The Raid - an AAR/Story

[Vagabond]

“Who do we have in the Walmington on Sea area” hissed Controller Jimmy Smythe.

“Why do you ask, there’s no alert from the Chain Home System” queried Patricia Donald.

“Yes I know, but someone in the Observers Corps has reported a visual sighting and you know how unreliable the Walmington OC are, the C.O. is some chap called Mainwaring, last year he reported a flock of Swans as being 30 Me110’s.


“OK let me check” and she called down to the floor for confirmation.


“72 and 92 are the nearest squadrons but they’re fully engaged around Hastings, Walmington is 30 miles further west along the coast”.

“Just a minute aren’t there a couple of Hurricanes on a training flight in that area.”

“Yes that’s right” she confirmed.

“OK - get them to go and have a look will you, we can’t just ignore the old duffers down there, they get so moody if we do.”


It was a clear day and the two OAP’s manning the look out on Brown Cliff Point had seen 4 black dots, 15 miles out to sea. They were flying low to avoid radar detection from the Chain Home Radar System and had managed to get close to the coast without being picked up.


As they closed the shore two of the planes climbed, gaining altitude prior to making their attack.


The other two kept low and as they passed the lookout point the Observers could easily identify them as Me 110’s. “Well at least they’re not Swans this time” thought Doug gazing at Martin’s bottle bottom glasses and wondering how he could see through them at all.

“They don’t half move fast” said Martin, remembering his days in the RFC when 100mph was considered speedy. “Yes responded Doug, they’d blow your cobwebs away soon enough”. “Where are our chaps, if they’re not here soon it’ll all be over before it’s even begun.


“Here they come, late as usual” quipped Martin as the pair of Hurricanes responding to Control’s call arrived in the distance.

“They’re flying a bit raggedly” was the morose response from Doug, “we would have had a real ticking off if we had maintained such poor formation back in 17”.

“Well they’re here now” soothed Observer Martin, as he looked over to the Wallmington beach area, he knew it contained a juicy target for the Hun. There was a big battery of 6” Naval guns, they’d only been installed a couple of months earlier. Walmington harbour was quite small and didn’t warrant such big guns but the beach was large and offered an ideal landing point for any German invasion force that the Royal Navy couldn’t persuade to stay at home.


They saw the Me 110’s bank to port, before starting their final approach run, “they’re never going to make it in time” they both thought, the Hurricanes were still too high and far away to be able to intercept the fast moving German planes.


Unbeknown to our two members of the Observation Corps the Hurricane pilots were new to their planes and to combat flying in general. They were on a training mission to identify local landmarks to enable them to defend this sector of the south coast from enemy aircraft.
This was the first time they had flown these planes on an active mission, until today they hadn’t seen an enemy plane in action, let alone fired their guns in anger at anything other than designated targets in training, and even then they weren’t very good at it.


As the 110’s came in low from the left they were met with anti aircraft fire from the cliff top and then the two Hurricanes split, one climbing to intercept the top level planes and the other swept wide to do the same for the 110’s


Firing at a close and unusually low target put the gunners off and they missed the 110’s by quite a big margin. “Blimey” muttered Doug “They’re pretty useless aren’t they” Martin nodded wondering how effective the Lewis gun he was so used to in the last war would be against these planes. “It’s probably the first time they’ve fired at a moving target” he said quietly.
Doug thought about this for a minute before asking “What have you got in your sandwich today, I’ve got Spam” Martins face lit up at the thought of luncheon “Bully Beef” was the happy reply, and some of my home made Chutney as well.”


Red Leader, the low Hurricane miss-timed his attack completely and the 110’s flew straight passed him. He’d read the manuals and knew that with their speed advantage he would never catch, let alone stop them. His wingman Red 2 had finally reached a height at which he could open fire on the Stuka’s but his shooting was as bad in action as it had been on the training range.


Making final corrections to their approach the German planes have selected their targets and the low level attack is going in unopposed.

Doug was wondering what chance there was that Martin would do a trade on sandwiches and decided little to none was the answer. His thoughts were interrupted when Martin commented on the poor positioning of the lowest Hurricane, “He’s just opened the door for those buggers, I wonder what they are teaching for tactics at school now a days?” “He must have been asleep that day” was Doug’s response, still thinking about the sandwich.


Red 2 has done no better than his leader and also let the Stuka’s slip past, but he is in the process of making an Immelmann turn prior to chasing after them, with some hope of success.


The Me110’s take more fire from the A.A. guns on the beach, but they are as accurate as the ones on the cliff and miss as well.

