Gothas out again. I'm always happy to het my big bombers out for an appreciative audience, so yesterday I ran the same scenario but with two Gothas bombing London (probably).

I used randomised defending aircraft as outlined HERE. The RFC would get three planes. 

I'm still tweaking VPs for this scenario. In addition I added a -2 spotting modifier because it's night. However when resolving anti-aircraft fire, if any dice score a 5 or 6 then the target plane is considered to be illuminated and the -2 modifier does not apply. 

There was something else I tried out as well, but I'll come to that later. 

Here's the Gothas heading across the darkened south of England, heading for London. 

The first RFC defender came into view - a Sopwith Pup. The two side spotted each other fairly quickly, but the Pup seemed to be a bit reluctant to close with the bombers. Poor manouvre rolls meant that it took ages to turn into the action. 

The bombers approached the first target, but one took a near direct hit from anti-aircraft fire and was very badly damaged. It kept on though. 

A second British plane was in play now though - an Armstrong-Whitworth FK8. It slowly got onto the tail of the bombers. 

The bombers attacked the first target as the first serious exchanges of fire took place. Both sides took light damage. 

One bomber got its bombs on target. I was playing around with VPs for hitting the target but also 1VP per target for the first time a bomber attempted a bombing run on it. This would encourage attacking both targets in order to to accumulate points. 

The bombers are quite close together and I think I may need to make some slightly larger circular target zones rather than these square ones. 

The bombers turned towards the second target as a Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter joined the fight. 

The British defence seemed reluctant to close throughout the game. The Sopwith made the first truly aggressive attack, damaging the already damaged bomber. However return fire from the Gotha's rear-gunner killed the observer on the Sopwith two-seater. 

Both bombers missed the second target. But they got a point for trying. All of the British planes were now closing in though. Unfortunately this was the moment the Pup's guns jammed. The pilot couldn't fix the problem, so turned for home.

I wanted to try out a method of preventing the defenders harrying the attackers all the way to their home edge, as it's not an interesting phase of the game. I assumed that once teh bombers were heading home they'd be left to other interception units and that the on-table defenders would be more concerned with other bombers not depicted. 

What I did was allow the bombers to declare that their mission was over. From that point on they couldn't voluntarily move or remain within 6" of the targets, and couldn't drop bombs. They'd just head home. At the start of each turn each British plane would roll a D6. On a 5-6 it would be removed, having flown off elsewhere. 

Anyway, the Pup just headed home on its own initiative with a jammed gun. And the Sopwith two-seater went off in search of other prey. Only the FK8 chose to harass teh bombers on their run home. And now it was pressing them closely. 

The damaged Gotha couldn't take the sustained fire and fell apart. 

The FK8 closed in on the other bomber and its guns raked the fuselage. The front and rear gunners on te Gotha were both mortally wounded, but their last return bursts finished off the already damaged FK8 (it had taken a few flak hits).

The Gotha headed home with just a pilot. 

I gave 1VP for the first bombing attack on a target, plus 1VP for each bomb load that lands on target, up to a maximum of 2VP. So you can score a maximum of 3VP per target. In addition the Germans got 1VP for each British plane shot down (encouraging the defenders to possibly head for home when damaged). Meanwhile I gave the British 3VP for shooting down a bomber.  So in this scenario the Germans got 2VP for bombing attempts and 1VP for bombs on target. They also got 1VP for the FK8, for a total of 4VP. The British got 3VP for the downed bomber. So a marginal German win. 

The British breakoff didn't quite work for me, so I'm going to try something else.