Scenario 4: ‘Le Faucheur’
Background
Just the other week I painted up a pair of Fokker G.1s, an
aircraft which was nicknamed ‘Le Faucheur’ or ‘Reaper’ in French. LVA experts
would notice that I didn’t get the camo pattern right (should’ve
investigated more thoroughly on the ‘net), but I won’t be repainting them at
this stage. The decals are affixed and blended, paint job is sealed. Near
enough is good enough.
The Reaper has come - it is time to try out my new eight-gun
fighter against the Luftwaffe. Can the G.1 dogfight toe-to-toe with a ‘109? I’m
feeling positive…
The scenario
The Luftwaffe is sending out a small tactical bombing raid
in support of ground forces crossing into the Netherlands. The raid will
comprise a kette of three He.111H-2s escorted by two Bf.109Es. Two more
Bf.109Es on a fighter sweep might turn up part way through the fight to help
out if the Germans are lucky.
The LVA will intercept this raid with a pair of Fokker G.1a
heavy fighters and a pair of Fokker D.XXIs. Again, if the Dutch are lucky they
will get two more D.XXIs as reinforcements.
The German objective is to get the bombers from one short
edge of the board to the other safely. The Germans get +6 Victory Points per He.111
they get off the board. The Dutch objective is simply to inflict casualties.
The weather is normal clear. Time is mid-day. Pilot skill I
randomised for the scenario. The lead LVA G.1a turned out to be an ace pilot,
the lead D.XXI a veteran, the other pilots were skilled. The Germans rolled up
a veteran lead bomber, one skilled and one green. The two Bf.109Es were
veterans.
The fight
The Germans came on at the corner of board edge 5 in a tight
formation – bombers at TAL 5, fighters one TAL higher and off to the east. The
Dutch came on from the east at TAL 2. CAB was surface-low. Neither side was yet
aware of the presence of the other until the third turn, when they spotted each
other simultaneously and moved to engage. The Bf.109E escort tried to foil the
enemy attack by moving between the two Dutch fighter formations.
It wasn’t long before the German and Dutch formations were
tangled in an intense (and a bit complex) dogfight involving some very tight
manoeuvres on the vertical and horizontal planes. Dutch numbers really started
to tell, with the Germans hard-pressed to find safe hexes. To make matters
worse, two more LVA fighters turned up to lend a hand (a veteran and a skilled
pilot).
The ace G.1a pilot in aircraft serial #320 went head-to-head with the German formation leader. Both pilots hit the other, but the eight machineguns on the Dutch ship made a huge difference. Failing his save by five, the German leader’s aircraft broke apart. The German veteran pilot somehow survived but must have been terribly wounded. The German veteran wingman in Black 12 took a shot at Fokker D.XXI #234 but missed.
With the Dutch fighters closing in and stress building, the
remaining German fighter ‘Black 12’ tried to get on the tail of the Dutch ace
with a stalling Immelmann, narrowly avoiding a collision with the other Dutch
Fokker G.1a (#324) in the process. As the Dutch ace easily pulled away with a
higher-speed Immelmann of his own and the other Dutchmen jockeyed for a shot, the
German pilot realised his mistake. It was too late. The skilled pilot in D.XXI
#234 inflicted engine damage on Black 12 and the ace in #320 finished him
off for a shared kill. The German pilot bailed out but was wounded.
With six LVA aircraft on the board, their escorts gone and
no German reinforcements in sight, the Heinkel crews really began to worry.
The Dutch spread out and started heading toward the bombers.
D.XXIs #212 and #241 move to the north for an obliquely head-on attack while
the others closed in from the Germans’ starboard and rear-starboard quarters.
Although the initial attacks failed to inflict serious
damage on the remarkably durable He.111s, bomber defensive fire was ineffective
largely due to the range and the agility of the attacking Dutch.
#234 used up all his ammo and turned away to fly parallel to,
and at a safe distance from, the German formation. However the remaining
Fokkers swept in and began to move into tailing positions for zero-deflection
shots.
Over the next few turns a huge amount of lead was exchanged
(the vast majority of it heading in the direction of the German bombers). The
Germans pressed on, hoping more Bf.109s would show up or the Dutch would run
themselves out of bullets. Finally, the Dutch G.1a ace in #320 inflicted
airframe damage on He.111 A1+JH (with the skilled crew).
