Played a game of Lacquered Coffins today, in a roughly burma kind of theater – RAF and maybe some US fighting off a Japanese attack on their airfield.
RAF and allied aircraft – Spitifres, Hurricanes, P-47 Thunderbolts, and an F4U Corsair.
Japanese Aircraft, Zeroes and Ki-51s standing in as B7A Ryusei.
Game start, RAF on the left, Japanese on the right
Japanese forces – using a Soviet bomber standing in as a Ki-21 "Sally"
RAF Ground targets on the far left – an airfield, 2 storage facilities, and a vehicle park.
P-47s – good quality pilots, and the Ace in the F4U corsair
The Ace lines up a head on shot on a zero…
And shoots him down straight away!
Zeros peel off the main Japanese formation to attempt to defend the bombers and ground attack aircraft, while a Zero gets a few good head on hits on a Hurricane – the pilot is wounded and the aircraft damaged
The wounded pilot in the hurricane is still able to get a bead on a second Zero, pulling the trigger and unleashing all 8 .303 MGs – the Zero explodes in a fireball of fuel and shrapnel.
The F4U and P-47s make short work of the 2 Zeros on the Japanese left flank
The Japanese bombers are now looking quite vulnerable, but the veteran crews hold their course, heading directly for the RAF airfield.
Things devolve into chaos at the RAF merge with the bomber formation. LMG fire from the turrets of the Sally and the rear gunners of the Ryusei ground attack aircraft fly in all directions, trying to hit the RAF aircraft. Tracers and evading aircraft are everywhere… The Japanese get a few lucky hits, but nothing too serious. The RAF critically damage a B7A Ryusei – causing it to go into a steep, unrecoverable dive (the blue maker…)
The Ki-21 Sally manages to down a hurricane with its turrets and side machine guns, the Hurricane bursts into flame and goes down…
Overview of the game, around turn 4
The P-47s and Corsair attempt to catch up to the Bomber force, they manage to peel off a Ryusei, but looks like some are going to get through!
The Spitfires and Hurricanes, having lost quite bit of speed due to evading Japanese MG fire from the bomber formation, make turns to get on the tail of the formation, a Spitfire manages to get good hits on the Ki-21 Sally bomber, and it bursts into flame and goes down.
2 B7A Ryusei ground attack aircraft make it to the RAF base, they drop bombs hitting the vehicle park and one of the storage facilities, causing decent damage.
One of the Ryusei's is destroyed by a trailing spitfire after dropping its bombs, while the other kamikazees itself into the RAF airfield – that's going to take weeks to repair!
End of the game – a fairly crushing defeat for the Japanese, as they decided to give all their bombers and ground attack aircraft "Good" quality pilots (which are very expensive and unnecessary in aircraft that aren't fighters), which cost a lot of points and meant they couldn't field those extra 4 or 6 zeroes which would have been very useful…
