Played another game tonight with an artillery spotting objective. It was a success!
We played on two Wings of Glory play mats (city and countryside) aligned long edge to long edge... effectively, a nearly square playing surface.
This time it was a Breguet flying the mission with two Camels and an SE5a for escort, versus three Fokker Dr.1 interceptors.
In the interest of giving the Breguet time to direct at least a few salvos (so as to test the proposed rules a bit), and to simulate the Allied aircraft pushing deep into enemy airspace to suppress interceptors, we started the Breguet in the one corner of the mat within spotting range of the barrage target. The Camel & SE5a escorts were place in the middle of the play area, and the Fokker interceptors at the far opposite corner, diagonal from the Breguet.
At the end of the first turn, the Breguet (which started the game within spotting range of the target) drew an A deck card to represent the first barrage salvo. A 3 was drawn; good but some corrections would be needed (we were using the value 10 to represent a successful zeroing in of the artillery on the target).
Second turn, the escorts tied up the Fokkers in a dogfight, leaving the Breguet unmolested. At the end of the turn, having carefully observed the impact of second salvo, the Breguet drew another 3. Making progress, a few more like that and the guns will be on target and the job done.
At the end of the second turn, one of the Fokkers had flown clear of the dogfight and was angling to engage the Breguet, though it was still a good ways off and well out of gun range.
At the end of the third turn, the Breguet had turned back toward target, and though the Fokker was closing fast it was still out of gun range. So the Breguet drew another A deck card. KA-BOOM! Thanks to good training and coordination, the Breguet had gotten the artillery on-target in only three tries - what good luck!
The Breguet's observer transmits "OK!" via Morse code on his one-way wireless set, and the artillery proceed to pound the target with hundreds of shells.
Meanwhile, the Camels flamed two of the Dr.1s and both fall shortly thereafter. The remaining Dr.1, seeing the tide turned against him, made for the safety of home and narrowly escaped being caught by the SE5a on the edge of the map.
All in all, a very good time! The artillery rules were simple to use and fun. We'll definitely play them again. I'll write something up as soon as I get a chance
Oh, and here's a fun video from Rise of Flight showing how artillery spotting works in that game. Pretty cool!
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