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Thread: B-25s Over Brewer

  1. #1

    Default B-25s Over Brewer

    B-25s Over Brewer…..but not for long!

    Dave and I flew a small B-25 raid in NW Europe. Two B-25s were escorted by a Mustang and a Thunderbolt. The Germans sent in three 109Ks to intercept with on respawn. We randomly picked sides with Dave drawing the Germans.

    Here come the Americans!
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    And the Germans.
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    The escort scoots out ahead to engage.
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    The first exchange is brutal. Both Americans take damage with the Mustang barely staying aloft. They also lash out and inflict serious damage to two of the 109s they fire upon.
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    Anticipating the Germans were here to take out the bombers, a timely Immelmann catches the Germans from behind. One 109 goes down. (the thunderbolt couldn’t fire into the tail of a 109 as the pilot had been wounded on the previous fire phase)
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    On the next move though the Thunderbolt did get to light up his target. Down went a second Kraut.
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    Now the remaining 109 reverses behind the green B-25 bomber that was smoking from a previous shot. This burst now sets the bomber on fire.
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    Between the fire and a close range shot from the 109, the B-25 falls from the sky. This wasn’t a free shot though as the Mustang gets in a close range burst at the 109 as the bomber falls.
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    We randomly placed a new 109. It appeared off the camo B-25’s tail!
    Catching the Thunderbolt by surprise it gets off a long range shot before heading after the remaining bomber.
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    The last of the original 3 109s if finally brought down but not before it puts some hurt on the last B-25.
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    The fresh 109 gets into the B-25s blind spot and begins to hammer away.
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    The escort is too far out of position to do anything to distract the newcomer.
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    This 109 pilot is a crack shot and his cannon sets off the bomb load moments before it’s release.
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  2. #2

    Default

    This was a fun battle. On the first pass my Mustang took a horrible beating. Another volley could easily take it down.

    The Thunderbolt was not hit so hard but the pilot was wounded, severely limiting its ability to react. (I have a wounded pilot plot a 3rd card instead of playing the rules as written with the turn sequence radically changed. I think it slows the game down too much where plotting a 3rd card gives a similar effect)

    After the first B-25 went down my escort was desperate to knock out the 3erd 109 as it was closing in. The wounded pilot flying the Thunderbolt couldn’t react fast enough to get back into the action but the Mustang and B-25 rear gunner finished off #3.

    The reinforcement though came in straight on in the B-25s blind spot with the escorts too far out of position to do anything. One turn short of being able to drop it’s bombs the B-25 went down.

  3. #3

    Default

    With all of Peter’s fabulous planes unavailable, we played with some out of the box. Most of the games we’ve been playing have been with earlier war planes. Using these later war variants of the ME109 and the Mustang and Thunderbolt makes for a totally different game! One close range hit from any of these babies and you are lucky to be flying afterwards. The bigger cards and thus faster speeds are also very different. Definitely not the twisting dogfight you would see with some ki-43s against P40s!

    This was a fun game despite the general total destruction of all involved. I would have liked to have seen the bombers drop their loads as I have little practice doing that. I think we made the bomber force a little to light for those nasty 109s. Maybe a third one would have evened it up a little, especially since the B-25s didn’t have tail gunners. One thing for sure 9s that the Thunderbolt is a tough bird!

    Thanks again to Peter for writing up this after action report!

  4. #4

    Default

    Nice AAR!

  5. #5

    Default

    Thank you for the good A.A.R., Peter. It looks like you had fun. It also showed the vulnerability of those early war Mitchells and why they were 'beefed up' as the war went on.



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