Malta Spitfires AAR

In the new house, internet appears to be working. Still no camera but a 3 day weekend. Went to the Duxford Air Museum in the UK; outstanding! Three cool things that differenciate it from most of the air museums in the US. First, it appears most of the planes are in working condition. Second they always tell you where this particular plane came from. Third they have a land warfare hanger that is over the top! They have life size diaoramas of a tank battle in Berlin, a german AT gun in France, british troops at D-Day. There is a shrine to Field Marshal Montgomery which was interesting since you here nothing about him in the states.
After Duxford I had to use Spitfires but I only have my desert ones as Mark from Raiden has been 2 weeks slow on my Battle of Britain package! So... Malta Spitfires round 2. (Same squadron as the last post)

Flt Lt Wilson rather liked running the squadron. He could do things HIS way. He had been at it for 2 days every since Cheese went missing near Sicily. Gp Cpt Eithing told him a CO was inbound from England but wouldn't get here for awhile.
He hadn't spoken to Sgt Randel directly after "Cheese's" last mission but several of the NCOs had. Randel had denigned losing "Cheese" on purpose and was sticking to the story. "Scrum" Patson had refused to fly with him. Wilson had avoided the issue so far by not scheduling Randel. There were plenty of pilots. Today's mission was an intercept. 5 planes were ready to go!
Characters
Flt Lt Jim Wilson Unsupportive/avarice Vet
F/O Jamie Farnsworth Cocky/ Avarice Avg
F/O Bullet Skeel Corrupt/ Position Avg
Green element
Sgt Scrum Patson Cocky/ religion Vet
Sgt Joey Towson Fickle/ enginering Avg

Jim saw the bombers off at his 10 o'clock closer than he wanted due to some clouds. Stukas without fighters! He turned to get behind them; Scrum asked to go over them to get in better position. Jim didn't really care as long as he got a couple of shots.
As all 5 spitfires closed Scrum called out 2 bandits 12 o'clock high! [ great place for a picture if I had a camera] Jim told Scrum to cover the bandits while blue flight took care of the 8 stukas.
As Jim continued to close on the Stukas, bullets hammered into his wing! He looked back and a MC202 was on his tail. [ I have to explain this as it was too cool. A random event had 3 more MC 202s enter right behind blue flight. I got bounced by my own game system!!] Bullet and Jamie screamed they were taking fire. The 2 outside Spits started tight turns while Jim did a snap roll. Bullet took a while to shake his pursuer needing several barral rolls but not before he had taken minor engine damage. Throttled back he could keep the temperature down but any faster and he risked over heating.
Meanwhile Scrum and Joey had tangled with the 2 original MC 202s and saw the furball developing behind the Stukas. Since no one was now calling for help they gave chase to the bombers. Joey downed one in a brilliant flash that left no doubt to its destruction. Scrum's shooting was off as he fired off all his ammo, damaging 2 that aborted. [nother great place for a picture]
The 3 members of blue flight could not break away from 4 of the Italian fighters to chase the bombers. Worse, Bullet's plane had a bad engine and Jim's plane had lost speed as well due to his wing damage. after several minutes the English could not gain an advantage, the bombers were nearing the field and Jim still had 2 out of 3 machines damaged. He told blue flight to break off and Green element to leave once they entered flak range. The British successfully disengaged. Only 4 Stukas bombed the target; 1 nearmissed teh runway, 2 destroyed parked aircraft and one destroyed the operations building.

Post game Sgt Towson was upgraded to Veteran [possible]. Doc Logan, the flight surgeon, is hearing alot of complaints about Flt Lt Wilson and is acting as a great sounding board. The Squadron had to undergo a morale check and he was able to add positively to the die roll. [Don't be alarmed about the term "morale checks'. Think of it here as a cohesivness check and it occures after the flying.] A replacement plane for Cheese shows up and one of the damaged planes is repaired.

Great Game! Really enjoyed it. Squadron Forward is working well and adds a layer to the game which really increases my enjoyment. I have started writing it down and am probably 25% done.

Scenario Interception

5 Spitfires vrs

2 MC202 2 Avg pilots
8 Stukas

3 MC 202s come in as reinfocements turn 3. 1 Vet 1 avg and 1 green Allow them to come in behind Blue flight.


Airfield defense I used 3 dice for heavy AA as per my LAAF AA rules found in 2 specials ago.


Hopefully my land troops will be here wednesday; then maybe I can visit Berlin with Platoon Forward!

Enjoy

Joe

Cheese is Packaged AAR

Having trouble posting to the blog. Will try in short snippets
Still moving but have played 2 games of Squadron Forward. thought I would post one here as it does a good job explaining some of the interactions and showing the differences/similarities with Platoon Forward. The big drawback is I am without a camera so written word only! Sorry folks
[BTH2 used for the tactical game with my "Brag the Hun" air to ground rules used for the rockets and bombing.]

Malta 1942
"Cheese" came back from group HQ happy. An escort of Beaus to Italy to take out some barges that the intel lads had found hold up in a small port. He would lead the flight as he desperately needed flight experience. He would take Sgt Randell as his wingman. Sgt Randell walked teh line of insolence but there was no doubt he was the best pilot in the squadron. Cheese could not ask for help but hoped to learn from Randell just by watching. F/O Barnes was a steady lad as long as you let him hit the bottle every 3-4 days. He could take up the new pilot, F/O Skeel to check him out. Skeel's nicknam was "Bullet" and he had a gaze that chilled Cheese at first.
Characters
Sdr Ldr Cheese Landry Pessimistic/Hedonism Avg
Sgt Paul Randel Cocky/ Family Vet gifted pilot
F/O Paul Barnes Pragmatic/ Alcohol Vet
F/O Bullet Skeel corrupt/position

Rendevouez over Malta was easy and they headed out. Several miles from Italy the Beaus called out bandits at 8 o clock. " Should have seen them first" thought Cheese. His next mistake was delaying the flights split S (missed his roll ) which put the spitfires out of postion to intercept. During the delayed split S Randel lost the Sdr Ldr. [Difficult for a gifted pilot to do.] fortunatley the bandits turned out to be lightly armed MC 202s which had a hard time with the Beaufighters. they managed to take only 1 down. Sgt Randel, unencumbered with Cheese, shot down one fighter and damaged another. F/O Barnes bagged one MC 202. Sdr Ldr Landry gamely tried to find firing positions without success. towards the end of the battle a MC 202 got off a deflection shot that must have hit his petrol for his plane was seen to catch fire. A good chute was seen and later it was confirmed that Cheese had been packaged and taken as an italian POW.
The 5 Beausfighters ripped up the port sinking 3 barges, damaging 2 others, damaging a VP ship nad destroying one AA emplacement.

Scneario should include the 4 Spitfires, 6 Beaufighters and 5 MC 202s. The Port contains 6 barges, 2 VP ships (AA str 2) and several AA emplacements around the port. I rolled the Italians had 4 average pilots and 1 green. If using my "Everyone wants an Ace" for BTH remember that Avg Italians don't have to roll for hard manuvers.

Post misison squadron reputation went up by one. The squadron feels that Randel intentionally dropped off Cheese's wing to go hunting with dire consequences for Cheese. Randel is persona non grata currently. F/O Barnes was medically disquallified for 4 missions due to an ear ache but Doc Logan managed to cut that down to 2. the squadron still waits for a replacement spitfire and Lt Jim Wilson [ not popular as he is a greedy SOB] will temporarily at least run the squadron.

Great game and hopefully gives you a feel for it. Hopefully will get a chance to play some Platoon Forward next month!

Enjoy

Joe