[Vvornth]

I don't doubt that a minority of pilots were responsible for the most kills but it is also true that the best pilots had the most leverage in getting the best gear, particulary on the german side.

As an aside, I'm also hesitant to trust Galland completely but he is a very dashing figure with a sense of storytelling that grabs your attention for the subject of nightfighting.

Anyhow, will BC have a campaign or be mainly scenarios? To me it seems making a campaign that wasn't very linear would be difficult since we know in hindsight that the allied bombing strategy would have been more effective had it concentrated more on logistical, industrial and process centers. Also I suspect that a game that carries allied terror bombing missions will catch alot of flak.

Geddit? Bombing missions catching flak!? nyuck nyuck! I'm here all week..

[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

I don't doubt that a minority of pilots were responsible for the most kills but it is also true that the best pilots had the most leverage in getting the best gear, particulary on the german side.

That's very true. These things reinforced each other, but I would opine that skill was the dominant factor. I think it was Schnaufer who continued to achieve great results late into the war in Me110s despite the performance disadvantage.

As an aside, I'm also hesitant to trust Galland completely but he is a very dashing figure with a sense of storytelling that grabs your attention for the subject of nightfighting.

He was a bit of a shit. A friend of mine who flew Spitfires in the Battle of Britain knew Bader and thought that he and Galland were birds of a feather. Charming shits the both of them.

Anyhow, will BC have a campaign or be mainly scenarios? To me it seems making a campaign that wasn't very linear would be difficult since we know in hindsight that the allied bombing strategy would have been more effective had it concentrated more on logistical, industrial and process centers.

It's scenarios. I think campaigning requires a very different style of game. In fact my model for a strategic bombing campaign would be a very different animal from Bomber Command, focussing on basing, sortie generation and suchlike. Raid resolution would be highly abstract.

I believe Joe Miranda and Ty Bomba have had a poke at something that covers industrial production with their recent USAAF design.

Also I suspect that a game that carries allied terror bombing missions will catch alot of flak.

So far I've run into less controversy than I was expecting. However, my stance on area bombing (I'm agin it) has put some noses out of joint. I'm off Ted Raicer's Christmas card list! However, given that his stance was that there were not enough firestorms for his liking I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

Geddit? Bombing missions catching flak!? nyuck nyuck! I'm here all week..

You're fired!  

[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

Managed to get a playtest of Bomber Command under the belt. The game is starting to work pretty well. The target for tonight was Berlin in bad weather, though with broken cloud over the target. There was no moon, which further hampered the defence. Mosquitos performed diversionary bombing at Braunschweig and Rostock, but these didn't muddy the air picture as the main force rumbled north of Hamburg on their run-in to the capital. Single-seat fighters were launched in time to congregate over the city.

A combination of flak, Wild Boar at the target and a slow raid formup on approach to the target netted good results. A lot of nightfighters were lost to flying accidents, a result of trying to scramble while Jagddivision 3 was socked in with cloud. On reflection the German would have been better off just scrambling the Gruppen assigned to Himmelbett in the JD3 sector, as they would have done historically, and left it at that. Fog pretty much kept Jagddivision 7 in the South completely grounded.

The weather was clear enough over the target to use Newhaven Marking (this on a night when you'd expect to see Parramatta or Wanganui markers). The Pathfinders did well at an unforgiving target and the bomb line ran back into the centre of Berlin. However, the main weight of bombing fell on the residential areas to the north of this. Fires were started and most of the bombing seemed to gravitate there with major conflagrations arcing from Wedding to the Hohenschönhausen. It was an unusually good result for the RAF on an otherwise difficult night.

We saw a lot of Tame Boar infiltrate the raid, but the egress route took it out over the bad weather and the Tame Boars were unable to do much in the towering cloud. A few victories were gained and the next biggest loss came when three bombers were pranged on landing due to the cloud over England. The total bill came to 26 bombers lost (around 4.3% raid losses) and 21 nightfighters, of which only 3 were lost to enemy action and 3 more to friendly flak.

No major rules/balance issues reported--just a bunch of little ones. I'm going to have to cap the amount of really bad weather that appears in the game and define how weather modifiers for Tame Boars are called when the bomber stream crosses a weather boundary, but that's pretty much it. There's some target VP balancing to do and I'm looking forward to seeing how a similar raid would fare in good weather.

