Nearly three years ago, John and I played the
'Bag the Admiral' scenario. Well, on Tuesday evening
Martin and I had another crack at it.
Again, we would use
Bag the Hun to re-fight the
Operation Vengeance mission to take out Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
The US Army Airforce would field a flight of four P38-G Lightnings, while the Japanese Naval Airforce would field a two Shoktai of three Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero escorting two Mitsubishi G4M2 Betty. The neither player would not know which Betty contained the Admiral, we would randomise which after the game ended.
The card deck comprised:
- Junior Ace Card
- Allied Section 1 Move
- Allied Section 1 Fire
- Allied Section 1 Leader
- Allied Formation Bonus Card
- Axis Section 1 Move
- Axis Section 1 Fire
- Axis Section 1 Leader
- Axis Section 2 Move
- Axis Section 2 Fire
- Axis Section 2 Leader
- Bombers Move
- Bombers Fire
- Axis Formation Bonus Card
- Altitude Bonus Card
We randomised who would take which side and I would again be playing the USAAF while Martin played the Japanese.
The second pair of Lightnings dashed off to try and take out the Bettys while the first pair tried to take on the overwhelming numbers of Zeroes.
The Lightnings closed in on the bombers and immediately Barber opened up and one Betty was on fire trailing smoke, while one of the Zero pilots was hit and killed.
The second pair did a great job of keeping the Zeroes engaged, but eventually Lanphiers plane was shot down and crashed into the jungle with no chute seen.
Return fire from the Bettys saw Hines aircraft badly damaged, he kept in the fight but was soon out of ammo and heading for home. Now it was just Barber and Holmes alone against five Zeroes and two Bettys. The fire on the first Betty was soon extinguished, but undaunted Barber got onto the tail of the second Betty, unleashing a stream of fire the bomber pilot, co-pilot and rear gunner were killed and one engine was on fire, out of control the bomber spiralled into the jungle.
With one Betty down and another damaged, the Zeroes were swarming so the three remaining Lightnings accelerated away and taking advantage of the cloud cover broke contact with the Japanese.
Randomising, it was indeed Yamamotos' Betty that had crashed into the jungle, just like last time success for the USAAF.
The aircraft are all from Tumbling Dice from my own collection.
