The Battle of Britain Campaign Page

There's a new page on Khaki Drab allowing followers of the Battle of Britain Campaign to see exactly how 327 squadron is doing. It gives a quick rundown of the active pilots:

And a Roll of Honour:

Along with links to all of the sorties so far. The page can be found here.

 

Battle of Britain: Sunday 14th July 15:00

 "Gold section scrambled at 14:45. Stukas were attacking the convoy Booty off Eastbourne. Chaps arrived just as the Junkers started to dive on the convoy but were bounced by their escort as they closed."

This is based loosely on an actual attack made famous by a radio commentary by the BBC's Charles Garner who stood witness on the cliffs at Dover. A recording of the broadcast can be found on YouTube.

For this battle 327 sent in Gold Section; Reed (flying Y), Blaiden (X) and Buckley (H). Facing them were four 109s, and three Ju87s that were about to dive on the convoy.

Starting Positions

Turn 1

As ever with first turns in BRS this was a quick one. All but one of the 109s ended it advantaged. Gold Section split with Buckley heading for the bombers and Reed and Blaiden bracing themselves for a head on pass with the escort.

End of Turn 1

Turn 2

Battle is joined! The Luftwaffe leader closes on Reed guns blazing, causing a critical hit. Reed fails the save but gets to shoot back as the attack is head on - misses. A boom chit to the RAF.

Critical hit for Reed!

The other three 109s close but are just out of range - luckily for Reed. On his turn Reed manages to fly through the 109 barrier without further incident, Blaiden, however, may be in a lot of trouble.

Buckley gets in amongst the Stukas and out manoeuvres one of them. However, he can't prevent them attacking convoy Booty. The bombers have a mighty fourteen attacks but only one hit! A lucky escape for the merchantmen.

Boom chits: RAF:1    109s:0    Ju87s:0

Blaiden in trouble!

Turn 3

Turn 3 starts with the German 109 leader performing a 180 turn and coming up on Reed's tail. With no wingman Reed is immediately disadvantaged but the Luftwaffe pilot fires wide!

German leader tucks in behind Reed

The other 109s gang up on Blaiden following the same maneuver, a 180 to bring them onto Blaiden's tail. The first one shoots and misses! The second has a deflection shot that results in a boom chit for the RAF. Because it is a deflection shot Blaiden has nine dice to avoid being shot down.

The Luftwaffe gangs up on Blaiden

He fails and his plane explodes.

That's the RAF with more boom chits than engines so the game will end this turn.

Buckley gets a chance to shoot at a Stuka and gets a hit but its saved. He then moves behind a second Stuka and fires this time shooting it down. This means the Stukas would also retreat at the end of this turn but, given they had already dropped their bombs, this was their plan anyway.

Buckley tries to extract some revenge

This left the 109s controlling the skies over this little piece of the Channel at least.

Boom chits: RAF:3    109s:0    Ju87s:3

Finishing positions

"Reed had seen Blaiden's plane explode. The C.O. gave him a grilling at dispersal but Reed was adamant - must have hit the petrol tank, big flash, no parachute."

Space Marine

One of the groups I play with have been getting all nostalgic for Space Marine the 6mm game produced by GW back in 1989. A little digging around the garage turned up my copy bought on the day of release.

Original Box

Rule Books for Adeptus Titanicus (1988), Space Marine and supplement Codex Titanicus

Selection of Space Marines and Imperial Guard

Eldar Titan

Lots of Orks on Sprues

Original polystyrene Titanicus buildings and card ones from Space Marine

Warlord Titan

Of course now I'm looking at the proxies available and thinking of a proper Heresy sized showdown!

Battle of Britain: Saturday 13th July 17:30

 "Convoy codenamed Bread was attacked by Stukas and 109s. Green and Blue Sections arrived at the convoy just as the bombers were making their approach."

