I been finishing off my holiday reading with this book which covers the air war in North West Europe from the perspective of several pilots involved in fighter bomber and ground attack missions. It didn't look that promising to start with but it's actually really good, full of potential scenario ideas and background information on tactics.
I was particularly interested in the sections covering 263 Squadron, which flew Whirlwinds on fighter bomber and anti-E boat missions to Brittany in 1942-1943. I love the look of the Westland Whirlwind as an aircraft and it was one of my favourite Airfix kits when I was a kid. It would be easy to set up a series of linked scenarios based on a selection of these missions, or even a mini-campaign using Bag The Hun 2 based on the Battle of Britain campaign system in Finest Hour.
A bit more digging turned up an online archive of 263 Squadron documents including the Operational Record Book (ORB) and individual pilot's after action reports, complete with downloadable transcriptions. This is a really fantastic resource and a gold mine of information for scenarios, especially as it is covers a range of actions from attacks on airfields and on rail targets, to air sea rescue escorts and reconnaissance flights, plus day and night time shipping strikes on coastal forces:
There are Whirlwinds in the Raiden Miniatures range but, as yet, none from Tumbling Dice, so it would be a 1/285th scale project. I'd need to add some 500lb bombs to make them Whirlibombers but that's a minor detail. The rest of my Bag The Hun stuff is in 1/285th anyway, so it's a simple extension of what I've already got. This is (yet another) project for a rainy day but definately worth a bit more background research and development.
Tally Ho!
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