"Bombing Raid AAR" Topic

Last night we played a WW2 scenario from Finest Hour called Mission Berlin. An American bomber force tried to break through the Luftwaffe's defenses to attack the capital city.

The forces consisted of 12 B24s, with 4 P51s escorting. The defenders had 6 Me109e, 4 Fw190a, 3 Me110c, 2 Me262, and 2 He163. The basic goal of the Americans was to exit the board from one corner to the other. The Germans had to shoot down more than half the bombers.

The Me262s entered first (random order and start location), and immediately screamed into the attack. The first salvo from the 30mm guns missed entirely, but the shear speed of the jets threw the Americans totally off guard. Two of the P51s tried to engage the jets, but were left in the dust. These two Mustangs never got back into the fight for all intents.

Meanwhile, the German prop planes started coming on, led by 3 Me109s, then the Focke Wulfs, then the last of the Me109s. Once contact was made, the prop planes started taking their toll. Some bad defensive die rolls from the bombers failed to damage the attackers, who managed to begin downing B24s just about every turn.

The Salamanders came screaming in next, but with the exception of their speed, proved no better at killing bombers than an Me109.

Sheer weight of fire proved out, and eventually bombers were falling just about every turn. Some spectacular engine and fuel explosions from the updated critical hit table in Finest Hour provided entertainment, while plain old accumulated damage did the rest.

In spite of the Americans bad die rolls, the Germans still managed to lose three planes, and their jets were pretty shot up before running out of ammo.

All in all, an excellent scenario. This time the Germans won, but with better die rolls, and modified tactics, it could easily go either way.

Photos are available here link

I've never played the game, but the amount of German fighters seems to make it a suicide mission for the Americans.

That's the problem with B-24s -- too flimsy. That thin wing just can't take the damage, give me a Flying Fortress any day.

Depends on tactics and luck. We could play the game again tonight, and the die rolls could turn the other way. And if the P-51s had ignored the jets, which they couldn't catch anyway, and gone straight for the 109s and 190s, they would have stood a much better chance (the jets have very little ammo). To win the scenario the Germans had to shoot down more than half the bombers, no easy feat. As for the dice, the Americans missed more than half their shots from the bombers…not good luck at all.

The deciding factor in these games always seems to be tactics, and dice. But if you don't get your fighters into the fight, you don't get to roll. Either way, the game was a lot of fun. We did decide to put two more 51s in to try to boost the odds.

Link to the photos didn't work.

Just asked me to sign up for Yahoo, but I'm already a member.

Never mind.

I expected to be bounced to the home page, but for some reason Yahoo wanted me to register in again. A bit strange.

Yeah, they seem to be doing that alot. I really hate having to sign in when going from email to groups…ah, technology. I might put them on my website, so they can be seen by anyone.

AFTERBURNER,

Who makes Finest Hour? Is this a rules set or a supplement to an existing rules set?

Sounds like fun,and the pics looked great--thanks for posting them.

Thanks,
MD

Finest Hour is a collection of WW2 air combat scenarios written basically for the Hunters in the Sky rules, but can be used for just about any rules set.

The scenarios run from early, Battle of Britain, to late war, the Philipines and Berlin. The book is still in the works, but includes aircraft stat sheets that you can copy to use in the games to save time handwritting any. The stats have been modified based on house rules that give each aircraft a little more "personality" beyond what the basic rules have, i.e. different climb/dive/acceleration rates based on actual statistics. Includes full color photos, maps, narratives and short histories on the battles they are portraying.

I expect release within the next 30 days, trying for the Christmas cutoff.

They will be available at greendragonhobbies.com

Thanks, and good hunting!

Thanks for the info--looking forward to getting it for Xmas!

Will there be an announcement here when they are ready for release?

Thanks,
MD

Absolutely

The photos from the game are up on our club website. They came out pretty good, especially the flaming B-24's. The link is link