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MISSION 1
City: Lille, France
Target: Steel and Locomotive works and Marshaling yards


We were told that todays mission assignment was Lille, France.  We would attacking the Steel and Locomotive works and Marshaling yards.  We are to expect moderate weather over the target area with the same in flak coverage.  The Gorg Wagon would take up in the middle of the formation, low element. 

We would be bombing the target at 21,000 feet and our escort were 2 squadrons of British Spitfires once we reached the French coast.  Our mission would last around 3 1/3 hours.  20 B-17s from the 303rdH Bomber Group were to participate in the raid joined up with the 91st and 306th.

We took off and formed up and rendezvoused with the other groups and began our mission to Lille.  Weather was fair over the channel and everyone began to settle in. 

We near the coast as our little friends join us for the ride through the country side of France.


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A call rang out from Tailgunner Sgt. Barthheart at a 109 closing from 6 o'clock high.  A dance of planes can be seen around the formation as 109s and Spitfires intermingle.  The 109 dove in on us as fire opened up from the tailgun and top turret.  The 109 managed to squeeze off rounds that sank into the Grog Wagon and as it turned off Mst. Sgt. Staggerwing riddled it with holes on its underside and the 109 turned and broke off the engagement. 

The crew continues to scan for other contacts but none appeared.  That 109 got everyones attention as it he managed to put some extra holes in our Rudder and to shatter one of the windows in the cockpit which our engineer made some joking comments about.  We continue on our run and the weather is starting get worse as clouds move in on us.  There is scattered cover as we get nearer to the target area and we can hear bandits called out as a swarm of 109s envelop our formation. 

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Calls ring out from each gunnery position in the plane as we are attacked from multiple positions.  A 109 dives in the the 12 High position and narrowly misses with the Nose returning fire and misses wide.  Another 109 comes up from the 12 low position but he misses and breaks off.

A call comes out as a 109 drives in from 10:30 Level and he unloads into our port wing.  The plane shakes violently as smoke bellows from the No1 engine.  Lieut. Pratt shuts down No1 and feathers the engines as Capt. PE struggles to keep the plane in formation.  At the same instance Lieut. Windigo manning the Port Cheek gun opened up on the 109 and smoke is seen coming from its engine and breaks off.

Another 109 swoops up from the 3 o'clock Low position and begins firing.  The Starboard waist gunner and the ball turret return fire.  Sgt. undercovergeek shots from the Starboard Waist goes just wide and Sgt. Arctic Blast Ball turret manages to hit the plane and it quickly dives off from the attack.

At the 10:30 High position a 109 comes in and strafes the plane and Sgt. bob48 returns fire as the 109 passes.  A bullet managed to graze Sgt. bob48 in the arm and he staggers back and cursed the 109 pilot.  Sgt. undercovergeek quickly inspects the wound and tries to wrap a makeshift bandage around Sgt. bob48's arm which he laughs off and pulls out his lucky rabbits foot.

The fighters break off and the sound of flak begins to fill the B-17 as the plane begins to bob up and down.  We are now close to our bombing run starting to commence. Lieut. Banzai_Cat takes control of the aircraft as....

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The IP was coming into range after a series of waypoint changes..... PanzersEast switch on the AP and Lieut. Banzai_Cat took control of the the plane and peered down the Norden bombsight.  The formation tightened up in anticipation for the release point, bomb bay door opened.  Lieut. Banzai_Cat continually made adjustments as the weather had degraded.   Everything was lined up and came the waiting point as the lead plane bombs began to drop followed by Lieut. Banzai_Cat letting loose the Grog Wagon's inventory.... Bombs Away!  Light flak continued to explode around the formation as the formation began to turn the wolves had returned for more blood.  Explosions could be heard in the background as the bombs begin impacting the ground.


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2 Me 110s focused in on the Grog Wagon as one was called out at 12 o'clock Low and the other coming in at 1030 Low.  The 110 at 12 Low sprang in and opened fire with returned fire from the Nose to drive it away.  Fire from both missed.

The other 110 from 130 Low sprang up close in with a hail of fire, Lieut. Windigo manned the Starboard Cheek and fired a hail of bullets and the 110 burst into flames and fell away .  The 110s rounds managed to poke some holes into the nose of the B17, however no major damage was done.  The 110 continued to fall away in with a trail of smoke and fire.... and then an explosion rocked the sky as the 110 denigrated.  A call came from Lieut. Windigo "Dammit, Uncle Sam owes me double duty pay!".

After a brief celebration the crew settled down and then quiet.  The formation continued making its way back to the coast as smoke billowed from the lead plane.  It appeared that their no 3 engine was on fire. 

The formation continued as course adjustments where made.  The Channel was reached without incident and we continued on until the coast of England was in site.


