OTT FYM Mission 1 - First Outing - 5th April 1917 - by Vagabond
I’d been over to see Biff in the hospital and there was hot news floating around there, Nurse Schultz filled me in on most of it, but how she found out, she wouldn’t say. Anyway as I walked into the Mess I could see Taki in his usual seat at the bar talking quietly with Montjoy but over by the wood burner was Jack Cowan, Joe Ryan and two chaps I didn’t recognise, along with the Twa Jocks. I assumed they were the poor boobs from 48 Squadron, Uncle had mentioned that they were coming over.
There was an extremely animated conversation going on, glasses were being repositioned on the table, hands were assuming weird angles, angled left, then right, then at an upward angle, before becoming a fist and then dropping to the table top. This was even more peculiar than usual and so I drifted over to see what was going on. As I got closer I heard snatches of conversation, “they’re fast”, “acrobatics get you killed”, “attack hard”, it made no sense to me but after what I’d heard in the Hospital not much would make sense, this evening at least.
I was quite relieved to see all six of them in the Mess that without thinking I said, it’s my round what would you like, and then you can tell me how it went today. From all the hand waving as well as the fact you’re all here, it must have gone reasonably well. They all grinned and cost me a day’s wages with their order but within minutes we were sat down with a drink, enjoying the warmth from the stove.
F/Sgt David Cadogan from 48 Squadron was the first to speak, “Thanks you for the drink Sir, and for letting us into the Mess, things are a little more formal in the 48th and Warrant Officers don’t drink in the Officers Mess. That’s nonsense I replied, we fight together, we die together and we should drink together and don’t call me Sir, we’re off duty and it’s a little more informal when you don’t know if we will see tomorrows sunset. I was slightly embarrassed with this speech and the fact that Jack and Joe had big smiles on their faces, realising my discomfort.
“P**s off the pair of you, how did the training go”
“Pretty well SIR” said Jack Cowan, we went over the lines on patrol, met the enemy and came home again, I think Cadogan should tell you know what he thought of it, go on Dave the floors yours.
“Ok…..well as you know we’ve only been in France for less than a month and we’re all pretty wet behind the ears, our first mission was only 2 days ago and it was pretty disastrous, we lost 4 planes out of 6 including one of our Flight Commander’s, yesterday wasn’t much better and out C.O. is no man’s fool, so he asked your CO if you could watch what we were doing and offer some advice”.
“God help you; if your CO thinks our tandem crew knows what they’re doing you’re in deep poo”, I muttered.
“No they’ve got a good reputation, especially the circling the wagons trick they pulled on the Dlll’s a few weeks ago. “That was my idea” I said, “well Plaskitt-Smythe and my idea I corrected”. “So did you do that today” I asked?
“No” he replied, “we’re under orders to follow the standing operating procedure, which call for close V formation flying to beat off enemy scouts”. “I thought these Bristol’s were supposed to be Hun beaters, fast, manoeuvrable and strong” I commented. “That’s what we were told but we’ve no experience of fighting the Hun, let alone beating him, it’s all been training practice and our training has been with Observers using their mobile gun fire to defeat the enemy, Pilots forward firing guns are a last resort. “Bugger that” said Jack Cowan who’d only recently been flying the Strutter and liked having his own gun. He liked it a lot.
“Well we crossed the lines and Cowen and I had agreed the best thing would be if I led the flight but take tactical instruction from him, if we met any enemy”. “Uhh uhh, and how was he going to give you the benefit of his vast experience” I asked. “That was simple” Cowan cut in, “Cadogan’s Oppo here”, and he nodded at the other man who hadn’t said a word apart from what he wanted to drink and ‘thanks’ when it arrived “would keep an eye out for my hand waved instructions”. “You know, like pointing left to go left, that sort of thing”. Cowan always liked to keep things simple I ruminated.
“Well when I saw the Hun there were 2 planes to our front right and one front left so I pointed left and we all went left, it was quite easy” he grinned. “So three of you went after a lone Albatros, how did that work out” I asked.
“Well it did put Cadogan’s plane, closest to the enemy” he said with a big grin, “but it follows their training programme fairly accurately by giving the gunner the upper hand so it gave his Oppo the chance to open fire on a yellow Albatros”. Cadogan’s Oppo smiled a secret smile, remembering the first bullets he’d ever fired at an enemy plane.
We continued to turn away from them and Oppo here got another shot at the yellow plane, so far it was going pretty well but there were another two Albi’s headed our way to support their mate.
“Yes, they will do that, jolly unsporting of them” I quipped. Jack ignored me and carried on.
