Airstrike!

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.

Solo Seven Days

The great thing about solo gaming, is that like other solitary pleasures, you can play what you want, when you want, and take as much time as you want to really enjoy the experience. 

I wanted to set this game up Friday, but feeling like crap meant that I didn't get my table cleaned off (so much cleaning needed!), terrain set up and forces organized until Sunday afternoon. 

New Ferret armoured cars being sneaky

I had a few objectives for the game; 1. Play 2. Get new stuff on the table 3. Learn the rules better 4. Try some things like Command units, Recce units and mortars that we haven't explored in my once a year games with Scott 5. Trial stats for vehicles not covered in the rules.

Watching The SitRep Podcast certainly encouraged me to give Solo Seven Days a try. I want to try having air and artillery on call as a thing to play like he does in his games, rather than just random cards.

I selected small, approximately 680 point forces, to keep things manageable and set up a Meeting Engagement.

Mantovians: platoon of Centurions, section of Fireflies, 2 Ferret patrols, 9 rifle sections, 2 MG sections, 2 mortars and 2 Carl Gustav AT sections 

Tartarians: Coy HQ in T54, 2 platoons of T54s, 4 T34/85s, 4 BTR40s with Recce Sections, 4 BTR152s with 6 Motor Rifle sections and 2 AT sections 

Both sides have an aircraft model out in hopes of an air asset card being dealt. No such luck though. I had forgotten that attack helicopters are a unit to purchase,  just like tanks or infantry. 

Table. Tartarians enter from Left. Mantovians enter from opposite corner. 

The Mantovians drew the "Divisional Artillery" card, hitting the Tartarians with a pregame bombardment that put some morale hits on several tanks. The Tartarians got initiative first and did a rapid move along the road, Combat Reconnaissance Patrols leading, and another CRP hooking around the mountain and the woods to cover the right flank. The failed Activation rolls caused by the Artillery made the advance rather strung out.

Yellow dice are tracking Morale hits

Of course I promptly made my first mistake. Both sides held back 25-33% in Reserves. Command Tokens for units in Reserve aren't supposed to be in your pool until they come on table. 

Centurions and infantry developing Mantovian right

Fireflies and Ferrets occupy the town 

Red and blue bingo chits are Command Tokens 

So the first two turns until everyone's Reserves rolled on were a little kinetic. Lots of rapid maneuvering and shooting with all the extra Command Tokens. 

Section of Centurions holding the right flank and engaging PDRT advanced elements 

PDRT left taking heavy fire

PDRT right under heavy fire too

Firefly lower right, brews up a BTR40 with the squad still mounted

Monday night after the dishes I had time to play Turn 3 and bring everyone's Reserves on. The Mantovians had drawn the very useful "Reserves" card, so they played that to bring an extra Centurion  on. I also discovered that someone had already done the leg work for Arab-Israeli War lists, including Ferret ACs and Recce Jeeps.

Reserves arrive, including Combat Team HQ (Centurion with camo netting), and an extra 5th Centurion 

Carl Gustav team, upper left, makes a hard shot and puts a rocket into the PDRT Command tank 

Tartarian dirty tricks! Special Forces infiltrators brew up a Centurion (adding Morale hits to all the infantry)

Last Command Token of the turn, Firefly (barely visible upper right), takes a shot at the T54, rolling a 10 on penetration.

The Ferret snuggled up beside the Firefly in the above picture earlier spotted for the "Precision Guided Munitions" card. Precision guided munitions aren't a thing in 1950, so I just called it an artillery barrage and played the card as written. One of two T54s targeted took a Morale hit. Big whoop....

I can see maybe making some more "period" specific cards could be something fun to do too.

Wednesday night my plans got canceled, so I headed down to the Basement o'Gaming with a glass of Port and finished the game.

Mantovians get initiative and use Rapid Move to shift Fireflies out to their left and move Centurions into town

Two Centurions engage lone T54 on PDRT left THREE times, just putting shock on it. It reacted once and missed.

T54 on PDRT right shifts to snipe a Sherman 

Centurion in town reacts

KABOOM!

But new PDRT Command tank engages that Centurion,  and it fails its reaction this time and gets brewed up.

Commander gunfight! PDRT Command tank tries to engage Mantovian Command tank, which wins Reaction and blows up PDRT Commander. But second T54 activates, Reaction roll fails this time and the Mantovian Commander gets brewed up!

The deadly T54 tries hunting for Shermans, but one Reacts and blows it up by rolling a bunch of 9s and 10s.

With few targets the Mantovians push on their right, cleaning up a couple of Combat Reconnaissance Squads lurking among the burning tanks

Shermans engage lone T34 and blow it up. The Tartarians have now lost 2/3rds of their Break Points. Game Over!

PDRT Motor Rifles have dismounted into woods and farm in center 

Mantovian right advancing against non-existent PDRT left

The luckiest T54 in the world! Survived multiple hits. Managed to rally enough shock off to activate and go hide in the woods as the last surviving PDRT tank.

For turns 4 and 5 I was using the vehicle profiles someone built for the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which were very close to the ones I had created.

Going forward I'm going to just use the aircraft like attack helicopters with a slightly modified attack. A strafing run with rockets and guns would be a little different from standing off firing ATGMs.