Those Who Dare (Raiding Hitler's Dams)

[PanzersEast]

THOSE WHO DARE
Enemy Coast Ahead AAR

This is an Campaign AAR of GMT's Enemy Coast Ahead.  I have chosen the Campaign route instead of doing a single scenario, thus you will see the organization, training and then I hope attack and destruction of one of Hitler's Dams.  I have up to this point only completed a couple of simple test scenarios so, I am botch my way through this.

The Setup:
We have been promoted to Wing Command and given the responsibility of organizing 617 Squadron and training its crews for special tasking.  Our responsibility is to oversee the requisitions of crews and planes, base and mission security, training the crews, making modifications, and reconnaissance of the intended target.

At the onset we are giving 60 RP (resource points) to allocate to the above purposes.  We are allowed to request more and while there is no limit to how many you can have, success is not guaranteed and the amount is variable if successful.  I will write a narrative of events first, then will follow up at the bottom with the game mechanics for spending RPs etc... Since I am still pretty new to the game, it maybe a slow go for me.



PE

[BanzaiCat]

Jeez, PE, you get an AAR in of just about every game I want. Nice work.  O0

[jomni]

Jeez, PE, you get an AAR in of just about every game I want. Nice work.  O0

But never finish any of them. :-[ I'm guilty of this as well.

[BanzaiCat]

I think we all suffer from that at some point (goodness knows I'm at fault there, too).

[PanzersEast]

Most of my AARs are really not full AARs but just snap shots of games.... most of the time I feel people want a snap shot of how the game plays rather than listen to my dribble about a game.  I am the worlds worst at the PC AARs..... and I recently had my PSU go out so that knocked me out of the Boxing Tournament.... but I hope to on this one get a couple of missions in... but we shall see. 

I will say this game is organized and flow charted about the best I have seen in a game, however there is a lot to go through when playing the campaign scenario.

But yea, overall I am pretty bad about finishing that stuff.... 

PE

[PanzersEast]

617 SQUADRON REPORT
WEEK 1


REQUISITIONS
My first job is to gather resources to form the 617.  I need to first requisition my Air crews and while I would like to gather the best Lancaster crews in England, I know I must get a good mix.  I review all records and assemble 20 Aircrews that will begin training.  They do not know why they have been assembled, only that their diligence and concentration must be absolute as we have a 3 - 4 week window until wheels up to target.

Next I requisition 3 ground crews, I initially had 4 crews, however I decided to split them up with 3 coming in this week and the remaining 3 next week. Next the planes.  Air Chief Marshal Charles Portal has initially granted us 12 Lancasters with additional to follow. 

We also start to receive 8 Upkeep (Mines).  The are cylinder odd shape looking contraptions and I have my doubts on wether we can successfully attack our intended target.  The Aircrews are still in the dark on our mission and will remain so until we are ready to launch.


MODIFICATIONS
I assign 2 ground crews to help bring in the planes and get them sorted on the base while we brief the 3rd crew on a retro-fit procedure.

There are 3 modifications that we would like to make to the planes, however at present we only have the 1 ground crew available so after instruction, they begin working on installing the Aldis Lights.  These lights are required because the pilots must maintain an altitude of 60 ft above the water and at night these lights will aluminate on the water below and when the two beams of light made a figure eight, the crew would know they are at their correct altitude.  The work begins on the installation but progress is very slow to little progress thus far, this is an area of concern as they must be ready in time.... I am very concerned that no progress has been made during the week.

SECURITY & RECON
I order increased security to the base by having additional security police assigned.  I also order recon of the Weser, Ruhr, and Dutch Coast.  We then request recon of the following Dam sights and after review of the data the following report is returned:

EDER DAM:
Flak: Medium
Balloons: Light
Search Lights: Light
Water Level: High

SORPE DAM:
Flak: None
Balloons: Light
Search Lights: None
Water Level: Rising

BEVER DAM:
Flak: High
Balloons: Medium
Search Lights: Light
Water Level: Rising

ENEEPE DAM:
Flak: Very High
Balloons: None
Search Lights: None
Water Level: Rising

MOHNE DAM:
Flak: Medium
Balloons: Light
Search Lights: Medium
Water Level: Rising

Presently there are no candidates for attack as we must have Full water level before attacking so we will continue to monitor the Dams.

TRAINING
Our Aircrews begin training and unfortunately one of our Green Crews destroys one of our new Lancasters during the Bomb-Aiming and Release training, however the crew manages to escape.  Another Crew in our Altitude & Speed damages another Lancaster. 

The results of our training is that our Veteran and Seasoned aircrews make some progress during the Altitude & Speed Training while our Green crews need a lot more work and no progress was made. 

