Airwar over Germany
A ruleset we have found on the internet and which we have heavily modified.
We are preparing a set of miniatures to play the dogfights over germany, between american bombers and escorts and the german fighters.
Models are 1/600 from Tumbling Dice. We have so far painted almost all of forces.
Scenarios played
In the following pictures some B17 and Thunderbolts just painted, waiting for their decals.
We had planned to use Bag the Hun 2 rules from ToofatLardies, with modifications to be able to handle many planes, but in the end we made our own version of a ruleset found on the web.
Project
USA
- Mustangs, 352nd Fighter Group, blue nose, red tail. In totale 8 planes. Half squadron.
- Mustangs. In totale 8 planes. Half squadron.
- P47, 56th Fighter Group, 62nd Squadron, red nose, yellow tail. 8 planes. Half squadron.
- P47, 8 planes. Half squadron.
- B17, yellow tails, One box of 20 planes.
- B17, red tails, One box of 20 planes.
- P38 Lightning, 16 planes.
- B25 Mitchell, 20 planes.
Germany
Bombing mission
Four battle scenes, three games and one dice rolling feast.
- Far from objective: Difficult to catch the americans, poor radars, german possibility of missing with some intercepts. Germans decide how many groups, then each group dices and enters table separately.
- Approaching objective: P47 and P38 cannot reach this scenario, only Mustangs. Good radars for germans, all fighters reach table.
- Bomb away: just dice throws. Check for bombs on target and for damage/kills by flak. Each damaged plane is removed from box fro the going home scenario, together with a fighter pair.
- Going home: Germans from first scenario may rejoin. Dice each group for interception.
Tactics
Escort fighters: usually two groups on flanks of each box at same height. One large group in front, (16 fighters) ten miles ahead and at high altitude. In the scenario frontal escort might come back fast at high altitude.
Germans: formation of any big size, minimun group size, able to enter the table separately, is Schwarm. Germans decide angle of attack respect to bombers, 12-hours, 3-hours, 6,9. If they choose 3-hours may end-up between 12-hours and 3-hours or right at 3-hours or between 3-hours and 6-hours.
Rules ideas
Each damaged bomber which needs to get back in one scenario, has to be followed by a pair of fighters.
Upgunned FW and other german planes are not very manoeuvrable.
Some ideas
Nein Benzine!
If next card is German jets, they run out of fuel and go back home. Jets had very low amounts of fuel.
Jettison!
If next card is US fighters, they jettison their external tanks to dogfight and cannot follow bombers to next mission.
Enemy approaching!
If next card is bombers firing, they fire to the closest US fighters, they easily mistook friends from foe. Maybe more than one card on deck.
