Misc.: The Second World War (Aerial), Bag the Hun!, 1/600 scale

Twas the wargame club night before Christmas, and so we traditionally do a ‘silly’ game. However, as only Nick and I were there, we took to the skies instead. This game pitted Noick as the Luftwaffe player, leading a raid by a swarm of Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers against the Chain Home ‘Radar’ Station at Swingate near Dover. they were escorted by a couple of flight of Messerschmitt Me-109s.Facing them were two flights, each of three Spitfires from 266 Squadron RAF, hurriedly scrambled from RAF Biggin Hill. Now, I’m not really a fly-boy, and all this was fairly new to me. Still, I’d seen the Battle of Britain several times, and I knew roughly what was expected of me. Bag the Hun uses a hex system, and essentially you fly, turn and manoevre according to a clear pattern, ranging from easy-peasy to very hard. So, I stuck to simple stuff to start with.Nick’s Stukas didn’t bother me, but I had to counter the enemy fighters as well. So, Blue Flight went after the dive bombers, trying to stop them from reaching the radar station, while Red flight headed for the fighter escorts. The little red dice in the picture above indicate height bands – with six being the highest. This shows my Spits closing with the Stukas from behind – which seemed the best way to shoot them down.

Nick countered by splitting his dive bombers into two groups. So, I stuck with the ones heading directly towards Swingate, rather than the others which were heading a little out to sea again. Meanwhile Red Flight headed towards the Me-109s, which craftily kept well away from the Stukas, leading my Spits away from the main prize. Of course, the other real difference was that Nick had played this before, and knew the rules! So, I turned away, and rather than chase the Messerschmitts I aimed for the breakaway unit of three Stukas. I attacked them head-on, which sounded a bit suicidal, but of course I had more guns inn my Spits. One of the Stukas was badly damaged in the first pass, and after threading them my fighters turned around for another attack, this time from behind. Meanwhile Blue flight’s targets had split again, and they were also left chasing three Stukas.That meant two whole flights of dive bombers weren’t facing anyone. Neither, of course, were the German fighters. I saw this as a ‘target rich environment’ though, and blasted away at the Stukas as best I could. I could have done with more Spitfires, but hey ho – Blue Flight hoped to finish off the first flight, before turning about and hitting the two Stuka flights astern of them. All the time though, the German bombers were getting closer to their target. A little further out to sea Red Flight had damaged a Stuka, but it was Blue Flight who were gaining all the glory, shooting down one of the three Stukas in front of them, and badly damaging another. I rather liked Nick’s use of black pipe cleaners to mark badly damaged planes – you can see it trailing smoke as it begins losing altitude! the blue marker showed a damaged plane, and in this case a wounded pilot too. Further out to sea though, Blue Flight had also badly damaged two Stukas, but the critical air battle was the Blue Flight one above, where two Stukas were now on their way down to the cold waters of the Channel. The third one though, fought back. I sort of forgot that Stukas had tail gunners, and one of them scored a lucky hit on the plane of my flight leader. He suffered engine damage, and so would inevitably fall behind. Then he was hit again, and his engine began spouting flames. HE was clearly heading for an early bath too, and I was now waiting  eagerly for the ‘Bail Out’ card to be drawn. Bag the Hun, you see, relies on packs of cards, which says which units can move, shoot or do certain things – including jumping out of a burning plane. Meanwhile, Red Flight had been attacking the rearmost flights of Stukas, which were now flying down the coast in a tight formation. Before the Spotfires could fall among the dive bombers though, they were ‘jumped’ by Nick’s Me-109s,  which hit two of the Spitfires. Fortunately for me the damage was minor, but it certainly highlighted the fact that I didn’t really know what I was doing… Red Flight were now caught between two fires. The air battle was nearing its end, both in the time of the evening, and because the first wave of Stukas were nearing the radar station. I failed miserably to ‘bag’ the leading Stuka, and it overflew the target, dropping its bomb as it did so. That’s where we ended the game. Nick had clearly outmanouvred me, and so the bulk of his bombers had a clear run to the target. It was all good fun though, with one Spit lost, and three Stukas. Next time I’ll do better! 

Tags: Bag the Hun