Battle of Britain - Campaign Rules

 I didn't want to be mired in bookkeeping during the campaign so opted for a simple roster of 12 pilots and planes. This wasn't exactly accurate for the RAF at the time, squadrons tended to have a few spare aircraft and more pilots than aircraft when at full strength.

ME 110

A key part of Blood Red Skies is the pilot rating which can range from Rookie to Ace and has an effect on the order planes move in and the number of dice when shooting and avoiding hits.Having named the pilots, given them ranks and even the odd back story I rolled a single die for each pilot. I decided that pilot generation would be handicapped for the RAF (not so for the completely randomised Luftwaffe). Nobody could start as an Ace so a d6 -1 was rolled with the most likely outcome being a Regular. As the Battle rages on into August and September the modifier on the dice grows to -2 and then -3 to simulate new recruits with minimal training time.

Junkers 88

Two of the squadron rolled as Rookies and the rest as Regulars. Experience was going to be very simple, for each five sorties the pilot would get to roll a die, on a 5 or a 6 they would move to the next pilot ability level. Alternatively if they scored 5 kills then they would automatically go up a level.

327 Squadron ready for action

On the flip-side I felt I also had to simulate combat fatigue. So for each full week of active service the pilot rolls and on a 6 temporarily drops a level until their next leave or period of inaction caused by bad weather.

I also didn't want an aircraft being shot down in a game to automatically mean the end of the pilot, so another simple table for shot down aircraft was created. The results ranged from shot down and killed, to wounded (with a further roll on another table to see the effect), to minor damage and everything alright. Aircraft that were damaged would be inoperative for a period based on another roll. There was also simple d6 rolls for replacement pilots and aircraft.

Stukas

So with all that organised all I needed was a couple of sources for weather and typical sortie types. I used battleofbritain.com which has a timeline and the book Battle of Britain: A Day by Day Chronicle by Patrick Bishop.

Planes painted, campaign set.. Green Section scramble!