AAR - Wintercon Missions 4 & 5 - Bloody April & Gotha Raid 1917
Day 2 of WinterCon dawned foggy and cold, which impacted the number of early visitors to the con.
The first mission of the day was set in Bloody April 1917 with two Albatros D.IIIs (myself in the all red and Gary with the blue elevators) squaring off against a Nieuport 27 (Zoe), a Sopwith Pup (Barry) and a SPAD S.VII (Halvo).
Barry and Halvo prepare for battle!
Gary and I were pretty confident in our A gun Albatros D.IIIs.....
but after closing to contact things soon went south for the Central Powers with BOTH Albatros fighters set alight in quick succession. Flamin' heck!!
Barry's Pup soon sent me down in flames as an explosion on the last A fire damage took me out. A bit of justice for the rough handling I dealt Barry's aircraft on Day 1.
I brought on another D.III to support Gary who was still struggling alone against the three RFC scouts.
Gary's Albatros fared much better than mine with his flames extinguishing without causing too much damage. Soon we were both back in the fight.
As the battle continued we had a few new players turn up - forum member Muzfish4 his lovely wife and two lively boys. As a result the mission changed tack as a Kette of Gotha G.V's entered the fray! Gary's blue trimmed Albatros finally succumbed to damage (Barry has a posted a photo on the WinterCon thread - a lot of cards with zeros on them!) and brought on another in the colours of Ltn. Georg Simon's aircraft. The scene was now set for mission 5 - Gotha Raid on Dunkirk!
The Entente fighters met the new threat, with Barry's Pup falling to a Gotha's guns. Another good run of zeros Baz!
As the Gothas advanced across the map Zoe's son Andrew joined the battle flying another Sopwith Pup.
When the Gotha's reached the other side we called this part of the mission. Zoe ruled that Gary and I had to turn back once the Gothas passed No Man's Land due to low fuel.
Of the three Gothas one (Muzfish4's machine) managed to avoid being hit. Son number 1 with the look of grim determination on his face took a bit of fire........
.....and Son number 2's Gotha copped a packet suffering engine damage as well as wounds to the pilot and rear gunner - but was very happy with the result nonetheless!
We now reset the table for the raid itself, with Zoe's Nieuport 27 and Andrew's Sopwith Pup following up and Barry bringing on a Sopwith Triplane. The Muzfish4 clan had to move on so Gary took charge of the Gothas and Zoe suggested I take a Roland C.II escort fighter.
As Gary formed up his Gothas to drop their bombs on the French port I ran interference as all three scouts converged on the bomber formation.
With the Gothas approaching the 'Archie' barrage thrown up by the French gunners defending Dunkirk I latched on to Zoe's Nieuport......
....but I was not too busy to throw a long range deflection burst at Barry's Triplane the explosion making the Sopwith my fifth kill. A couple of moves later I set Zoe's Nieuport on fire and that scout also went down bringing my WinterCon score to six victories.
The French AA was on target with the first rounds smashing through the lead Gotha. It had already taken significant damage when Gary drew the explosion card sending it crashing down to earth.
Undeterred Gary's second Gotha dropped its bombload dead on target, explosions rocking the Dunkirk docks.
The French AA continued to wreak havoc setting fire to the third German bomber......
.......which dropped its bombs late, falling in the Channel (all over a small pleasure craft!).
Barry's second Triplane continued to attack the third Gotha but got hit by 'friendly fire', the French AA also setting his aircraft alight.
The flames consumed Barry's Tripehound giving the French battery its second kill!! Undeterred Andrew pressed on trying to take down a Gotha......
....and paid the price
Two of Gary's Gothas returned to base - the first with a very dead gunner (two hits from Zoe's Nieuport and one from Barry's Triplane all on the same phase!) and a wounded pilot and the second with a damaged engine having survived a fire.
With the end of WinterCon rapidly approaching we cleared the decks for one more mission, advancing the timeline to May 1918 and moving the location of the action from the Western Front to the shores of the Adriatic.
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Originally Posted by Zoe Brain
"I love the smell of burning Albatross in the Morning"!
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