The Grog Wagon waited its turn and landed without incident and the drinks where on Lieut. Windigo.  The crew later learned the following.

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Recon Indicates that the bombs where Off target and a 0% hit rate.
Weather over target was Fair to Poor.
All B-17s returned however 1 was lost during landing due to damage.

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Sgt. Barthheart did a little paint job to the side of the Grog Wagon.


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No pressure, man.

booooooooooooobbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb!!!!!!

(thats a long drawn out 'Bob', not me shouting about breasts as were buzzed by Me109s)

You shouting about breasts when Bawb gets mowed down might seem a bit dodgy, sir.

FRIG!!!!!

"Dammit Panzer!!! I am a aviating navigator, not a godforsaken infantryman. You're damn lucky I hit the little plane and not one of the big ones!"


"I need a F'n smoke." [thank god the bombadier (Banzai?) will be taking over very soon]

Nah, its just a flesh wound. I've had worse.

where were you hiding that rabbits foot?

no, dont tell me

...its still on the end of the rabbits leg. Didn't you bring a packed lunch with you?

That's some crazy Luftwaffe action for a Mission 1. Then again I haven't played B-17 in 20 years, so...

^Same here, Cat. Been a very long time since I last played it, and can't remember ever having such a ferocious start

Quote from: bob48 on January 24, 2014, 02:20:26 PM
^Same here, Cat. Been a very long time since I last played it, and can't remember ever having such a ferocious start

Normally you start out with Good escorts through the first 5 missions, however I am rolling the dice so we have had poor fighter coverage.  We also where low in the formation (+1 modifier) and those dice on the Grog Wagon sure aren't rolling a 7 right now.  :D


PE

You were real low in the formation if you heard the bombs exploding!! That's a Ploesti elevation raid where you come back with corn stalks caught in the bomb bay doors!!

Good Hunting.

MR

That would be interesting - B24's from North Africa bombing Ploesti, although the 'Black Sunday' raid would be a bit harrowing.

Quote from: Mad Russian on January 25, 2014, 06:54:15 PM
You were real low in the formation if you heard the bombs exploding!! That's a Ploesti elevation raid where you come back with corn stalks caught in the bomb bay doors!!

Good Hunting.

MR

lol... yea I mean for effect (narratively) and not literally.  But who knows, maybe Doolittle was commanding this mission.


PE

I've seen videos of the blast waves going out as the bombs hit! It's hard to imagine that there is anything left standing or anyone alive after watching those videos.

Good Hunting.

MR

Depends on where the bombs hit I guess.

YAY I GOT TO FEATHER THE PROP! {revving chainsaw}

Speaking of cornstalks in the bomb doors, back in the days of Lucasarts' Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, my brother's favorite B-17 strategy was to land near the target, strafe the hell out of it with his machine guns, then fly back to base landing at various targets of opportunity along the way to empty the barrels. This avoided all the enemy planes, too. To complete the utter gaminess of this strategy, he'd roll up over one of the larger flat 'targets' (which couldn't be effectively shot to pieces with the guns) and drop his bombs!  ;D The programmers hadn't anticipated that, so no damage was assigned to the aircraft!

Once I learned how he was racking up completely unreal scores that way, I stopped trying to fly the bombers and concentrated on the German jets and the crazy gliding rocket plane (that shot rockets up from its wings when passing under a bomber.) Hope we don't run into those!

(My uncle flew 35 missions, and was on tour when the ME 262 jets went operational, though he never saw the experimental rocket planes. He said the jets scared them more than anything because they were effectively invulnerable. All you could do was hope they miss, or were new pilots bluffed off by the guns.)

^ I loved flying the Flying Wing from SWOTL.

Also, B-17 only has Me-109s, Me-110s, and Fw-190s. At least, the copy I had from so long ago only has those. It would make sense if there was an update in there somewhere, or optional rules for German jets.

Quote from: JasonPratt on January 26, 2014, 05:00:00 PM
...back in the days of Lucasarts' Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, my brother's favorite B-17 strategy was to land near the target, strafe the hell out of it with his machine guns, then fly back to base landing at various targets of opportunity along the way to empty the barrels. This avoided all the enemy planes, too. To complete the utter gaminess of this strategy, he'd roll up over one of the larger flat 'targets' (which couldn't be effectively shot to pieces with the guns) and drop his bombs!  ;D The programmers hadn't anticipated that, so no damage was assigned to the aircraft!

I hate to admit it but that is almost exactly what I did.  I'd only fly over the channel to France and strafe a V1 site to death while the ai controlled raids against the aircraft industry or airfields would do max damage based on my performance against the V1 sites.  I decimated the Luftwaffe in just a few missions then proceeded to bomb normal targets in the B-17 the conventional way without having to worry about enemy fighters. 

