New Years Day and the Germans are giving victory in the west a last
shot. 500 Luftwaffe planes take to the air to raid airfields in Belgium
and northern France. The aim is to disable the allied air force for long
enough for the German Army (stalled since mid December) to break out of
the Ardennes and drive to the sea. Cutting allied forces in half and
capturing vast amounts of prisoners and supplies they hope to force the
Americans and British to the bargaining table to conclude a separate
peace. This would see them free to unleash their V weapons against the
Russians and resume their drive to final victory in the East.
In reality this failed because of the 500 planes more than half were
piloted by inexperienced pilots who had had no opportunity to train in
skies dominated by the allies. About half of the planes did not return
to base and all allied losses in planes were made good within a week or
two given the vast amount of supplies available to the western allies.
Few allied pilots were lost as most were not in their planes at the time
of the attack either.
In our game .... there is a small fictitious Multinational maintenance
and repair airfield in Belgium that is about to get unwanted
attention. Commandant Le Clerc is proud of his base and the turn around
time for damaged planes to be fixed. He is a vain and proud man who
likes to arrange his assets in neat orderly rows as though awaiting
inspection. On this fateful day he is having breakfast with his mistress
when the first bombs explode!
The object of our scenario is to destroy as many planes, hangars and guns as
possible. German pilots are to keep track of their own personal scores.
Each Messerschmidt carries one bomb. If the bomb
scores a direct hit on a parked plane and the red dot is covered then
the destruction is extended to half a ruler length on either side of the
destroyed target. Machine guns and cannon can also be fired during the
firing passes. The German who scores the highest will be awarded the
Iron Cross First Class. Any German shot down will be awarded a wooden cross.
Coloured dice are placed on each target to give a damage count.
18 planes are arranged in front of six large hangars arranged in a U
shape around the one concrete runway. Each plane has a damage total of 5
points. The Hangars have a damage value of 5 points also. There are
five quad .50 cal machine guns arranged around the field. Each one can
inflict four B's at short range and two B's at long range on the attackers.
Attackers must complete up to 3 runs over the airfield. Aircraft are expected
to attack simultaneously. Because this is a surprise raid, only one AA
gun is manned to start with. 3 guns can fire during the
second pass, and then all five guns after the second pass. All AA guns
will be firing during the third and final attack. Each gun has a damage
value of 8 points. Explosion markers will be placed on destroyed targets.
As soon as the game starts things start to go awry!
The targets are easily destroyed and both guns at the
end of the runway are destroyed without having fired at all.
The march of destruction goes on with planes inflicting up
a mixture of C's and D's damage on the hapless targets.
At the end of the first run nearly all targets are destroyed
Every target is soon obliterated with only 1 gun getting a hit
on two of the attacking planes. The same planes were
involved in a collision but the other two escape any
damage. The scores were:-
Doug in his 109K - 13/18 damage scored 46 points against the targets.
Baxter in his 109K - 8/18 damage scored 38 points against the targets.
Mark in his 190D - No damage scored 33 points against the targets.
Wayne in his 109F - No damage scored 43 points against the targets.
A resounding victory for the Germans and a cause of lifelong regret
for Commandant LeClerc!
This is not how we figured the game would go and if we do a replay
we would probably bring all defending guns into action at the start.
This would still give room to maneuver to the attackers with a
blind spot half way along the length of the runway. Another suggestion
was to have two humans running the defence and taxiing the
planes out of the way during the attack and attempting to take
off to provide aerial defence. All in all a one sided but enjoyable
game.
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