Had a fun game last night. Our first scenario involved a very-late-war photo recon mission by an American DH.4 escorted by two SPAD 13s. I was attacking in an Albatros D.IIIa and we also had a Fokker D.VIII parasol. We managed to bring down the recon plane and chase the SPADS away.
Our second scenario involved a German bombing raid at the beginning of the war, and three of the four defenders were all planes I've built recently. The bombers were seven Albatros C.III two-seaters with no escort. Because of the numbers and/or size of the bombers they are always represented on paper.
I rolled very poorly and was stuck in my Morane 'L' parasol.
Nine-year-old Silas was in my brand-new Bristol Scout.
Silas's grandpa, my friend Peter, flew my Nieuport 10b.
In between us was Silas's dad, Iso, using Rocky's Nieuport 11. This is the French group in formation.
The three of us started with a head-on pass. Iso rolled badly and didn't see the huge bomber formation. He just followed me around without shooting at anything.
After the head-on we climbed and broke around to attack from the rear. One of the bombers shot Iso. Automatic sighting for him!
I made the rookie mistake of changing my empty drum while heading away from the bombers, which meant that I then had to chase them from far behind. Peter and Iso turned all the way around first, then changed their drums while chasing the bombers. I was still trying to catch up while they were making a new attack. That's Silas and Iso in the picture.
Meanwhile Silas in the Bristol got the only kill of the game.
Iso was shot out of control, but managed to regain enough to make a safe landing. Peter then had his engine shot out, but glided back to an empty field. Silas made a third attack, but was so badly shot up he decided to break off his attack. This left me to go after the bomber on the far left of the formation, which was so badly damaged I figured it would only take one shot to put him down. I got close enough, made the shot...and my gun jammed! Reloading again would have taken long enough to allow them to enter their own territory, and we have rules about how far you can chase people without getting lost, so I headed home and the game ended.
Still, it was a lot of fun and a night well-spent.
