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Volume 14, Number 21 |
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Following is Rick's account of Indy Squadron gaming at Scott Campbell's house on
Saturday, December 7th, in addition to a brief description of a game that he managed to squeeze in during his lunch hour at
work last week. Dec 5, 2002 (work game) 6-Apr 1917 - Not much detail
as I was more interested in making sure everyone knew how to play. My pilot was Henri Tourville (now 2/0) in a Nieuport
17, and my wingman was Tom Cottingham. We flew against Larry and Mike in Albatri. I dogged Larry for 3 turns but he escaped
into clouds. Dec 7, 2002 (Indy Squadron gaming) For these games, Scott and I decided to automatically be opposing sides, so each
new player would have an experienced one on their side. We also arbitrarily limited the games to the Western Front. Also,
as each pilot that Mike and Larry played was a 0/0, there are no names really for them. Mike did try to give first names
at least while gaming, but Scott has the paper they were written down on and so I can't really give much info on them. I'll
see if I can get them to provide me with a quick roster next week. Game 1 (7 Feb1918) - Vfw Gerhard Fassel (now 5/0)
flying an Albatros D-Va (rev) and Larry in the same aircraft went against Scott and Mike in Dolphins. The Albs actually held
their own, but Larry took a 6/4 engine crit and combat broke up with the Albs escaping into cloud cover.
Game 2 (7 Sept 1918) - Vfw Wilfred Meier (now 4/1)
flying a Fokker D-VII (160) and Mike in the same took on Scott and Larry in Belgian Camels. My best mission of the day,
as I managed to get behind Scott and put 9 hits into him (5 or 6 hits into his right wing) and took no damage in return. However,
by the end of the 3rd turn both my guns had jammed, and the fight broke up quickly as both Scott and I escaped and the new
players chose to leave also rather than continue the dogfight.
Game 3 (2 Feb 1917) - Sort of a setup game really.
I suggested a balloon mission, and Scott wanted to fly a Sopwith Triplane, so the mission ended up as 2 Sopwith Tripes against
2 Halberstadt DII's. Don't let anyone kid you that the better planes are higher on the charts - this lead me to issue the
statement "Man - I coulda had a D-III" which one does NOT hear often. Then I overlooked my 3-1 Halb DII pilot and flew a rookie
(ok, not a bad thing to have a backup, but still). So the mission broke down as follows: my rookie Halb DII pilot
and Mike attacking a British balloon with Scott and Larry in RNAS Tripes defending. First turn saw the Germans dive max
toward the balloon with Scott and Larry both taking top shots at us, Larry on me and Scott on Mike. They both missed. The
next turn, we dived max again, putting me down to 1100 ft and Mike at 1700. Both allied fighers chose to concentrate on Mike
this time, which unfortunately left me to the tender mercies of the AA crews. The next turn both Mike and I dived max again,
resulting in a 100 foot shot for me at 350 feet altitude and a 150 foot shot for Mike at 400 feet altitude. We both hit the
balloon and it exploded in spectacular fashion! We then evaded the flames, Mike going west and me going east, each of us climbing
like mad. Both Tripes decided to concentrate on Mike at this point, however, and I was little help being quite a ways away.
I reversed and went back through the AA fire to catch up and give assistance, but was too late. Mike's pilot was hit by Scott
causing a critical wound. Mike's pilot lost conciousness and his aircraft went out of control. On the following turn, he did
max dive +200 ft, resulting in a final altitude of -400 ft (quite a deep hole in the ground, actually), giving Scott a quality
kill. My pilot however, was denied the same as the cut for the balloon between Mike and myself resulted in a posthumous kill
awarded to Mike. Mike's pilot becomes a 1/1 pilot killed in action, while my pilot returned home to fly another day.
