More Corsairs and Cavaliers Play Testing

 

This was another ground attack bombing game, with the Hondurans having three U-17 Cessna's with bombs, a C-47 with bombs and two gun pod equipped SNJ-4's as an escort, while the Salvadorans had three FG1-D Corsairs on CAP. At the start if the game, I decided to only deploy targets for the Hondurans to bomb, rolling up two and placing them according to the rules. Normally, you can't bomb before Turn 3 but as I was only using the small kitchen table I decided to modify the restriction to after Turn 2 to make up for the shorter distances involved. The Cessna's began at Level 1, the C-47 and SNJ-4's at Level 2, with the FG1-D Corsairs at Level 3.

The game played out well, with the Corsairs zooming in and diving to take on the C-47, which pulled a fast one and dived to Level 1 before they could intercept. The SNJ-4's meanwhile moved to head off the Corsairs and managed a hairy head on pass but with neither side managing to hit anything. The Cessna's were pootling along at Level 1 being ignored by everyone and eventually ended up in line astern over one of the targets. The C-47 also lined up for its bombing run on the other target but failed to hit anything, while two of the three Cessna's got themselves shot down, handing a victory to the Salvadoran army AAA gunners. They didn't have long to celebrate, however, as the third Cessna dropped its homemade bombs slap bang on the target and blew them sky high!

The game was quite short but that was primarily down to the table size and the tactics of the Hondurans, who now realise that bombing from Level 1 in a light aircraft is probably not a good idea, even if you have a better chance of a hit. There wasn't much air to air action but that's to be expected in a game where half of the aircraft don't have any guns. The Salvadoran pilots didn't achieve much but were out manoeuvred by the Hondurans on at least two occasions, so probably deserve to go home empty handed. I enjoyed the game anyway and didn't find anything that needed to be tweaked or amended, so it's another tick in the play testing box for me.

(Apologies for the terrible photos as my camera died and I'm having to use my phone instead)