This is going to be my second AAR for the game B-17 Flying Fortress Leader. Hopefully I’ll get most of the rules right and some of you will find it entertaining.
The Air War Begins (August '42 to December '42)
This campaign covers the opening months of the 8th Air Force operations in Europe. I’ll be adding a number of additional rules that were not used in my U-Boat Campaign AAR including secondary targets, and the Mediterranean and Eastern Front effects. Because this campaign covers 5 months as opposed to the one month of my first AAR my plan is to give a more operational level AAR rather than focusing in on the details of every bombing run. But don’t worry, if something happens that warrants special attention I’ll include it in my report.
Setting the Stage
The campaign calls for destroying at least 10 airfield VP’s or it will be considered a dismal failure regardless of the total VP’s scored. There should be more than enough time to achieve this objective in 5 months. To me it is equally important to destroy aircraft factories each month as that directly affects additional Luftwaffe squadron placement on the map, and so it has a significant effect on what our groups will face on each mission.
The game starts with 8 Luftwaffe squadrons on the map. It was a pretty even distribution with two in the Netherlands, one in Belgium, and the rest in France and Germany.
We start with 50 SO points to spend on our groups. I was much more careful about choosing groups compared to my first game. The 31st FG was chosen because it has a bonus to replacements after every mission once the group reaches a Skilled rating. Our starting bomber groups will be the 305th (Cmdr LeMay), the 91st (Cmdr Wray) both B-17 groups, and the 93rd which is a B-24 group that gets added replacements once it reaches Average rating. I had two points left over to spend later.
Decks were shuffled and targets drawn, 3 factories and 3 airfields. Two airfield targets were in France and Amsterdam was the third. Two factories were in Belgium with the third in France. No German targets are used in this campaign. Our secondary target card calls for either shipping 12 SO points or one air group to support Operation Torch. I will wait and do this at the end of September (secondary missions apply for 2 months) to give me time to accumulate extra points, or maybe to send a badly shot up group instead. :)
Cmdr Weise is the Luftwaffe commander for August, and possibly beyond. He has an 80% chance of only activating squadrons at the Average or Poor level, but unless there is some other modifier the -2 response DRM for the entire campaign will guarantee we will never face a High or All Out response from him! Very good for us. His favorite tactics are rockets and bombs so hopefully not too many of his squadrons have that tactic.
First Week, August '42
The aircraft factory at Antwerp was the only target for this week. Luftwaffe response was Average so only squadrons in the flight path could engage. Our RAF comrades joined the attack (Combined Bomber Operations event card) and scored 4 hits before we arrived over the target, causing light damage. No bandits scrambled to meet us so they must have gone after the RAF instead. We suffered 9 aircraft losses from flak while inflicting an additional 13 hits on the factory as well as setting it on fire. It was completely destroyed. The event card for the return trip did indeed require a re-roll of the Luftwaffe response with a +3 modifier and the result was All Out, but luckily for us we were only one hex from England so no bandits had a chance to respond as we slipped back across the channel. Score 2 VP’s for our side.