When my good friend Wayne received a couple of pups recently I also received an FE2B courtesy of Reducedairfact. At our battle last night it came out of the hangar with an escort of a Sopwith Triplane. The mission was simple. Get up there and take some pictures! The bally Huns are planning an offensive and we need to know what they have where. The Triplane piloted by Ace Rodney Dallas (Biggles Downunder) was to keep any curious enemy planes away.
Simples really .... a couple of pictures then a run for home. The Bigwigs thought that any Hun planes would come into to attack our boys long before they reached the area of interest so it should be easy enough to dodge them and get on with the job. :)
If only the Hun pilots had attended the briefing. :hmm:
First of all, rather then come over to our side of the table and attack, the Huns elected to stay near their positions and wait for us to come to them:eek:
The mighty Sopwith did indeed try to shield the ponderous FE from the Halberstadt piloted by Windy Jack but after was soon shot down by Windy.
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Note: not all damage cards are shown in the last photo.
Meanwhile, the FE was trying to confuse the enemy by making a feint attack down one side of the mat and planning to then make a sharp turn and photo run.
Unfortunately, the other Halberstadt did not fall for this ruse and attacked head on!
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The FE was soon set on fire and things were not looking good for our gallant Bulldogs.
A comic interlude where Mark kept on overlapping the FE base kept us amused.
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Then things got worse with Windy pitching in to help Mark's Halberstadt!
Being hammered by two Halberstadts and unable to take any photos due to being on fire ....
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It was Mark who killed the FE finally. ;)
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A good game was had by all (not too sure about Biggles Downunder).
The German pilots bagged an Englander each and the targets were not photographed.
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The old adage about new planes not doing too well on their first flight seems to have been true for the FE.