“So I indicated right and we all turned right. This pointing and turning was working out very well” he had a big grin on his face when he said this. Jacks always enjoyed winding me up and today was no exception.
Of course eventually the rest of the Hun planes were bound to arrive and my Bristol took a few hits from the original yellow Albatros as we turned.
“But then we were amongst them, MacNab and Joe shot up the yellow Hun and his plane started to smoke and the red chap attacking us got more than he expected, I let him have it with my Vickers, and his plane started to smoke as well. Having your own gun to deal out death and destruction does feel so good; as well as not having to rely on the man in the back to save your hide”, and he grinned at Joe Ryan, his man in the back.
“You know it was Jasta 11 that beat up 48 so badly on the first day” he continued. “Yes I’d heard it was the Baron himself who shot them up”, I said “they’re not going to stand much chance against those killers until they get a bit more experience under their belt, and they’ve got to survive first to get that experience”.
“Anyway” he continued, “it was chaos as we flew through each other”.
“And there was a collision, wasn’t there Young Jock”? “It was na my falt” young Jock replied hotly, “you pointed reet, I went reet, an he flew reet into us”.
“Aye ye can’ee blame young Jock fra that” piped up MacGreggor. Jack just grinned; apparently it wasn’t just me he enjoyed winding up.
“The last Dlll to arrive narrowly missed us” Jack continued “and my man in the back appeared to miss him” he grinned gleefully at Joe Ryans discomfort. “Eye weel he didna miss us” MacGreggor said “blew damn big holes in us, and young Jock here did weel to bring our broken plane back to base. He’s a grand pilot so he is, there’s not many who cud have don better”.
“Aye weel you put some lead back his way” said young Jock, “yeer a good man to have looking after me” he concluded.
POSSIBLE TO KUNN
Cadogan looked queerly at these two, the older, hard bitten airman and the young, fresh faced pilot and wondered if he and his Oppo would ever get to be so close.
Surprisingly that’s when his Oppo spoke up, “well I have to say chaps, David placed us perfectly, he was able to put us into a good position so I could hit the red fellow a good wallop as he screamed past”. He continued “You don’t think it was the Baron do you, my, that would be something to tell papa”.
Everyone looked strangely at the Oppo but said nothing, as he continued.
“And then I was able to blow the pants off white tail” he went on.
“I think Joe and Jock had something to do with that, don’t you” said Jack.
“Yes I expect you have the nub of it” said the Oppo, “and if I’m honest, it looked to me as if it was Joe fired the fatal bullets”.
MacNab spoke up “are ye sure is was’nee MacGreggor here who fired the final shots, it would be his 5th kill and mak him an Ace in the eyes or the Brass? “Nay lad, it was Joe’s shots that did it” MacGreggor interjected, I cannee tak credit fra another mons work.
KILL to RYAN
At this point MacNab is FRTB-D and so next turn the Bristols are freed from the constraints of formation flying. I had been using the V deck for their movement in line with Dave’s thoughts on F2A’s v F2B;s and also flying slower in formation. Once they went to independent movement I left Cadagon using the V deck because he was a novice at the front but I gave Cowan the S deck on the basis that as an experienced pilot he would get the best out of the plane. In line with Gary’s thoughts I still left out the Immelmann card.
“Well things opened up for a while”, said Jack, “over in the distance I could see the Yellow Albatros turning to port but his rudder must have been so shot up so badly that he was making very heavy weather of it. Off to the west, young Jock was turning towards home and unless his plane fell apart he was going to make it. So with the white tailed Albatros down it was the red Hun who might or might not be the Red Baron, he grinned at the Oppo, taking on the two of us.
That’s when I signalled Cadogan to split left and we went right.
Jack confided to me later that he’d done this so that Cadogan could get some experience of combat on his own and there was a reasonable chance he would get a shot at the red plane, if not actually hit it. Of course that didn’t work at as I planned but alls well that ends well.
There was a lot of jinking for position and the next exchange of gunfire was between Ryan and the possible Baron.
Well we nearly collided with the red Albi said Jack, but Joe was able to get a passing shot as we flew away. Yes agreed Joe a bit sourly, but I don’t think I did much damage, although we were within inches of hitting him. Ha Ha laughed Jack it was millimetres, especially if you’re a German, and he continued to guffaw at his own joke.
I rarely use the Ace abilities, mainly because I forget, but in this case Joe has Sharpe eye which doesn’t seem too overpowering and so I let him have a second attack which as you can see did very little.
