A few months ago, I downloaded the free version of Warbirds in Miniature Version 1.0 that was mentioned on The Miniatures Page. I enjoyed reading through the rules and set up a tactical game to provide a combat scenario to go along with the Over the Hump Airlift Campaign operational level simulation that I published as a free download in August 2012.
This tactical scenario provides a combat action for fighters against the transports in the Over the Hump Airlift Campaign and takes place in October 1943.
Historical Background:
Quoted from "The Hump" by John Plating, pages 148-150.
"… the 50th Sentai launched Operation Tsuzigiri ("Street Murder"), which focused on the Hump airlift by sending eight Ki-43s to Myitkyina as a staging base for missions that hunted transports in the vicinity of Sumprabum, Burma, a town about fifty miles south of Fort Hertz. Japanese sources claim the 50th shot down a C-47, a C-46, and a C-87, all on October 13 [1943]; U.S. sources confirm the C-47 and C-87. The fighters refueled at Myitkyina, then quickly returned to their home base of Mingaladon, anticipating a counterattack. The 50th attacked again on October 20 using the same scheme, this time shooting down a Sookerating-based C-46 about forty-five miles south by southwest of Fort Hertz and destroying another C-46 three days later about thirty miles southwest of the earlier kill.
"The spate of Japanese attacks prompted a response by the Americans. Chennault contacted Col. William Fisher's 308th Bomb Squadron [Group] to launch a deception mission on the 27th in which a few B-24s [308th deployed to China in February 1943 flying B-24Ds] would fly in a loose formation along the route that mimicked that flown by Hump transports. Because of the similarities between the B-24 and C-87 -- the two planes were practically identical -- Chennault hoped the Japanese would attack the bombers, thinking they were unarmed transports. Japanese Ki-43s led by Captain Hashimoto again took off from Myitkyina and attacked and destroyed a C-46 en route from Yunnanyi to Chabua. While the transport was going down, the Japanese formation spotted the 308th's B-24s; thinking them harmless C-87s, the crews dropped their external fuel tanks and attacked the Americans head-on. One of the Japanese fighters failed to part with its drop tank and had to break off the attack, while another sustained a shot that caused an oil leak and forced the pilot to land on the west side of the Irrawaddy, only to be captured by locals. A third Japanese fighter was also hit and forced to land, but the pilot made his way on foot to a Japanese-held outpost. U.S. sources claim eight Japanese fighters were shot down by the ruse, with a total of eighteen enemy fighters destroyed by the bombers over a three-day period. This is probably an exaggeration, but Japanese sources nonetheless concede that the ploy put an end to Tsuzigiri because the 50th Sentai could not spare missions that downed only a handful of U.S. transports. The operation was ended, and IJAAF units shifted strategy by attacking Hump airfields in India and China, something they did almost thirty times throughout 1943. In December alone the IJAAF attacked Hump airfields nine times in reprisal raids designed to pay back Chennault's deadly attack on the Japanese airbase of Shinchiku on Formosa on November 25.
"… There is no record of Japanese radar in the area, and it is likely that any such equipment would have been rendered useless by the terrain, so the Ki-43 pilots had to visually locate the transports, which usually flew alone, not in a formation that would have been easier to spot. The fighters were also forced to loiter and burn extra fuel while waiting for the unsuspecting transports, attested to by the 50th's use of drop tanks on the missions. … the Tsuzigiri missions nevertheless burned much fuel and yielded little return, destroying one or two transports during a mission when there were dozens of Hump flights a day by that October.
"… the Ki-43 was a feeble example for a mid-war fighter. It was armed with two 12.7 mm machine guns firing from the engine cowling, each synchronized to fire through the propeller arc; this gave the fighter a relatively slow rate of fire. Each gun also had only 250 rounds of ammunition, and the self-sealing protection on the fuel tanks was considered "rudimentary." At this stage in the war the IJAAF pilots were probably as good as their German counterparts in Europe, but the firepower from the B-24's ten .50-caliber machine guns would have been difficult for the Japanese pilots to handle."
In addition to Plating's expert narrative, Chick Marrs Quinn's book "The Aluminum Trail" provides an encyclopedic accounting of aircraft losses in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II including the loss of her husband, 1st Lt. Loyal Stuart Marrs, Jr., piloting a C-109 fuel tanker transport aircraft on 27 February 1945.