This game was based on an encounter which took place that day. At 17.30 twelve Stukas from II/StG 1 accompanied  nineteen ME 109s from II/JG 51 attacked a convoy at Dover.

The setup was simple with Green and Blue sections from 327 facing directly across from the Lutwaffe elements. Unlike the previous convoy battle the opposing forces were arranged on the long table edge only four feet from each other instead of six. So battle would be joined a lot more quickly. The convoy was arranged slightly closer to the British side.

The German Ace

327 had six aircraft:

• Green Section: Bourne (A), Jameson (F), Ball (H)
• Blue Section: Davis (D), Robson (X), Fraser (Y)

The Luftwaffe twelve, six Stukas (2 Aces, 4 Regular) and six Me 109s (1 Ace, 4 Regulars and 1 Rookie). 

Green on the left

The Luftwaffe line up

Turn 1 followed the usual Blood Red Skies routine with everybody trying to climb for advantage. The ME 109s tried to get ahead of the Stukas to engage the Hurricanes before they could close on the Stukas

Blue Section over convoy "Bread"

On turn 2 Fraser tried and failed to outmanoeuvre the German Ace. Nobody else was close enough to try anything. By the end of the round all fighters are in an advantaged state which means the Luftwaffe Ace will get to move first next round. 

Nothing much happening here

And straight away the Ace outmanoeuvred Fraser causing him to drop an advantage level and allowing the Ace's wingman to get in an attack. This was a head on attack which in BRS means the target gets a chance to fire back but on this occasion everybody missed.

The German fighters attacking Green Section manage to drag down Ball's advantage level. Meanwhile Blue Section burst through the Luftwaffe fighter shield delivering a boom chit on the way. This meant that Blue Section could go after the Stukas next round.

Blue Section on the cusp of a breakthrough

Turn 4 starts with everybody ganging up on Davis of Blue section with two 109's performing 180s to get on his tail and start shooting. Fortunately for Davis nobody hits partly as Davis plays the Hurricane's robust card lowering the number of attack dice.

The Germans clearly need some shooting practice, after failing to hit Davis they have two attacks on Green Section which again fail. Another 109 has a deflection shot which are hard to succeed in due to the large number of defence dice but finally the Luftwaffe inflict a boom chit on the RAF.

Fraser gets a couple of shots off on the 87s inflicting one boom chit. Bourne fires and then gets in on a Stuka's tail and fires again, neither are hits. Then the game turns against the bombers. Blue Section's Jameson fires on an already disadvantaged Ju87 which fails its save and Jameson has a kill. He then burns advantage to get on the tail of a second Stuka, let's off another burst and the second Stuka of the round goes down. 

Not the position a Stuka pilot wants to find themselves in 

This means the Stukas have more chits than engines and so will break off their attack at the end of the turn but before they go, one of the rear gunners puts a hit on the Hurris.

End of turn 4. The Stukas have been hit hard, the 109s are regrouping

The Stukas are gone, it's a straight dog fight. The two advantaged 109s move so they are now heading for the Hurricanes again. Everybody else is climbing or turning for position this turn with little firing until right at the end when Jameson outmanoeuvres the Rookie 109 and Bourne nips in and shoots him down! 

This time a 109 feels 327's guns

Turn 6 starts with the German ace immediately getting on Davis' tail but once more missing (an Ace? really?). 

A large dogfight ensues

There's a head-on exchange between a 109 and Bourne with the Luftwaffe pilot coming off worst. Jameson and Davis both manage to avoid the attention of a 109 as the Luftwaffe continue to demonstrate abysmal gunnery.

Turn 7 started with a head-on pass between Bourne and a 109, boom chit apiece.

Head-on attacks are effective but perilous for the attacker

One more and the 109s will exit. But just then the Luftwaffe start finding their marks. The Ace hits Davis and soon after two 109s manage to get hits on Jameson. Finally, another 109 gets a bead on Davis and suddenly a Hurricane is plummeting towards the channel.

Davis is shot down!

