Got in a Game Last Night - CY6 Greece

Mark hosted his regular Thursday night game of Check Your Six. He indulged me and we played a Greece 1941 game. I was in command of a flight of three Gloster Gladiators with excellent pilots including Marmaduke Pattle. The Italians were played by Mark with a flight of two Cr42s, Chris (a different one) with a flight of two G50s and Max with a group of three Cr42s.

My flight came in at a higher altitude and spotted the Italians immediately. Pattle and his wingman dove down on Mark's CR42s. The last Gladiator remained at altitude and turned towards the G50s. And this is pretty much where my plan fell apart.

Turn 4 has Pattle with a shot on one of Mark's novice pilots. He scores a hit but Mark was able to save. Turn five has Pattle repeating his shot and jamming his guns. Mark again saves. Pattle next dives out of the way in order to get a chance to unjam his guns. (Actually, he should have just left but the Italians wanted to continue the game.) Turn 6 saw the the Italians land a hit on Pattle's wingman. This resulted in engine damage. The pilot would then dive out of combat and reached safety by turn 10.

Turn 11 saw Pattle land another hit resulting in airframe damage to one of Max's Cr42s. Max climbed and ran for it with this pilot. The same turn saw my other pilot take engine damage. He attempted to dive out of combat but was followed by a G50 and two Cr42s and probably would have been shot down.

Exhaustion overtook me and I had to quit after 13 turns. All in all, it was a great game. You just never know how things are going to play out. With a top ace like Pattle, there should have been multiple kills recorded. But one never knows how things will happen. Great game that was lots of fun.

Chain of Command Campaign and Check Your 6

I had some free time this week and tried an experiment. How many games of a Chain of Command campaign could I get in if I kept using the same table but rotated the starting positions of each side. It was a very successful attempt.

The games were set on the Eastern Front with Germans pushing the Russians in the Ukraine circa 1941. The patrol scenario did not go well for the Germans. They took a beating and did a withdrawl. In the second scenario, things were reversed. The Germans managed to give the Russians a significant beating while only loosing 2 men.

At that point, I put the game on hold. It was getting late and I had to work the next morning. Now had I had the opportunity to start earlier, I could have finished 4 or more games in a day had I wished. Not changing the terrain definitely sped up getting the second game going.

But what did the game look like? Well I only took one picture.

This gives you a good idea of the open farmland that was being fought over. Not a great picture but it was something.

For the first time this year (I think) I made it out for a game of CY6 at Gigabytes. Good scenario and better company. I flew a Russian recon flight that was trying to escape the Germans. Six Russian fighters joined in the fun to cover for me. I managed to get 2 of 3 aircraft off the board before scenario end. Thanks Mark for hosting a great game.

Comparing Air Games

My local gaming group prefers the Check Your Six aircraft rules. They work well and provide a great game. I have enjoyed the TFL Bag the Hun rules. They also are fun and provide a good game. What I have never done is play the two side by side. I thought it would make an interesting comparison.

I started with just a simple scenario, a pair of Bf109es and a pair of Hawker Hurricanes. Both sides are regular pilots with nothing extra. The first run through was with Bag the Hun. It took four short turns. The first turn had the aircraft close. The second turn had aircraft turn and the card system ended up with the British Hurricanes in a vulnerable position. The third turn gave the initial cards to the German's favor and the first of the British Hurricanes exploded in the air. The remaining British aircraft attempted to run for it. The fourth and final turn had the Germans on the tail of the final British aircraft which netted in the British pilot being killed.

The result was it proved to be an excellent solo play system that resolved combat quickly and was deadly. Maneuvering to contact was easy and allowed to get to grips with the enemy.

The second game reset the pieces and Check Your 6 was given a roll out. This was a different kettle of fish. I like the preset turn determination. But doing this is not as easy for solo play in my opinion. It also took longer for the aircraft to come to grips. For a multi-player game, this is actually not a problem at all. The firing mechanism as slightly more cumbersome but mostly because I am less familiar with it than with Bag the Hun. In the end, I had one exploded Hurricane and one that was able to run for his life.

This was also a good and plausible result. And it was a fun game. I really enjoyed both of these rules. For solo play, I think I will stick with Bag the Hun. For multi-player games, I will probably keep going with CY6.

Bag the Hun and Check Your 6 - Messing with Scenarios

I have been looking into my air campaigns again. Not enough to do another scenario book again but just tinkering with things.

So just to keep things fun, I am posting up a couple of scenarios for all of you to tinker around with. Please let me know if the links work.

The first is a scenario set in the Spanish Civil War. It covers one of the first Combat Air Patrols of the Italian CTV air contingent. This is the scenario that covers the first victory achieved by the Italians over the skies of Spain. You can get it here.