[Engelbrekt]

I did not understand much of the above, an abundance of unfamiliar concepts (what is a Wild/Tame Boar?). But it sounds exciting and I want to learn more about the subject! Have you played Defending the Reich? I haven´t myself but have heard good things about it. Here´s a link:
http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/products/d ... freich.htm

[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

I did not understand much of the above, an abundance of unfamiliar concepts (what is a Wild/Tame Boar?). But it sounds exciting and I want to learn more about the subject! Have you played Defending the Reich? I haven´t myself but have heard good things about it. Here´s a link:
http://www.hpssims.com/Pages/products/d ... freich.htm

Wild Boar (or Wilde Sau in German) were fighters--usually single-engined-- that would fly to target cities and try to shoot down bombers over the target. They would fight primarily visually, assisted by searchlights, ground-fired flares and the fires of the burning cities. The term Wilde Sau is German slang meaning something close to 'crazy' or 'berserk' as this kind of fighting was viewed by some officers as a lunatic scheme. For example, many of the Wilde Sau were lost due to being fired on by friendly flak over the targets, in spite of trying to control the guns by applying altitude restrictions.

The Wild Boars were introduced in the summer of 1943 and employed a lot of experienced pilots--old airline pilots and suchlike who were used to instrument flying. However, flying single-seaters at night was hazardous and many pilots and aircraft were simply lost to accidents. By early 1944 the Wild Boar force had been worn to a nubbin and didn't play much part in the war thereafter.

Tame Boar become the primary method of nightfighter killing in the late war. Like Wild Boar it was a 'free fighting' technique; in other words it did not require close control from the ground. The idea was that the Tame Boars were directed to the bombers and infiltrated into the 'bomber stream', a mass of bombers around 25 km wide and 200 km long. Once in the stream they would hunt bombers via radar. When it worked, the pickings could be rich. Wide-angle radars such as the SN-2 helped the hunting and en route to Nuremberg in March 1944 the Tame Boars inflicted a decisive defeat on the RAF.

I haven't played the HPS game on purpose. However, I have played Duel in the Dark and like it. Though it's somewhere in that zone betwen wargame and Euro, it works on similar principles to my more detailed game. A good example of independent development on the same subject.

[Engelbrekt]

Thanks for the info, interesting. From what I understand spoof missions were an important part of the night bombing campaign. How will your game portray diversionary attacks?

[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

Thanks for the info, interesting. From what I understand spoof missions were an important part of the night bombing campaign. How will your game portray diversionary attacks?

The British player gets a number of different raids that they fly on the map. For example, in the 1943/44 scenario, they get a main force raid and three Mosquito raids (some of which may be converted into Gardening raids). In the 1944/45 scenario they get additional Mosquito raids and decoy raid forces representing OTUs and 100 Group (Bomber Support).

The characteristics of these raids are as follows:

Main Force Raids. Represent some 600 or so heavy bombers. These are the raids that resolve bombing using city maps and the detailed bombing resolution system. They are large enough to manifest a bomber stream on the game map.

Mosquito Raids. Small, fast groups of Mosquitos (though sometimes also including some heavies). Very hard to catch. May conduct nuisance raids on cities. Because bombing is not resolved until the turn after it begins, well-handled Mosquito raids can at first look like real raids and fool the German player.

Mosquito raids do not have a bomber stream and so can soon be identified. However, the British player can incorporate these into the main force and then split them out as necessary to try and spoof the German. The British player gets a tiny number of 'fake' bomber stream counters with which they can try to muddy the air picture at the critical moment.

Gardening Raids. Small groups of bombers tasked with mining the sea approaches. These get VPs for mining sea areas, such as the Oresund. They are small, so don't generate a bomber stream.

Decoy raids. More than Mosquito raids, these are formations of bombers from OTUs and 100 Group. They would be playing as being a proper grown-up raid, probably by jamming and chucking out Window to generate the effect of a large bomber stream. You get bomber streams placed on the map with decoy raids.

[Engelbrekt]

Thanks for the answer. I´m intrigued. Had I not been so exceptionally low on funds at the moment I would preorder the game.

[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

Thanks for the answer. I´m intrigued. Had I not been so exceptionally low on funds at the moment I would preorder the game.

Don't worry, it's a way to go before it is ready for pre-order. I estimate the soonest it will go onto P500 will be the end of the year.

In the meantime I have a lot of testing to do with it.

[sfclinken]

I do own Downtown wich I love and will for sure preorder BC once it is up for preorder. Brings back memories from the good old B17 Flying Fortress... Nightfighter however does not appeal me for some reason. But what I am REALLY looking forward to is Air Warning Red and Zulu Alert. Jet fighters baby...

[magnus lindström]

You will not see any B-17s in BC I guess

[sfclinken]

You will not see any B-17s in BC I guess

Well, I did mean the old AH game...

[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

You will not see any B-17s in BC I guess

Technically, there were a few. Mostly packed with electronics gear and flying bomber support. We don't depict them in detail, though. (In fact we only distinguish bomber types through the use of combat cards.)

[Lee Brimmicombe-Wood]

An updated version of the Bomber Command webpage can be found here:

http://www.airbattle.co.uk/bombercommand.html

[Mode]

For example, in the 1943/44 scenario, they get a main force raid and three Mosquito raids (some of which may be converted into Gardening raids).

What about Mahmoud? It would be interesting to be able to hunt the hunters with NF Mossies.