Russian Front with the Royal Romanian Air Force

 Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy New Year!  It has been a while for the blog because gaming has taken a back seat due to the holidays.  Kids coming home, taking care of parents leaves little time for gaming but much time for joy.  

My son  ordered Saga's new book Age of Chivalry about hundred years war/ War of the Roses for me but that hasn't shipped yet.  

I did get an expansion for GMTs Tank Duel which I played several times.

Germans trying to take a bridge 1941.  

It is a fun game but probably better with others.  If I am going to put that much effort in a game I will play a WW II miniatures battle.  

Also I was inspired to work on my airplane rules to make them faster.  Also I offered to show off the game, entitled Boom and Zoom at the Williamsburg Muster mid February.  This should keep me on task if it is accepted.  

For today we have one of my favorite squadrons using Squadron Forward.   My IAR 80 squadron has flown many missions over the years.  It also boasts one of 4 aces that I have grown using SF.  The kill/loss ratio is 7/5 which for the FARR [ Royal Air Force] is good so their reputation [cool factor] is a 3. Last mission they escorted stukas and the group commander went along.  Today I rolled up a fighter sweep.

Capt Sandru our ace will lead and he will pick Lt Macri to take the other element.  Since this is a sweep he will pick Adj Dusescu, the new man, to fly with him.  He assigns SLT Alexiu to the other wingman spot and tells Macri to keep an eye on him.  His abort rate is higher than average whenever they encounter the enemy.  

Capt Sandru             Ace

           Adj Dusescu       Sprog

Lt Macri                  Avg

           SLt   Alexiu        Avg     Pessimistic, avoids combat when able

 

Over the front lines Sandru spots Russian fighters low streaking towards Romanian positions.  He manuvers his fighters to their 6 o clock.   

 Laggs armed with bombs with some Yaks as top cover.  He will keep his wingman and go after one.  He orders the other two officers to split up and each take a Lagg.  He wants to see what Alexiu will do.

A good but not great bounce!    Sandru damages a Lagg as it drops bombs.  Macri damages a Lagg but can't stay on it's tail.  Alexiu fires and damages a Lagg.  [ Pilot severely wounded actually.]

The Yaks come down in what the russians would later call "the falcon's blow" and knock the Romanians off the Lagg's tails but none are more than minimally damaged.  

Two of the Laggs chug forward; a third "lags" behind. [ Couldn't help it]  The wia pilot successfully leaves the board.  The Yak-1s turn to stop the IAR-80s.  

Capt Sandru decides to go high and take on the Yaks.  He orders the other flight to pursue the Laggs. 

Sandru climbs and quickly earns his 6th kill.

A Yak gets a snap shot at Sandru and damages his tail.  

Macri tangles with a Yak while Alexiu catches the 3rd Lagg.  At low level the IAR is slightly more maneuverable than the Yak. 

 

Unfortunatley Adj Dusescu loses Sandru during the twisting dogfight.   The veteran Yak pilot quickly gets on Dusescu's tail.  

Alexiu keeps firering into the Lagg but it refuses to go down.

The Lagg escapes west off the board.

The veteran Yak gets the initiative and unloads into poor Dusescu.   His gas tanks is punctured but fortunately doesn't alight.  

Sandru comes to the rescue.   Since the Yak pilot doesn't have a wingman he has a choice; take Sandru's blows or break off and deal with the ace...

He breaks off but Sandru still maneuvers to his 4 o clock...

and leaves with smoke streaming from his inline engine!

As the sky clears of Russians planes Sandru is pretty pleased.   He has a kill and a probable.  Alexiu stayed and fought.  Desescu is in trouble but the Laggs lost their bombs; not bad.

Unless you are at Romanian HQ!   With unusual efficiency all snow is cleared from around the HQ.

3 Laggs streak over the HQ.  One plane drops bombs but they fall long.  With enemy fighters in the area they don't come back for a strafing pass.  Still, the wing CC gets a call about the lack of air cover over the front lines!

One more drama needs to be played out with SF; the landing.  Using AKOT Dusescu does make it back to the air field and lands fine.  Quite a first mission!  

Great game that played in an hour.   I called it a draw because 3 of 4 Laggs did get through.  I probably need to re work some of the rules for fighter bombers; they seem pretty fast.  

Post battle  Sandru is congratulated on his 6th kill.  Dusescu's fighter won't be ready for next mission so we are down to 7 planes.   We introduce Capt Tocra the base flight surgeon.  He is fanatical about the war against russia so will be prone to send pilots back to flying to early.  Could prove interesting.  I told you this was a great squadron!

Enjoy

Joe

Barge Busting in the Baltic

 Played another fun scenario over the weekend busting barges.  This time I went to the frozen north where I could use the KFK I just built.  I didn't roll up the forces but used the barge busting scenario from FF.  Rules were Coastal Patrol and I modified how many flood and fire hits were possible.  Visibility 2K yrds with calm seas.    4 MO-4 boats looking for a small convoy moving supplies that was spotted by air.  The Russians are rated poor.  Because of this they will start in column. 

Russians on the prowl. Each hex is 100 yards.  I use the spines as well so 11 directions per hex.

Russians spot something.  Big problem- like to stay away from the front.  I do say that all guns on the ferry have a -1 to hit in all but the calmest seas.

