"Burma 1942 Air Campaign" Topic

I'm finally getting my Burma 1942 air campaign up and running. I assembled the orbats, reinforcement schedule and hex map (scaled to 15 mile hexes) some time ago, but the project stalled for a while.

We played through the first engagement on Saturday to thrash out the campaign mechanics and it worked very well. I'm using Check Your Six (CY6) to fight the battles and I've scaled the squadrons down by half, to make it a bit more manageable. Once the campaign rules are all written up and playtested, I'll stick it all together and make it freely available for whoever wants it.

I'm presently using my cadets as playtesters – they're keen and it also serves as a good learning project for them re air operations and RAF history.

The campaign starts on 19th January 1942 and both sides decided to open by launching speculative bombing raids on the nearest enemy airfields:

The Japanese sent a squadron of 12x Ki-30 'Ann' light bombers (31st Sentai) from Raheng in Thailand to hit Moulmein at the mouth of the River Salween, escorted by half (8x) of their Ki-27 'Nate' fighters (77th Sentai). The other half of the 77th Sentai would remain in Raheng to provide local air defence and/or follow-up sorties later in the day. In a masterful move, the Japanese commander decided to launch 7x Ki-21 'Sally' heavy bombers (62nd Sentai) from Don Muang, near Bangkok in a second raid against Moulmein, with the intention of catching the defending fighters weakened and/or on the ground after the first raid.

The Allied player meanwhile, already had half of his 8x Buffalo fighters (67 Sqn RAF) deployed forward at RAF Moulmein, with the remainder at RAF Mingaladon, near Rangoon. Worried about the reported Japanese buildup at Raheng, he decided to send the remainder of 67 Sqn forward to Moulmein, while 8x Blenheims (113 Sqn RAF), escorted by 8x P-40B fighters of the AVG Flying Tigers' 1st Pursuit Sqn would hit Raheng airfield.

Having taken off from Raheng, the Anns of 31st Sentai successfully made a successful rendezvous with ther escorts (this despite the lack of radios in the escorting Nates) and pressed on toward the target. The Allies meanwhile, had no such luck, as the Blenheims and Flying Tigers completely failed to find each other. Undaunted, both units pressed on to the target and hoped to rendezvous en route.

Aided by an RAF Mobile Radar Unit at Moulmein, allied to the superb air defence reporting and control system set up by 221 Group, the Japanese raid on Moulmein was detected as it crossed the mountains from Thailand. 'B' Flight of 67 Sqn was quickly scrambled and was soon climbing to altitude. By sheer luck, 'A' Flight, led by the Sqn OC, Sqn Ldr Milward, was already inbound from Mingaladon and was vectored to meet the raid. However, 'A' Flight would be forced to attack from below and in front of the large enemy formation. 'B' Flight meanwhile, was already in position to attack from above, though had a crisis of confidence and instead flew to rendezvous with the inbound 'A' Flight. Amazed at the RAF timidity, Lt Col Hayashi Junji ordered his formation onward to the target!

Finally unified, the two flights of 67 Sqn charged in to attack the front of the enemy formation from above and below. The two Chutais (flights) of the 77th Sentai broke off to intercept. Attacking the formation head-on, 'A' Flight caused only light damage to the enemy bombers and then charged through the Nate fighters of Major Yoshioka Hiroshi's 1st Chutai, before pulling up to attack the bombers again from behind. 'B' Flight meanwhile overflew the enemy formation before diving down to attack from the rear. An Ann was soon hit and spiralling down out of control with its largely rudder shot away. Assuming the stricken Ann to be dead, the Buffalos pressed on to attack others, with the 2nd Chutai of Nates in hot pursuit. However, having dumped its bombs, the criplled Ann astonishingly managed to recover from its spiral-dive and limped back to Raheng.

However, the Buffalos were now tearing into the rear of the enemy formation as the Nates struggled to catch up with the speedier RAF machines. Japanese rear-gunners tried desperately to fight off the British aircraft, but to no effect. Two Anns broke up as the concentrated .50 calibre fire found its mark. Chunks of debris broke off a third, narrowly missing a fourth Japanese bomber. However, the pursuing Nates were starting to find their mark – the veteran Japanese pilots were starting to pour fire into the Buffalos, though the rugged machines were taking the punishment (so far).

