We had a great WWII Aerial battle at the Battle Barn on Saturday. JD GM'd his "Flight of the Blue Goose" scenario using Warbirds in Miniature (WBiM) rules.
The scenario called for the lone PBY and four Dauntless to attack and sink Japanese troops ships attempting to land on Guadalcanal in the summer of 1942.
8 pilots showed to fly over Guadalcanal. The USMC flew 1ea PBY, 4ea Dauntless Diver Bombers and 4ea F4 Wildcats. The Imperial Japanese Navy flew 2ea Rufus sea planes and 6ea Zeros (Zeke's)
Joe's PBY quickly attracted the two Rufus seaplanes and the next turn two Zeros. Malcolm answered the call for help and flew his Wildcats to the rescue shooting down on the Jap sea planes on turn 5.
Across the bay Dav and I flew our Dauntless directly towards the troop ships braving intensive AAA fire and attacking Zeros.
Dav was the first to reach the troop ship sinking one and missing the other. He then turn his attack bombers into a fighter and took on two zeros in combat…allowing me to attack two turns later.
I also was able to sink one troop ship but missed the 2nd target. A turn later one of my Dauntless dive bombers took 3 heavy hits from a Rufus and a Zeke wounding my pilot. The crew failed a morale test from the heavy hits and parachuted out over top of the burning ships.
A turn later Joe flew his heavily damaged PBY in for the last USMC attack and torpedoed a 2rd troop ship sinking it! Joe was only able to get to hexes away when 4 zeros jumped on him and gave him a total of 7 heavy hits! Disintegrating the PBY fuselage. Alex flying a F4 wildcat was able to seek revenge on another Zero that same turn.
With three of the four troop ship sank the remaining USMC planes quickly turned for safety of Henderson Field.
USMC Losses: 1ea PBY, 1es Dauntless
IJN Losses: 3ea Troop ship; 1ea Rufus sea plane; 2ea Zeke's
USMC Victory!
JD did a great job designing the Blur Goose scenario and a ran fun WBiM aerial game.
Ron
is back from Council of Five Nations.