"USN vs IJN Aerial AAR" Topic

WBIM AAR 21 Jan 2009

US NAVY Official Report: Somewhere off the coast of Guadalcanal:

Last night four of us played two games of Warbirds in Miniature (WBiM) at Waterloo Miniatures in Ashland. The two scenarios were a continuation of a campaign we started in 2007. We are now into OCT 1942; flying and fighting over Guadalcanal.

For the first game it was a fighter sweep, LTJG Patrick and I each flew two Wildcats vs. four IJN Zekes. One of the pair of zeros was flown by Petty Officer JD-San, the infamous Japanese ace with six kills and a +1 to hit special skill. JD's wing man was LT Steve-drinkalotof saki. Steve is a USAF friend of my son Zach, home on leave in Ashland. All pilots but Steve were veterans, Steve flew as a green pilot.

Things got tough for the Nips by the 3rd turn when one of my F4s took a "long" shot at one of JD-sans Zeros causing a 2 light hits. In WBiM after any hits a pilot must roll on the morale table to continue fighting. PO JD-san ace rolled a BIG 2 on 2D6 and was forced to bail out over his own airfield. Once a pilot bails they must roll again for a safe landing and low and behold JD rolls a second 2 on 2D6 which means Pilot KIA! So the word spread quickly through out the Imperials Navy that JD's last words were "'am bailing out…oh shoot I do not have a parachute….Banzai for the Emperor!!!! One less Nip Ace to fight in this campaign! Then on Turn 5 one of my Wildcats collides into one of Patrick's. My pilot plane did not survive and was forced to bail out and was captured. Patrick's continued to fight. JD and Steve did not let any of this bother them and soon took command of the skies; shooting down one my other Wildcat and one of Patrick's. Both Pilots survived the shoot down only to find them selves POW for the rest of the war. Japanese won the 1st round and swept the skies.

Round Two Patrick and I changed planes and flew four Dauntless dive bombers on a mission to knock out the Airfield. JD (now only a veteran pilot) and Steve now promoted to veteran again both flew two Zeke Fighters.

JD and Steve hit us hard with both their fighters and the two AAA guns but all four of the bombers made it to the target, three of them hit the target the 4th missed. Even with HEAVY bombs the US Navy was not able to destroy the airfield. Now we had to turn back to the carrier. JD and Steve set up a trap and ravaged the four Dauntless bombers. If not for the gallant cover fire of our MG gunners it might have been a slaughter. The rear gunners caused many hits and even broke the morale of one a Steve's Zeros. His other pilot made one mistake and found himself in front of one of my Planes and discovered the sting of its 50cal. He pilot was killed instantly! With my kill I soon flew off the board flowed by one of Patrick's shot up planes. He had lost his controls, landing gear, and a critical hit to his engine. My last pilots escape was cut off by but after a few rounds of dog-fighting and due to the work of my now wounded gunner I was able to avoid the Zeke and make it home.

All the US Pilots survived he battle and landed safely on the Carrier even LTJG Patrick shot up plane made. He requested permission to ditch the wounded plane but the Squadron CO talked him into a safe deck landing.
US Navy Victory!

Until the next WBiM game…

Ron

Nice write up Ron. I was a playtester for Warbirds and your descriptions let me follow exactly what was going on. I'm good friends with Trent B. that wrote WBiM who is away at training down at Benning but we are definitely going to have to do some Warbirds when he gets back in March. I'm itching for a game now.

Since you are doing Guadalcanal are you doing any scenarios using ships as targets? We always use 1/300 planes and 1/700 ships for pacific. They give a nice forced perspective feel.

Keep up the good work and let us know how the campaign is going.

Have not used ships yet BUT going to use them in my malta game at Cold Wars and the Williamsburg Muster. I plan on using the cardbaord ships that came with my V@S agme a few year ago.

On a side note each ship will have one AA gun. Transports will have Light AA, Destroyers and carriers Med AA and Cruisers and BB Heavy AA. Plan on only using 2-3 ships in each convoy…mainly jsut to give the Axis players a target besides the island of Malta.

Ron

We ran one game using a 1/700 carrier and 2 destroyer escorts as targets for a jap raid and gave each of them their actual AA Compliment (which is an insane amount). It was alot of fun but the AA was brutal.

Glad you are keeping things alive and well on the Warbirds front. I've tried check your 6 but I really prefer the feel of WBiM. Hopefully, the new editor can get a new version out soon.

I probably won't make it out to Cold Wars but Trent and I have talked about making it out for Historicon this year so maybe we can get a big game going there.

I plan on running somthing at Cold Wars? Maybe Burma 41-42 Flying Tigers and RAF Buffalos vs the Japanese Army and thier Oscars, Nates and Sals?

Like "Air-Support" in FoW the AAA guns in WBiM can be spoty…but if one of those Heavys (88's) ever hit your plane OUCH! A few months ago we played and the German 88's could not miss. They took out two B-26's with just two hits.

I know of quite a few CY6 players who after playing a few games of WBiM; then make the switch.

There is a Warbirds in Miniature (WBiM) Yahoo group out now. I hope you will check it out and join us on the Yahoo site.

Ron

We are planning to do a WBiM game at Cold Wars as well. Probablly german fighters going after a bomber box of B-17's. We have not played with big bombers yet, so we need to get it on the table and make some final decissions on that front…

Andy