Caudron Capers

Inspired by Osprey Bomber and Reconnaissance Aces, I made a Caudron R.IV card from Escadrille R46. Escadrille R46 was an aggressive French reconnaissance squadron - as well as accomplishing their observation tasks, they regularly attacked enemy aircraft they came across. This is a hypothetical encounter between a Caudron R.IV and two Roland C.IIs during the Battle of Verdun (imagine that beautiful Verdun mat that Monse showed us, instead of my kitchen tablecloth). My son took the Rolands and I flew the Caudron. We agreed that if the Caudron lost half its hit points and both Rolands were still in the air, a B-firing Nieuport would arrive to assist.

Starting positions: the Roland crews have been intently watching the ground and have not noticed the Caudron approaching them...

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First shots, the leading Roland suffers a gun jam.

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The Caudron packs a punch with twin Lewis guns fore and aft.

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However the Rolands keep up a steady fire with the result that the Caudron has soon lost over half its hit points, triggering the arrival of a B-firing French Nieuport. What's more, it has engine damage and is on fire...

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The Nieuport enters the fray from the right while the Caudron continues to trade shots with one of the Rolands.

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Unlike the Caudron, which has drawn no zeros, the Nieuport is proving hard to hit. Maybe because it is a smaller target!!

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The Caudron succumbs to fire damage, leaving the Nieuport to fight the two enemy aircraft.

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The Nieuport has a close-range tangle with a Roland (note: all the damage cards here should be B, we corrected this later)

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The purple Roland hits the deck.

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Soon to be followed by the Nieuport, despite all its zeroes! The relatively undamaged grey Roland ended up as the victor.

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This was an enjoyable game. I liked trying to fly the Caudron aggressively as a "gunship" and my son had fun with the Rolands, although managing two K decks was confusing at times. If the Caudron had drawn a few zeroes and the Nieuport had fewer gun jams (it had 5!) it could have been a different result, so it felt balanced.

Nice action Dom! My compliments to your son :salute:

Well played Dom, a good match up.

Nice game! Thanks for sharing!

Wow! The Nieuport enters the fray late but still ends up with 19 damage cards.

Of course, if there were not so many zeros, it would have dropped out of the sky much sooner.

We had a rematch of this scenario. This time I tried to be a bit smarter with the Caudron and only engage one Roland at a time. Instead, I ended up with engine damage (again) and on fire (again). When I drew a left rudder jam and a right rudder jam in the same turn, my next manoeuvres were rather predictable... My son admirably handled his Rolands such that the Caudron was picking up 4 damage cards each phase. It couldn't last long like that and the Nieuport arrived too late to save the day. Both Rolands survived, although they were knocked about a bit.

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OUCH! That is some damage!

Dom, I hope I never face your son with my Caudron. :surrender:

A very interesting contest Dom.

Rob.

Another Caudron caper, this time with my newly acquired Halberstadt D.III. I flew the Halberstadt, my son flew a Roland C.II and the Caudron used the solo app. In practice it just flew in circles, which is all it needs to do with almost 360° fire arcs...

I scored the first hit while the Roland went wide. The Caudron drew a "1" engine damage counter, so it suffered no ill effects from engine damage:
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The Roland's rear gunner set the Caudron on fire, while the Frenchman's gun jammed:
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We both turn to pursue the enemy, my son getting in a long range burst. The Caudron's rear gun has also suffered a jam, so it cannot reply:
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Now it is true Roland's turn for a gun jam:
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Jam cleared, but not able to cause any damage. Meanwhile, my son's Roland passes perilously close to the edge..:
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After an immelmann I get a short range burst into the tail of the big bird, but receive more than I bargained for in the shape of a damaged engine. The Roland suffers another gun jam:
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Here I had a doubt about how to apply the rules. What we did was to say that the Halberstadt and the Caudron could not fire at each other since they were overlapping. The Caudron could fire at the Roland since it ignores the overlapping Halberstadt. However the Roland could not fire at the Caudron because the line of fire was blocked by the Halberstadt. I welcome comments as to whether this is correct:
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The coup de grace was administered by the rear gunner of the Roland. We didn't suffer much damage between us, although the mechanics will need to give my engine some attention when I land:
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My feeling is that this was a fair fight - two A guns and 17 hit points against three B guns and 29 hit points. I think the Caudron R.IV has suffered fire damage every time we have played with it. This time it also drew a disproportionate number of gun jams (~10% chance of gun jam from the A deck, we saw close to 40%)! The highest value A card (a 4) was drawn by the French as a result of fire damage. Destin cruel!

Nice game Dom.
I think that you played it tactically right. Keep your attacker behind so that the Bombers forrard guns are effectively nullified and as far as you can attack with both aircraft at the same time so as to only allow the Caudron to hit one of you and thus get one free attack without taking fire each time.

Well done. Rob.

Good action Dom. Thanks :sAprvd:

Interesting games, but you may want to replace your Caudron R.4 card. According to the Wings of Linen wiki, it should be using the XB deck rather than the XD, and it has 14 resistance points, not 17. Those changes would have a serious impact on your games although you could try flying two R.4s

Absorbing and entertaining action - thanks for posting!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Spoonfrog

Here I had a doubt about how to apply the rules. What we did was to say that the Halberstadt and the Caudron could not fire at each other since they were overlapping. The Caudron could fire at the Roland since it ignores the overlapping Halberstadt. However the Roland could not fire at the Caudron because the line of fire was blocked by the Halberstadt. I welcome comments as to whether this is correct:

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My take on this is that the Roland SHOULD get a shot back.

Aircraft can fire into, or out of, but not within an overlap.
Overlapping planes avoid each other, usually by "one up one down" mini-altitude (one jumps over the other, or the other slides beneath the first).
In this manner, each plane is fully exposed to any incoming shots.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Flying Helmut

My take on this is that the Roland SHOULD get a shot back.

Aircraft can fire into, or out of, but not within an overlap.
Overlapping planes avoid each other, usually by "one up one down" mini-altitude (one jumps over the other, or the other slides beneath the first).
In this manner, each plane is fully exposed to any incoming shots.

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Thanks, that makes sense.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RJG173

According to the Wings of Linen wiki, it should be using the XB deck rather than the XD, and it has 14 resistance points, not 17.

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That's true, but looking at the speed it seems more similar to a Gotha / Friedrichshafen bomber, so I made it an XD. 14 hit points just didn't seem enough to me. From what I have read they could take a fair amount of punishment for that time. So I changed it. The people I play with don't frequent Wings of linen, so I can change stats with impunity!

Nicely done keep it up loved the pictures.

The Roland certainly caused some trouble - a gun jam to its opponent every time it was fired at. Almost as good as causing damage to the opponent.