OTT BYM Mission 9 – “The Death Of Chivalry” – 5 Dec 1916 by Vagabond
Come, I heard the word with dread, it reminded me of schooldays, not so long ago and the summons into the Headmasters inner sanctum or the Chamber of Horrors as we called it.
Opening the door Taki followed me in to give our report to the C.O. I was a bit surprised to see my Flight Commander standing slightly to the right of the C.O. who was seated behind his desk in the leather armchair he usually favoured.
"Right now, I don’t have much time, with Uncle on leave I need to make the necessary arrangements for poor DuPont" and he looked pointedly at his watch. "Takahashi you were on the Dawn Patrol with DuPont, give me a brief synopsis and then we can progress on to why Vagabond here was trialling a brand new plane over the far side of the enemy lines."
So that was why Biff was here I thought and I was for the high jump, then Taki started his report.
"Well Sir, we were flying at 7,000’ and spotted a couple of planes in the distance, Jerome waved in their direction and as we closed I identified them as Albatros D.ll’s."
"I took on the nearer of the two and opened fire, which he returned, but he seemed a bit of a novice, I’m pretty sure he completely missed my plane."
"Jerome faced a CDL D.ll and waited until he was close before opening fire, the Albatros immediately burst into flames, but I could see that Jerome’s plane had taken a lot of damage as well. By that time I’d flown past my opponent and was preparing to do an Immelmann turn to get on his tail."
"Things were a little confused for a time but I ended up on the tail of the CDL plane that had erupted in a ball of fire, the pilot was dodging all over the show trying to put it out, and the flames didn’t seem to be doing too much damage.
As I opened fire on him my plane took hits from the cameo Dll who had gotten behind me. As I glanced over my shoulder I saw that Jerome was protecting my back and attacking my attacker, he must have hit an oil line or something because the bugger’s plane started to smoke like a chimney."
"Takahashi you’re not in the Mess Room now" interrupted the C.O. "I don’t expect that sort of language in here."
"Err – No Sir, sorry sir," Taki looked confused, we always referred to the enemy as Buggers, or something worse and he didn’t know this wasn’t Parlour Room language.
Taki continued “I tried closing on the flaming plane”… “Takahashi I will not tell you again” the C.O. snorted and Taki looked even more confused.
"Err, no sir" he continued, "Ummm, yes Sir I mean, ummm", he stuttered completely off his stride, an angry C.O. will do that to you, as I’ve found in the past.
“Carry on man” the C.O. commanded. “Err yes….well I tried to close on the enemy plane as Jerome was still chasing the cameo plane that had shot at me."
"He was stuck like glue on the tail of the cameo plane and inflicting damage with long machine gun bursts."
"In the meantime I’d finally got back behind the other plane and opened fire as he flashed across my sights but I don’t think I did much damage."
"Jerome was still chasing the smoking plane," Taki halted expecting another reprimand which didn’t come so he continued.
"I lost track of the CDL plane in some low cloud and the next time I saw him the fire was out and he was flying straight at me."
"Fortunately for me, he overshot and I was able to get around and fired a long burst into his side, it looked like I was right on target because he broke off the fight and headed home. I turned back to the fight between Jerome and the other Albatros."
"You didn’t chase down the plane you’d been fighting?" asked the C.O. with a hard edge to his voice.
"No Sir - before we’d set off on the patrol Jerome had given me strict instructions to stick with him in a fight and not go chasing any plane breaking off the fight. He said that there were many pilots caught by that trap over Verdun when he was there and he wasn’t having any of that happening to his patrol, apparently the French call it 'the lame duck' ruse."
"Very well" the C.O. said, "continue with the report."
"Well they were fighting a deadly duel, both pilots were giving each other hard knocks but eventually the Albatros just collapsed in the air and dropped to earth. Jerome's plane lurched in the last exchange of fire and I thought he might have been hit but his plane recovered and he waved to indicate the show was over and we should return to the Drome."
"I can verify the kill for Jerome, I saw the Albatros on the ground but didn’t see any movement around it and so don’t know what happened to the pilot.
As we landed Jerome’s plane just seemed to drift sideways, hitting the ground hard, and as the undercarriage collapsed the plane just cart wheeled along the grass, shedding bits of it along the way.. You know the rest sir."
"So I do… so I do, this is the 3rd time I’ve had to write to St Denise and explain that I’ve lost another of his Liaison Officers, C’est la Guerre, I suppose."
