Platoon Forward: Costly day for the USAAF

Welcome to Platoon Forward!

Welcome to the site where the story of the battle is as important as the battle itself. Here we will focus on men thrust into extraordinary situations of life and death. They must lead other men with duty and honor to meet their countries objectives. Some will be blessed with great skill, some will carry great shortcomings. No matter what nation, no matter what war, no matter what theater, they are all called to move their Platoon or Squadron forward!

These are their individual stories as played out using my various campaign rules . Hopefully these stories will entertain and inspire you to use your own troops, airmen and sailors to accomplish your own great heroics.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Costly day for the USAAF

Sorry it has been a month since any postings. Had a family reunion and started a new job which has kept me busy. Played several small TW&T games and BTH2 games but took few to no pictures. Did play one B-17 raid this weekend though...

The men of Bomber squadron 222 "Iron Men" shuffled into the briefing hut. Target Kiel. Ingress over land to fool Jerry and egress over water; brilliant thinking?!?! Worst news was BS 222 was to be the low squadron for the group today. Only good news was plenty of P-51s and a smattering of P-47s to cover.

SQ lead Hell's Bell's Ace
Dangerous Curves
Belle of the Ball Rookie
2nd element
Return Ticket Veteran
Queen of the Skies
Miss Jane Rookie

Escort was 6 P-51Ds with 1 ace, 2 veterans, 2 average and 1 rookie
Random event added 2 P-47Ds with 2 Average pilots

Germans spotted US first and came in undetected. P47s trailing and P-51s echeloned to the left of the formation.

German force consisted of
6 FW 190 A8 R6s (the armored guys with 30mm cannons 3 Vets 1 Avg and 2 green covered by 2 ME 109Ks both average.

Iron Men flying with escort

Unfortunatly the first sign of trouble was when Sgt Singleton, the tail gunner of Miss Jane, called out bandits 6 o'clock high closing in fast!

4 P51s quickly split S'ed to engaged the 3 fighters attacking Miss Jane while 2 provided top cover.

Embarresed P-51s come roaring in!

Miss Jane took enough wing damage that she fell out of formation. The P-51s drove 1 of the armored attackers off but Jane was now in trouble. She next lost her top turret and waist gunner. Finally her number 3 engine exploded; 4 parachutes were counted.

The other 3 FW 190s fell upon Queen of the Skies. Their cannon were too much and she succumbed before fighters could show up with 8 parachutes counted. They then moved onto Return Ticket. Cannon fire also managed to knock her out of formation. But by this time the P-51s were making things too hot for the FW 190s and they decided 2 bombers was good enough for today and left. 4 of the 6 FW 190As had significant damage but none were shot down. 1 ME 109K fell to a P-47s guns. No US fighters were lost. On the bomb run Dangerous Curves took a direct hit into the gas tank and exploded with no survivors. The 3 shaken survivors of 222 scored no hits on the harbor. A costly day for the USAAF!

Fun game but pretty one sided. The bounce by the germans set the stage. I also upgraded the FW 190A8 to ROB 3. Will play several more games to see it this works. I used a modified damaged table based on my variant damage table for BTH found in a TFL special. I also used characteristics for fighters that I hope to pen in a future article.

Below are just a smattering of other pictures I have taken receintly