Martin splutters, as Doug spits over the cliff top and remarks “They couldn’t hit a barn door”

“From inside the barn” Martin completes the sentence he’s heard so often, but it still brings a smile to his face.


BOOM – BOOM, the two pilots drop their bombs almost simultaneously and two of the 6” guns leap into the air, a mass of so much twisted scrap metal.

With the noise of the explosion and his subsequent leap into the air Martins face turned white, then red, then back to its normal colour before he managed to explain to a concerned Doug. It’s all right now but my heart hasn’t beaten so fast since that time I met Ms Spankhurst on the servant’s staircase. The lights had blown and I was feeling my way up the staircase when we met. Doug who had only heard tales of the redoubtable Ms Spankurst’s adventures over the years could only go a deep shade of green with envy.


Red 2 has been caught in a Stuka sandwich and their rear gunners have sprayed his brand new Hurricane with red hot lead, perhaps cutting an oil line, whatever the cause his plane starts to smoke badly. He reads the safety warning that says “No Smoking in the Cockpit” and shrugs his shoulders philosophically.


One of the AA guns opens up on the nearest Stuka but maintains their unbroken record of missing. “They’d do better with catapults and stones” mutters Doug under his breath.


Red 2 continues his battle with the two Stuka’s and even though his shooting is better than the AA gun crew his positioning is still poor and they can both riddle him with bullets.

Red Leader on the deck is deciding if he should pursue the fast disappearing 110’s, maybe try and climb up to the Stuka’s and help Red 2 or just go home for tea and crumpet.


Tea and crumpet is the most attractive option but he reasons that as Red 2 owes him a fiver he should take the pragmatic but unpalatable option and help him stay alive, so he starts the long, slow process of gaining altitude.

The Stuka’s both turn to starboard having picked out their targets behind the beach. Red 2 is sticking to the lead Stuka like a good un and things are looking up for him. Not only with the practice is his shooting improving but he’s now out of angle from the 2nd Stuka’s rear gunner so taking less incoming fire which is always good.


Red Leader has nearly made it to the Stuka’s altitude and Red 2 has slowly reeled in the lead Stuka. He’s so close that the rear gunner can’t shoot at him without taking his own tail off and he didn’t want to repeat that experience.
He knew Gunter, his pilot didn’t want to repeat it either, the last time it happened, once the parachutes had opened and they reached terra firma, Gunter had struck him, hard, on the nose and said, “Don’t ever do that again”

He didn’t intend to.


The view from the ground of a pair of Stuka’s headed your way.

“You know what’s going to happen now, don’t you” said Doug

“Yes” said Martin, and then it happened.


Gunter put the nose down and the Stuka fell like a stone, Red 2 caught unawares is still up in the sky somewhere.
A Stuka will out dive a Hurricane any day of the week, and this was one of those days.


Gunther continues to dive leaving the Hurricane far behind, he drops his bombs and the gun position explodes, another direct hit. Damn but these German’s are good.

As Red Leader finally gains enough altitude to attack the 2nd Stuka, it also dives, leaving him behind as well.

The AA gun crew are looking straight up and the Stuka is diving straight down, they can’t miss, and they don’t, but it soaks up the damage and still keeps coming. This is a time you wonder how effective those tin hats are.


The final indignity is that that, Red 2’s dive is much shallower than the Stuka and so he overshoots it, enabling the wily Stuka pilot to pull back on the stick and climb up behind the Hurricane. The tables are reversed and he now has the Hurricane in his sights and so opens fire, finally getting his revenge.

The other Stuka has also done a near vertical dive pulling out sooner than number 1, but he’s also hit his target.

Four bombing runs and four direct hits, I told you they were good.


Red 2 is skittering every which way to avoid the Stuka behind him but both Stuka’s have survival in mind having completed their mission successfully they bank to starboard and start the long journey across the Channel, tea and crumpets are calling.

I stopped the game at this point, time just ran away with me, I did get back to it later but took no pictures.

The Hurricanes are faster than the Stuka’s and the Me110’s are faster than the Hurricanes, so you see where this is going it’s just a question of who catches who first. In the end the Hurricanes caught and shot down both Stuka’s, no tea and Crumpet for these chaps, a soggy sausage roll in some British POW camp if they are lucky and get rescued from the Channel. The Me110’s caught up with the Hurricanes too late to avoid the catastrophe for the Stuka’s but the Hurricanes had sufficient time to turn and meet their pursuers. They closed on each other so fast there was little time to fire and once the German planes had broken through they continued to fly home, their mission complete. They had the dubious pleasure of double helping of crumpets.

