OTT FYM Mission 4 - And the Show Must Go On - 26 Apr 1917 by ShadowDragon

[ShadowDragon]

OTT-FYM Mission 4 – And the Show Must Go On – April 26th 1917 by ShadowDragon

The original FYM Scenario is by mikeemagnus:

https://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/sh...pril-26th-1917


The rain was coming down in sheets as Flight Commander Nigel Flashman popped into the station’s operations room. The watch officer, Flight Sub-Lieutenant Jock MacDonald, was supervising the chief petty officer’s preparation of the daily report.

“A wee bit wet out there, sir”, remarked Jock as Flashman shook the rain off.

“A blessed relief I’d call it”, replied Flashman. “It looks ‘socked in’ and with any luck will have a day’s relief tomorrow.”

“Aye, it’d be grand. I’d fancy a good game of bridge, but I wouldna’ count on it. The weather’s as changeable as an Englishman’s word.”

Flashman ignored the jape. Blast it, he wasn’t keen on hanging around for good weather and another day of Bloody April. He was sick of Bloody April. It was time for Bloody May or whatever they’ll call it once we know the schemes of HQ. He would take the evening ashore to spend some time with Lisette – his latest paramour.

It was the wee hours of the morning when he woke up in Lisette’s bed. She was snoring softly and didn’t wake as Flashman dressed and left. Oh my, two bottles of champagne had his head pounding and his stomach roiling. For some reason he thought a few glasses of whisky would help. It didn’t, so he laid back on his cot. He hardly closed his eyes – or so it seemed – when the steward was shaking his shoulder.

“Sorry to wake you, sir, but you’re on flying duty.”

“Duty? What duty? It’s raining.”

“Sorry, sir, but the rain has cleared off and the sky is clear as a bell. The show must go on as they say.”

Flashman somehow managed to get dressed and onto the flight deck despite the headache and blurry vision. He was sure that he wasn’t quite yet sober and probably not up to flying, but he’d not let the English side down by - not in front of his mixed crew of a Scotsman, Canadian, Australian, and South African. John Kensington was his sole English compatriot, and he was banged up for a few weeks.

“I’ll fly Jock’s crate today”, he told the deck crew. Enough of his machine being a bog-standard CDL one, he’d fly in style. Besides, he found the CDL fabric rather bright for his eyes.

The mission seemed simple enough. Fly up and down the front to intercept enemy scouts trying to interfere with one of their tandems doing a bit of artillery spotting. He glanced to his left and right where Jack Wilde and Bruce Dundee holding their stations. Good men, even if they weren’t English. Wilde was a bit of a prima donna, but he was their top ace – likely all the “diplomatic” and “morale boosting” swanning about had gone to his head. Dundee had all the charms one would expect of a descendent of convicts. He was their next top ace, but Flashman was just two kills behind him. Perhaps today was the day Flashman would catch Dundee; if only it wasn’t for the headache and blurred vision.



It didn’t take long before three Huns showed up in their brightly coloured machines – no matter, X Squadron’s scouts were a match for the Huns when it came to colours.



Time to have at them, thought Flashman. He banked his tripe slightly to head straight at the Hun. He did not notice both Wilde and Dundee waving at him to get his attention as they banked more sharply to approach the enemy from the side.



A big white bird loomed in front of Flashman. He fired off a few rounds, as did Dundee coming in from the side. The white Albatri returned fire, but Flashman couldn’t see any damage. It didn’t look as if either he or Dundee had done much to the big, white, Albatros either.



As the two opposing flights threaded through each other, Flashman spied a light blue airplane. Was it the enemy or Dundee? Perhaps he was seeing double, but no matter, he fired again – just in case; and if it was Dundee, it was his fault for having such a bright machine.



As quick as the action had been, Flashman was clear of the enemy, and he failed to notice behind him the carnage that Wilde and Dundee had inflicted on the enemy.



Flashman banked to turn his tripe around. The enemy must be somewhere as one had found him. Flames flickered along the side of Sopwith. Ooh! Fire – fire, that’s bad. Behind him, Dundee cursed as Flashman’s banking tripe had cut him off forcing Dundee to follow suit and nearly collide with the Hun that had set Flashman’s machine on fire. Further back, Wilde was a right pyromaniac.



Flashman continued to turn, forcing Dundee to follow suit. In the wake of the chaos the Hun in the green Albatri nearly collided with Wilde but both pilots were agile and avoided disaster. About this time both Dundee and Wilde were wondering which was the greater danger – the enemy or Flashman, but Flashman wasn’t aware of that.