Aircraft losses that occurred in CBI in October 1943 are summarized from pages 35- 45 of Ms. Quinn's book as follows (more details are included in the book for each incident, three of these are quoted below):
3 October, C-46 Hump Transport, exploded in mid-air returning to India from China.
9 October, B-25, crashed during strafing run.
13 October, C-87 Hump Transport, crashed over the Hump enroute to China from India.
13 October, C-47 Hump Transport, China National Aviation Corporation, shot down by enemy aircraft enroute to China from India.
14 October, B-24, shot down by enemy aircraft on bombing run near Rangoon.
16 October, A-36, lost after a bombing and strafing mission returning to base in India.
16 October, A-36, lost after the same bombing and strafing mission returning to base in India.
18 October, B-24, shot down by enemy aircraft on bombing run against Heho Airdrome.
20 October, C-46 Hump Transport, lost over the Hump enroute to China from India.
23 October, C-46 Hump Transport, shot down by enemy aircraft enroute to China from India.
23 October, C-46 Hump Transport, shot down by enemy aircraft returning to India from China. See additional details below.
26 October, B-25, shot down by enemy aircraft after completing a bombing run.
26 October, B-24, lost in collision with enemy aircraft on a bombing run to Rangoon. See additional details below.
27 October, C-46 Hump Transport, shot down by enemy aircraft returning to India from China. See additional details below.
28 October, C-47 Hump Transport, lost enroute to China from India.
28 October, B-24, lost on a bombing mission when a bomber above it dropped a bomb through the wing.
29 October,C-47 Transport, crashed during a food drop tactical mission after taking off in India.
Several excerpts from the loss reports follow:
Page 41: "23 October 1943 C-46 # 2325 CHABUA DEAD: 4
CREW: Pilot: 1st Lt. Dennie Beasley, Jr. O-664951
C/P: 2nd Lt. Howard G. Samuelson, O-672446
R/O: Pfc. Raymond Loew, 12141378
A/E: Sgt. Stuart D. Todd, 13034159
The aircraft departed Kunming, China enroute to Chabua, India. Last contacted by radio they were somewhere over the "Hump." This plane was shot down in the Hertz Valley area. All of the crew were killed. Location of the wreck is (26-degrees 17 minutes- 97-degrees 24 minutes)."
Page 42: "26 October 1943 B-24J # 3060 PANAGARH DEAD: 10
CREW:
Pilot: 1st Lt. Roy G. Vaughn, O-435815
Co-Pilot: 2nd Lt. Arleen W. Sundal, O-798611
Navigator: 2nd Lt. Robert W. Waller, O-801530
Bombardier: 2nd Lt. Gustaf E. Johnson, O-682483
Engineer: T/Sgt. Harold C. Bell, 38116590
Radio Operator: T/Sgt. Gilford H. Moen, 36265427
Asst Engineer-Gunner: S/Sgt. Henry A. Chlebowski, 70211439
Asst Radio Operator: S/Sgt. Charles W. Wright, 32501439
Armorer-Gunner: S/Sgt. Charles E. Vickers, 34198133
Asst Armorer-Gunner: S/Sgt. Salvatore C. Assisi, 13130967
A ball turret operator on the lead ship of the second element saw the B-24 go down as a result of a collision with a Zero. A Zero made a side attack on our ship from about three o'clock and he continued his course past us toward the B-24 behind. I lost sight of him behind the tail fin and picked him up again just as he crashed into the B-24. The Zero's tail was broken off a few feet behind the trailing edge of the wing and he fell off backwards and went into a spin. The B-24 was broken in half about the waist windows and also went into a slow spin wit all four engines still running. I saw one chute open and it was being circled by another Zero as he went down. There were at least four Zero's attacking this aircraft. The plane crashed into the Jungle and immediately burned. There was a large cloud of black smoke. This aircraft on a flight to Rangoon, Burma on a bombing mission."
