Designing Battle of Britain Games #2

SITUATION: More Orientation For Our Battle of Britain Regional Player/Pilots

MISSION: Easy 2016 Spectacle War Games, Camaraderie, Fun

SEE PREVIOUS POST:
http://northafricancampaigning.blogspot.com/2016/01/designing-battle-of-britain-games-1.html
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On A Wing And A Prayer is a four-page Quick Reference game aid. Almost all we need is within though it is a work in progress. It is an adaptation of the brilliant Nick Skinner BAG THE HUN second edition rules published by Too Fat Lardies. We've added home rules too. As such our adaptation is not and cannot be for sale. The Spitfire is a GHQ 1/285 scale metal aircraft on a Check Your Six flight stand. Dice needed: Oodles of D6s and 1xD4.

Page 2 (foreground) contains aircraft characteristics, movement, weapons fire, fun saving throws and light damage procedures. Page 3 (upper right) has eight aircraft record charts with heavier damage data. Here pilots mark damage for each aircraft to know its condition and fighter plane ammunition expenditure. One model equals one historical aircraft.

Page 4 has bombing, flak, spotting and room for more when needed. The key is to keep this to four pages for faster game play. Reasons: When actual games begin, there could be up to three separate missions flying simultaneously, each with nearly thirty aircraft on different portions of the tables.

Movement is metric. Formula: Bag The Hun's hexagon movement rates x2x2.5 = centimeters. Curved movement templates are from the rules, Duel of Eagles. The latter might be available for private use from a vendor somewhere. I've photo-copied the templates (author permitted for private use only) onto hard stock paper in various colors.

To speed game play every pilot will have his own template color. Reason: Templates get mixed up.Oh Bill! All the orange ones are mine. Yours are light green. Chuck's are yellow and so on. Speeds game play.

Templates are limited per aircraft. A JU 88 may use E, F, G and the 50cm straight edge ruler. It could use D if it wants to take a 16% chance of damage causing a crash landing though. Hurricanes may use B through G and the straight edge. Template A is available if any want to take a small chance of structural damage causing a crash landing. (1D6 = 1)

The circle provides four arcs of fire.

This low-flying GHQ 1/285 JU 88 desperately wants to leave southern Britain for its airfield in France. It is allowed a 30 centimeter movement if unloaded. 25cms otherwise. It is easiest to place the template on the side of the flight stand so the bottom of the template intersects each pointed side of the stand. (where it touches the stand and through the #4). Move the aircraft along the curve. Another 10cms are available. Simply place the template again moving more but.....

One need not move totally on one template. Switching to another or the straight edge is okay, any time. The straight edge may be used for straight movement or arcs shallower than Template G.

January 13, 2016 Test Flight. Six JU 88s escorted by six Bf ME 109 Es were intercepted by six Hurricanes. (Not all shown.)

According to RAF pilot and author Peter Townsend in his book Duel of Eagles, German Dornier 17 light bombers conducted several tree-top bombing runs over British airfields.

Same photo at a different angle. By the end of Turn 4 all were spread out over a 5'x5' area. The Hurricanes flew about 8' to intercept starting from the blurry trees on the left in the far distance of this photo. Fast! We want long flight distances and a lot of time in the air.



May 10, 1940, "...machine-gun fire rattled out from an aircraft somewhere nearby. With his camera ready, Stan [Fraser] saw two aircraft suddenly roar into view through a gap in the trees. 'The last we saw of the planes,' jotted Stan, 'was when they were streaking away across the house tops of Arras, [France]." From James Holland's, THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN Five Months that Changed History May - October 1940, published 2010, pp. 39-40.

Thus, low level flying happened in addition to high altitude missions. Ditto when JU 87s dived to attack shipping and radar installations. JU 88s were dive bomb capable too.

Back to our tactical rules test. The foreground table is six feet wide. You see four feet of this. Only a few inches of the other two feet are visible where The English Channel meets the coast. In the distance is another six foot wide table deeper into southern Britain. A walkway separates the two tables. Looking closely at the top of the photo, two large aircraft have arrived at the edge of the Back Table.

Here they are; two JU 88s. An RAF Hurricane has sped by them too. It has damage sufficient to cause the pilot to steer for home. (Mandatory.) Are the JU 88s headed for the factory?

A better look at the three aircraft just described. John B. brought over his 1/285 scale terrain. We need more!

Movement is by card draw. Bag The Hun describes what each card allows in the rule booklet. These cards were made by hand. Rather than just list a title on each, all dynamics particular to each card are included so we do not need to look them up in the rule booklet. Faster that way for a speedier game.

Cards are shuffled, flipped over one by one and acted upon - but not always. For example, the card allowing Bomber "Air Gunners" to fire will be discarded if there are no targets. After the last card is played, the deck is reshuffled and the next turn begins. It is a fast process.

The Too Fat Lardies website says, "Bag The Hun captures the frantic swirling feel of air warfare and reflects the skills and abilities of pilots whose names live on in legend." --- True.

Tally Ho!

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CLOSING REMARKS


1) Bag The Hun Version 2 may be purchased from Too Fat Lardies here:  http://toofatlardies.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=14&products_id=7
The booklet has a ton of information and atmosphere. Recommended.

2) Is Duel of Eagles (aircraft rules - not Peter Townsend's book of the same name) available? I'm glad to mention it here, if it is. Anybody?

3) Thank you for looking in. Your briefing is over for now.

4) Your remarks are welcome below at the word Comments. 

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