Lockdown from Covid-19. All my friends are at FirenzeGioca playing, I am alone in my room. What can I do? Maybe some playtesting for a solo scenario for Wings of Glory! So here I am piloting Aichner’s S.79 against HMS Bedouin out of Pantelleria. Our plan is to give a little kit in the torpedo-bomber version of the S.79 as we did for the dam attack in the Dambusters version of the Lancaster, and this is one of the three scenarios included.
(by the way, I'm fine - vaccines work perfectly)
Historical background: On the morning of June 15th, 1942, the ships of the Italian VII Divisione attacked the British convoy called Operation Harpoon, headed to Malta, in sight of Pantelleria. Hit 12 times, mostly by 8” shells, the Tribal-class destroyer HMS Bedouin stopped in open sea while Italians disengaged and the convoy headed on. Only HMS Partridge stayed behind and started towing HMS Bedouin toward Tunisia, but the tow cable was dropped when some Stukas and then a few Italian ships appeared, so that HMS Partridge could maneuver. The two ships emitted a smoke curtain, HMS Partridge sailed away and HMS Bedouin prepared to fight: All her artillery was still efficient. Then at 14.15, just a few minutes after the ship managed to switch on again her engines and move on her own, a S.79 appeared. A problem with an engine before take-off caused it to be alone and with no escort of C.202 fighters but the commander, Sottotenente Martino Aichner, decided to pursue his mission anyway. With him there were second pilot Sergente Oreste del Bianco, Aviere Scelto Marconista Mario Picerno, Aviere Scelto Fotografo Carmine Pragliola, Aviere Scelto Armiere Fausto de Santis, Aviere Scelto Motorista Massimiliano Fantuzzi. They spotted the destroyer in the smoke, but their main targets were cargos. They went on with their search, but the only cargo in sight was already sinking. So they went back to HMS Bedouin and attacked her.
At the first turn, the HMS Bedouin is still unaware of the S.79 approaching behind the smoke courtain. The plane flies on at top speed while the ship starts veering to right. On the second turn they go on along the same routes. At the third one, the plane turns to left toward the ship and starts appaearing across the smoke curtain, but the ship’s AA guns do not manage to aim at it.
On the fourth turn, the ship veers even more north. The plane straightens its route and prepares to drop the torpedo. The AA adjusts its aim, but even if close to the fuselage the explosion does not deliver any relevant damage to the plane.
The plane slows down and drops the torpedo, entering the range of the AA machineguns that starts piercing the wing of the plane. Worse still, the Pom-pom anti-aircraft guns score a big hit on the plane. HMS Bedouin veers more and the plane turns in front of it, entering the blind spot between the machineguns on the sides. There is some tension when the torpedo seems to pass ahead the bow, but for a matter of a few meters actually the ship is hit.
Before it sinks, the ship manages to shot a few more lucky hits with the Pom-pom and the plane goes down on the water. Exactly as in the...
Historical outcome: Two of the S.79’s engine were hit but the plane completed the attack. It dropped the torpedo at 500 meters of distance, then flew over the destroyer. AA fire from the ship hit the fuel tanks and the plane engines stopped. While the S.79 made an emergency landing in water, the torpedo hit the ship that sank in 5 minutes. Within the evening, Italians saved the ship’s crew by a seaplane and a hospital ship. The S.79 crew was saved by another seaplane at sunset. Aichner received a Silver Medal for his daring attack, but for many years the official reports attributed the sinking to the Italian Navy. Only in 1989, thanks to British documents, the victory has been acknowledged to him and the medal converted into a Golden one.
If anybody knows how to rotate images, please help!
Bookmarks