Concerned by the enemy fighters, Sqn Ldr Milward ordered a section to break off from each Flight and engage the fighters, while the remainder continued to atatck the bombers. However, just as a novice RAF pilot celebrated his first victory, sending an Ann crashing down in flames, the veteran Major Yoshioka, already an ace from the long war against the Chinese, lined him up in his sights… A long burst riddled the Buffalo. The RAF pilot desperately tried to throw off his pursuer, but with his control surfaces shot to pieces, the Buffalo wallowed as Yoshioka moved in for the kill. A second burst finished the Buffalo.

However, a fourth Ann was now seen going down in flames, while Major Yoshioka was shocked to see his wingman, another veteran of the Chinese war, disintegrate under a hail of .50 calibre fire as a vengeful Buffalo raked him in a head-on pass!

However, British confidence was now starting to ebb as their inexperience was being exploited by the highly experienced Japanese fighter pilots (in CY6 terms, the Japanese had been very lucky in rolling up two Aces, five Veterans, one Regular and one Green pilot – an astonishing bit of dice-rolling! By contrast, 67 Sqn had only one Veteran, four Regulars and three Green pilots. The RAF Buffalos had the advantages of speed, firepower and ruggedness, though the Nate was highly manouevreable and deadly in a slow, turning fight – especially in expert hands.

Very quickly, Buffalos were starting to run from the fight – one limping and trailing oil, while another dived away with ragged holes torn in its control surfaces. A third was also forced to disengage having expended all its ammunition. With four of his eight Buffalos now out of the fight and with seven vengeful Nates in hot pursuit, Sqn Ldr Millward decided that discretion was the better part of valour and ordered 67 Squadron to disengage. Their superior speed prevented any further pursuit by the 77th Sentai.

Undaunted by the ineffectual ack-ack fire over Moulmein, the 31st Sentai released their bombs over the airfield and returned for home. Secondary explosions were noted, though a recce flight would be required to determine exactly what damage (if any) had been caused. With Moulmein under attack, the battered 67 Sqn diverted back to their home base at Mingaladon, which was fortunate, as Moulmein was then subjected to a second attack by Lt Col Onishi Hiroshi's Ki-21 'Sally' bombers.

In the meantime, the Blenheims of Sqn Ldr Reginald Stidolph's 113 Sqn pressed on to Raheng. There was still no sign of the Flying Tigers! By sheer luck, the Japanese were taken completely by surprise and 113 Sqn unloaded its bombs on Raheng while the 77th Sentai's 3rd & 4th Chutais were still sitting on the ground! Outraged, the surviving Nates were soon airborne – just as the Flying Tigers arrived…

But that's for the next game…

So all in all, a good, though relatively bloody first campaign game. I still need to finalise campaign rules for bomb damage, pilots bailing out/evading capture, so the ultimate results of the first day's fighting is yet to be resolved. I've decided that post-raid damage assessment can only be conducted by photo recce, so only the player on the receiving end of the bombing will be aware of the full effects of bombing until the attacker mounts some photo-recce missions (an excuse to get my Mitchell, 'Dinah' and 'Babs' recce birds onto the table…).

Cracking write-up – definitely looking forward to seeing more.

Cheers Dom!

I'll try to take some photos next time…

Most excellent! I've played quite a few SE Asian Cy6 games and one thing we did was make any firing double rolls by Buffalo cause gun jams. Even if it is the first time the plane fires. They really were that bad over Malaya and Burma. I think your number of vet Japanese pilots is pretty good, maybe even too low. Looking forward to more of these and hopefully some piccies.

Excellent!

From my reading on the Buffalos guns jams the British replaced the wing guns with .303 LMGs. Those worked fine. the 2 x .50 HMGS in the nose were a problem due to old ammo.

The house rule we use for CY6 is the British lose the high die on damage and the low die.

Cheers guys. Yes, I recall reading about Buffalo armament issues in 'Bloody Shambles', but it's out on loan at the moment, so I can't refer to it! However, I would say that the Buff technical/tactical problems encountered in Burma were frequently different to those encountered in Malaya/Singapore (67 Sqn seem to have coped far better than their Singapore counterparts), so I'll hold fire until I can read up. But thanks very much for the ideas.

Top stuff!

