AAR OTT DYM - Mission 7 - Di 'Cheese

[ShadowDragon]

OTT DYM Mission 7 - di 'Cheese
OTT – Daring Young Men Campaign
The Italian Front – 29 November 1917

The original scenario, by Tikkifriend, is set on the Western Front in February 1916 and can be read here:
https://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sh...by-Tikkifriend

Hauptmann Michael von Taaffe was concerned. The offensive had stalled – more from the inability of supply to keep up to the advancing troops than from Italian resistance, but it had stalled nonetheless. High Command had shifted their attention to the North, pinning their hopes on capturing Monte Grappa and outflanking the Italian defences. The Flik had flown over Monte Grappa numerous times. It was a impregnable fortress. The poor bloody infantry had been trying for two weeks to take the place. Another attempt was planned.

High Command had phoned early in the morning. They wanted photographs as soon as possible.. Could he please send up some planes today. Today? The weather was abysmal – fog and low clouds would mean flying close to the ground and all of those enemy machine guns. Fly to high and a pilot risked getting lost and even worse flying into a mountainside. It was idiotic to send planes up on a day like today, but High Command was adamant.

Slowly the planes started to come – a Rumpler – that of Ltn Albrecht Thoma and his pilot, Fw Claus Creutzmann. Some bullet holes in the plane but Thoma signalled for help. Fw Creutzmann was badly injured and bleeding from a head wound. The next plane in was the Halberstadt of Oblt Karl Klimt and his pilot Fw Ludwig Jäger. The plane’s undercarriage was badly damaged and the aeroplane nosed over. Klimt and Jäger climbed out happy to have landed at all. Michael was glad. He like Klimt. Klimt was as congenial a fellow as one could imagine and had arrived the previous week to take over command of the reconnaissance detachment from the prissy Rudolf Dassler. But where was the Rumpler of Dassler and his pilot, Fw Franz Reimer.

“Where’s Dassler and Reimer?”, he asked Klimt, but Klimt just shook his head.

Michael waited for the escorts. There was Neumann’s Oeffag; and the Aviatik of the young Hungarian, Karoly Horváth. Both planes were badly shot up – the Aviatik looked like it was being held together by the fabric only. Somehow Karoly was uninjured but he could see the ground crew helping the injured Fw Neumann out of his Oeffag.

Where was his cousin, Ryan von Taaffe and their young ace, Wolfgang von Augustin? After a few tense moments the Ryan’s Aviatik and Wolfgang’s Oeffag appeared. A few bullet holes here and there but both pilots were uninjured.

Later that day, Michael got word from hospital. Günter Neumann would be several weeks recovering but they did not poor expectations that Fw Creutzmann would survive. Reports on the missing Rumpler were not good. The Rumpler had disintegrated and it seemed unlikely that Rudolf Dassler and Franz Reimer survived. Four enemy planes had gone down but at a terrible cost.

Late in the day, with all of the reports from aircrew in hand, Michael sat down to write his report for High Command.

At 0900 the two Rumplers and the Halberstadt approached our lines near Monte Grappa. The aeroplanes were flying above effective ground fire but below the low clouds which left little room for vertical manoeuvring. According to plans the escorts would arrive slightly later so that there would be a better chance of surprising the defenders.



As the reconnaissance flight crossed No Man’s Land a flare shot up from the fort that was the object of the photographic mission. Only then did the clearing fog reveal that the two Rumplers were too wide of the target and only the Halberstadt was initially able to get good photographs – and ultimately the only photograph of the fort itself.



The Rumpler pilots were able to manoeuvre their machines quickly to begin photographing the area around the fort but there were somewhat behind schedule.



Kette A, led by Ltn von Augustin arrived about this time. [Actually they arrived on turn 3.1 but I didn’t include any photos of the two Oeffag 153 aeroplanes before this one.]




The arrival of the Oeffags was fortunate as the meaning of the flare became obvious with the appearance of two Italian SPAD XIII machines.



More help was for the reconnaissance missioned arrived in the form of Kette B led by Ltn Ryan von Taaffe.





One of the SPADs attacked the Ltn Dassler’s Rumpler head on and the two aeroplanes exchanged fire while Ltn von Augustin got a deflection shot, damaging the SPAD’s engine.



Ltn von Augustin managed to get on the tail of the SPAD – further damaging the SPAD - but needed to break off to clear an untimely jam of his Schwarzlose machine guns.



But it mattered not, whether by intent or an inability to control his aeroplane, the Italian slammed into Ltn Dassler’s and Fw Reimer’s Rumpler. Our pilots report that the Rumpler disintegrated in the air while the SPAD spiralled down to the ground.



While Oblt Klimt and Ltn Thoma continued their photography mission and Ltn von Augustin worked at clearing his machine guns, Fw Neumann attacked the second SPAD.



Whether it was the dampness or some other cause, Fw Neumann’s Schwarlose immediately jammed after the first burst and the Feldwebel could only watch helplessly with the Italian dead centre in his sights at close range. A perfect set up – the enemy was lucky but not so Fw Neumann.



Anticipating that the SPAD would go after the reconnaissance aeroplanes, Fw excuted an Immelmann manoeuvre. Unfortunately, so did the Italian pilot which put Fw Neumann dead centre in his sights. The SPAD’s fire damaged the Oeffag and injured the arm of Fw Neumann forcing him to return to base.

[I forgot that injuries for a return to base when it’s 5 points for A damage and 3 points for B damage. Fw Neumann should have stayed in the fight.]



But it was not easy. The Italian pilot’s bullets did considerable more damage to the Oeffag before Fw Neumann could escape.



