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#Post#: 1758--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 16, 2019, 1:18 pm
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Smoke pots. Yes, cloud works both ways and affects direct fire
flak as per the normal rules. Of course, it would not affect
barrage fire from flak in that square.
Second Wave. The second wave should use the same altitudes as
the first wave. i’ll clarify the text on this.
Sweeps tallying before entering. Rule 7.2. You can only tally
with squadrons on the map.
VPs. VPs are accumulated as per M6.2.1.
Port. Yes, there’s no actual benefit for attacking the Port
surface target, only the CL 1 in that square.
#Post#: 1759--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: Kevin Date: February 16, 2019, 2:20 pm
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Thanks Lee. I'll be interested in seeing the results of tests
by others. It takes a fair amount of time so is a harder task
to test this one.
#Post#: 1763--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 16, 2019, 5:06 pm
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I think you've raised an interesting point about the Port being
a focus of action but not actually a target.
I'm talking to Gordon on Sunday about this. I can see why it
would cause confusion.
#Post#: 1772--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: Kevin Date: February 17, 2019, 2:00 am
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I’d happily bomb the port instead as it’s not armoured! ;)
#Post#: 1777--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: pilotofficerprune Date: February 17, 2019, 6:45 am
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After chatting with Gordon, we are adding some VPs as an
incentive to attack the Port and split effort between that and
the Welshman.
#Post#: 2418--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: pilotofficerprune Date: May 12, 2019, 11:04 am
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Gordon and Andrew, how close are we to getting an update on your
play-through?
#Post#: 2429--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: Gordon Christie Date: May 16, 2019, 8:30 am
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Malta Spitfires AAR
Continuing today's big drop of AARs here is a run through of the
Malta Spitfires campaign that Andrew and I completed a couple of
weeks ago. I've included some comments from my (Axis)
perspective; I'm sure Andrew can provide some perspective from
the
RAF point of view.
Brief narrative follows; some wider thoughts at the end.
Run 1 Raid 1 Poor warning Alt 3 setup RAF on back foot.
2 Ju88 4 Me109 squadrons 1 Hurri 2 Spit sqn intercept
8 Spits 1 Hurri lost
3 109s 1 Ju88 lost
No hits on AF.
Luftwaffe intention here was to try and get some hits on the
airfield, but primarily to inflict some attrition on the RAF
fighters. Largely due to poor warning rolls and difficult
positioning for the RAF fighters losses favoured the Luftwaffe,
although bombing was poor.
Raid 2
3 Me 109 1 Ju88
3 sqns Spits
3 Ju88 lost 3 Spits lost No hits on AF
RAF voluntarily break to avoid unfavourable combat & run away
after attack on bombers. Again the aim was to try and keep
pressure on the field preventing repair, although unfortunately
you actually have two rule above 5 on the bombing table to
inflict damage requiring repair: -)). Luftwaffe bomber cohesion
is already starting to be a problem, and I think the killer flak
was already starting to rack up bomber kills at this point.
Raid 3
1.5 Spit sqns against 2 Mc202 1 SM79 & 1 Jabo Sqn
RAF lose 2 Spits
Axis lose 3 bombers (2 to flak) & 3 fighters 2 hits on AF
(Jabos)
Slightly tentative RAF response to this raid. Flak essentially
did the job for them although the fighter-bombers at last
managed to score some hits on the airfield.
Raid 4
RAF 3 Sqns, 2 flights Spits; 1 Sqn Hurris; losses 7 fighters
LW 2 Ju 87 4 109 Sqns
Losses 10 Ju 87 (7 flak) 8 fighters
3 hits on airfield
The plan here was to try and hit the air field hard at the end
of the day, possibly reducing
RAF recycling overnight. On reflection I'm not sure this is the
best Axis strategy, and a bigger raid earlier in the day might
have been more effective. Partly by limiting the response to the
third raid the RAF was in pretty good shape to respond to this
one, and the outcome reflected that. Flak continued to be lethal
and slaughtered the Stukas.
End day 1
RAF 20 Spits, 1 Hurricane lost
Axis 11 109s 3 Mc 202 lost 17 bombers (11 to flak IIRC)
Recycle
1 LW bomber (Ju88) only back.
2 LW fighters as flights
RAF fully recycle
Raid 1 Day 2
1 Ju88 5 109s (squadrons)
6 LW fighters 6 RAF fighters
Bombers miss (we had reduced the heavy flak to a single channel
by this point)
Final raid 2 waves, against Port
1 Ju88 4 109s second wave 2 Ju87 2 Mc 202 2 109s
Axis lose 7 fighters 3 bombers (all to flak)
RAF lose 5 fighters
Welshman 2 hits- 1VP
As the Axis there seems little point in spreading out raids
throughout the second day. I'm not sure this is actually a
problem, as it might well keep the length of the campaign down
slightly. If the RAF are in bad shape at the end of day 1 then
continued low-level pressure on the air fields might help, but
probably day 2 will boil down to an attack on the port.