Here's the campaign map wot I drawed myself wiv Hexographer. Each hex is roughly 15 miles across.

Black lines are railways (with associated all-weather road), solid red lines are all-weather roads and red dotted lines are roads that get a bit soggy in the monsoon. Dots are towns/cities without airfields and little aeroplanes are towns/cities with airfields:

link
link

Raheng is about six hexes above the 'H' in THAILAND and Moulmein is on the coast, about seven hexes west of Raheng. Mingaladon is just north of Rangoon, which is NW of the Gulf of Martaban – 9 hexes WNW of Moulmein.

Allied Campaign Order of Battle & Reinforcement Schedule

19th January
- 1st Sqn AVG (Adam & Eve) – 7x P-40 C Warhawk
- 2nd Sqn AVG (Panda Bears) – 7x P-40 C Warhawk
- 67 Sqn RAF – 8x Buffalo + 3 spare (light damage)
- 113 Sqn RAF – 8x Blenheim IV
- 4 CD Flt IAF – 1x Wapiti

23rd January
- 267 Wing RAF – 2x Hurricane IIb arrive at Mingaladon

25th January
- 267 Wing RAF – 2x Hurricane IIb & 1x Hurricane IIa PR arrive at Mingaladon

26th January
- 28 Sqn RAF – 9x Lysander II arrive at Mingaladon
- 4 CD Flt IAF – Withdrawn from Burma
- 3 CD Flt IAF – 2x Blenheim I arrive at Bassein

29th January
- 267 Wing RAF – 3x Hurricane IIb arrive at Mingaladon

30th January
- 1 Sqn IAF – 4x Lysander II arrive at Mingaladon

2nd February
- 267 Wing RAF – 2x Hurricane IIb arrive at Mingaladon

4th February
- 28 Sqn RAF – Ordered to maintain a detachment of 1x Lysander at Port Blair

8th February
- 2nd Sqn AVG (Panda Bears) – Withdrawn from Burma

14th February
- 267 Wing RAF – 4x Hurricane IIb arrive at Mingaladon

15th February
- 267 Wing RAF – 8x Hurricane IIb arrive at Mingaladon

16th February
- 45 Sqn RAF – 3x Blenheim IV arrive at Mingaladon

17th February
- 267 Wing RAF – 4x Hurricane IIb arrive at Mingaladon
- 45 Sqn RAF – 3x Blenheim IV arrive at Mingaladon

18th February
- 45 Sqn RAF – 2x Blenheim IV arrive at Mingaladon

24th February
- 267 Wing RAF – 3x Hurricane IIb arrive at Mingaladon

1st March
- 267 Wing RAF – 3x Hurricane IIb arrive at Mingaladon

4th March
- 1st Sqn AVG (Adam & Eve) – Withdrawn from Burma
- 3rd Sqn AVG (Hell's Angels) – 3x P-40 C Warhawk arrive at Mingaladon
- 67 Sqn RAF – 3x Hurricane IIb arrive at Mingaladon

6th March
- 3rd Sqn AVG (Hell's Angels) – 3x P-40 C Warhawk arrive at Mingaladon

8th March
- 3rd Sqn AVG (Hell's Angels) – 2x P-40 C Warhawk arrive at Mingaladon

18th March
- Evacuation from Mingaladon

NB 267 Wing Hurricanes may be allocated to any of the three squadrons therein – 17 Sqn, 135 Sqn or 136 Sqn.

Japanese Campaign Order of Battle & Reinforcement Schedule

19th January
- 31st Sentai – 13x Ki-30 ‘Ann'
- 62nd Sentai – 7x Ki-20 ‘Sally'
- 77th Sentai – 16x Ki-27 ‘Nate'

21st January
- 8th Sentai – 8x Ki-30 ‘Ann' & 8x Ki-48 Sokei (‘Lily') arrive
- 14th Sentai – 10x Ki-21 ‘Sally' arrive
- 50th Sentai – 16x Ki-27 ‘Nate' arrive
- 70th Independent Chutai – 2x Ki-15 ‘Babs' arrive

20th February
- 70th Independent Chutai – 2x Ki-46 ‘Dinah' arrive

24th February
- 47th Independent Chutai – 3x Ki-44 Shoki (‘Tojo') arrive

28th February
- 12th Sentai – 16x Ki-21-IIb ‘Sally II' arrive
- 8th Sentai – 4x Ki-48 Sokei (‘Lily') arrive