Page 43: "27 October 1943 C-46 # 2307 CHABUA DEAD: 4
CREW: Pilot: 1st Lt. Marion C. Thomas, O-1696680
C/P: 2nd Lt. Dale D. Syfert, O-672002
R/O: S/Sgt. Frazier W. Albers, 13049440
Asst R/O: Cpl. Ralph D. Christian, 37333012
A/E: Pfc. John D. McCarthy, 39452026
This aircraft left Yunnanyi, China enroute to Chabua, India. The pilot radioed that he was being attacked by Zeros and was going down with attackers still pursuing. This plane was attacked by five Zero's and was shot down. The crash was SSE of Fort Hertz, Burma. The plane was too low for the crew to bail out. All were killed with the exception of the pilot. Two crew members were in the crew compartment, two were in the cabin. A tree went through the Co-Pilot. With the help of friendly natives the pilot walked out of North Burma. He suffered multiple abrasions, contusions of the right leg and a fractured rib. The wreckage of # 2307 is at (26-degrees 39 minutes – 97-degrees 45 minutes)."
With that as background, here is the "Ruse over Burma" scenario that I set up for Warbirds in Miniature.
Scenario: Ruse over Burma – October 1943
Forces:
Japanese: 8 x Ki-43 fighters.
American: 1 x C-46 transport, 3 x B-24D bombers simulating C-87 transports.
Special rule: Each fighter rolls 2 x d6 to drop the external fuel tank, sum of 2d6=2 or 3 indicates tank is not dropped and the fighter breaks off and returns to base before engaging bombers.
Initial conditions: There is no aircraft form for the C-46, so it is modeled for this scenario using the two-engine He-111 bomber for damage, but with no defensive firepower. The C-46 is modeled using the same performance and maneuver schedule as the B-24D, except that its maximum speed is 2 hexes. Transports flew independently along the route, rather than in formation, so the attack proceeds independently from the C-46 to each of the bombers one-by-one in turn until all of the fighter aircraft have broken off.
The Americans begin at altitude 8, speed 2, flying west, and the Japanese begin at altitude 9, speed 2, flying east. The Japanese are formed in pairs echelon left. The lead plane of pair one is aligned directly ahead of the C-46 at 20 hexes in front of the C-46. The other three pairs are in line abreast to the left of the first pair. The lead B-24 is 30 hexes directly behind the C-46, and each trailing B-24 is 30 hexes directly behind the B-24 in front of it. After engaging the C-46, the Japanese drop tanks and go head-on for the lead bomber assuming it is an unarmed C-87 transport, closing without expecting return fire. There are no rules for drop tanks, and it is assumed that Ki-43 maximum speed is with drop tanks attached is 3, and all maneuvers at speed 3 and below can be performed with drop tanks attached, except for restricted maneuvers.
Victory conditions: Draw, both sides shoot down the same number of aircraft. Minor victory, one side shoots down one more aircraft than opponent. Major victory, one side shoots down two more aircraft than opponent.
After Action Report, as played with Warbirds in Miniature rules v1.0:
A detailed spread sheet was designed to account for the action and it is included in the Files section of the Warbirds in Miniature Yahoo Group web site. The spread sheet is divided into sections that include Maneuver, Combat with modifiers to calculate hit die rolls, Damage with modifiers for directly ahead and directly behind modifiers to calculate damage dice rolls, and Aircraft Status to track ammunition expenditure and damage accumulation. With 12 aircraft in play, doing the accounting took longer than playing the game, but hey, I like doing the accounting and having a record of it all for posterity, so even that part of it was fun for me!
Also, since this was my first game of Warbirds, I have tried to accurately reflect the maneuvers as these occurred and also the details of the action, but if anyone tries to reconstruct the flight paths and the actions, and it doesn't quite line up, it is because I have not properly recorded something that happened on the table top! I promise that I'll try to improve as I learn the game!
So here goes with my table top reenactment of Operation Tsuzigiri!