Next up is a scenario that takes place days before the launch of Operation Battleaxe. It features pilots of the 1./JG27 encountering some Hurricanes of the Number 73 Squadron over the airfield at Ain-el-Gazala South. You can download this here.

Anyway, take a look and let me know what you think. This is the first time I have used dropbox as a means of hosting files so let me know if you can access the files. Thanks.

Joys of Blogger and I got to Play some Games!

Blogger

No clue what the fine folks at Blogger are doing but my reading list now consists of a single entry and the view more does not work. Apparently, I am not alone in this. I saw a post on the TFL Yahoo group and there is a Google Group talking about it too. I hope they straighten this out soon as it is really annoying.

Two games of CY6

Yep, you read that right, I got in two great games of Check Your Six last night. I met Mark at Gigabytes lat night and got in two East Front games.

Game One
This was set in late 1942 with the Italian Air Contingent running a patrol over the skies of Stalingrad. My Italians were flying a flight of four MC200s. They encountered a flight of four Soviet Petlyakov Pe-2s. (At least I think that is what they were)

I divided my aircraft into two two section flights. They started at speed 3 at an altitude of 8. I think the Russians entered at an altitude of 7. I forgot to make note of that.

We pre-plotted the first three moves as the visibility was poor. In the initial pass, I had timed it wrong and ended up passing in front of the Russians instead of to their side or behind. The MC200 is a very fragile aircraft. I think I failed almost every save by over 4 and thus the first aircraft fell to Mark.

As the aircraft closed on one another, a intense combat ensued. i landed a few hits that were shrugged off by the durable Pe-2 aircraft and Mark landed a solid hit on another MC200 which sent it down in flames.

Being rather sensible about it and the remaining pilot having no interest in a Russian Gulag, they power dive and begin their getaway. The Russians had been executing tight turns and lacked the speed to catch up.

The dive worked and the remaining Italians made good their escape. Time for a glass of Chianti in remembrance of lost friends. One more fleeting shot taken by the Russians but they were far out of range and the remaining Italians got away.

The game ran for a total of nine turns. I lost pilots at turn 4 and turn 5. It was a great game that went differently than I expected. First, the Italians were all +1 pilots. The Soviets had a -1 pilot and a couple of 0 pilots. Yet they still destroyed me. Well done Mark.

Game Two
For the second game, I played the Romanians in late 1941. I had two groups of aircraft to keep track of. The first is a bomber group consisting of two SM.79JRs. These were Italian aircraft with two German motors instead of three Italian ones. The center motor was replaced with a forward gun mount. The second group consisted of four Romanian IAR-80 aircraft (I think).

I positioned a pair of fighters at altitude 8 in front. The two bombers were behind at altitude 7 while the tailing fighters were at altitude 6.

This game had better visibility. My force was considerably more varied in quality than the first game. Each pair had a plus one pilot and a zero pilot.

The Romanians were a very different kettle of fish. I really liked these aircraft. They had more guns and it did not hurt that I had better luck with the dice.P> The Soviets entered with the flight of four Yaks. Not sure what variant these were.

We began the game farther away and it took several turns to close. The Plus One fighter pilots all spotted the enemy and began to turn towards them while the sprogs continued straight ahead. The bombers were moving terribly slow (2) and the rear group of fighters were matching speed with the Bombers. The lead group of fighters were just going slightly faster (3).

In the first pass, both of my lead aircraft dove on the lower flying Soviets (Altitude 6). The Soviets were climbing up to engage the bombers. In the first pass my lead pilot managed to score a kill on his first Yak. His wingman scored a hit on a second that left it with airframe damage.

The sprog who scored a hit managed to get on the tail of his victim and pursue him directly into the bombers. Mark had his best shot at the bombers. The angle was bad but he was coming from a direction that was not covered by a gun. His two planes fired on the sprog bomber and managed to kill one of the gunners. That was the end of turn 4.

Turn five had my sprog still on the tail of the Soviet and managed to kill the Yak underneath the second bomber. The dying fighter managed a few shots at the second bomber but did not score a hit. With only two aircraft left in the fight, the Soviets doggedly attempted to pursue the bombers.

Somehow this picture was before we removed the stricken fighter. It is seen still smoking in between the two bombers.

Turn six was a bad time for the second bomber. One of the Yaks lined up with an excellent stern shot and put fire into the bomber. He scored a critical hit and a fuel leak. He also managed to kill a crew member. The crew was on their game and managed to stop the fuel leak. The stricken bomber had to drop its bomb load to keep from loosing altitude.