1st March
- 62nd Sentai – Withdrawn from Burma

10th March
- 14th Sentai – Withdrawn from Burma
- 1st Sentai – 8x Ki-27 ‘Nate' arrive
- 11th Sentai – 7x Ki-27 ‘Nate' arrive
- 98th Sentai – 18x Ki-21-IIb ‘Sally II' arrive
- 51st Independent Chutai – 2x Ki-15 ‘Babs' & 2x Ki-46 ‘Dinah' arrive
- HQ 12th Hikodan – 1x Ki-27 ‘Nate' arrives

19th March
- 64th Sentai – 8x Ki-43 Hayabusa (‘Oscar') & 1x Ki-27 ‘Nate' arrive
- 70th Independent Chutai – 1x Ki-51 ‘Sonia' arrives

NB The air units operating over Burma during early January (31st, 62nd & 77th Sentais) came under the command of 10th Hikodan. From 21st January the 5th Hikoshidan (Flying Division) took over command of operations for Burma and the units were reorganised:

4th Hikodan comprised the 8th, 14th, 31st, 50th & 62nd Sentais.
10th Hikodan comprised the 77th Sentai and 70th Independent Chutai. They were joined in February by the 12th Sentai and 47th Independent Chutai.

With the fall of Singapore in mid-February, the 12th Hikodan was transferred to Burma with the 1st, 11th, 64th & 98th Sentais, plus the 51st Independent Chutai. The 14th & 62nd Sentais were withdrawn at this time to re-equip with Sally II.

NBB The aircraft numbers listed above are all at 1:2 ratio – i.e. half the real numbers, for ease of play.

I am so nicking this…. ;-)

I thought you might… ;)

I'll let you know once the whole campaign is written up. You can then have a copy of the full doc.

Some thoughts on campaign design:

Each player can clearly decide their own objectives and missions, but there will also be campaign-imposed, time-sensitive missions given to the players for each campaign day. These will usually be pleas for help from the army (e.g. provide close air support, interdict a road or railway, bomb a bridge, provide a CAP over friendly forces, etc).

These missions won't help you win the air campaign and will indeed be a hindrance to knocking out the enemy's air force, though players will lose victory points for failing to complete each campaign mission within the allotted time.

I thought about combining this with a ground campaign and that is an option, though a little ambitious at the moment! Nevertheless, an ambitious campaign umpire with lots of players and time could always let players then decide for themselves what assets they're allocating to those tasks, based on the needs of their ground commanders, but I've decided for this campaign to let the Japanese forces advance across the map at their historical rate and allocate semi-random missions based on the historical tasking.

More magnificence!
I am envious indeed.

Thanks a lot RMD – I think you're on the right lines in terms of mission taskings – especially if sticking with the historical progression on land, you need some mechanism to make sure the players can't devote all of their resources to bombing the other side's airfields. The OOB is interesting reading too – I'd forgotten just how few Oscars there actually were in theatre. That little independent squadron of early model Tojos has always been a personal favourite though – could be the Blenheims' worst nightmare if employed right….

I've taken the campaign orbat up to the withdrawal from Mingaladon in late March, which is roughly my planned end of the campaign. If you're interested, this was also the point at which 67 & 135 Sqns RAF and 1 Sqn IAF were withdrawn from the fighting. The remaining units were split into BURWING at Magwe and AKWING at Akyab island. Some reorganisations were:

3 Sqn AVG received its first P-40E at this point, which enabled the Flying Tigers to operate in the fighter-bomber role for the first time.