Right then Vagabond and the C.O. turned his gimlet gaze on me, "First you can tell me how the new Sopwith Triplane handles in the air and then you can explain what the hell you were doing with it over the enemy lines when you were supposed to be on an evaluation flight."
I’d learned from past experience that there was no use looking for excuses with this man, he saw through them all so I launched into my glowing recommendation of the Tripe Hound as we came to refer to it.
"She’s stable in level flight I began, gain’s height like a witch, responds to the merest touch on the controls and is faster than our existing planes except maybe the Spad but I’ve not flown one of them to be able to make a comparison."
"But when you put the stick over that’s the dream ticket, she turns on a sixpence, I was doing 180’ turns faster and with more control than with an Immelmann, although my Immelmann’s leave a bit to be desired I acknowledged carefully. I thought for a moment that there was a slight gleam of delight in his eyes but it was momentary and I might have been mistaken."
"She flies like a dream Sir and if she had a second gun the war in the air would be over in 4 weeks, as it is she might still be able to hold her own against the big 2 gun Albatros planes we seem to be up against, but it will be a close run thing. She’s better than the Pup I flew a couple of missions ago because of the extra speed, and although they can turn tightly to either port or starboard they can’t hold to it. The Triplane only turns fast in one direction but it’s like being at the fairground it’s so quick. I guess though once the Germans figure that out, they will be able to counter it to some extent I trailed off."
The gleam of delight, if it was there, had disappeared to be replaced by a frown at my final summation.
"I’ll see if I can get a few of the Triplanes shipped in to us, if your appraisal is anywhere as the mark they might hold the line until we can match the two gun planes of the enemy. Now tell me what you were doing over the lines and it had better not have anything to do with wreath dropping."
Biff gave the merest shake of his head and I adopted my innocent face, "Wreath dropping sir, no sir, I knew you wanted a full evaluation of the Triplane and the only way to be able to give you that was to find one of the enemy and shoot him down. That shook him off the scent as I continued. Well Sir you know that their scouts rarely come over our side of the lines and so I went looking for them. Couldn’t find one at all and so I decided to visit their airfield and give them something to think about for the future. After I’d given them my calling card so to speak I was turning away when one of the new D.lll’s turned up. It was too good an opportunity and so I went for him."
"We traded shots but I knew I’d have to out fly him because the twin Spandau’s pack such a punch."
"I wasn’t sure of the Triplane at this stage and did the traditional Immelmann, he must have jammed his guns or at least one of them because he didn’t return my fire as we came together again. Smoke started from his engine but he didn’t break off the encounter so it can’t have been too badly damaged."
"We jockeyed for position and I’m afraid he got the drop on my but his gun jammed again, I expect he was spitting feathers, although I was quite happy about it."
"At this point I just put the Triplane into a tight circle, he wasn’t expecting me to turn so tightly and I was soon on his tail but when I opened fire the gun jammed almost immediately."
"We stooged about some more until again I was able to hit him without any return fire."
“At one point we almost collided”.
“Vagabond” interrupted the C.O. “I want a brief report, not some rambling monologue”.
“Yes Sir”. “Sorry Sir”.
“Well we had a final head to head and his plane burst into flames”.
“I followed him around in another tight circle and fired a long burst into him but the fire had caused most of the damage because his nose had dropped just as I fired and that was that”.
“He hit the ground in a ball of flames Sir, hopefully we can get confirmation on my kill I finished rather lamely”.
"Hopefully we can", was the laconic reply from the C.O.
That was a most enjoyable game Gary – Thanks for the scenario.
Vagabond went in low to drop the wreath and that gave me the opportunity to fly the Triplane against the A gunned D.lll run by Dave’s AI system as a single combat, uninterrupted by the other protagonists. It’s the first outing for the Tripe Hound and I really enjoyed flying it even though the number of jams was frustratingly high. Where the twin guns jammed I played it as 1 gun jamming and gave the pilot the opportunity of either clearing the jam or firing 1 B gun, I used a weighted dice roll to decide his course of action.
Because it was effectively 2 separate actions I chose to recount it that way my apologies if that makes it even more confusing than usual.
Next games played and just needs writing and then on to the TurkeyUnfortunately I’m not going to be the one to collect it
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Cheers
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Loved the intimidating C.O. and those "flaming planes." 
Beautiful RFC Nieuports.
Originally Posted by flash
it was Dupont and Vagabond with the kills.
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