Thomas
Escapes German Escapades Bernard
and Fassel Face Off! Campbell
Cans Julius for Sixth! Scott
Campbell's Expanded Game Reports Scott
Campbell offers his from-the-cockpit view of two of Saturday's games. The Indy Squadron met at 1:00pm on Saturday,
December 7, 2002, with Rick showing up 5 minutes late as well as two new players that Rick introduced to the game at his work
place, Mike and Larry. With two fairly new players we kept it simple with fighter vs. fighter on the western front. Rick and
I thought it best if he and I oppose each other to help the "newbies" out. Game 1: Thomas
Escapes German Escapades - Bernard and Fassel Face Off! Lt. Phillip Michael Thomas (1/0, Mike)
stood anxiously next to his clean new olive drab Sopwith Dolphin waiting for Lt. Beaufort Bellevue Bernard (5/1, Scott) to
take him over the lines for the first time. It was a brisk February morning in
1918 with some low overcast clouds. "Clouds that are good for hiding in." said Bernard as he gave Thomas his instructions.
The two climbed into their planes and headed out into the overcast. Leveling out around 10000' they scanned the skies. After some time of flying north Thomas wagged his wings pointing South east towards
Douai. Two German "V-strutters" were already in their dive making their way toward them. The Dolphins turned and met the formation
clawing for altitude. The two Germans, Vfw. Gerhard Fassel (4/0, Rick) and Dirk Schmidt (1/0, Larry), immediately pounced
on the newbie Thomas. The clean new dolphin soon turned tattered and torn receiving a critical hit that reduced its maneuverability.
Bernard chose the German leader Fassel and put 7 hf. into the boche machine. It soon became apparent that the biggest threat
to Thomas was the leaders wingman, Schmidt, so Bernard switched to him putting 13 hf into german bus until, combined with
Thomas, the German machine began to smoke. (See photo below). It wasn't free though Fassel shot Bernard's machine about a
bit. With the fight dropping down to the tops of the clouds Fassel dove into the clouds hoping his smoking wingman followed.
After several more seconds of fighting Schmidt dove into the clouds leaving the victorious sky to the Brits. Game
3: Campbell Cans Julius for Sixth! February 12, 1917 north of
Albert - An allied balloon was seen to go down burning on the allied side of the lines today. Witnesses reported that two
Halberstadt D-II's (Rick and Mike, rookies) dove down from 3500' onto the British sausage. Anti-aircraft opening up prior
to them reaching the balloon. "Two Sopwith triplanes were in the area and made a diving pass on one of the kraut planes but
they broke through and nabbed the balloon," quotes machine gunner Robert Payles who was under the balloon before it burst
into flames. "I thought that red Halberstadt (Mike) that nailed the balloon was gonna get away with it when I seen this sopwith
tripe dive down on him from behind firing for about 30 seconds. He musta hit the pilot 'cause about 1/2 a mile away that red
plane just went outta control real quick hitting hard near the north fork of the Somme." Allied reports show that Naval 10
had two triplanes operating in the area. Later Naval 10 reported that John Campbell (12/6/, Scott) claimed a red Halberstadt
D-II down after attacking one of our balloons. Campbell described the action that followed. "The DII's got passed us and flew
into the AA which we were obliged to let 'em have it. Afterwards I dove down on the red one and followed him for a while firing
all the way. He did his best trying to evade me but with a DII there's not much you can do. I kinda felt sorry for the chap
but that didn't last long. I finally got some hot lead into his office and he fell OOC near a river." |
As
Dawn Patrol players we have all heard the maxim "a shot is a shot." When we have a long shot, the idea is that it is always
good to take a shot if you have one available. As a player I accepted this idea on faith for quite a while. At some point
I began to question the wisdom of this policy. With every shot you can inflict damage, but also you run the risk of jamming
guns. And once your guns are jammed your plane is basically a toothless tiger. This article will explore these issues. Basically
I hope to show that sometimes holding your fire is a good idea. I will also try to show when you should hold your fire and
when you should take a shot. Warning! Math Ahead! Lets start at the beginning of the game.
