An A & B Skirmish
Preamble
I decided to use flash’s suggestions for gun jams (See AAR “Jamming Camels and Albatrii”.) In checking the damage cards, it became clear that gun jams would have limited impact if we used a scenario that had only A firing guns. Therefore I decided on the following scenario: a skirmish between four A firing single seaters and four B firing two seaters. This meant starting with 8 planes on the table, which is more than what we usually do.
For those who missed flash’s thread, here is his suggestion, with the addition of information about how many of the damage cards are in each deck.
Gun jams
Red zero = gun lost A deck 1, B deck 2
Red number = 3 manoeuvres to clear A deck 1, B deck 1
Green zero or number = 1 manoeuvre to clear A deck 2, B deck 3
Here is just a selection of photographs from our game.
It is no fun flying a two-seater – at least not at this moment!
Two tangles of four fill the skies.
And then they disperse for some one on one action …
Later, the Sopwith cops a double blast.
In another part of the sky the Aviatik downs the Nieuport just before the Bristol brings it down.
But not all is close action …
But, of course, some is
Albatros C.III rear gunner ends the Camel’s day.
And the Bristol’s rear gunner ends the Rumpler’s day.
The Albatros and the Strutter have been brought down, leaving only the Bristol and Pfalz to duel.
Flying close to one another is risky, and when they finally collide, the Pfalz comes off second-best. (A 0 for the Bristol and a 0 with a 1 in front for the Pfalz – i.e. 10!)
Debrief
I must confess to not noticing how the gun jams affected the game play, and the outcome, except where it had a direct impact on me. My Sopwith 1˝ Strutter observer’s gun received a red zero gun jam on the very first time it fired at an opponent. This effectively turned the Strutter into a scout. Comments on this thread from my fellow flyers will indicate how much they thought these gun jam ideas affected them.
To flash’s suggestions we added the element that a pilot could go back to base to get a lost gun repaired, and then return to the fray. We introduced this element so that a single seat plane was not rendered useless for the whole game. I chose to return to base with the Strutter even though it had one working gun. Straight after getting the gun repaired I was served another red zero gun jam for the rear gun!!!!
The other interesting element of our game was that two of the A deck gun jam cards were chosen when a player was taking fire damage. Thus they had no effect in relation to guns.
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and the number of "0" damage cards drawn by the Bristol was awesome. I like Dave's jam rule and shall use them in solo games. But I shall stick to conventional rules for Doncaster 2021 Balloon Busting mission. Thanks for sharing this one Doug.
Originally Posted by Biggles downunder
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