The plus one pilot from the lead pair of fighters found itself separated from his wingman and far away from the bombers. But very close to a Yak fighter. He scored a kill on the third Yak of the day. Mark was having difficulty getting a save and I was rolling some really good damage.

Turn seven saw the last Yak off as two of the Romanian pilots shared a kill on the fighter. Mark was unable to finish off the wounded bomber and this left the State Vodka Works an open and unopposed target. What else would keep the Soviets so doggedly in the fight to the last man?

With all of the enemy driven from the sky, the sprog bomber reaches his target. The State Vodka Works was successfully bombed. It was said that the infantry on the front lines could see the explosion and the skyline was unnaturally bright well past midnight that night.

Three Romanian pilots came home with claims. The lead pair of aircraft claimed two each (the sprog had a shared victory). It was a good day to be Romanian. It was a second great game in a row.

The robustness of 1 of the IAR-80 definitely helped out. Having a Robustness of 0 for the MC200s meant that any hit was potentially deadly. I really want to work out a campaign with Mark using Squadron Forward on the Eastern Front. Air games can flow pretty quickly and you can get in more than one game per night. If I only could get in more games normally, this would be great. Now where is that Romanian name generator.....

A New Book

I just received my copy of Christopher Shores book "A History of the Mediterranean Air War 1940-1942 Volume 1". It is massive. Before I am too remiss, it was also authored by Giovanni Massimello with help from Russell Guest. It comes in at over 500 pages. This work is his long awaited update to "Fighters Over the Desert" that is long out of print. His previous book was a fantastic reference for either Check Your Six or Bag the Hun. This book promises even more. It is a day by day write up of the actions that took place. What is more, there is a summary of claims and actual losses for each day. I can't wait to read this.

If you are interested in the air war over North Africa, you should take a look at this one.

New Distractions: Spanish Civil War Aviation

Having just finished the Falcon and the Gladiator, one theme that kept coming up was the large number of veterans from the Spanish Civil War that flew in North Africa. This sent me looking up more information about the SCW and the beginnings of a SCW supplement have started.

In reading up on the Aviazione Legionaria (Italian Aviation Volunteers), I stumbled upon some really interesting books. The first was by Frank Tinker who was an American mercenary serving with the Republicans. He wrote a biography of his time there called "Some Still Live." He was anti-fascist but interestingly, he was anti-communist as well. He spent the large part of his service in Escuadrilla de Lacalle, a Spanish unit flying Russian I-15 fighter aircraft.

Each of the Spanish Squadrons had 12 aircraft that were divided into four patrols or Patrulla. Each patrol flew in a 3 aircraft vee formation. Frank's patrol was labeled "Patrulla Americano" as the original four members were all American citizens: Charlie Koch, Whitey Dahl, Frank Tinker and Manuel Garcia Gomez. Whitey Dahl was also a mercenary like Tinker. Both were former military. Dahl would later serve with the American Volunteer Group in China during WWII. Manuel claimed to be from Guatemala but Frank believed he was actually from Paraguay. But Paraguay had recognized the Nationalist government and it would not be politically convenient for him to admit his home country. Also in the squadron was Ben Leider, another American who actually knew Spanish. Ben was an avowed communist and in some ways was separate from the other Americans. Charlie Koch fell ill prior to their deployment and was replaced with Jose "Chang" Selles. Jose was part Japanese who spoke English very well and was placed in the Patrulla Americano.

Tinker claimed that the American volunteers were better pilots than their Spanish comrades. The explanation was that the Spanish pilots had very few flying hours before being posted to fighter aircraft while the Americans had each been experienced pilots prior to Spanish service. He went into action with Escuadrilla de Lecalle in February of 1936.

I am thinking of changing the format of this scenario pack and concentrate on a couple of squadrons and organize them by squadron rather than historically. Any interest?

The Coming Thunder Reaches 50...

... sales that is. Fortunately, it was pointed out to me that Blogger did something odd with the page for "The Coming Thunder." The text was wiped out and replaced with... nothing. That should be fixed now.

I have just received a copy of Charge!(Issue 34). Scott Mingus did a nice recap of the scenario supplement. Thanks Scott. Hopefully, this will generate a little more traffic.

Following on with this, I have been making some real progress now on the East Front Supplement for IABSM. This morning, waiting on my desk at work was not only Charge!, but also IABSM version 3, the IABSM Card Deck and the IABSM tokens. All very, very nice. I am a very happy gamer. Hopefully, I can get some time and put a game together this weekend. Possibly.

On the Bag the Hun front, progress continues on the second desert supplement. Hopefully, I will have more on this later.