The first action began when eight fighters spotted the C-46, and for my game I assumed it was the C-46 flown by pilot 1st Lt. Dennie Beasley, Jr., that was shot down with the loss of all hands on 23 October 1943. There is no chance of survival for an unarmed C-46 when attacked by eight Oscars unless the transport can maneuver into clouds or otherwise avoid the fighters, as occasionally happened historically. I played without "terrain" so there were no clouds to hide in and literally nothing that could be done to survive. The Oscars flew head-on to the transport, five fighters engaged on Turn 4, from head-on and side angles, one heavy and six light hits were made. As bad luck would have it, the heavy hit caused a fire on a 1 in 36 chance, later a smoke hit evolved into another fire, Oscar pair 3 & 4 followed the transport down causing further damage, the radio operator was killed by one of the fires and the fuselage failed just before the aircraft would have spun into the ground. The three crew members still alive tried to bail out, but none survived. The C-46 transport crashed and burned on Turn 10, with Oscar pair 3 & 4 breaking off having expended all or almost all of their ammunition. Including hits from enemy gunfire, fires, and smoke, the C-46 endured a total of 23 hits before crashing.
While Oscars 3 & 4 continued to engage the C-46, the other six fighters spotted the next aircraft and turned toward it. Recognizing it as a large four-engine type, faster than the C-46, they dropped external fuel tanks, and flew toward it thinking it was a C-87. The drop tank on Oscar 8 would not disengage, so that fighter broke off and returned to base.
In the second action, the remaining five fighters flew in head-on as with the C-46 and were surprised to be engaged on Turn 10 from 3-hex range by the B-24 bomber looking just like a C-87 transport! Bomber 2 shooting was abysmal on this first fire and no hits were made by the five turrets and gunners! Oscar 7 was luckier making a light hit on a short burst from three hexes seriously wounding the right waist gunner. Oscars 5 & 6 moved behind the bomber and came in to engage on Turn 13 at one altitude level above the bomber to minimize attacking turrets, and made five hits while experiencing two hits in return on Oscar 6. Bomber abysmal luck continued and one of the hits on the bomber caused controls damage and another caused a spin. With damaged controls, the spin continued and ultimately was not recovered, with Bomber 1 spinning into the ground on turn 16. The crew bailed out just before the bomber went in, and bailing out so close to the ground resulted in five deaths, three major injuries, and only two crew unharmed.
Oscar 7 had tailed Bomber 1 down while Oscar 6 broke off and returned to base with damage and speed reduction. Meanwhile Oscars 1, 2, and 5 had spotted another large four-engine plane presumed to be a C-87, but now warily climbed to higher altitude while approaching the target.
In the third action, the Oscars flew in high to avoid any fire while gaining a tailing position. Oscar 5 engaged from one level above on Turn 23, made two hits and took two hits in return. Oscar 1 engaged along with Oscar 5 on Turn 24, making four hits, and three turrets returning fire against Oscar 5 only made two hits including a complete miss by the ventral turret, bomber abysmal luck again! The chance of causing a fire on a damage hit is 1 in 36, and sure enough one of the light hits on Bomber 2 started a fire, and then a spin damage check pulled "snake eyes" and Bomber 2 went into spin! At least the bomber's return fire though had wiped out Oscar 5's firepower, so that fighter broke off and returned to base. One of the bomber smoke hits evolved into a second fire! After initially following the bomber down on its spin with two visible fires, the Oscars assumed the bomber was doomed and turned toward a newly sighted target off in the distance. Just as the bomber was about to crash into the ground, the spin was recovered at altitude 1 with both fires still burning! Oscar 7 turned back and reengaged the bomber as it was flying out of its spin and regaining altitude. One fire on the bomber was extinguished and more damage was made against both aircraft. Then Oscar 7 fired a long burst into the bomber causing a fuel tank leak into the fire, and Bomber 2 exploded in mid-air! All hands were lost. Bomber 2 had endured 19 hits before succumbing to a combined fire and fuel leak, a fatal combination. Oscar 7 had experienced significant wing damage and was low on ammo, so it broke off and returned to base.
Oscars 1 & 2 continued toward another large four-engine aircraft that could be a C-87 or a B-24. The two fighters climbed to high altitude before making their approach to a tailing position staying two levels above the target. As suspected, it was a bomber and when the fighters dropped down to engage, fire was exchanged between fighters and bombers. In two rounds of firing, Bomber 3 took seven hits while making five hits on Oscar 1, including a minor wound on the Oscar pilot on the first round. And again, abysmal bomber luck came into play, with one hit causing a spin and another hit causing controls damage with the pilot already wounded … and so Bomber 3 went into a long spin from altitude 7 all the way down into the ground. The crew stayed with the plane trying to recover the spin, and finally bailed out just before impact. Of the ten crew, the navigator had been killed in the exchange of fire; the pilot, bombardier, and right waist gunner were killed, the engineer and left waist gunner suffered major injuries, the co-pilot suffered minor injuries, and the ventral and tail gunners along with the radio operator were unharmed.