Heh its funny how ideas go in waves.  I have been playing B17 on Vassel (I wish that someone would port this onto the ipad what a great game to play on that format). 

My Plane is Dwarven Cargo and all the positions are filled with Dwarves (harder to hit) using the Dwarven random name generator to name them. 

Here are my stats with 11 flights
Original plane is still flying
7 KIA and 7 WIA cannot fly again - Only original crew left are Co Pilot, Ball Turret, Port Waist and Tail Gunner.
17 Enemy fighters shot down (Tail Gunner has 8 of these)
Most dangerous position is Bombardier and Navigator I am on my 4th replacement for each position
Bomb runs average = 11% with 2 aborts on my last two missions (bomb bays doors jammed on first abort and nav and bombardier both KIA = 2nd abort).  Including the two aborted missions my bomb damage percentage drops to 9%

All in all I am not feeling too optimistic about my chances.  My crew are bullet magnets that cant hit the ground with their bombs.

Con

Speaking of replacements...yeah, anyone who was late to this little party should probably stick around; it's almost certain there will be a need for a replacement crewmember. This game gets vicious!

felt my nads crawl a little closer to my spleen when I saw the stats about navigators....

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MISSION 2
City: Abbeville/Drucat, France
Target: Airfield


With the no 1 Engine repaired and our bullet holes patched, we received word during the mission briefing that today's target will be at the Abbeville/Drucat Airfield in France.  Our group is to form up with the 301st and the 419th.  There is a possibility of light fog over the target area, however it could clear by the time we arrive. 

Some of the crew has managed to convince Sgt. bob48, after his luck in the last mission, to lend his lucky rabbits foot around..... for an nominal fee of course. 


More to Come.........

Oh no worries. I got loads of rabbit feet. How many you want? They're cheaper by the dozen.

Abbeville, eh? No clouds, eh? Damn clouds, that's what made me drop those bombs off target before. Although those civvy structures were asking for a remodeling. Probably collaborators, anyway!

makes my job easier... hell I have a petrol station road map that shows me where it is

Quote from: Banzai_Cat on January 28, 2014, 03:17:21 PM
Damn clouds, that's what made me drop those bombs off target before. Although those civvy structures were asking for a remodeling. Probably collaborators, anyway!

They all voted for Hitler to be Chancellor! I wouldn't be too worried about it.

Good Hunting.

MR

Starting to see some info popping up for Mighty Eighth the new Spielberg produced war mini series coming out this year

Here is a teaser trailer to give you some flavor for your next mission

Con

^ That looks pretty cool.

There's also this to look forward to:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/hbo-developing-third-wwii-miniseries-413632

Just thought I would update on my B17 game (Edit this is not from the OP Post I was just coincidentally running a B17 Vassal game)

Dwarven Cargo went down with an inboard fuel tank fire.  We dropped the bombs on a milk run at Abbeville only 1 fighter attack no flak everything looking good then 1 Me 110 slips through and flames us.

All but three made the jump safely to earth.  The tail gunner, ball gunner and radio operator didnt make it out.  That means of the original crew only the co pilot was left alive after 12 missions. 

Con

I have a couple missions to post, however I have gotten a little side tracked.....



PE

Quote from: Con on February 03, 2014, 05:04:18 PM
That means of the original crew only the co pilot was left alive after 12 missions. 

I FEEL UNREASONABLY CONFIDENT!!!  ;D

Quote from: JasonPratt on February 04, 2014, 09:46:03 AM

Quote from: Con on February 03, 2014, 05:04:18 PM
That means of the original crew only the co pilot was left alive after 12 missions. 

I FEEL UNREASONABLY CONFIDENT!!!  ;D

Wrong Grog... PE is our Mission coordinator, not Con...    drink Mate?

MISSION FOR TODAY

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Woot!  :D Back in the air! 8)

Nice thread. Let me share a true Grognard's obsession here.    :uglystupid2:

St. Omer is the easiest mission there is. Lille is range four, if memory serves me correctly.

For my B-17: QotS game, I got out a map, and some history on German industry during the war, and set up missions out to range ... 13.

I had 200 targets total, over ten different types, and ran daily missions of 36 bombers. I had 360 crew, that I kept meticulous track of..all their injuries, all their kills, all their missions. For bombadiers, I rotated them into the lead bomber if they had the highest bombing percentage. Lucky them. Every mission had a low bomber, who was the trailer. They very, VERY rarely survived a long mission. Poor bastards!

Over a 20+ year period or so, I ran (and kept statistics for) just over eleven thousand missions. I didn't need the charts, I had them completely memorized, until eventually, I worked out the mathematics of the entire game.  I used 4 different colored ten sided dice, and I would roll once on my combat table for each zone for each bomber. Actually, this was more of a wall chart, with ten thousand different combinations of damage.

