We played out our second session of the campaign in April 2019 and as we have our third session at Next Saturday’s meeting it was high time to write it up!
The British were approaching their target and had been benefited by fog that had hampered the take-off of nightfighters from 1.Jagddivision, but the British umpire now played a weather change card as the main raid neared its target, which luckily cleared the ground in just the right area and replaced it with heavy cloud cover for the attacking bombers!
The first action resulted from a straggler interception of the main raid by the commander of 2.Jagddivision, Steve, which allowed him to vector in the Me110G-4s of III.NJG3 as the raid passed Rostock in a ‘Tame Boar’ attack. In this type of attack each nightfighter followed the bomber stream using on-board radar to detect and close on targets. The targets proved hard to find, but Dave detected and successfully shot down 1 straggling Lancaster, K for King.
Another night-fighter unit from 1.Jagddivision, commanded by Dave, now made the first successful infiltration of the main bomber stream. The attacking unit was 2.NJG5, also equipped with Me110-G-4s, but it’s impact was reduced by having been scattered on take-off in foggy weather. Not only did it fail to inflict any damage but one of the attacking fighters piloted by Andy was shot down by defensive fire when if homed in on it’s target, B for Baker.
The raid move on and the target was now revealed as the raid stream turned south and began bombing its target, Berlin. Dave was able to vector in the Me109G-6s of 1.JG302 to attack the the head of the bomber stream as it passed over the target in a ‘Wild Boar’ attack, closely followed by the Me110F-4s and G-4s of 3.NJG5, which were directed in from the radar beacon north-west of Berlin where they had been orbiting. This type of attack was made by visually intercepting bombers lit up by searchlights. The cloud cover reduced the searchlight effect, but bombers could still be attacked against the illuminated clouds. The defending fighters had to take their chances with defending flak fire.
The first attack by the Me-109s resulted in heavy losses for the attackers. Steve made a spectacular high score, shooting down four attacking Lancasters – G for George, F for Fox, M for Mike and P for Peter. Dave added to his score with two more bombers, D for Dog and J for Jig. John L opened his score with E2 for Easy Squared. Chairman John pursued another bomber, J2 for Jig Squared, but only managed to damage her before she exited the illuminated zone. The British scored back as Andy homed in on D2 for Dog Squared, damaging the bomber with his first burst, only to be damaged in turn and driven off by defensive fire from the bombers gunners.
The resolution of the attack by 3.NJG5 was postponed until the next session, as time was up for the day….
At the end of session 2 the points scored were as follows:
Dave (1JD) +6 +3 for Lancasters shot down, +1 for Tame Boar attack, +2 for Wild Boar attacks
Steve (2JD) +5 +4 for Lancasters shot down, +1 for Tame Boar attack
John L (7JD) +1 +1 for Lancaster shot down
Chairman John (3JD) +0.5 +.5 for Lancaster damaged
Andy (4JD) -2.5 +.5 for Lancaster damaged, -2 for Me110 shot down, -1 for Me109 damaged
That leaves the individual League table so far as follows (with 2JD the leading team so far with 8 points):
Dave (1JD) +6 2 sessions played
Steve (2JD) +5 1 session played
Mike (2JD) +3 1 session played
Chairman John (3JD) +2.5 2 sessions played
John L (7JD) +1 1 session played
Chris (7JD) -1.5 1 session played
Bob (4JD) -2 1 session played
Andy (4JD) -2.5 1 session played
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