Jets over the Reich

As a couple of months have passed since our last foray into WWII air combat, Bruce and I took to the skies for another playtest of Colin's rules. This time to spice things up we asked to fly some exotic German experimental aircraft. Colin obliged and laid on a what-if 1946 scenario for us.

Can you believe these are 1/600 scale? Little masterpieces.

It was a straightforward scenario. Colin's two flights of B-29s (one model represents three aircraft) were trying to get from one end of the table to the other, escorted by two squadrons of P-51(F? K?) Mustangs. P-47s lurked offtable as possible reinforcements. Meanwhile, German jet fighters would arrive at intervals from random directions and try to get through to take down the bombers.

First up, Bruce and I both rolled ourselves a flight of Me 262s, both arriving from 8 o'clock. We streaked in past the Mustangs. Having established that the rules made it impossible to hurt B-29s with a beam attack, we slotted in behind. All our 262s were blown away by the B-29s' sophisticated fire control mechanism. We inflicted some damage on one bomber flight but it didn't seem a great trade.

With our first wave vaporised, we diced again. This time I got two flights of Horten flying wings at 2 o'clock high, and Bruce's He 162 Salamanders pursued from 5 o'clock. The Salamanders were intercepted by a squadron of Mustangs. The Volksjaeger heroically sustained this uneven contest for twice as long as we expected (i.e., two turns) before the P-51s downed the last of them, meaning the Amis were low on ammo.

This left our half of the sky clear for my Hortens to position themselves to dive out of the sun on the B-29s. We dived, we fired, we had no effect.

The second squadron of Mustangs then turned to dive and try to bounce the Hortens. The Luftwaffe's ace jet pilots made a good enough Situational Awareness roll to Evade, heading back towards the bombers, while the Mustangs' slashing attack carried them away.

Next turn, as Bruce had run out of planes for the second time, he was issued with two flights of Ta 183 Huckebein, armed with Ruhrstahl X-4 wire-guided missiles. Coming out of the sun he raced past the dumbfounded Mustangs and launched his missiles. These did not cause any damage but perturbed the B-29s just enough to disrupt their formation. This rendered their defensive fire significantly less dangerous. My Hortens were therefore able to close on their 6 with relative impunity. This time the Hortens' fire told, and all the B-29s went down in flames.


The rules still need a fair amount of work. They play quickly and easily, which is good. But I am finding it hard to work out what are good or bad tactical options, and the decision set each time is a bit too large and fuzzy for my taste. But it's hard to say to what extent that is the fault of the rules, as opposed to just me not having played many games. Regardless, it was fun to fly some unusual planes, we did get to execute some tactical manoeuvres that felt plausible, and the explosive climax was very satisfying.