Final losses
RAF 32 fighters- +32 +1 ( bombing) for Axis
Axis 27 fighters & 22 bombers- 71 RAF VP (at least 60%
bombers due to flak, possibly more)
-38 for overwhelming Allied victory
Overall the campaign mechanics work well. We used VASSAL but I
wouldn't envisage any significant ergonomic issues playing using
the actual components. The sequence of play seems to work, and
the administrative overhead isn't high at all. The end of the
recycling sequence worked pretty well, and decision-making about
raid composition for the Axis, and response for the RAF seem to
be fairly straightforward and interesting.
On this outing the dice unquestionably favoured the British.
Flak was consistently lethal, and overall the RAF definitely had
the better of air combat dice. German bomber cohesion and
bombing rolls were also consistently poor which undoubtedly
skewed the result a bit.
Nonetheless it definitely felt too bloody. Loss levels were too
high, and there isn't really enough incentive at the moment to
do anything other than plough straight in to the opposition.
Warning works reasonably well but I don’t think Andrew saw any
reason to do anything other than drive straight in whereas I’d
like to be generating more of a cat & mouse game between the
interceptors and the escorts looking for position & trying to
avoid disadvantage as we saw in some of the Rabaul tests by
making everyone a bit more sensitive to losses. I worried about
making the RAF too fragile in the design phase. I think I’ve
overdone it & they’re too robust & unworried about casualties.
Several approaches to this suggest themselves. Reducing the
number of veterans will tend to make combat a bit less bloody.
Perhaps reducing the RAF to 2 Veterans & the LW to 4 would not
be unreasonable. It probably also pays for the LW to put more
veterans in bombers, and it may even be worthwhile mandating
that half of the LW veterans need to be in bombers (?)-in which
case keeping the LW veteran count at 6 might have the desired
effect.
Both sides, but the RAF in particular, need to be a bit loss
sensitive- adding a +1 cycle roll DRM for every 8 RAF losses is
one option. The other option we discussed was to increase VP
value of losses above given threshold though I would prefer the
DRM to the cycle roll as a driver.
Adding a couple of boxes to the display for each increment in
RAF losses with a reminder of the cycle roll DRM seems
practicable.
I’m inclined to think that the fighter cycle roll numbers should
be 1-5 to recycle intact rather than 1-6 as at present to make
both fighter forces a bit more fragile.
We didn’t really get an opportunity to assess whether the
airfield damage effect is working due to the lethality of flak,
poor bomber cohesion & bad bombing rolls but intuitively I still
think it should be about right.
Heavy flak to should reduce to D for both port & airfield.
Possibly remove light flak from port (the Welshman brings a
reasonable amount of flak with it).
As the British always place the cloud it always arrives over the
target to hamper the bombing. Possibly better that the RAF
places it on odd, Axis on even cloud DR.
The LW bomber force could possibly be beefed up a bit. A second
fighter bomber squadron each day is an interesting option & adds
another planning choice for the Axis. It might be worth giving
the Axis bombers the possibility of recycling as flights
although I think there maybe a countermix reason why we decided
this wasn’t a good idea.
So:
•
•
bombers) ?? bomber expert option
•
•
RAF, possibly Axis fighters & Axis bombers
•
•
exposure prior to bombing.
Overall though it works. The mechanics work & there are
decisions to make. It is significantly too bloody but that can
be toned down. On the strength of a single playthrough I don’t
really have much of a feel for victory balancing yet but I think
that will become clear with a bit more test.
#Post#: 2435--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: pilotofficerprune Date: May 16, 2019, 10:56 am
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Great AAR. It's going to take a while to trawl through this.
Note we only have countersheet space to accomodate one Hvy Flak
D counter. The Port will either need to reduce its flak to a
single Hvy Flak A, or a Hvy Flak A and a Hvy Flak D.
#Post#: 2440--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: Gordon Christie Date: May 16, 2019, 11:37 am
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i'd take the port to a single have flak D & the cruiser AA.This
assumes there is little incentive to attack the port on day 1;
even if done I think a single heavy flak D is OK. This should
encourage a bit more barrage fire which might blunt flak
effects.
Cheers
Gordon
#Post#: 2462--------------------------------------------------
Re: Malta Spitfires Campaign
By: pilotofficerprune Date: May 19, 2019, 3:54 am
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Okay, I'm adopting a bunch of these recommendations.
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