In the excitement of the dogfight Martin spilt his flask of tea and Doug dropped his Spam sandwich but he thought the attached crust of mud gave it a little more flavour than usual. It had been an eventful day for both of these OAP’s and talk as usual turned to the big war 14-18 and then to naps and snoozes.

This was my 2nd game of Wings of Glory WW2, it’s tactically a different game from the WW1 planes and rules I’m used to and I’m pretty hopeless using those rules at the best of times. It made a good solo game using a template, movement chart and dice to control the Hurricanes and I flew the bombers which required more input to achieve their objective.
If you’ve not played the game damage is caused by pulling chits out of a bag, different ones for different guns, canon etc and different ranges, each plane has a movement deck to determine distance moved and direction. It all works pretty straightforwardly apart from altitude, something I still haven’t got my head around yet.

In the storyline there is some mention of a couple of OAP’s these chaps are my wargamming buddies The Mad Lord Snapcase and Sir Douglas d’Emfore, they took no part in the game other than to provide background comments, a bit like Statler and Waldorf.

OAP by the way refers to the Observers Air Personnel not as you might have deduced from their on-line presence.

Chin Chin
Flying Officer Vagabond

[KarwickWingmaker]

Lovely looking game and a great report! 

[DintheDin]

Excellent narration and wonderful setup and pictures! Great game! Cheers!

[Patrice]

  Superb game and pics and story... At first I was not going to look at it as I have no occasion to play games in this context, but I don't regret the time to read it all, well done!

[vodkafan]

A fun read.

[Hu Rhu]

That looked like a fun game and played on a great board.

I've played the WW1 version but not WW2, and rather assumed that it played the same way but with different models/stats etc.  Clearly not.  Looking forward to seeing some more in due course.

[Doug ex-em4]

Shows what can be done with a ready-to-play game; you’ve taken it to a new level, John (no pun intended) and made it a very impressive looking game. Excellent.....

Hmmm - something familiar about those two geriatric Observer chaps...

Doug

[Vagabond]

Thanks for the supportive comments, I'll be honest a say I didn't expect much interest in aeroplanes here but hoped that the story might be entertaining.

Patrice thanks for sticking with it, my game stories are never short and require a time commitment not always available.

Hu Rhu, I've been taking part in a solo campaign on the Wings of War site for over 2 years based on the First WW but this is only my 2nd game with these planes in WW2. The key difference is that instead of selecting 3 cards it's only 1 with WW2  So once you get on someones tail it's much easier to stay there and turning fights aren't as productive because of the fast speeds and slow turning circles, think of the tactics of a Spad 13.v  Fokker Dr1.  The rules though are very similar and you would pick it up without any difficulty.

Doug I thought they made a good addition to the storyline, any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. 

Cheers

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

I see you let slip there, a reference to Snapcase Hall's housekeeper and disciplinarian, Miss Ilsa Spankhurst (N.B. the family name was originally Spanckwürst, but was anglicised upon their arrival in blighty during WWII (a story for another day)).

Some beautiful photos there, very atmospheric and your coastal scenery looks superb. Great report, love the OAPs (whoever they are!).

Flight Lieutenant Lord Willard Augustus ‘Bumfluff’ Snapcase, late of the RFC (and late for most things).

P.S. I may well have swapped my bully-beef with Doug's spam sandwich. You can't beat a nice bit of spam!

[Harry Faversham]

Wizard prang chaps, well done! Those two sprog Hurricane pilots have survived their first encounter with Jerry. Lessons learned over Walmington-on-Sea's pier and Novelty Rock Emporium, will serve them well in the long summer months ahead.

 

[FlyXwire]

Never seen anything quite like this.......what a feast!

[Vagabond]

Never seen anything quite like this.......what a feast!

Cheers FlyXwire, that  made the pain of posting and losing the post twice all worth while.    I've a blog full of slightly eccentric stories based on games that range through prehistoric hunter gatherers to feudal Japan to Pirates in the South China Sea to Westerns to Gangsters to WW1 but nothing much in the last 6 months which has been a gaming drought for me.

Mad Lord Snapcase I thought you were a bully beef man, just goes to show.

[Patrice]

Patrice thanks for sticking with it, my game stories are never short and require a time commitment not always available.

So are mine!

[Blackwolf]

Cracking little game Vagabond 

[fred]

Thanks for taking the time to post - that was a most enjoyable read over a cup of tea!