With no other targets in view and running low on ammo and fuel, Oscars 1 & 2 turned back toward Myitkyina to report on a successful mission accomplished shooting down one transport and three bombers, a major victory for the fighters.
Player Observations:
This game turned out to be an interesting learning experience, first of all learning the Warbirds rules that provide an enjoyable gaming experience, and also learning about the relative characteristics of the aircraft involved in this "dogfight!" With eight fighters and four transports and bombers, the record keeping turned out to be more complex than I thought it would, but I'm happy with the result, as the spread sheet provides a record of the game, and a model for future engagements.
Maneuvering the aircraft was interesting and enjoyable and there was something of a learning curve involved there. It took me quite a while to realize that level flight couldn't be sustained at 3 speed! I don't believe that changed the outcome at all, but would have made it take longer for the opposing forces to close on each other. Once in the dogfights, level flight at any speed is much less of a concern.
As for tactics, once the fighters realized the bombers were not C-87 transports, the main idea seemed to be to stay high until in a tailing position and then come down in a "ladder" so that an over-under would put one fighter directly on the tail at the same altitude and the other one altitude level above the bomber. The fighter on the tail at the same altitude being vulnerable to three attacking turrets: top, tail, and ventral, but avoiding the waist gunners and deflection shooting. The ideal alignment would seem to be a three-fighter ladder directly behind the bomber with one above, one at the same, and one below the altitude as the bomber, but I was never able to get three fighters lined up like that once they realized that the bombers were shooting back and were not unarmed C-87 transports.
The big question seems to be whether two, or even four, Oscars should be able to routinely shoot down a B-24 bomber. The historical reports from Operation Tsuzigiri would suggest that it didn't happen, and that fighters were shot down by bombers. In browsing through The Aluminum Trail, bombers were shot down by fighters in the CBI Theater (always called Zeros in the reports, but that might have been shorthand nomenclature, like all vacuum cleaners being called Hoovers in those days, and even into the 1990s by my Grandmother … and don't even mention Frigidaire's), but those were on bombing missions and I didn't see any mention of a bomber being shot down while pretending to be an unarmed transport.
In my game, the bombers experienced abysmal dice throwing luck, not just bad luck, but actually abysmal. It should be fairly rare to see a heavy bomber go into a spin with its +2 bonus on spin checks requiring a snake eyes or a three to spin, chances of three or less on the sum of two d6 is 8.3%, and to see it three times is like circumnavigating the world in Here I Stand, where I once saw Willoughby, yes hapless Willoughby, first discover the Straits of Willoughby near Cape Horn after Magellan had perished in the Atlantic some years earlier, then complete the circumnavigation on two successive "boxcars" rolls to win the game for England on the very last possible dice throw!! A 1 in 1,296 chance …
Then there is the 1 in 36 chance of a fire on any given hit, saw that several times, the 1 in 6 chance of a fire starting from smoke damage, saw that too, and then the 2 in 36 chance of a fuel tank leak and a really small number for that combined with the small chance of a fire at the same time … Luckier dice rolling by the bombers would have prolonged the actions, and perhaps run the fighters completely out of ammunition before the bombers were all lost, but then there are quite a few dice rolls involved in the actions giving the chance for these low odds results to actually occur.
Anyway, for this first game we'll just say that the bomber luck was abysmal, and that it would be fairly unlikely that eight fighters would shoot down all three bombers, especially after spending ammo on first shooting down a C-46 transport. The real proof of the pudding though is in the dining, so the best thing to do now would be to set up a series of actions with two or four Oscars against a B-24 and see how these turn out in repetitive plays. And then of course it would be fun to do the same all over again using Zero's! And then again with George's with their 4 x 20mm guns and FP=16 at range 1!!
So that's the report on the Ruse Over Burma, my first game of Warbirds in Miniature, and I'm looking forward to flying more actions and of course also writing the After Action Reports.
Enjoy your games!
Jan
