Wings of Glory WW2 Lone B17 AAR
AAR from a game played at Western Suburbs Wargames Association, Victoria, Australia. Saturday 27th May 2017.
The game was a Co-op game played by Trevor Dow (me), Andrew Skurrie and Paul Ruzicka using Wings of Glory WW2 rules. We three played the Germans with a single FW-190D-13 each and the B-17G was played as AI and flew straight and level. The idea of the game was to play and learn the four engined bomber rules.
A lone and lost B17G on its way back from a raid over Antwerp drops below the clouds to get its bearings and finds itself over the North Sea. It also finds itself in the laps of three Focke Wulf FW-190D-13's on a formation trading flight.
The flight leader (Trev) decides this is a good time to give his trainee pilots a chance to get some live firing experience against a heavy bomber.
Trev flies alongside Andrew and gives him instructions, "Attack it head on and fire at the cockpit, its its weakest point". Andrew does as he is told and fly's straight at the B17. He feels crunching and shuddering as he opens fire with his cannons at point blank range. He scores 14 points of damage against the Flying Fortress, he also scores a crew hit, the port side waist gunner is wounded and out of the game. (he also pulls an explosion counter which we ignore).
Andrew soon finds out what the crunching and shuddering sensation was as oil smoke starts to pour from his engine and oil starts spraying over his windscreen. Andrew has taken hits from the top and chin turrets and takes 13 points of damage himself and an oil smoke counter.
Trev has mistimed his attack (base overlap) and is too close to fire and zooms under the starboard wing of the B17 to avoid getting shot at himself.
The B17 has taken just over 25% 14/50 damage in the first turn and lost a waist gunner.
Andrew zooms along the fuselage of the B17, narrowly missing the giant tail section. Trev flips his aircraft from under the B17 into an Immelmann and is right behind the tail ready to shoot. Paul sweeps in from the port side and opens fire at long range at the Flying Fortress.
At the same time the nose, top and ball turrets concentrate their fire on Paul's FW-190. Paul's cockpit explodes around him as .50 calibre bullets do their worst. Paul checks his plane over and its OK except the altimeter and the artificial horizon are totally wrecked. Everything is ok until Paul finds it difficult to move his left hand. He looks down at his left hand and see's that his ring finger and pinky are missing. The've been severed by a .50 calibre bullet. Paul grits his teeth and continues to close on his prey. It's now become personal for Paul, he's after revenge.
Paul opens fire along the port side fuselage and destroys the plexiglass of the top turret and in turn wounding the turrets gunner. Trev opens fire destroying the outer starboard engine. Andrews plane is pouring so much oil smoke the B17's tail gunner cannot get a clear shot off and misses him entirely.
More damage accumulates on the B17, but it's up for it though and shrugs it off in its stride. Accumulated damage is now up to 50%.
Andrew decides its time to leave the fight and lick his wounds and with so much damage to his plane, he stays out of range. Trev lets rip with a burst of cannon fire hitting a fire extinguisher which explodes and blows a large hole in the starboard side of the fuselage. The flying bits of fuselage metal wound the starboard waist gunner in the process.
Paul now fires his guns from close range and rips large chunks out of the B17's giant tail plane. The B17's pilots struggle to keep the plane straight as it suddenly slews wildly to port. With so much rudder damage it becomes impossible to turn to starboard. The ball turret fires at Paul causing some minor damage and the tail gunner and the radio operator fire at Trev and Trev takes his first points of damage.
The B17 is now in peril as damage is now accumulating quickly. An engine gone, three vital gunners taken out of action, the pilots struggling to keep it flying straight and its structural damage is up to 75% 38/50
Trev takes two damage hits from the tail gunner as he also opens fire from behind again. Being hit again makes Trev flinch and instead of shooting his intended target, the tail gunner, Trev hits high causing more damage to the rudder controls. The B17's rudder is wrecked and is sheared off in the slipstream. The pilots can only now turn the bomber by adjusting the amount of power to the engines to yaw the plane. The B17 is up to 96% damage now 48/50, when Paul opens fire. His first rounds go wild because the pain in his hand has become so intense. He grits his teeth, adjusts his aim and fires. The rounds go straight into the starboard wing and the fuel tanks erupt in a massive ball of flame. Trev and Paul both have to take evasive action as they fly into the oily black and orange fuel explosion. They are both narrowly missed by large pieces of wing debris from the B17. Paul and Trev watch as the Flying Fortress now separated from its starboard wing, starts to spiral in slow motion down towards the dark waters of the North Sea. There were no parachutes. The three Focke Wulf 190's form up and head back to the coast in silence.
The final result was pretty much a surprise to me. At the start of the game I was convinced that the three FW-190's were going to get completely shattered by the B17G. The thing is literally dripping with .50 cal. Andrews frontal attack did heaps of damage but at huge cost to his plane. Paul's side attack attracted concentrated fire from three turrets. He was lucky it was at long range, things would have been so different at close range. I got lucky with my attack, if I had not have had a base overlap I would have copped all the opening fire at close range from three turrets and a waist gun. I also got lucky with my rear attack as Andrew was closer so he drew the fire and I received none until later.
My conclusion is we only survived because we got lucky.
It was an interesting game playing playing co-op against an AI B17. Next time Andrew and I are going to try the same against a box of 4 x B17's, it should be interesting.
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