Meanwhile two new Italian craft appeared – two Hanriots. They immediately engaged the Halberstadt and the remaining Rumpler. However, both Ltn Thoma and Fw Jäger caught one of the Hanriots in a crossfire damaging its engine and setting it on fire.



Three of our escorts intervened – Ltn von Taaffe, Ltn von Augustin and ZgFhr Horváth. Horváth fired on one of the Hanriots which must have distracted the pilot as he collided with the Halberstadt of Ltn Klimt and Fw Creutzmann and caused considerable damage to their aeroplane. Ltn von Taafee and von Augustin engaged the other Hanriot along with Ltn Thoma. The Italian Hanriot exploded. After careful review of the after action reports, I have to award the ‘kill’ to Ltn von Taaffe. However, in the exchange Fw Creutzmann was injured by the Italian’s return fire – forcing the Rumpler to return to base.

[Again I forgot that with A damage only an injury with a ‘5’ damage card forces a return to base. I didn’t matter so much in this case, but the Rumpler could have attempted to get a 2nd photo of the fort. Nonetheless Creutzmann eventually died from his injury – so rule or no rule it turned out to be a bad injury.]



[I forgot to include the damage for the Romanelli firing on Horváth, so I included it with this picture which shows the fire damage for the beginning of turn 8. Note that I also used B damage instead of A damage by accident. So I awarded an extra point for each card as compensation – so 4 points and not 2 points of damage.]



The remaining Hanriot continued to chase down our reconnaissance aeroplanes but their return fire was deadly.



I must commend ZgFhr Horváth for intercepting the enemy SPAD even though the smoke coming from his damaged Aviatik was obscuring his vision. His action and allowed Fw Neumann an opportunity to evade his pursuer.



However, the intense smoke result in ZgFhr Horváth colliding with the SPAD and nearly destroying his own aeroplane and forcing him to withdraw from the combat. Somehow the SPAD miraculously escaped damage – the 2nd time the SPAD was lucky. Fw Neumann was having trouble controlling his Oeffag with only one good arm and had a near miss with Ltn von Taaffe’s Aviatik – the Aviatik only suffered minor stress damage from Ltn von Taaffe’s evasive manoeuvres. But there was some good fortune as Oblt Klimt managed to shoot down the remaining Hanriot.



We had lost one Rumpler and two scouts were forced to withdraw but three of the enemy had been shot down. This left two of our scouts to cover the withdrawing scouts and our remaining two reconnaissance aeroplanes. Unfortunately two enemy Sopwiths emerged from the clouds bringing the odds to 3 to 2 in the enemy’s favour. Ltn von Taaffe and von Augustin engaged these aircraft seeking to delay them and to allow their comrades enough time to escape. Ltn von Taaffe was the first to come within range of the Sopwiths and dealt out a fair bit of damage but took a good deal of damage in return.



While heading back for the aerodrome, Fw Horváth was lucky to get an opportunity to fire on the English Sopwith.



Fw Horváth was even luckier when, having trouble controlling his very damage machine, that he collided with the Englander and somehow managed to avoid any further major damage to his Aviatik as I’m sure it would not have taken much for the Aviatik to disintegrate.



Ltn von Taaffe and von Augustin continued their dog-fighting to distract the enemy aeroplanes. Ltn von Augustin exchanged some rathe ineffective fire with one of the Sopwiths.



[Nothing much here – but a nice shot of 4 planes crossing paths without one collision!]



Finally Ltn von Augustin managed to get onto the tail of the English Sopwith and with some great shooting knocked the Englander out of the sky. Our third victory of the day!



With the odds even, Ltn von Taaffe and von Augustin tried to drive the enemy from the skies. Ltn von Augustin and the remaining Sopwith exchanged deadly fire while Ltn von Taaffe was not able to get in position for an effective shot.



The dog-fighting continued with no clear advantage to either side.



Finally Ltn von Taaffe got a burst on the Sopwith. The Sopwith was seen drifting downwards towards enemy territory. However, we could not confirm a ‘kill’ of this Sopwith. That left just one enemy aeroplane over the fort. [The Sopwith returned to base due to damage.]



Ltn von Taafee and von Augustin ‘ganged’ up on the remaining enemy aeroplane – an Italian SPAD. Being outnumbered the Italian decided discretion was the better course and dove down to where Italian ground troops could cover him. Masters of the Sky – Ltn von Taaffe and von Augustin returned to the aerodrome.



General comments – the write-up was a bit dry as I didn’t feel that any of the pilots stood out in one way or another so that they could be the centre of the story. With a lot of planes in the sky I thought it would more useful to explain the photos a little bit as there were a few quite complicated ones.

I controlled Neumann and von Augustin – so a 50/50 success rate there with me putting Neumann in a very bad position that forced him out of the combat.

Most of the activity was at height level 3 to avoid ground fire and to allow room for immelmanns. Two immelmanns for many of the planes would put them at the next level. I decided that if a plane ascended to level 5 that plane would be out of the game – being disoriented long enough to miss the action or, worse, collide with a mountain side.

This is the most number of planes I’ve used in a solitaire game – a bit challenging and fortunately enough planes fell out of the sky so that not too many were in the air at once. It was also useful to have used the larger game mat. Two WoG mats would have been cramped.

Victory:
CP:
Fort Photo: 1 X 2 pts = 2 pts
Cardinal Point Photos: 2 X 4 X 1 pt = 8 pts
Scouts shot down: 3 X 1 pt = 3 pts
Total = 13 pts

Entente:
Two-seater shot down: 1 X 2 pts = 2 pts

Not sure it’s easy for an Entente victory if at least one two-seater gets back with a full set of photos (6 pts). Anyway the Flik will take the win.