A Weekends Work

Surprise, Surprise. I actually was able to get some painting in this weekend. I managed to paint up 25 East Front Italians, a single 65mm gun and a staff car.

This was quite productive for one night's work, especially considering how slowly I paint. I still have to use the Army Painter dip, dull coat and base them up. But that is the easier part for me.

In other parts, I finally received my Christmas present. Håkan Gustavsson's awesome book "Desert Prelude: Operation Compass." This book should help me finish off my second Western Desert Campaign book. I was having difficulty with the scenarios during Operation Compass. Now I should be able to knock that out without difficulty. If you are interested in the air war in 1940 over the Western Desert, his two books on this period are probably the best there is on the subject. For the wargamer, you will not find a more detailed reference on individual battles to create scenarios from. He also has a fantastic website devoted to biplane combat in the second world war. Please check it out if you have any interest. He is also a very nice guy. He has responded quickly to any inquiry that I have sent him and been very helpful with the supplement. I was glad I could finally get his book.

Books, and other things.

It has been a while since I posted something here. Well, work and family have kept me busy and away from my queue of painting. The Frigate is on the shelf waiting out my indecision on what to do for sails. I think I have resolved that issues and I will attempt a furled main sail in the next couple of days. In terms of writing, the Prequel to the Desert campaign is coming along rather nicely. I have found a couple of great books that have greatly helped resolve the orders of battle and what units transferred in and out of theater and when. My current favorite is "Courage Alone" by Chris Dunning. This has proven to be quite helpful, especially where non-fighter units are concerned. Lots of other places have details on fighter units. Very few have anything on bomber and reconnaissance units. Even better, it covers every theater that the Italians fought in. Not much detail on individual actions but that is not what this book is about. Two books on my inter library loan list are "Desert Prelude: Early Clashes" and "Desert Prelude: Operation Compass." Both of these are by Håkan Gustavsson and Ludovico Slongo. Håkan Gustavsson is the author of the fantastic Håkans aviation page web page. It is a must visit if you have any interest what so ever in biplanes in WWII - for any front. It is pure gold when it comes to getting good information on how biplanes were used in the war. Since the Gloster Gladiator and the CR.42 are two of my favorite all time airplanes, this is a perfect place for me. I have spent countless hours pouring over this site. Lastly, I have looked at working more on a follow up to "With Fire and Sword" for Sharp Practice. It seems about time now and I really want to get in some more Sharp Practice games in. "With Fire and Sword" Left off after Musgrove's Mill and Fishing Creek in Mid August. The next one would cover Kings Mountain and the Cowpens Campaign. I am not sure how far to go with it. I want to cover Col Elijah Clake's South Carolina actions but not his Savannah adventure. I don't think I will cover any of Francis Marion's actions and instead stick with those of Sumter.

Distractions, Distractions, Distractions

Well I started work revising the original Western Desert Campaign and it morphed quickly into its own stand along supplement covering June 1940 to February 14th 1941. I have plotted out no less than 30 individual historical scenarios on top of the campaign system. It is sitting at about 60% complete at the moment. The scenarios are quite expanded from those in the original and include information to run both Bag the Hun and Check Your Six games with them. I have added Altitude, a map of the board with notes on entry, cloud cover information and cards needed for scenarios (BTH) to each scenario. In all, it is a great improvement over the original. Eventually, the original will get this treatment too. Original purchasers will get the upgrade of the original for free once it is done. Oh, Look! Shiny! Then I read a post on Ray's Don't Throw a 1 blog and am now distracted to a new period entirely. I am looking at making a skirmish army in 15mm for the 3rd Prussian Regiment - Anhalt-Dessau. I have some figures from another project that went no where that it seems would fit the bill. It would be a small force to start off with. Now I am off and looking for drill information for the period with reckless abandon leaving other project to collect virtual dust. According to the some spots I found on the internet, I can use the Peter Pig Govt Figures from their pirate range for these soldiers. Which is a good thing as I have some laying around collecting real dust. I was going to do a pirate game and that never materialized. Now I have a project to use these for. Never did buy pirate figures was part of the problem. So I have the basis of an infantry unit. Now rules..... Hmmmm.... Since I have Sharp Practice, that seems a good starting point. Beyond the information on the Wikipedia page covering the Nine Years War, I really know nothing about the period. Colorful clothing. That is about it. I gather that it was pretty much the world against France for much of the fighting of this period. (Here my ignorance stands as a shining beacon of non-illumination) Oh well. Back to Google to see what I can find.

AAR - Check Your Six over Greece

A recently discovered document has been unearthed has been unearthed dealing with the German invasion of Greece. This document is the proceedings from a courts-martial of a Greek officer following an unusual incident. The trial an incident the striking of a superior officer after a particularly disastrous action attempting to defend the harbour facilities near Athens on the 14th of April, 1941.

