Hands to Flying Stations

This is brilliant! I remember going on board HMS Ark Royal on a navy day in Devonport way back in the mid '70's. This reminds me of the Flashpoint: Fleet Air Arm project for Target Locked On! that I was thinking about a few months ago. I really should do something with that, now that I have a good grasp of the rules. 

Desert Spitfires RAF 'What If?'

It's a bit early to start mucking about with the Desert Spitfires rules but, in a moment of reckless abandon, I thought I'd get some Bristol Brigands to add to the RAF ranks. These were just being introduced into service in 1948 and could, theoretically, have made an appearance over the front lines during the war. In fact, from early 1949 onward No.84 Squadron operated the type from RAF Habbiniya in Iraq, where PR Mosquito reconnaissance aircraft often re-fuelled for flights over Israel.

Tumbling Dice Bristol Brigand (ISA609)

However, for most of the first half of 1949 only a handful of aircraft were serviceable and there were numerous problems with spare parts, ammunition and even cannon being in short supply, not to mention enough trained aircrew. The aircraft also had a reputation for serious mechanical  issues and going u/s due to 'wrinkling' of the wings! Even so, despite it's terrible reputation, I quite like the stubby look of this light attack bomber and so will paint some up for the game, even if I can't think of a good reason for them to be directly involved or even operational by the end of the war?

http://www.brigandboys.org.uk/

Desert Spitfires Web Research

I've been reading all about the air campaign in the 1948-49 War of Independence and have uncovered a number of really fascinating websites, each of which adds something more to the story. I've taught the causes and consequences of the Arab Israeli conflict many times but haven't really looked into the aerial side of things before. I started out with a focus in the RAF involvement but this soon expanded to take in the Israelis and Egyptians, with even the Syrians getting involved despite having no air force to speak of. The involvement of numerous foreign and often non-Jewish 'volunteers' is particularly interesting, the collective title of Machal being given to the foreign pilots who flew for the IAF. 

Anyway, here's the links to some of the most useful and interesting pages:

http://www.machal.org.il/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=122&Itemid=176&lang=en

http://www.spyflight.co.uk/iafvraf.htm

http://www.historynet.com/spitfire-vs-spitfire-aerial-combat-israels-war-independence.htm

All well worth a look!

Desert Spitfires: The RAF

I have magnet based and undercoated the RAF aircraft for Desert Spitfires today.

These include four Spitfire FR18's, six Hawker Tempest MkVI, two PR.34 DH Mosquitos and a single C-47 Dakota. The latter doesn't actually play a role in the game but I had one spare so thought, why not? The Mossies are unarmed photo recce aircraft and have to make it across the length of the table to win VP's in the game, whilst the fighters are there to protect them and to shoot down the Israelis and Egyptians if they try to get in the way.

I don't know what I'll do with the Dakota but I'm sure I can fit it in somehow, perhaps with a similar mission objective to the Mossies? This is about the maximum size for each of the forces in the game, much less than I've done for each side in MiG Alley, which means I should be able to get the Israelis, Egyptians and British sorted out sharpish. I'll start painting the RAF planes over the next week or so, although I'm back at work tomorrow so will have less time to spare. 

Desert Spitfires Project Planning

I've dug out the books that I have on the 1948 War of Independence air campaign and have sorted out what I have in the 1/600th scale lead pile that can be used for the three sides. I have some spare Seafires that can stand in as Spitfire FR18's plus some Hawker Tempests and Mosquitoes for the RAF. The Israelis have three B-17's, a couple of C-47's, some Spitfire IX's, P-51 Mustangs and a couple of Beaufighters. I also have some leftover Stinson Sentinels and T-6 Texans for light aircraft, but will order some Dragon Rapides from Tumbling Dice as well.

The Egyptians also get some Spitfire IX's and C-47's but I'll need to get some Macchi Mc202's to fill in the blanks. I have nearly all I need already but one thing I don't have are any Egyptian decals in 1/600th scale, which is a bit of a problem as Dom's Decals is still out of action as far as I know? Never mind, as I can crack on with the Israelis and RAF in the meantime, while I try to find some roundels that are small enough for the Egyptian fighters. I think this project will be taking up most of my time instead of the naval things I had planned to do after Easter but those can wait until later in the year.

