For Enfilade 2019, Kevin and I ran two air attack games. The first was the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) attack on the German battleship Tirpitz while it was in Norway and the second was an Italian air raid on Malta.
Note: You can see photos from other
Enfilade 2019 games at this post.
Operation Tungsten
This was a repeat of a game we ran several years ago. This time we used David Manley's unpublished Air War 1940 rules (instead of an adaptation of Mustangs). We had two German players, each with a pair of Me-109s and FW-190s, and four FAA players. Due to limited carrier deck space, the FAA players had to choose the planes in their strike and went with six Barracuda bombers, five Hellcat fighters, and one Marlet II (which was specially trained for flak suppression).
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| Half the Fleet Air Arm force |
The FAA split their force into twi groups, with each group moving down the side of the table. One group had to pass near a supporting German destroyer, which put up some light flak but didn't cause any casualties.
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| Flyby of the German destroyer |
The Me-109s got in close - shooting down one Hellcat and damaging the Barracudas.
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| Close-in action |
The trailing Marlet II shot down one Me-109 before heading off to strafe the Tirpitz. The Barracuda tail gunners were able to take down the other German fighter, which had been damaged by the FAA fighters.
On the other side of the table, the FW-190s made a pass at the bombers and damaged one, knocking out its bomb release. But the escorting Hellcats pounced on the Germans and took out both the fighters. With the fighters out of the way, the Germans turned their flak to the oncoming Barracudas.
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| Barracudas passing through the heavy flak |
German reinforcements began to show up, and the lead bomber was shot down.
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| Barracudas lining up for the attack |
The two remaining Barracudas from the right-side of the table made their way through the fighters and flak to drop their bombs. Getting one major hit, but missing with the other bomb.
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| Tirpitz takes a hit |
The Martlet suppressed some light flak, but was then shot down near the German battleship. The left-side bombing group lost one bomber as they neared the battleship.
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| Left-side group starting their attack run |
The planes then started their attack run and got one more bomb hit.
The damage to the battleship was enough to keep it in port for repairs for a few weeks. So it ended up as a minor FAA victory.
Air Raid over Malta
Our second game was an Italian air raid on Valletta Harbor. The background was that a British convoy had just gotten through and the Italians were coming to bomb the ships before they could unload. We used Kevin's mat of the harbor (from
Tiny Wargame Mats), which got a lot of ohs and ahs as people passed by the table.
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| Malta, with a little flak |
The Italians had nine SM-79 bombers, escorted by six MC.202 fighters. The British had their choice of Hurricane IICs (armed with 4 20mm cannon) or Spitfire Vs, and all the British players chose to go with the Spitfires.
The Italians split their bombers, sending three after a destroyer and the other six after the large tanker.
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| The Italians lined up |
The lead plane for the group going after the destroyer suffered an early flak hit that forced it to jettison its bombs. But it bravely led the other two planes on the attack.
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| The lead bomber over the destroyer |
The Malta flak gunners were having a good day as they targeted another bomber, which disappeared in an explosion (a critical hit on the bomb bay).
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| KABOOM! |
The remaining bomber was able to one bomb on the destroyer, damaging it. While the Folgores showed up to chase off a pesky Spitfire.
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| A small fire on the destroyer |
On the other side of the table, the first wave of bombers took some damage from the defending Spitfires, but returned the damage too. They were able to put a couple bombs on target, damaging the oil tanker.
The second wave ran into a few more Spitfires and flak. The flak gunners showed their good targeting skills again by blowing up another bomber.
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| One more boom |
The second wave was able to put more hits on the tanker, giving it major damage. The Italians lost two bombers (but all had some damage) and two MC.202s, while the British lost four Spitfires. We gave the victory to the Italians since they actually hit the ships.
Return From Concord
I also helped out with the Return From Concord game and have a few photos from that.
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| British Grenadiers at the crossroad |
The British had Grenadiers marching down the road (a special rule said they couldn't cross the stone walls on either side of the road, but could drive any rebels away from the wall), with light infantry acting as flank guards on each side of the road.
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| The lead Grenadier group getting shot up |
The light infantry on the right side of the road did a good job of clearing out American militia early on, but then were stopped cold when the Americans formed a second line of defense near a fence. On the left side, the light infantry spent a lot of time trading shot with the Americans, but had a tougher time driving them off.
All the Grenadiers took casualties, but they were able to make it to the other side of the board.
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| Grenadiers attacking militia on the stone wall |
After counting up the casualties, the British eked out a victory. It was a good game and came down to the final turn to determine the outcome.
That's it for Enfilade 2019. I hope you enjoyed all the photos and commentary.
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