"If it will please the court, in order to fully explain the events that led to the incident it is necessary to recap the several days preceding. On Thursday evening a rather spirited game of cards was held between the pilots of 24 Mira and the Captain's artillery company of Evanzone's Division. Lieutenant Milos Papadopolouis and myself won a considerable sum from the Evanzones and Captain Yannis Manos in particular. At the close of the evening, the Evanzones were unable to pay their debts and went so far as to accuse us of having cheated. Threats were issues and the implication was that if our aircraft were seen over their anti aircraft guns, we would be fair targets."

"Friday, Lieutenant Papadopolouis and myself were called upon to join elements of the British 80 Squadron and 33 Squadron."

Translators note, the section of 33 Squadron was lead by the Ace Prattle and included later Children's Author Roald Dahl. It was unclear who the pilots were from 80 Squadron but this day also would see 80 Squadron's ace Flight Lieutenant Woods would also be hot down during some aspect of this fight. It is unclear if Lieutenant Elias Stephanopolous and his wing man were witnesses to Woods demise as well. British records clearly indicate that Dahl survived the day but this record implies he was also shot down. No other sources verify this.

"We kept well clear of the guns surrounding the port facility given the threats we had received from the Captain and his men. We spotted the first four German aircraft, Bf 110s, arriving in pairs and headed directly for the port. We maneuvered to come in behind the Bf 110s while the two British sections drove straight ahead at the aircraft. As they closed, we spotted two additional German fighters arriving above us. We adjusted our course to attempt to intercept the new aircraft which were Bf109s. Our French MB 151s were far slower aircraft and we were to circle behind them."

"The air battle between the British and German fighters did not go well. One suicidal lunatic among the Bf110s rammed two British planes causing all three two eventually crash. This left only the ace Prattle in the air from 33 squadron. The 80 Squadron fellows drove straight at the lead Bf 110s but failed to shoot one down. They turned to follow the lead aircraft when the wingman of the suicidal chap began to hammer away at one of the British planes. It appeared that the Bf 110 was behind the hurricane for a full minute but did not do significant damage to shoot the plane down. This had to be the luckiest pilot that I have ever seen. Eventually he was able to loop away from the German."

"We were still closing in on the incoming Bf 109s that were following behind the Bf 110s. It is at this point that the initial German aircraft reached the anti-aircraft guns of the Evanzones. Whatever their faults, they new their business. The two initial Bf 110s flew in very low and did not present a target to the gunners until they were on top of their positions. As I learned later, one of the light guns was destroyed in the engagement. But both of the attacking planes were hit. One took numerous hits from the AA batteries and fell from the sky. However, one of the AA Batteries took a direct hit from the low flying aircraft and was destroyed."

"The Bf109s led us into the main fight with the British and German fighters. We had several shots on the Bf 109s and caused some hits but our light guns were not strong enough to damage the aircraft. 80 Squadron has similar luck and chased one of the Bf 110s from our field of view. As the battle raged on, Prattle was closed on by one of the Bf 109s and shot down. This pilot also claimed one of the fighters from 80 Squadron as well."

"At this point, we were the last remaining allied aircraft in the area. My wingman and I were flying among four enemy aircraft. The battle brought us lower and lower towards the earth. My wingman was shot down leaving me as the sole allied aircraft on the table. I pulled up and left the Germans to return home at this point."

Translators note: It is at this point the document begins to cover the cause of the courts-martial. But being that the incident is not entirely germane to our study of the air conflict over Greece in 1941 we will just summarize it here. Apparently the Evanzones sought out Lieutenant Elias Stephanopolous and began an altercation in which the battery captain challenged his courage and resolve in the fight and blamed him for the cause of the death of his men. At which point, Lt Stephanopolous resorted to fisticuffs and breaking the Captain's jaw before authorities could arrive. Little has been discovered of the combatants before or after this one incident. The document was discovered in a farmhouse outside of Athens. It seems there was a large quantity of paperwork stored at this farm that the farmer had been using for some time now to line the bottom of a chicken coop. This was one of the salvaged documents. How it came to be here, we may never know.

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This is my biased AAR of a great Check Your 6 game that I enjoyed last Sunday with Mark and James. I commanded the two Greek aircraft as well as the AA Batteries. It was great fun. Thanks Mark and James. The lighting at the new Gigabytes store is terrible and that accounts for there only being one picture in this AAR as they all came out bad. Until I can steal away the camera and get better shots, I will limit the poor quality of pictures I subject everyone too.