“Of course, as soon as he was past, the red plane Immeled, this could have been a problem” continued Jack because it was going to take me a long time to turn to port”.
Then his eyes lit up and he turned to Cadogan you know when you open up the Bristol she goes pretty fast, I was wondering if you got your Oppo secure in his cockpit you might be able to carry out an Immelmann turn, we do it with the FEE’s.
The Observer chappies don’t like it much because one or two of them have fallen out, but they just need to hang on tight, isn’t that right Joe. Joe swore long and hard at Jack before saying to Cadogan’s Oppo, make sure you know when the silly b*****d is going to pull that stunt and you should be ok.
“And another thing” said Joe looking directly at Cadogan, “as well as watching out for your Oppo here, you need to watch out for the rest of your flight. It’s OK to ram a Hun or two, but not so clever to ram someone on your side. They can get a little antsy about that sort of thing”.
“Yes” Cadogan responded, “I’d seen the Hun coming up in my sights and didn’t see you, sorry about that”. “We were lucky there was no damage done” Joe went on “but it was a close run thing.”
I decided that because of the collision Cadogan couldn’t take the shot but then when neither of them suffered damage I reconsidered this and rolled a dice, 1,2,3 no shot 4,5 6 a shot, he rolled 6 so blew apart the red planes rudder, which was actually quite significant.
I know Mike made some comment about angle of fire from the Bristol but I didn’t make a note of it so I went with the standard markings, on the basis that the Novice crew would be quite circumspect in their first combat and that the experienced crew would take a little time to work it out and might not be inclined to risk shooting their own plane. Pilots tend to take a dim view of that sort of behaviour.
So in this instance Cadogan’s plane is marginally out of angle and Ryan is not going to shoot through Cadogan in case he hits him, even allowing for the fact that he’s slightly miffed at Cadogan for flying into them earlier.
By this time the red Albatros has taken 2 left turn rudder hits. As I can never remember the official rule I deduct 1 turn card from the pilot’s deck for each hit and so with 2 left turns gone I decide he would run for home.
Cadogan’s Oppo gets a final shot at the Hun as he flies away but causes no damage.
“Well, that was that” Jack rounded off his account of the fight, “I don’t think there’s much else we can teach you” he said to Cadogan, “you really need to survive long enough to get some experience of combat and then you should be OK. I really don’t think it’s your plane that’s a problem, or even the tactics you adopted, if you come up against the experienced pilots of Jasta 11 you’re always going go be in trouble. My advice would be to run away until you have the experience and confidence to take the fight to them”.
“For God’s sake”, I said “don’t tell anyone he said that or we’ll all be in front of a firing squad” “However” I concluded quietly, “he’s right”.
Butchers Tally:
2/Lt Jamie ‘young Jock’ MacNab: (P2): FRTB-D / 0 Kills
Rolled 6+4 = stuck the landing.
AM2 Alec ‘Old Jock’ MacGreggor: (O): FRTB-D / 0 Kills
Stuck the landing.
2nd Lt Jack Cowan: (P2): RTB / 0 Kills
2/Lt Joseph ‘Joe’ Ryan: (O): RTB / 1 Kill (Kunn)
F/Sgt David Cadogan: (P2): RTB / 0 Kills
Oppo: (O): RTB / 0 Kills but plenty of tales to tell his Papa
Dave, it’s up to you but Cadogan and his Oppo didn’t achieve anything, so not much point in adding them to my rota as I have 3 full tandem crew. If you’d prefer to add them I’ll come up with a name for the Oppo.
Cheers
Ltn Hans Kunn: Albatros D.III (White Tail): SD-FT / 0 Kills, 1 Probable FRTB-D (MacNab)
C&W Rolled 7 -1SD = 6 - Injured – skip 1D3 scenarios, rolled 3 = skip 2
ObLtn Fritz Lieber: Albatros D.III (Red): RTB / 0 Kills
Ltn Walter Hubrich: Albatros D.III (Yellow): RTB / 0 Kills
I know I said in the game report that Lieber and Hubrich had to return to base but within the campaign rules they didn’t have to, but it would have been suicidal to remain in the fight with their rudders shot up so badly, so I made the decision for them. Dave I hope that’s OK with you.
And I saw you've just posted today so hope everything went well.
In addition there has been some slanderous if not scurrilous talk in the Mess recently about my good friend Nurse Shultz and I was going to give you the inside story which I hinted at earlier, but I've run out of steam, maybe next time.
Cheers
Sorry Gary forgot to say thanks for the mission, an enjoyable opener.
Cheers again.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Hu Rhu
but hey ho, what do I know.
Bookmarks