You have a target that has run away, leaving you with a four hundred foot side shot. Assume that you are moving last and don't
have to worry about return fire. Should you take that shot? A lot of Dawn Patrol players would say
"Sure! A shot is a shot!" Let's look at this more carefully and weigh the risks and the benefits. First, how many hit factors
can you expect to inflict? And what are the risks in terms of jamming your guns? To calculate the expected number of hits,
we'll do a little math. If you are a regular pilot flying a plane with two guns, you will be firing on the "G" table. The
number of hits on the "G" table is 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, and 4. If you add these numbers the total is 16. If you hit the other plane
the average amount of damage is 16/6 or 2 2/3 hits. To hit at four hundred feet requires a roll of one or two. So, you have
a 33% chance of hitting the other plane and can expect to score 2 2/3 hits if you get lucky. Overall you can expect to score
16/18 of a point of damage. However, since this is a side shot, not all of those points are useful. Hits on the rear fuselage
are almost worthless against fighters, so I will not count those points. [Authors note: for deadly pilot hits, the 16/18 number
is correct and should be used.] If you exclude rear fuselage hits when fours and fives are rolled, the amount of expected
damage is reduced to 32/54 or about 6/10ths of a point. "Ok," you say, "that does sound like
a lot, but it is better than nothing, right?" Well! Not necessarily! Sure there are situations where something is better than
nothing. One example is when someone has declared the intention to escape. In the above example though, we are at the start
of the game. What are the negatives with firing? There are two main problems. First, you run the risk of jamming your guns.
Your chances of jamming any gun at the start of the game are basically about 5%. In this example you have two guns so the
chance of jamming one or the other of them is about 10%. The other disadvantage is that your guns are not hot! If you get
a shot on the next turn you will either need to use a short burst to keep your jam chance at 5% or else fire intermediate
or long. If you go long your chances are now 10%. Assume for the time being that next turn you get a juicy 50 foot or 100
foot shot and decide to fire a short burst. You hit on the "J" table instead of the "K" table. On the "J" table we will again
figure how many hits you can expect. Using some math we get the following. 2+3+4+5+6+7=27. 27/6 = 4.5 hits on average. Since we
are at 100 feet, the hit chance is 5/6. 4.5 times 5/6 = 3.75 hits on average
from the "J" table. If you do a tail shot all of the hits are good ones no rear fuselage hits. If you do a top or bottom shot
5/6 of the hits are good ones. This leaves 3.11 good hits. Now if you had not fired on the previous
turn you would be firing an interrupted burst this turn. That would push you to the "K" table, where any die roll gives you
an extra hit. So with your 5/6 hit chance this would add an additional .83 hit points. This compares to a measly .60 hit points
total from your 400' side shot! No More Math! In the interest of keeping my audience,
I will skip the math and just share with you my findings. If you care to see the math, let me know and I will share it with
you. My results show that that one should refrain from shooting on 400 foot tail, top and bottom shots. Interestingly, one
should also refrain from 300 foot side shots. This is really important as it has important implications for defensive boxes.
Most players, when facing a defensive box, will take the "free" 100 foot side shot. This is a mistake, generally speaking. If the two planes are at different altitudes, there are two nice sweet spots. If you
have sufficient climb you can go for a 100 foot top shot on the upper plane. If not, you can take a 100 foot bottom on the
bottom plane. This gives you a sweet shot on your target plane and almost compels
the other plane to take a lousy 250' side shot. Failure to take that shot greatly reduces the value of the box. Now imagine a typical game. You are in
the middle of the game and your opponent has boxed up. His guns are at 10% hotness. One of his guns is jammed. He wants a
break to cool his guns. He wants a chance to unjam his gun. You now take the 100' shot on his wingman! He has a bad choice.
If he doesnt shoot everyone will know something is up. If he does fire, he will inflict minimal damage, his guns will STAY
hot and he risks jamming the OTHER one. If he doesnt fire, his wingmate will be either worried, angry or both. Honestly, I take of this whenever I can.
I will ALWAYS give my opponent a 250' side shot when facing a box. Try It, You'll Like It! If you want to improve your game, experiment
a little. Make a point of going for top and bottom shots against the box. Give your opponent the 250' side shot. I'll warn
you though... you may make yourself unpopular pretty quickly!!
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