On the starboard flank of the kette of bombers, the green
rear gunners on A1+KH manage to hit D.XXI #218, causing airframe damage. In
return, however, #218 damaged one of the bomber’s engines and started a small
fire on board. The crew rushed for the extinguisher equipment! Over to the port
side of the kette, G.1a #320 and D.XXI #212 brought down the already-damaged
A1+JH.
A1+KH’s crew managed to put out the fire but the aircraft
started to drop back, struggling on one engine. The German bombers ditched
their bombs and broke up their formation to manoeuvre separately. The formation
leader A1+DA tried to direct maximum firepower from his dorsal and ventral
gunners at the damaged Fokker D.XXI #218 in the hope of at least one kill
before the fight was finished, while A1+KH dived toward the ground and yawed
port to try to throw the Dutch aim.
These evasive manoeuvres were in vain however, as the Dutch
finished off the hapless bombers. The skilled pilot in Fokker G.1a #327 shot
down A1+KH and bullets from #320 smashed the elevators off the German leader
A1+DA.
Result
LVA: 38; Luftwaffe: 1 (damaged one fighter). Slaughter!
Learnings
· The Dutch totally dominated in this scenario.
The Germans did not get additional fighter support (a 0 needed to be rolled on
a D10 for reinforcements to show up) and were unlucky that the Dutch got theirs
almost straight away).
· The take-down power of eight-gun fighters
relative to four-gun D.XXIs and (effectively two-gun) Bf.109Es is evident in
the kill tallies below.
· Although much tends to be made of the qualities
of the MG FF 20mm cannon on the Bf.109E in history books, I’ve so far been
unimpressed with their ability to actually hit in combat (being low-velocity
cannon). [Maybe the cannon will be useful for bomber intercepts when I commence
my campaign ‘Staffelvorwarts.’ Staffelvorwarts will appear on this blog and
will feature a storyline about a squadron of Luftwaffe fighter pilots. Watch
this space, as they say.]
· I made two major mistakes for the German escorts
which probably cost them the battle (one was getting caught between the two
formations of Fokkers, the other was the risky Immelmann by Black 12 which cost
him is plane and his … um … health).
· Numbers (and the ace skills) allowed the Dutch
to overwhelm their opposition.
· He.111s are robust. However, defensive firepower
is of course quite weak.
· Because at times the Dutch aces and veterans
were getting auto-hits on the Heinkels, I should have remembered to
sacrifice agility modifiers for the chance to inflict more damage on the target
(right column-shifts on the firepower/damage table). A move like this would
probably have shortened the game considerably.
Kill list
G.1a
#320: one-and-a-half fighters, two half bomber kills (2.5
kills)
#327: one bomber
D.XXIs
#234: 1/2 fighter
#212: 1/2 bomber
#218: 1/2 bomber
Miniatures
Fokker G.1s: Heroics & Ros.
Modified D6-based
initiative system
- At the start of the turn, each plane/formation
rolls a D6 and adds the aircrew skill modifier (+0 to +3) of the
pilot/formation leader.
- Tailing aircraft get an additional +2 modifier,
but this is only counted against the aircraft that is being tailed.
-
Lower initiative rolls (the losers) move first,
higher initiative rolls move later.
- Loaded aircraft/formations always move first.
- In the case of ties, aircraft at lower altitude
move first. If aircraft are at the same altitude, Allied planes must move first
in the early war and Axis planes first in late war.
Speed variation
Airspeed in gaming is relative. The CY6! Speed ratings attempt
to cover the entire period from the ‘30s to 1945 and beyond. Since I’m
currently only playing scenarios set in mid-1940, almost every first-rate
fighter in the standard speed system is rated speed 4while second-line fighters
and bombers are 3, antiques are 2 and so on. To provide more variety in
performance, for this scenario I tried out a relative speed system with a range
of 1 to 5. Essentially I divided an aircraft’s maximum speed in miles per hour
by 75 to get its speed rating. The result is that slow aircraft (e.g. Ju.52s)
are speed 2, while the fastest (Bf.109Es and Spitfires) are speed 5. The other
aircraft fall in between (Hurricanes will therefore be slightly slower than
Spitfires rather than the same speed).
