Bela Macourek AAR5 - 6 September 1918

[Spoonfrog]

I finally got round to playing the final Bela Macourek scenario:

Macourek's fifth and final victory was over another British D.H.4 that was bombing Cattaro on the morning of 6th September 1918. To make the game different to the previous two encounters with D.H.4s I used the following setup:

Four British bombers (all B/B firing) headed towards a series of targets representing the harbour at Cattaro. Once they had reached the targets they turned and headed back home. Macourek, in his Aviatik D.I, started over Cattaro. The D.H.4s were controlled by chatGPT generated automatic movement, with some correction by me when it did silly things.



As the D.H.4s approached, Macourek picked his target and went straight for it. The British bomber veered to the left but it could not avoid the Austro-Hungarian fighter. A stream of bullets hit it and it suddenly exploded. An easy victory!



I opted to continue playing to see if I could down another bomber. As there surviving D.H.4s turned towards the target Macourek got in a shot at one of them, but his gun jammed.



As the Aviatik passed by, the British gunners from two of the D.H.4s opened fire and we rewarded by the sight of flames erupting from the enemy fighter.



After clearing the jammed gun and waiting for the flames to die down, Macourek turned back towards the bombers, which were now heading back home. He scored a hit.



Unfortunately staying out of the way of the overlapping arcs of fire was too difficult and I but the dust!



Macourek survived the war and returned to his native Hungary, where he briefly flew for the air force of the Hungarian Soviet Republic before he disappeared into obscurity. As an Austro-Hungarian ace he was unusual in scoring most of his victories over British aircraft away from the main fronts. Playing through his combats was an interesting exercise - the challenge was to add variety when the aircraft were the same. Here are links to the other AARs:

AAR1 - Hansa Brandenburg C vs SPAD VII
AAR2 - Aviatik D.I vs D.H.4
AAR3 - Aviatik D.I vs Caproni Ca.3
AAR4 - Aviatik D.I vs D.H.4
AAR5 - here! - Aviatik D.I vs D.H.4

[Larry R.]

Interesting AAR, Dom. Entertaining and informative. Nicely done.

[CrashCraig]

Taking on four DH4s is a daunting mission. Enjoyed the historical scenarios.

[Teaticket]

Nicely done Dom. As Craig said, going up against four DH4s you must be very brave.

[flash]

Brave effort, Dom, but a 4 on 1 was always unlikely to end well. Good to see it tried though !

[Herkybird]

Nice! - I have tried historical battles before and they always seem a bit one sided, War isn't fair is it!
Good to see DH-4s in mass, I have had difficulties with them before...

[Spoonfrog]

Well, I did't feel too bad about it as I could have walked away after the first D.H.4 went down and still preserved the historical result. All in all, I enjoyed playing these scenarios, especially since I chose a little-known ace. If I do a similar thing again I will try to choose someone whose fights involved as many different aircraft as possible, otherwise it just feels like re-playing the same game! I basically did three Aviatik vs D.H.4 games for Macourek...

Here are all the AAR posts linked:
AAR1
AAR2
AAR3
AAR4
AAR5 - scroll up!

[Flying Helmut]

1 vs 4 - you're a braver man than I, Gunga-Spoonfrog!

The only 1 vs 4 I've tried is 1 Fokker E.III vs 4 BE2c (one of which was an unarmed recon kite) - a much more even match-up!