AAR: The Rockets’ Red Glare
The results of the WGF game I presented at the Autumn, 2019 session of Congress of Gamers:
I wanted to get the Ball Nieuport 16 (with rockets) into action, as I have only fairly recently acquired the plane: so it made sense to do a balloon strafe with that and the Ancillotto Nieuport 11 (also with rockets). The scenario was set in April/May 1916, during the Battle of Verdun; the attackers were to go after a pair of German balloons, and had one escort: the defenders had a trio of Halberstadt D-II. For this scenario, I chose to have the Ancillotto Nieuport equipped with both machinegun and rockets, used the altitude rules, aim bonus rules, higher machine rules, the alternative collision rules, and gave the defenders two machineguns and two AA cannon, as well. You will see in the first picture, I was using my AIM balloons: I usually flop a Ares balloon card to represent the footprint, but forgot to this time around. This will have consequences later. Only one person showed up, using the name Pip; he declined to have his picture taken, and I always respect people’s preferences in that regard. Pip was new to the game, (and mentioned afterward that he did enjoy the game), so I gave him choice of either attacking with the rockets or defending the balloons: he chose the latter.
I wanted to get to the balloons as soon as possible, so I flew straight in, whereas Pip chose to turn away at first, apparently trying to overload the Nieuport 16.
Then I sent my escort Nieuport to defend the rocket-equipped one.
Pip’s response was to turn and try and split the action into one-on-one battles. One Halberstadt overshot my escort, while the other managed a collision with my rocket Nieuport 11 (actually a good thing for a newbie, demonstrates how the collision rules work-turns out, he got lucky with the C card draw, and pulled a zero).
He made a mistake with his remaining Halberstadt, and flew right in front of the Nieuport 16’s gun. And my escort’s shot did set the brown Halberstadt to smoking.
I wanted to try and get the rockets shot off at the balloon, so I made only a slight weave away from the camouflage Halberstadt, although I knew an Immelmann was coming. Sure enough, he got in a long-range shot. The same was true of the rocket-equipped Nieuport 11, so I had it fly on, and had my escort start a turning flight with the other two Halberstadts.
As I was closing in on the balloons, I got a little too careless with the Nieuport 11: had I used the proper footprint, I probably could have fired the rockets earlier (the Ares card is significantly larger than the AIM base, but I had already flown half the scenario with the rules as written, and explained everything to Pip, so I wasn’t going to change anything now.) In order to ensure the rockets did hit the target, I had to stall, which meant the Nieuport just barely overlapped the AIM base. So, yes, the rockets hit, but the Nieuport was caught in the blast radius, and that, combined with the serious damage (8!) from the collision, knocked the first Nieuport down.
Then the Nieuport 16 swept in, and fired its rockets. That result was two fires on the balloon, rather than an immediate explosion. (In the first of this pair of pics, the base of the Halberstadt can just be seen at the left) Then I had to worry about the escort Nieuport, now in a one-on-two battle with the other Halberstadts. (Both aircraft in the right-hand photo have close-range shots)
I Immel’d with the Nieuport 16, so was able to briefly turn the tables on the camo Halberstadt, while remaining too close to the balloon for AA to safely shoot at me, and also managed to maneuver the Nieuport 11 out of the way of the other two.
Pip had numbers on me, though, and was getting used to the relative distances in maneuvering, so I was in a bit of trouble. His cream Halberstadt first got in a long-range shot,
then, as I was trying to bring up my escort Nieuport up in support, a close-range shot at +1 for aim. The AA cannon also got in an irrelevant shot, as a) it missed, and b) the Nieuport went down under the gun of the Halberstadt. This left my remaining Nieuport at the mercy of all three German aircraft.
I flew in that sweet spot with the brown Halberstadt, where we overlapped, but not enough to collide, and the balloon exploded behind me, due to the earlier fires. This couldn’t last forever, though, and the brown Halberstadt got in one last close-range shot, which would have set me on fire, if the cumulative damage hadn’t knocked down my last Nieuport.
So, in the end, we both accomplished our missions: I destroyed both balloons, but he managed to destroy all three of my attackers. That’s a draw in my book, and it made for an enjoyable game.
Reply With Quote
Well done in introducing the Game to a new player.
Originally Posted by Naharaht
Bookmarks