Bag the MiG Bases in the Blue

I got home from Brittany late yesterday, so this morning I thought I'd waste no time and finish off the home made bases for Bag the MiG, Bag the Hun and other similar hex based rules like Air War:C21 or CY6. This was an easy matter of spray painting them with an appropriate sky themed shade, in this case Halfords Rover Henley Blue over a basecoat of Halfords Matt Grey primer. To take off  a bit of the shine I then over sprayed the whole lot in Army Painter matt varnish. There's no reason why you couldn't spray them in any other suitable colour or even paint them in a terrain themed shade of sand, grass green, snow or whatever, which is what I will definitely do for my Wings at War scratch built bases, when I get round to actually scratch building them of course!

Codename Snake's Eye

I found this 1960's Royal Navy public information documentary film yesterday, while looking for info on the Royal Marines in Aden. It's very cheesy but there are some useful details in there including commando assault tactics, uniforms and equipment. I particularly like the bit with the ground attack rocket strike on an 'enemy' airstrip by Sea Venoms. 

Desert Sand Spray Paint

We went to get new tyres fitted yesterday, as it is cheaper to do this in France than back on the UK. I spotted a rack of spray paints in the tyre fitting shop and so took a closer look. I use the Halfords aerosol paints a lot, especially the ultra Matt camouflage ones, so I was chuffed to find a whole range of similar shades from a Dutch manufacturer called Motip. 

The one that stood out for me was a desert sand colour, which is a match for RAL 1001, whatever that means. I bought a couple of cans to use for some new desert terrain and possibly as an undercoat for AFV's, if it is any good. I want to make some modular terrain tiles for 15mm skirmish games but I'm a bit bored of Halfords khaki. They weren't' very expensive either, so I may well get some more when I'm back over here in a couple of months.

Target Locked On Mission Three Debrief

I set up another Patrol scenario this morning, with an experienced Soviet MiG-21 pilot against an experienced RAF Lightning F-2 pilot, which is an unlikely encounter but offered a roughly equal set up to try out the modified pilot skill check base chance of (3+). I rolled for altitude and the Lightning began ALT 3 with the MiG on ALT 4, both at speed 30 to give some room for manoeuvre. The MiG rolled a 1/2 and the Lighning a 1/1 for initiative in the opening moves.

In Turn 1 the MiG-21 moved forward 30cm and rolled for a successful partial Lock On to the Lightning. The Lightning pilot barrel rolled for his free manoeuvre but failed to throw off the missile lock, then moved forward 26cm and finished the activation with an unsuccessful Lock On attempt on the Soviet fighter. Not to be put off, he then attempted to fire a Firestreak AAM but failed the pilot skill check, rolling a useless 1 when he needed a 4+, having already barrel rolled and having a -1 modifier to his 3+ base chance as a result.

In Turn 2 the MiG-21 pilot won the initiative again and immediately barrel rolled left to line up on the Lightning. He then attempted to decelerate with a successful pilot skill check roll of 4, requiring a 4+ to slow down by 8cm to a new lower speed of 18cm. He could have made a gun attack at this point but I have decided that aircraft have to be at the same altitude to do this, so there was no other option but to attempt a Lock On, which duly failed. The two aircraft were now going past each other at arms length but in opposite directions.

The initiative now passed to the Lightning pilot who moved forward 15cm, pulled an Immelmann using his free manoeuvre and climbed up to ALT 4 in the process. This placed the RAF fighter right behind the MiG-21 and, with a final 3cm forward move, inside cannon range but just too close for missiles. An attempt at a Lock On failed, so he followed on to make a gun attack but failed the pilot skill check as well, rolling a 2 when he needed a 4+ having already manoeuvred once in the activation.

In Turn 3 the Lightning pilot won the initiative, rolling a 5/6 against the MiG-21 pilot's 3/3 on 2D6. The Lightning achieved a Partial Lock On for the first action of the turn, rolling 4-1 = 3 and needing a 3+ to be successful. He was still too close to launch an Firestreak AAM, so chose to attack with guns instead. He passed the pilot skill check (3+) with a high roll of 6, so opened fire with both ADEN cannons.