17 Sqn RAF took over the surviving Hurricane IIbs of the disbanded 267 Wing and was alocated to BURWING.

136 Sqn RAF moved to AKWING, where they picked up 5x (in 2:1 game terms) Hurricane Mk Is.

139 Sqn RAF arrived and was allocated to AKWING, with 3x Hudson.

3 CD Flt IAF was allocated to AKWING.

45 Sqn RAF arrived with 4x Blenheim IV, being allocated to BURWING.

113 Sqn RAF was allocated to AKWING (I think).

28 Sqn RAF was reduced to a single Flt of 1x Lysander and was allocated to BURWING. The rest were withdrawn.

Further developments in the orbat up to the final retreat from Burma:

136 Sqn RAF was withdrawn on 1st April.

17 Sqn RAF was withdrawn on 10th April.

1 Sqn AVG returned to Burma sometime before 13th April. It now included a number of new P-40E.

3 Sqn AVG also received a number of P-40E during late March/Early April.

2 Sqn AVG returned to the Burma front sometime in late April/early May, now also equipped with a mix of P-40B/C and P-40E. All three AVG Sqns were now operating together over Burma for the first time. The three Sqns were now conducting regular fighter-bomber strikes with the P-40Es, using the P-40B/Cs as escorts.

215 Sqn RAF was operating over Burma by early April, equipped with Wellingtons.

5 Sqn RAF, equipped with 8x Mohawk Mk IV (Curtiss Hawk 75A-4) was operating over Burma by late April.

146 Sqn RAF, equipped with 8x Mohawk Mk IV, was operating over Burma by early May.

62 Sqn RAF, equipped with Hudson, arrived at the Burma front during the first week of May. They absorbed the remnants of 139 Sqn and 3 CD Flt IAF.

There was no significant reinforcement of the Japanese 5th Hikoshidan after the arrival of 12th Hikodan in March.

Yeah, there has to be some other aspect to the campaign or as you say, it'll just be a constant cycle of boring and predictable raids on airfields. The inclusion of all those Lysanders was for one purpose – close support of the army – which they did very well (especially the superb Indian 1 Sqn). That said, the Lysanders did attack airfields on occasion (they presumably needed an aircraft as rugged as the Lizzie to carry their gonads around)! :)

Yes, the Oscars were prioritised for Malaya at this time. The 64th Sentai had been in action during the Christmas Raids over Rangoon in 1941, but had then been withdrawn along with the rest of the 7th Hikodan to cover Malaya.

The Tojos of the 47th Independent Sentai had also been moved up to Don Muang for the Christmas raids, but couldn't operate any closer to Rangoon due to the runways of all the closer airfields being of inadequate length. Their limited range then meant that they couldn't participate. Yes, they're a great little unit and I bought three Tojos from Raiden at my first opportunity! :)

In fact, there should only be two Tojos (4 real aircraft) in this campaign, as one (2 real aircraft) crashed en route. But I like them… :)

As you say, they should cause holy hell among Blenheims – they're essentially just a bloody great engine with guns… Can't turn a damn, but by God do they shift…

Cheers MB! :)

I tell a lie. The Japanese did get some reinforcements:

12th Sentai had increased its strength by 2x Sally II (in game terms) by late March.

64th Sentai had similarly increased its strength by 2x Oscars. They had also picked up 1x Hurricane IIb and 1x P-40 B/C! :)

98th Sentai had also added 1x Sally II.

Of course, these reinforcements don't take losses into account, so the reinforcement may have been stronger than just 1 or 2 per unit. It's also entirely possible that other units received reinforcements, but losses exceeded reinforcements, so the net strength stayed static or went down.

There were another 3x Sally assigned to HQ 5th Hikoshidan, but these were fitted as transports.

There was also a large IJN air operation in late March/early April, in support of the Japanese carrier sortie against Ceylon at that time:

1. At least 6x 'Mavis' flying boats commenced operations from Port Blair in the Andaman Islands from 26th March.

2. 'Nell' bombers of the Mihoro Kokutai began conducting maritime recce operations into the Indian Ocean from Sabang, in northern Suamtra.

3. 9x 'Zero' fighters from the 22nd Air Flotilla moved to Mingaladon on 30th March.

4. 9x 'Nell' bombers and 1x 'Babs' recce aircraft from the Genzan Ku moved to Mingaladon on 4th April.

The IJN aircraft grouped at Mingaladon conducted strikes against Akyab and Calcutta on 4th April, coinciding with the carrier strike against Ceylon. These forces were withdrawn immediately afterwards and there was no more IJN air involvement in the Burma Campaign.

Ta very much – I have Bloody Shambles stashed in the spare room somewhere, but there are a few bits I'd forgotten there – especially the IJN assets surged to support the Indian Ocean carrier raid….

I go away and next time I look there is even more good stuff posted. I am so looking forward to the finished doc.