Relatively easy to determine the chances for the number of attackers, and work that into a distribution curve. At to this the number of attacks, average number of shots, average number of damage rolls, hit location by percentage, and within that, location damage and severity. This also included repeat attacks, ME-110's, positional disadvantages, etc.

The chart gave you the number of die rolls on the damage chart. First roll was number of damage rolls, the second was the for-real damage. The chart took in all the mission parameters, and all possible combinations of attacks, worked into an attack result to four digits. 7331 was different than 1590. Generally, the higher number, the worse the result!!! Color priority was always red-white-blue-green, and all die rolls were for greater than "superficial damage." I had backed out those percentage chances already..and saved a ton of rolls doing it. The dreaded BIP result, or Bombs exploding were very high up in the 9 thousands. An engine out had over a hundred chances to occur, out of ten thousand possibilities. Easily.

Each squadron's mission was tracked on one single 8x11 sheet, with wounds, ammo, damage, and landing/bombing modifiers tracked, as well as their relative position within the formation.

I have to say that of all the games I have ever played, this game must rank as the one most played.

My finest Airman, by far, was a top turret gunner with ... 36(!) kills. I made him re-up for the second 25. The next most, ever, had eight, and I only had three aces in all the time I played.

The first several thousand missions were played in strict accordance with the rulebook. The last ... eight? thousand or so were with my newest version. Kill rates, death rates, bombing rates were all well within acceptable norms..if anything a little worse, as I had targets another 300km deeper into Axis territory.

Oh..using the same range circle distances, I created another base in Italy. Lot easier to hit the Romanian oil fields!!!

Very impressive. O0

Lemme guess- you work out odds for a living. Insurance claim forecasting? Professional gambler? Meteorologist?

Quote from: Staggerwing on October 24, 2014, 09:04:18 PM
Very impressive. O0

Lemme guess- you work out odds for a living. Insurance claim forecasting? Professional gambler? Meteorologist?

By training, I am a meteorologist.

It was early morning with a slight overcast sky above.  The sun was just rising off to the east and all that was on the crews mind was why the sudden meeting last night.  Of course the men speculated why Capt. PanzersEast, Co Pilot: Lieut. Jason Pratt,  Bombardier  Lieut. Banzai_Cat and the Nav Lieut. Windigo were called into the briefing shack late yesterday afternoon and there was talk of ordinance changes to the 17s.  Regardless we all rode out to the line to prep for our mission for the day and to find out exactly what they entailed.

..............

Here is the PC B17 emulator.

It can be used if you are all in an online squadron as it follows the boardgame rules.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C4BFD59463A5DFCE!196&authkey=!ABOGeh8ZJ149uLo&ithint=file%2czip (https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C4BFD59463A5DFCE!196&authkey=!ABOGeh8ZJ149uLo&ithint=file%2czip)

Guide on how to use it..

http://prestonm.com/military/B17QotS/doc/B17Introduction.html (http://prestonm.com/military/B17QotS/doc/B17Introduction.html)

Quote from: TacticalWargames on November 07, 2014, 01:51:24 PM
Here is the PC B17 emulator.

It can be used if you are all in an online squadron as it follows the boardgame rules.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C4BFD59463A5DFCE!196&authkey=!ABOGeh8ZJ149uLo&ithint=file%2czip (https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C4BFD59463A5DFCE!196&authkey=!ABOGeh8ZJ149uLo&ithint=file%2czip)

Guide on how to use it..

http://prestonm.com/military/B17QotS/doc/B17Introduction.html (http://prestonm.com/military/B17QotS/doc/B17Introduction.html)

Thanks for the link!   O0

PE

Quote from: PanzersEast on November 07, 2014, 03:57:57 PM

Quote from: TacticalWargames on November 07, 2014, 01:51:24 PM
Here is the PC B17 emulator.

It can be used if you are all in an online squadron as it follows the boardgame rules.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C4BFD59463A5DFCE!196&authkey=!ABOGeh8ZJ149uLo&ithint=file%2czip (https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=C4BFD59463A5DFCE!196&authkey=!ABOGeh8ZJ149uLo&ithint=file%2czip)

Guide on how to use it..

http://prestonm.com/military/B17QotS/doc/B17Introduction.html (http://prestonm.com/military/B17QotS/doc/B17Introduction.html)

Thanks for the link!   O0

PE

I tired that but you lose all the immersion since all is automated.  You just keep clicking stuff.

I have lost a couple of files that had my missions on them.... so at this point I may do a restart in the AAR forum..... sorry for that, but will have to redo and re-write with maybe a little more flair.  I also plain to not do the softer missions at the beginning and jump right into the thick of it......  I'm working on a couple of new graphics for the AAR, so stay tuned.


PE