Pilot officer Michael Fox sat on a wooden lawnchair, reading a newspaper. It was a beautiful day at the RFC’s seaside aerodrome in Dunkirque. The weather was balmy – sunny, but not too hot nor too humid. Fox grinned, letting the slight breeze play with his blonde hair. You just couldn’t ask for a better day at the beach. He reached over for his glass of iced tea, took a swallow, shook the paper to straighten it, and continued reading.
A week earlier, he had been slogging it out with the rest of his squad on the front lines near Verdun and St Mihiel. Previously, men from his group were unable to be spared as High Command needed every pilot they could get their hands on to keep the Huns and their Fokkers at bay. But now, the Yanks had arrived and with them, several squadrons of aeroplanes. This took the load off of the experienced, but war-weary RFC and French Armée de l’Air. As a direct result of that, Michael had been granted a 3 weeks’ reassignment to a RFC aerodrome based at Dunkirque that saw little to no action. It was really just a vacation leave disguised as a temporary reassignment.
Right now, the lawn chair, newspaper and iced tea notwithstanding, Michael Fox was on duty. It was the practice of this aerodrome to always have one pilot on the airstrip on call, ready to go up if anything happened. Action here was sparse, but when it came, you needed to be ready for it, or before you knew it, your enemy would have struck and gone home already. So it was that Fox found himself happily “on duty” that afternoon, with nothing more disturbing than the latest cricket scores to worry about.
“Look out! Look out!” Fox looked up from the paper to see a very agitated soldier running towards him as fast as he could go. The man ran up to Fox, his binoculars swinging around his neck wildly.
“They’re here!” The man gulped and caught his breath. “Huns! There’s one out there as I just saw!”
“Really?” Michael leaned forward and motioned for the binoculars. “Mind if I have a peep?”
Still wheezing from his run, the soldier handed them over and pointed west. Michael took the binoculars and scanned the horizon, twisting the dial to focus the lenses. Sure enough, a plane was slowly motoring its way towards them. He had seen plenty of British and French-built machines, and this didn’t look like any of them. Must be an honest-to-goodness Hun then! Fox turned to the soldier, but he had already run off again to warn the rest of the base. Fox scampered over to his Triplane parked fifteen feet away and caught the arm of a mechanic near it.
“Hullo there old man, do you know how to swing a prop?”
“Yes sor,” the greasy mechanic replied. “You just ‘op in an’ oi’ll ‘ave you running in a jiffy.”
“Splendid!” Fox clambered into the cockpit and the mechanic half-swung the prop. Fox thumbed the ignition switches and yelled “Contact!” The mechanic gave the prop a full swing and the engine sputtered to life.
Mission briefing
Central units involved:
1 Brandenburg W.12 (pilot Gregor Finke, gunner Josch Blohmhausen)
Allied units involved:
1 Sopwith Triplane (pilot Michael Fox)
2 AA emplacements
It’s been quite some time since our last campaign mission. Since my last AAR, I have started college and work at my job has picked up, so my schedule has been full lately. But since today was a Saturday and since it was raining outside, we got out our minis and did the next mission of our campaign.
The mission started with the Brandenburg entering play from the left side with the open sea at its back. The Triplane started the game on the ground at a seaside aerodrome with two AA guns for cover.
Pilot officer Fox runs to his waiting crate as the air raid siren starts to sound. Faintly outlined on the horizon, the Brandenburg creeps closer.
As Fox climbs madly for altitude, the Brandenburg turns and bears down on the southeastern AA. Flak billows and pops around the bandit but does little to no damage.
In passing, the tail gunner lays some damage on the gun. But by now, Michael Fox is almost close enough to fire off a few rounds. All he needs to do is climb a little higher…
For several turns, rear gunner Josch Blohmhausen relentlessly hammers Fox’s fragile triplane as he climbs to gain enough altitude.
By the time Fox is at equal altitude with the Brandenburg, it is already coming in on a high-altitude strafing run on the northeastern AA gun. A grim firefight between the rear gunner and Fox ensues.
Suddenly and decisively, both the rear gun and Fox’s guns jam from overheating. Still, the front guns of the Brandenburg remain operational.
Brandenburg pilot Gregor Finke uses this to his advantage to make for another strafing run on the southeastern AA. He also fools pilot officer Fox, who was expecting him to turn around and engage the northeastern AA. Gregor makes a strafing run on the gun and nearly destroys it, giving it 4 points of damage total. Just another pass, and I shall have it!
In his excitement to finish off the AA, Gregor makes a terrible mistake and flies in front of the AA’s arc of fire. Once inside the AA’s line of fire, he cannot maneuver out of it again for some time. For 4 consecutive turns, the AA fires at him, damaging him a little more each shot. It all ends as soon as pilot officer Fox reacquires his target and lacerates it with holes. The engine shudders, catches fire in a spectacular burst of light and the Brandenburg lawn-darts into the ground, trailing thick smoke behind it.
Debriefing:
Gregor Finke is shot down by Sopwith triplane piloted by Michael Fox; KIA.
Josch Blohmhausen; KIA.
Michael Fox shoots down Brandenburg W.12 piloted by Gregor Finke; 1 kill confirmation requested; RTB.
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