For the Bag the Hun game in January, I'm planning to set up a simple fighter vs fighter encounter, using the scenario generation mechanism in the Finest Hour campaign rules. I've selected two options, either a 'Is Bounced By' game with the RAF being ambushed, or a 'Scrambled to Intercept' game, although I may well have both, one after the other so that the new players get a good chance to learn the system.
Either way, I need a Luftwaffe Staffel to be worked out as the opposition for my system generated, semi- fictional RAF Hurricane unit, No27 Squadron, which I have fleshed out with pilot backgrounds, skill ratings and so on. My initial idea was to use the system in Finest Hour to roll up an actual unit, which gave me the famous 7 Staffel or III Gruppe, JG26.
This was a top-scoring, highly experienced squadron with several ace pilots by the end of the Battle of Britain, not to mention Spanish Civil War veterans. While a very exciting prospect for the Luftwaffe players, I thought this might be a bit too daunting for the relatively normal pilots of the RAF, so I went back to the drawing board and devised another fictional unit in line with No27 Squadron.
I'm still working on the finer details but in essence, I now have 7 Staffel of III Gruppe, JG31 Boelcke as my Luftwaffe squadron. Its home airfield is Caffiers in the Luftflotte 2 area of operations. It is equipped with fifteen serviceable Bf-109e fighters and a squadron strength of thirteen pilots, all generated by the Finest Hour mechanisms with a little bit of a tweak.
The commanding officer is a Junior Ace but most of the pilots are Regulars, with a couple of Veterans and Sprogs to balance things out. I've also devised a variation on the Pilot Rank Generator for the Luftwaffe, which has enabled me to pin down the different ranks within each 'schwarm' in a reasonably realistic way. It goes like this:
Roll 1D6
Staffel Leaders (Aces -1):
1-2 = Hauptmann
4-6 = Oberleutnant
All other pilots (Aces -2 / Veterans -1 / Sprogs +1)
1-3 = Leutnant
4 = Oberfeldwebel
5 = Feldwebel
6 = Unteroffizier
(I've not included the Stabschwarm rankings but it would be easy to work something out for that)
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