B-17 FFL Operation Crossbow (March thru May 1943) AAR continued:
Be afraid, be very afraid. See the pic below for what happens when you don’t take out enough aircraft factories each month. Twenty-six Luftwaffe squadrons are on the map at the start of May!
May 1943 Monthly Summary
I decided to make more detailed weekly summaries for May as some interesting things were happening.
First Week – We lost 4 SO points to the pesky V-1 rockets. We received medium intel air reports on the V-1 sites at Wizemes and Renescure, both in hex 11 in France. Our base and zone 1 (including hex 11) were both clear weather with partly cloudy skies over the rest of the map.
1st Wing - The entire 1st wing went after the Wizemes site this week since it allows 4 bomber groups to attack it. We also went all in on bombs, spending all of our remaining SO points to equip our bombers with full M34 and M43 loadouts. You can tell we’re going for the kill here! Luftwaffe response was only Average in spite of the clear skies, or so we thought. A weather update (event card) revealed unexpected bad weather in the target zone (heavy fog maybe?) causing a -2 AtG modifier. An Fw-190 group engaged our fighters scoring 6 hits and getting destroyed by the 56th FG in return. No losses to flak but we only scored 6 hits to the site, due in large part to the bad weather, for a medium damage result. Very disappointing considering the SO points spent.
2nd Wing – Since they had 0 SO points for bomb loadouts they had chosen the airfield at Tours, France (hex 7) as their target. That way they could carry the free M30 bomb loadouts for the dispersed target bonus. Thankfully the RAF hit the airfield 4 times while we were forming up. This was a dangerous mission if the Luftwaffe response was aggressive as quite a few bandits could intercept our wing. You can just see it coming can’t you? :P An All Out Luftwaffe response allowed 8 (!) bandit groups to attack us in hex 10 just after we crossed the channel. Thankfully 3 of the 8 chits were No Bandits. The five bandits who did attack included three Bf-109 groups, one of which had the frontal attack tactic. The other two bandits were Fw-190’s, a veteran and a group with the frontal attack tactic. The 78th FG was escorting from High altitude and was unable to choose which bandits to attack. So both bandits from the current hex engaged the fighters (veteran Fw-190 and a Bf-109) and the other three engaged the bombers including both with the frontal tactic. See the pic below for the setup prior to resolving the bandit attacks. I guess the good news is that both bandits with the frontal attack tactic went for the tail group (392nd) and they were the only BG in the wing with the upgraded chin turret that helps negate a frontal attack.
The 392nd suffered 9 bomber losses and was dispersed from the frontal attacks. The 78th FG lost 9 P-47’s while shooting down the Bf-109 bandits. Now this is where an optional rule comes into play that has not been mentioned yet. When fighters engage bandits they pull a chit at the end of the dogfight that simulates some of the group going “bingo fuel” (low fuel) and having to return to base early. This chit is considered “casualties”, but not actual losses if that makes sense, for the rest of the mission and might affect performance in later dogfights. I did not use this rule in other dogfights because the fighters were always close enough to base that they would not be intercepted again so it wasn’t necessary. The chit pulled was a -2 meaning 6 fighters returned to base early. Unfortunately that made the 78th Shaken for the rest of the mission. No losses were suffered by the 301st or 322nd BG’s but the 392nd lost 6 more bombers while shooting down one of the Bf-109 bandit groups. Those bandit losses caused the removal of one squadron counter from hex 10 which might lessen any interceptions on the return trip. All Luftwaffe squadrons that intercepted are now rearming and might get to attack again later in the mission. As our wing moved into the target hex (7) the 392nd failed to recover from it’s dispersed situation even though it had a 90% chance of success. Grrrr… All adjacent Luftwaffe squadrons were still rearming so there was no interception in the target hex.
The 392nd lost 3 bombers to flak. It’s just not their day. However we registered 11 hits in spite of the bad weather and dispersion modifiers on top of the 4 from the RAF and that was more than enough to destroy the airfield for 4 VP’s. That added enough points to the Bandit Disrupted track to cause the removal of another squadron from the map. It is to be the closest squadron to the target hex with my choice if all are equal distance away. Since there were a number of squadrons one hex away I chose the squadron in hex 10 because it was in our direct path home. All other Luftwaffe squadrons in range were still rearming on our return leg so that ended the mission. The 78th FG bingo fuel aircraft did not become a factor after all.
Since this was already a long post I’ll stop here and give the results of week 2 after resolving them, possibly tomorrow although it’s a busy weekend for me. We are now only two VP’s from a Great result. More to come…
Edit - In retrospect the 78th FG probably should have been flying Low escort. Out of the Sun is not a Galland tactic and it would have given me better odds of choosing which bandits to attack, even though the first attack would be with a -1 AtA modifier.