Russians veer away from the ferry.  Here's hoping we can get by it unspotted.  [ I do use the spotting rules from Crueler Seas. Just personal preference.]

Amazingly the plan seems to be working even though we also spot a KFK as well.  

Then Commrade Unstode [ MO-4 boat 4] sees a torpedo in the water and takes evasive action. 

[random event from Flotilla Forward.]   Clearly he has been hitting the vodka again!!

This wakes the KFK up and all hell breaks loose!  Coastal actions at it's finest.  Fortunately we have the KFK outgunned.  At this range even Russians hit once in a while.

 The russians finally spot the convoy.

As the MO-4s move around the KFK a fire breaks out on the third russian boat.  The KFK starts to flood and slows.

It is a losing battle.  The KFK starts to sink.

The MO-4 boats move towards the back of the convoy.  Meanwhile back on the third russian boat...

fire fighting wasn't emphasized in their training so the ship becomes engulfed in flames. 

A small barge starts to sink.  

 The convoy has slowly moved out of the way to give the ferry a clear shot at the russian boats.  

A direct hit on the lead MO-4 knocks out it's engine.  The Senior Leader signals boat 2 to pick up the crew and for boat 4 to go pick up the crew of boat 3.    With a KFK and barge sunk and another dead in the water we have done enough for tonight!

Boat 3 flashes by the Siebel ferry!  

Great battle that took 90 minutes.  It was surprising that the russians managed to sneak up on the germans like that.  I am slowly modifying the rules to suit my taste. It amazes me that rolling for the number of actions works as well as it does.   I liked the -1 to hit for the ferry.  The MO-4s and KFK each took 3 flotation and 3 fires.  I am even playing around with ship data cards.

 

Play test data card.

Happy Veterans Day to all our Veterans and a Happy Remembrance day!

Enjoy!

Joe

Versatility for some warlord ships

 Just a quick post on a project I finished while building warlord's [ now skytrex] kreigfischkutter ships.  I bought a 2 pack a while back because these ships are ubiquitous in convoys and port patrolling in almost all navies.  My plan was to use magnets for the gun positions so I could swap them out to whatever country I wanted.  I haven't built a ship in ages so got lazy on the first one and just built a german KfK.

Here she is!  Ready for action.

Inspired I went back to the original plan for the second ship.  I think it went well so thought I would show you in case others wanted to stretch their fleets.  First up the german version...

 

 

 

The original mast broke in the box so I had to substitute but I think it looks fine for the table top. 

Next is our British version.  New flag and guns.

Finally our Soviet one for the Black sea.  

I also can flag her as a Romanian vessel with german figures for the Black sea and Finnish if Skytrex ever gets around to the Finnish boats!

Enjoy

Joe

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barge Busting in the Solomons

 It is baseball playoffs but I managed to dust off Coastal Patrol by TFL and the late Mr Schmidt and give it another go.  These rules are fast play but give a very satisfying game.  I made some modifications to the damage model on scratch paper so wanted to try a scenario out to see if I remembered them.  Last year I created a Japanese coastal force and talked about it on my May 2023 post.

I rolled up the scenario "barge busting" per Flotilla Forward and got normal seas with visibility 1 mile.

 Unusually, I didn't roll up or use any characters.   Two regular PT boats out looking to do damage.  

 Our two boats moving slow looking for trouble.

The moon must be behind clouds because no one is seeing anything! [ rather than card activation I use the die activation from Cruel Seas and added one US die for the better training and surprise.]

The US finally spots the first blind which is nothing and then a second off to port which is a patrol boat. Knowing barges always stick closer to shore they veer closer to shore and keep their eyes peeled. 

"Barges dead ahead!"  Two minutes later everyone sees everyone.  Who will be the first to react?

The PT boats roar to life and start a "straffing run" of the barges.   These boats have 20mm guns fore and aft; not a 40 mm aft.  

The Japanese patrol boat is slow to respond with it's poor crew [ love the dice mechanism to roll for number of actions!]  They do get some shots off at the second US craft. 

The PT boats circle the convoy and come up the back side causing fires on two of the barges!  

However, from the rear a Japanese type "C" barge appears and the second PT boat starts to take damage. 

The Japanese escorts finally sandwich the PT boats in.  The PT boats continue to fire at the barges; their primary mission.  Suddenly, the Captain on the second PT boat is hit.  In enemy waters at night, taking fire from multiple directions, the crew is not at all pleased with their situation.

  As the PT boats escape the gauntlet the second PT boat starts to take on water!  The lead boat orders "Come around" which the second boat missed with all the chaos going on.   The Chief Petty officer...

  calls it a day.  He orders the crew to make smoke and to leave towards the rally point.   they can work on repairs and see if the captain is okay.

The lead PT boat comes around and attempts one more pass at the enemy barges.  The escorts switch their fire to the lead boat.     

The pass is made and the PT boat decides...

they have caused as much havoc as they can for one night.  

Great game that played in 40 minutes.  2 barges sunk with another damaged.  What I did was the barges needed 2 flood and 2 fire hits instead of 6 and the PT and patrol craft required 3.  I think this makes the smaller craft more fragile.  

Enjoy!

Joe