At the end of the round the 109s have 6 boom chits the RAF 7 meaning both sides will break off but its a very narrow Luftwaffe win.

"16 seconds of ammo doesn't last long and, guns empty, I opened the throttle and headed for the coast. I did notice Davis had managed to ditch, have to hope the convoy picked him up."

Eldar Starter Set

Finished these a while ago and just realised they had not made an appearance on Khaki Drab! So a quick rectification before they notice (being ancient, near immortal Space Elves they probably need a few centuries to become aware of the omission) - here are my Saim-Hann:

Not many of these guys are actually alive...

War walker

Wraithlord

Farseer and Wraith Guard

As ever these days with the GW stuff this is contrast paints for the big block areas and acrylics for the detailing and metallics.

Haven't decided whether to pop transfers on or not but ages to decide, its all Blood Red Skies in the garage at the moment!

Firestrike Servo-turret

Some heavy support for my Imperial Fist Primaris Marines. Most of it was completed using Contrast colours but the metallics as ever are standard acrylics; a little of the yellow highlighting is acrylic also.

Anno Domini 1666 - Veterans of the Tercios

I started collecting Annon Domini 1666 miniatures last year when I was searching for some decent musketeer figures to use in games of En Garde, Osprey's skirmish rules, and happened across them. The game is by Polish company Wargamer and is set in a fictional Vienna where players engage in various acts of subterfuge and daring.  The base set purchased but remains un-played something I hope to remedy soon. At the same time I bought these Spaniards, mostly because they had some dynamic sword wielding poses.

With lots of browns, it was Contrast paints all the way apart from the metallic details and a few highlights on the lone colourful figure (believe it or not she has a sneak skill!).

Pleased with these but I have to pay more attention to mould lines next time as I missed a few that are highlighted up with the Contrast paint. Another lesson to learn.

Next up the King's Musketeers! (yes there's four of them)

Black Powder Epic US Civil War

 Just want I needed another scale, another conflict, another hole in my wallet! So I bought into the Warlord Games Epic scale big time having purchased items from all three waves they have produced so far. Of course they joined the general painting queue (due for completion at some point in the next millennium) but I couldn't resist testing a couple of generals and a cannon to see how they looked. My ever middling results are below...

Star Wars Legion: Imperial Scouts

The classic ones first seen being generally incompetent on the forest moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi. Standard paint job on these, grey undercoat, white base coat followed by Apothecary White Contrast paint. Black details then picked out and given a slight metallic dry brush where needed.

There's a couple of bikes from the base set kicking about needing a coat of paint too!

The squad

Trooper

Leader

Sniper

Research - probably for 2023!

Some new books have arrived over the last month or so. The first two cover the Great Northern War which is going to be the subject of a project in the near future. The original plan was to start and complete in 2022 but I have received a shedload of the new epic Warlord ACW figures and feel I need to get these done first. I suspect that will take quite a chunk of time so my eta for GNW is now 2023. 

The third book is "Every Bullet has its Billet, a wargaming guide to all things late 17th century by Barry Hilton of the League of Augsburg. Very much looking forward to diving into all three.

6mm Prussian Army 1813/14

This is the Prussian army I finished a couple of months ago. All figures are Baccus and I'm looking forward to getting them in action - there's plenty of French just waiting for them in the garage. Next up is some Austrians to get that Battle of the Nations feel (the Russians are patiently waiting in the garage too).

The artillery

Dragoons

Hussars

Infantry

More Infantry

Kuirassiers

Landwehr cavalry

Landwehr infantry

Staff Officers

Uhlans

The complete muster is

• 22 infantry battalions
• 11 Landwehr infantry battalions
• 7 Landwehr cavalry squadrons
• 7 Uhlan squadrons
• 2 Kuirassier squadrons
• 2 Dragoon squadrons
• 4 Hussar squadrons
• 12 cannon
• 8 officer stands

Will need to get them together for a group shot soon!