Target Locked On! Sino-Soviet Interception Game

I played another game of Target Locked On! today against the sprog and...got thrashed again. She had two Soviet Su-7B fighter bombers and I had two Chinese J-7's, the mission objective being for her aircraft to exit from the far table edge. The scenario was set over a wintery stretch of Outer Mongolia at some point in the late 1960's, when tensions were running high between the two powers.

The Chinese fighters started at altitude level 4 and the Soviets at altitude level 5. At first, I won the initiative for both my pilots so zoomed up at full speed to level 5, locking on with one J-7 and firing a single PL-2 IR missile at close range against one of the Sukhois...which completely missed. The other J-7 attempted to fire his guns at the second Soviet fighter bomber but failed his skill check, being only a trained pilot and pretty hopeless.

In return the Soviet fighter bombers then made two successful, front aspect gun attacks at very close range, inflicting critical damage on one of the J-7's, injuring the pilot and leaving the airframe with only one point of damage left. I overcooked the gunnery dice at this point, but we kept the result the same just to be fair. The other gun run on the second J-7 also caused a critical hit (!) knocking out an engine. How does she always manage to roll 6's? 

Anyway, the Sukhois then zoomed back down to altitude level four, accelerating away toward the table edge and victory. The damaged J-7 with it's injured pilot passed a morale check but then had no options left, so exited the table with a slow turn, leaving the last Chinese pilot to pursue the rapidly retreating Sukhois. Once again, however, he screwed up his pilot skill test and put himself right in front of one of the Soviet fighter bombers. 

As he was only a trained pilot I guess it wasn't entirely his fault but I should have known better than to try it on. Luckily, the Soviet pilot then screwed up his gun attack and failed to hit, which left him free to accelerate away and exit the table alongside his wingman. This meant that the Soviets had easily escaped to win a 4 point to nil victory over the People's Liberation Army Air Force. Bugger.

I did muck up some of the mechanics (again) which played in favour of the sprog but, to be honest, she swept to a well deserved victory with her superior tactics and smart manoeuvring. It's a shame the photos didn't do her justice as the camera flash was playing up again. She does want a re-match, however, so it'll be a photo recon mission next time which I will probably also lose...!?

One thing I did notice was a discrepancy between the distance moved during acceleration / deceleration manoeuvres, so I've kept it to the QRS version which states that it's +/- the MAN rating. I think I need to produce my own QRS to make the play sequence and skill check procedures for manoeuvres and attacks more transparent?