Flashman looked about – not only was his airplane a flamer, so too were a couple of the Huns. Fire’s not so bad he thought; it’s even kind of pretty.



Flashman turned back towards the white Albatros. The exchange of bullets was about as serious as their first pass.



Ahead of Flashman a flaming meteor fell from the sky. The light blue Albatros spun to the earth. Was that Dundee? thought Flashman. Poor sod.



Flashman looked about and followed a light blue airplane. Was that a Hun? Dundee on the other hand was trying to keep some space between him and his flight leader. Wilde just looked down from above.



Flashman continued to tail the light blue ‘enemy Albatros’. Fortunately for the light blue ‘enemy Albatros’, Flashman was mucking about with the Vickers and didn’t manage to fire at it.



Another meteor! It’s a bloody shower of them. The light blue ‘Albatros’ crosses Flashman’s path. Oh wait! That’s a triplane. It’s got three wings or else my visions blurred and it just got two. Either way Flashman withheld his fire.



What’s that big machine flying back and forth along No Man’s Land? Flashman paused to appreciate the mangling of the earth by the artillery as huge clumps of the earth flew upwards, paused and dissipated.



Dundee had managed to finally get clear of Flashman. As Flashman flew towards Wilde, Wilde was glad he had some altitude over his comrade.
Oh, that’s Jack Wilde! I’ll just shadow him, thought Flashman, as his plane mirrored the dark blue tripe above him.



Flashman continued to mirror Jack Wilde’s tripe as both of them flew Immelmann turns.



Another meteor but not a flaming one fell from the sky, but it was blazing away at the white Albatros. (Note: Jack used his ace skill for a ‘non-straight’ to follow an Immelmann. I think this is okay since the ace skill doesn’t preclude any specific card as the ‘non-straight’.)



As the dark blue tripe and white Albatros separated, Flashman turned to fly between them. That was interesting, but wow! Jack’s a good flyer but that seemed a little dangerous. He’s lucky his tripe still has wings.



Flashman didn’t anticipate Wilde’s Immelmann, but Jack Wilde just managed to skirt the tail of Flashman’s tripe. Fortunately, it didn’t put off Wilde’s aim. The same could not be said for the enemy pilot.



Flashman tried to follow Wilde with his own Immelmann. He had the white Albatros in his sights but fumbled about and failed to shoot at the enemy machine.



The while Albatros was heavily damaged. It had enough of the fight and was headed home. Flashman, Dundee and the F2A all flitted about – fortunately at different altitudes. The two tripes would have a hard time catching the fleeing enemy.



The white Albatros had just one foe between it and safety.



With some split-arse flying, the pilot of the white Albatros hoped prevent his now tailing enemy from getting a clear shot at his badly damaged aircraft.



It did seem to be working, but from a distance it seemed to Flashman that Wilde was trying to ram the white Albatros.



Flashman continued to look on. More split-arsing about.



Whoa! That was really split-arse flying, thought Flashman, as Wilde followed on wide-side slip with another to fire a burst of lead at the Albatros. What a daredevil !



The fleeing white Albatros was nearing safety. Wilde would have to break off or find himself to deep in Hun territory.



The Albatros dove to elude its pursuer, but with a wide-side slip, Jack Wilde got a final burst in that saw the Hun machine start a steep descent. The enemy pilot fought to keep his mangled machine on a glide path with chance of some type of landing from which he might walk away.



Back at the air station, Nigel Flashman headed for his hut for a rendezvous with his cot and something for the pain. Jack Wilde and Bruce Dundee stood and watch their flight leader stagger off.

“What on earth was that about?”, asked Bruce.

“Dunno, but I’m not saying anything more about it.”

“Fair enough, mate, but you got a ‘hat trick’ so that means the bar bill is on you for the next three days.”

Jack Wilde just smiled.


Points:

Seadogs:
Enemy aircraft shot down or FRTB = 3 X 10 = 30 points
Spotting Mission Complete = 10 points
Total = 40 points


Adlers:
Each enemy aircraft shot down or FRTB = 0 points
Spotting Mission Terminated = 0 points
Total = 0 points

Seems to be a win for the Seadogs.

Note: I should have thought about over diving for the airplanes on fire. I admit that I mostly don't think about it because there's an awful lot of '0's in the B deck and it really takes an airplane out of the fight. In any case I wouldn't have for Flashman because of his...er, state, but I did, when doing the post-game photo processing, draw 'B' deck cards for Hess and Hunerbein over diving. Hess drew a '1' and Hunerbein a '0'. Hess went down on the 2nd fire cards, so it would have had no impact on the game outcomes. Hess had a fair amount of regular damage anyways, but Hunerbein had really bad luck for his.