@Microbiggie
I know what you mean, I go of line for a few days, OK over a week who's counting, and come back to everybody having fun. ;-P

RMD this is great and I have already started digging out 1/3000th planes for it. Finally something I can use that flight of Mavis's for.

Please add me to the list of people who want the finished product.

Fatman

It must be good you have even got Dom enthusiastic, no mean feat these days.

A scandalous lie Fatman – I'm a ray of bleeding sunshine….

Of course you are mate. ;-P

Fatman

Cheers boys,

Yes, I'll crack on with the project and report back here on progress.

Cheers,

Mark

For those interested, there's a contemporary RAF overview report of their activities which makes for useful background reading/scenario fodder:

link

(Links to the various parts of that report are on the left column of the page)

Cheers DB.

Progress Report: The campaign system is coming together nicely, but slowly. I'd seriously underestimated the amount of time and effort it would take to compile a stack of scribbled notes into a readable and playable set of campaign rules!

Anyway, I'll try to get it done in the next week or two and then do a more rigorous test of the campaign rules with my minions. I can then give it a final polish from the pool-bar in Tenerife. :)

Dom, is it something that you might like to stick on your site as a free download?

I'm not sure that's doable (because it's a "templated" shop, it's not exactly flexible) but will take a look at it. I suspect the Check Your 6 and 1/600 Air Gaming Yahoo groups (probably amongst others) would be thrilled to have it though. :-)

I know that Paul at TD is looking for gaming stuff to p-ut on his site. I also know that the useless he asked for help with it has let him down. (looks sheepish and shuffles feet.) Although I hope to get my finger out and have something for him by Carronade.

Fatman

Ah, I thought the Yahoo Group had gone.

OK that's weird I edited my first message to replace an expletive I expected to be bleeped out, but which showed up on the message, with a mild British colloquialism and it was Bleeped! Not only that the edit caused a duplicate of the original post complete with unbleaped swear word. Methinks the Gremlins are skittish today. ;-)

Fatman

You make 'em nervous Neil…. ;-) Yahoo group's still going RMD – not exactly busy, but every now and then something interesting pops up.

link

Weird. The last few times I tried to get onto it, it came up as 'page not found', so I thought it had expired.

Good old reliable Yahoo – you get what you pay for…. ;-)

Corrections to the orbat above:

1. The Ki-30 'Anns' listed by a few sources as being with 8th Sentai, seem to have actually been Ki-15 'Babs'. Although ostensibly recce aircraft, these seem to have been pressed into service as light bombers.

2. 1 Indian Squadron should have 6x Lysanders (12x real'uns).

Anyhoo, the campaign system is about 95% finished now. Just got to work out victory points and finish off the campaign events/missions list. It's already a weighty tome!

Give me your e-mail addresses and I'll send out the draft when it's done.

Re Buffalo armament:

I've done some reading and the only RAF Buffalo unit known to have used .303s for the wing guns is 21/453 Sqn in Singapore. 243 & 488 Sqns also in Singapore retained the 4x.50 Cals, as did 67 Sqn in Burma.

However, the wing-mounted .50s caused problems, as apparently the .50s were jury-rigged into mounts designed for .30s. To add to the problems, the firing solenoids were also designed for .30s.

These problems don't seem to have affected the nose guns, presumably because the mountings were designed for .50s from the outset and hadn't had the design spec changed and then changed back again. However, the RNZAF mentioned that the US-designed interruptor gear for the nose guns was not as effective as the standard RAF model.

I think I might go with a modified version of the idea mooted above: On a double roll To Hit (even the first fire), Buffalos will lose two of their four guns jammed.

In the spirit of fairness, this will also apply to the .50 fitted to Oscars (they normally had 1x LMG & 1x HMG at this stage of the war), which caused no end of trouble due to explosive ammo that had a nasty habit of exploding in the barrel). I'm guessing that the Tojo also had the same issues with .50s, though I've not read anything specific.

Jemima-

Any thought of writing up the campaign and adding it to the CY6 Yahoo group? I am sure many folks would like to give it a try (including me).

Cheers,
Scott

Hi Scott,

That's the plan! :)

As mentioned earlier, for some reason the Yahoo Group kept coming up as 'not found' for me, so I thought it had died. Hence why I've not been there in a while.