During the Bomb-Aiming and Release, again our Green Crews struggled and did not make any noticeable progress while the Veteran Crews made some and the Seasoned Crews really made a good leap and was able to demonstrate good handling of their planes.

I also have noted that several crews have preformed above the required commitment required and can be labeled as Elite crews who will lead our missions.


GAME NOTES


You receive for each round a total of 60 Resource Points (RP) to spend on various areas.  You have a total of 4 Turns until you have to launch a raid, however you can launch before if the conditions are right and you feel like you are prepared. 

REQUISITIONS
To kick things off you can only requisition your Air Crews during the first Turn at a cost of 1 for Green, 2 for Seasoned, and 3 for Veteran.  I recruited a total of 20 crews with a mix of Veteran Seasoned and Green.  I believe I went back and added one however.  The Majority of my crews are Seasoned with 9 being Veteran and 6 being Green for a Total of (42 RP).

I requisitioned 12 Lancasters @ 1 RP each for a total of (12 RP).  In order to receive the 12 planes I had to allocate 2 Ground Crews to Handle them, there is a Handling rating on each Ground Crew card and the number of planes mush be equal to or less than those numbers.

I also recruited 3 Ground Crews for for (15 RP) and then will get 3 more the Next turn. 

I then received 8 Upkeep @ 1 RP each for a total of (8 RP).

I know you are thinking that is over the 60 RP you started with, how can you have more?  Well....

I asked for additional resource points and was rewarded (By a roll die you are instantly rewarded a certain amount depending on even or odd die roll).  Now this is a section of the rules that I find a little odd however.  You can ask for additional RP multiple times during a round as to stock up RP points, however at the cost of a Security modifier which can make your mission harder but I am not sure how harder it will make it so I am going to limit using this part.

MODIFICATIONS
I assigned the last of my Ground Crew to this task as there are 3 areas to modify.  Altimeter / Cockpit / Radio. Above I choose Altimeter which is the Aldis Lights.  You have to assign one ground crew to each area in order to perform the modification.

You can slo repair planes that are damage, but again you have to have a ground crew available to assign to do so.

SECURITY & RECON
I spent (5 RP) on the added Security Police. (looks to be need with the additional RP request).

I increased the Recon Level on the Weser, Ruhr, and Dutch Coast Flight Zones by spending (15 SP).  You can only increase each area by 1 per turn to a max of 3.

With the remaining RP I did a Recon of the 5 Dams listed above by spending (1 RP) each.  You can make additional Recon visits in subsequent Turns.


TRAINING
Training does not cost you anything, however you MUST select 2 areas of the following (Navigation, Altitude & Speed, and Bomb-Aiming & Release) and roll for training of each Crew Level.  I got unlucky and crashed one plane with a roll of 1 and damaged another.  The other crews made some progress and advanced a level or 2 depending on their roll.  The Green Crews made no progress and cost me a plane.  I have another damaged while training so next round I may have to assign a Ground Crew to fix.

REPORT SUMMARY:
11 Lancasters  (1 Damaged)
1   Lancaster Destroyed
21 Air Crews
4   Elite Crews
3   Ground Crews
0   Modifications
8   Upkeep







PE

[PanzersEast]

Just a couple of things to note.... I went ahead and did the next two turns on my way to attacking the Dams and a couple of observations:

- I under estimated Training, especially Navigation.  This had a huge bearing on my planes navigating to target and once their a coordinated attack....

- Tougher penalty for additional RP request.  I feel like the penalty needs to be more for acquiring additional RPs.  Maybe with each request the Security Level is moved according to the current requisition number ( for example if this is your 3rd request for additional RPs, then the Security Track is moved 3 spaces to the right).

- I felt the RPs got a little out of sorts, however I am going to re-run the game and try some of my own tweaks.  The game has a great build up and once the planes are in the air, there is a tremendous amount of tension!

PE

[PanzersEast]

I'm going to do a re-start on the AAR after going through and house ruling some things I do not like.  It is a very fun game and the tension mounts as you get closer to wheels up to the target.


PE

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

What rule changes did you end up implementing?

For me, I think the night-fighters are too powerful in the single mission scenarios as the mission ends as soon as one shows up and gets a hit.  I'm fiddling with some tweaks that would give gunners a small chance to drive a night fighter off.

[PanzersEast]

What rule changes did you end up implementing?

For me, I think the night-fighters are too powerful in the single mission scenarios as the mission ends as soon as one shows up and gets a hit.  I'm fiddling with some tweaks that would give gunners a small chance to drive a night fighter off.

I changed the Unlimited RP roll.... I felt that is a little too unrealistic for me, or at least make the consequences tougher.  It just feels odd to keep re-rolling of for RPs and then you keep getting supplies.  I need to go back as I believe there were a couple other things I thought was a little off as well.


PE