Artillery spotting -- Late August 1918

[Larry R.]

I was inspired by Dom's very nice artillery spotting mission AAR found here: (https://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sh...llery-Spotting).

Late afternoon. Capt Eddie Rickenbacker, flying a solo patrol. spots a DH-4 and its SE5a escort crossing into enemy held territory. Rickenbacker also sees two German fighters closing in on the British machines. Suddenly, the SE5a peals off, diving for friendly ground. "hmmmm....engine trouble," Rickenbacker thinks as he races to the side of the DH. Note: I am managing the DH-4 and the Spad. Janet is handling the Albatros and Pfalz. Photos taken with my dated but trusty Canon digital camera.



As the German fighters approach, Rickenbacker peals off in an attempt to draw the Germans away from the DH.


He engages the Pfalz D-IIIa. The artillery's ranging shot misses the target, a road intersection in an important German supply line. Note: I took photos from various positions around the table, which I now see causes confusion regarding the plane positioning.


The artillery hits the target area, and the Albatros receives hits from the Spad. The Alby guns jam. Meanwhile, the Pfalz gets in close to the Spad, too close to fire its guns.


The artillery misses the target area, but the Alby receives fire from the DH observer.


The artillery gets a hit on the target.


The Alby makes a serious mistake as it flies across the DH front gun arc of fire.


The DH observer takes a shot and misses, but the Alby experiences a single gun jam. Note: we decided that the green gun jam = 2 guns, red = 1 gun


The DH and the Pfalz exchange fire


The DH does a good job of remaining near the ground target area. Its observer has his hands full!


Exchanging fire. The artillery gunners seem to have zeroed in on the target.


The Pfalz wounds the DH observer.


The Alby again receives fire from the DH front gun at close range. The damage cards are 4 an 1


The heavily damaged Alby decides to break off and head for his aerodrome, however Rickenbacker gets in a last raking.....


...and the Albatros goes down. The remaining planes head home.


Final mission results.... the DH succeeded in directing artillery fire, the road intersection was destroyed. The Albatros was brought down and relatively minor damage to the remaining aircraft. Janet is demanding a rematch, same exact set up. Stay tuned.

[flash]

Your first image is AWOL, Larry, probably timed out whilst you were creating the AAR.
Looks like fun, I take it the pilot was doing the spotting as the gunner was hors de combat late on.

[CrashCraig]

Great job Larry. Lots of action in the AAR. To paraphrase Hans Solo in the original Star Wars movie (Episode 4 now): "Let Janet win!"

[Larry R.]

Your first image is AWOL, Larry, probably timed out whilst you were creating the AAR.
Looks like fun, I take it the pilot was doing the spotting as the gunner was hors de combat late on.

Image issue fixed. Janet and I are discussing the issue of the observer, i.e., can the observer operate the machine gun and send corrections to the arty unit in the same maneuver? Yes?...or, no?....

[Spoonfrog]

Nice AAR! Looks like you had a good game. I used these rules (following Windy Jack's example):

Artillery Spotting rules

I think that would give Janet more of a chance - the two seater must make all three moves within one ruler of the target, all without receiving any enemy fire. If so, the target draws one A card. If not, no artillery correction is possible until next turn. We decided to ignore the crew damage because it is a bit of a golden bullet for this scenario.

As for firing as well as observing, the rules above don't mention it, so we allowed it. From what I have read it was sometimes the pilot who did the spotting whilst the observer looked out for enemy aircraft.

[Spoonfrog]

...but the Alby experiences a single gun jam.

I think you might be playing gun jams incorrectly. The aircraft that *fires* (not the target aircraft) has it's gun jammed when a card with a gun jam symbol is drawn.

[Larry R.]

I think you might be playing gun jams incorrectly. The aircraft that *fires* (not the target aircraft) has it's gun jammed when a card with a gun jam symbol is drawn.

Yikes! Need to fix this for future games.

[Baxter]

Good game, although as Dom said it looks as though the jam was not played correctly.

[Larry R.]

Good game, although as Dom said it looks as though the jam was not played correctly.

A noob's mistake but easily corrected

[Windy Jack]

A noob's mistake but easily corrected

Don't be too hard on yourself. I did the same thing when I was new to the game. I was playing solo, so there was no one to put me straight, and there was no AAR, so no helpful comments from this Forum. I eventually learnt.

[Larry R.]

Good game, although as Dom said it looks as though the jam was not played correctly.

I explained the situation to Janet. She said "no biggie", but then put me on KP for two weeks!

[Spoonfrog]

King Prawns? Yum!

[Larry R.]

King Prawns? Yum!

Oh, I wish!!