He rolled To Hit twice as the Lightning has two ADEN cannons. The first To Hit roll was 5 on 1D6 with +3 modifiers for close range (+1), rear target aspect (+1) and slow speed (+1), for a total score of 8. The other To Hit roll for the second gun resulted in a 3 on 1D6 and +3 modifiers, for a second successful hit of 6. I had added these positive modifiers to the gun 'To Hit' factors to see if they would make it easier to make a successful guns only attack. They clearly worked!

The modifiers pushed the chances a bit high but, given the RAF pilot's relative position and the advantages it gave him, the end result was not a surprise or unrealistic. In both cases the target roll was the MiG-21's TARGET factor of 5+, so the RAF pilot only just scraped the second To Hit roll. Each gun now rolled 2D6 for damage effect. The first roll of 2/2 did no damage at all but the second of 1/5 inflicted a single point of damage on the MiG-21. The Lightning pilot now made his free manoeuvre, curving away to the left to get out of the MiG-21's way.

The MiG-21 pilot now used his free manoeuvre to pull a wide turn to the left, failing to break the missile lock. This was followed up by an attempt to Lock On to the Lighting but this also failed. In desperation, the MiG pilot decided to fire an AA-8 Aphid AAM without any lock and, much to his surprise pulled off a successful pilot skill check roll of 5, requiring at least a 4+ having already gained a -1 modifier for his prior manoeuvre. If I had not lifted the pilot skill factor to 3+ from 4+ he would only just have scraped this roll.

He now rolled to hit with a single missile against the Lightning's ECM of 3+ but with a +1 EW factor for the AA-8 missile guidance system. The base roll of 5 (+1 for EW) was modified down for having no lock (-1) and having made one prior manoeuvre (-1) to give a final To Hit result of 4. A hit! The AA-8 has 4 damage dice, which were rolled to give 4/6/6/2 which meant three points of damage including two potential critical hits.

In the end, only one of these converted into a critical effect, knocking out one cannon. However, the Lightning was now within one point of being shot down, suffering Major Damage which meant no high G manoeuvres, MAN reduced to 3 per activation, no radar, no ECM and no weapons in operable condition, so a damaged cannon ammunition feed was the last thing on the RAF pilot's mind in the circumstances! I had also forgotten that he could have tried an evasive manoeuvre at this point but I doubt it would have worked anyway?

To cut a long story short, in Turn 4 the MiG-21 won the initiative, pulled round in a wide turn to try to get guns on the Lightning but just couldn't quite get there, then moved forward for the remainder of the activation and flew off the edge of the airspace. The very relieved Lightning pilot decided to follow the MiG-21's example and limped back to RAF Gutersloh at close to stall speed, having failed his morale roll. I decided to see if he made it, by rolling a D6 for a successful crash landing, using the eject roll of 4+ as a base chance. Luckily he rolled a 6 so made a perfect wheels down landing with no need to eject.

The MiG-21 pilot won a second VP and probably some sort of medal!

Feedback

I really enjoyed this game, which zipped along at a fair pace and was finished in about 45 minutes, playing solo. If two players with some rules experience were playing this would have been no more than half an hour or so of game time. The result was fair although the cumulative +1 modifiers for gunfire at close range, rear target aspect and slow target speed made it a bit too easy to hit. I may well ditch the slow target speed modifier as a result. However, the damage dice rolls evened this out and gave a sensible result in the end. The rules tweak to only allow gun attacks at the same altitude was also effective, as it resulted in more realistic 'dogfighting' tactics.

I was much happier with the revised pilot skill factors which I think gave an overall better game with more action but still a level of difficulty that challenged manoeuvres  and attacks. I will be keeping this modified base chances for future games, at least one of which will feature pilots of different skill levels i.e. conscript or rookie* = (4+) / Experienced = (3+) / Ace = (2+). I think this works much better than the original system and prevents repeated failed pilot skill checks which kill the action and end up being frustrating. It still needs more playtesting to make sure it doesn't make it too easy for Aces.

A good game and a solid, fast play set of rules!

(* I have re-named this skill level as 'Trained' because rookie sounded too cheesy)

Atlantic Wall Treguennec Part Three

We went back to Treguennec yesterday as it was lovely weather. There's been quite a lot of dune erosion over the winter and this has exposed some more of the tetrahedral beach obstacles that were cleared after the war and dumped at the back of the beach. Some of these are in really good condition, having been covered in sand for eighty years or so, while others have suffered quite a lot of damage from the weather, corrosion and vandalism.