Colonel Crown Princess Gretchen stood in the briefing room with the other pilots, the tension quivering around them like an electric field, listening to the Operations officer and Intelligence officer brief them. Weather, communications, route to target area, expected enemy forces, threat assessments, targets.
This was it. This wasn't a training exercise anymore.
 |
| Second strafing run. |
The recent Tartarian attack had ruptured the front. A column of their new Soviet supplied armour was thrusting at a key bridge that the Queen's Liebgard Husaren Battlegroup was fighting desperately to hold. As the inhaber of the Liebgard, Gretchen felt especially anxious. There were probably men dying right now whom she had personally pinned medals to or eaten with in their Officer's Mess.
The IO stopped talking. Everyone was looking at her, their commander. Poise is everything, liebling. She heard her father say. Even if inside you're screaming in panic, always look calm. They're depending on us to do that.
She cleared her throat. "This is what we've trained for. We know what to do. Let's go bust some Tartar tanks!"
The anxiety lifted like a leaf on the wind as the pilots eagerly ran to the flight line. Helmet on, mic plugged in, Oliver, her Crew Chief, personally buckled her harness and closed the canopy after wishing her good hunting. The Marshaller waved her onto the runway and gave her the thumbs up. Pushing the throttle forward she hurtled past hangers, antiaircraft guns, blurring pine trees and was suddenly airborne.
She circled, letting the rest of the sortie get airborne and form up on her. Then they turned and headed to the Front.
 |
| Dangerous skies! |
Flying around the shoulder of a mountain she could see the battlespace ahead, columns of oily smoke from burning tanks.
"Falcon Leader to Badger. Incoming. Mark targets."
"Enemy east of town. Several big columns."
 |
| Mantovian Battlegroup taking positions |
 |
| Combat Team Commander blown up early! |
She looped around and looked down to see the bridge, the town, some tanks were burning in the streets. To the east masses of dark green beetle shaped tanks were advancing.
"Falcon Leader to Falcon Flight. Weapons hot. Engage."
Her wingman rolled and banked, pulling ahead of her to make the first strafing run. A tank with twin AA guns turned to fire at them, Rudi jinked to avoid the fire, his rockets and shells kicked up a lot of dirt but otherwise missing.
 |
| First strafing run |
Gretchen followed, her butt pressing into the seat with the slight G-force from the maneuver. The ZSU they'd been warned about tried to track her, she ignored the 57mm shells whizzing past her canopy. Calmly, just like in training in Canada and America, she lined up on the same row of tanks and pushed the firing button.
 |
| ZSU-57/2 |
Rockets flew from her wings. A row of explosions erupted along the target. A big fireball erupted lifting a round turret high into the air.
 |
| Second strafing run. Rolled much better this time. |
As she circled around she saw a MiG-15 swooping in on the bridgehead. But a silvered J29 on top cover dove on it, driving it away.
 |
| Played the "Air Cover" card to drive off a Tatarian MiG. I didn't need to put a model J29 out, but it made for a nice picture. |
She still had some rockets left and dove again on another nice target, some troop carriers and older T34s.
She fired her last rockets and switched to guns. Looking over her shoulder she was gratified to see a smoking troop carrier and a burning tank.
 |
| 3rd strafing run |
"Falcon Leader to Falcon Flight. Everyone dumped their load? Form up and let's go home." Then refuel, rearm and head back out.
"Ma'am I think you just made history. First successful attack by the KML!"
"We made history. Now cut the chatter." But behind her mask, Gretchen was smiling.
 |
| MiG tries another run over the town. |
**************************************
Pasha Dan wanted to try Seven Days, and I wanted to try some rules for ground attack and artillery, so he came over Friday night for a bigger, approximately 980 point game.
My rules for the aircraft are that they are bought like attack helicopters but don't add Command Tokens to your pool, but cost Command Tokens to activate.
Instead of standing off and firing ATGMs from a table edge at anything in LOS, they have to lay a template down, representing the strafing run of cannons and rockets fired from under wing pods. Anything under the template is attacked. 8+ to hit, Wpn Strength 4, 2d10 vs infantry and 2d6 to convert hits.
 |
| My template, a bit narrower than the wingspan and 11.5 inches long. Why 11.5 inches? Because that was the length of the cereal box card I had. |
Defending AA assets can draw LOS from their position to where the aircraft model is placed to position the template. AA fire was treated exactly as in the rules as written.
 |
| Positioning the template to determine targets. Three T34/85s and two BTRs. |
We both thought it added interest, without becoming overpowering. Of Dan's 3 attacks, only one was successful. That also prompted a discussion of how often aircraft should be able to be called on. Perhaps after making their run and leaving the table, they need to be rolled for in successive turns, causing a potential delay in returning to the fight.
My artillery rules didn't work so well. Got to rethink those.
