Well a good turnout of some 27 gamers, including a couple of guests and one new member joining; welcome to Wraith Ho.

WWI Flying Circus

The Flying Circus took to the skies after an absence of 2 years (see the June 2002 report for the last dogfight).  Four aerial battles took place above the trenches, with the Brits emerging the clear victors at the end of the day. 

The first dogfight, set in 1915, pitted Horace, Sam and Nick, flying Airco DH2 pushers, together with Andrzej in a 2-seater pusher FE 2b against the Fokker Scourge, Adrian, Philippe and Chris piloting Fokker EIII Eindeckers.  Although outnumbered, the Fokkers could take more damage than the fragile British planes and carried considerably more ammunition.  Despite this, however, the British prevailed, only Philippe escaping to fight another day.

The second dogfight was a more evenly matched affair, 4 Sopwith Camels vs. 4 Fokker DR1 Triplanes, Andrzej switching to the German side and Denny joining the British.  The Camels, however, made easy meat of the Triplanes, the Germans again falling prey to the twin rattle of the British guns.

In the next encounter, a German bombing mission, Andrzej piloted a Junkers J1 2-seater with an escort of 2 Fokker DVII's and a Fokker DVIII.  Intercepting the German flight were 3 SE5a's and a Sopwith Snipe, the latter piloted by Denny.  The Junkers is a sturdy aircraft, being of all metal corrugated construction (later to be made famous in the Junkers Tri-motor transport during WWII) and able to take a lot of punishment . . . and punishment it did take, being the first plane to be shot down when it was bracketed by two of the SE5a's!  Another failed mission for the Germans.

The last mission reversed the roles with the British carrying out a bombing mission comprising Airco DH4 and RE8 2-seaters escorted by a Sopwith Snipe and an SE5a.  This time the Germans were taking no chances and, in addition to 2 Fokker DVII's, 2 high altitude fighters, the Siemens Schuckert DIII and DIV.  Despite having an apparent altitude advantage, the British again carried the day by successfully bombing one of the 2 objectives, although Horace's DH4 was brought down shortly after it had dropped its bombs.  

So the final score was 12 kills to the British against which the Germans could only muster a meagre 5.  Final tally appears below.  Congratulations Sam on getting to be an ace after only 4 missions!

Seven Years War 

Six people participated and separated to fight on two battlefields.

Alexander Lam, our violent Turkish general, arranged to re-enact a battle of the Russo-Turkish war, the Russian army being jointly commanded by Hermann Ng and Philip Ngo.

The armies joined battle with 12 SP per side, although there was an absolute advantage in quantity in the Turkish army, especially in cavalryman (Turkish side had 7 cavalry units to Russia’s 3), much to the puzzlement of the Russian army.  The Russia commanders said that they hoped their dependable and formidable firepower might rout the Turkish armed forces before the battle was joined.

As the battle began, Alexander shifted his cavalry, threatening the Russian right flank.  This tactic was very successful, forcing the Russians to give up their original positions, and thereby affecting the Russia armed force's display of firepower.

Later, while the Russian army was redeploying, the Turkish army took this good opportunity to bombard the Russian right flank, causing great casualties to the Russian Army.  Even the Russian Grenadiers were forced to rout without having fired a musket.

Seeing this precarious situation, Hermann launched an attack hoping to save the predicament of the right flank, however, although his attack routed some enemy infantry and captured a cannon, he still could not retrieve this losing battle.

The victorious Turks sound their celebration horn again!  It seems no one could stop these barbarians, as there were already Austrians and French on their butcher list.

Another Seven Years War game was fought between Lawrence Ho (Austrian) and the Prussian commanded by Herbert Wong and Cheung Kar Fai.  After a hard fought battle, with both armies having suffered heavy losses, the Prussians managed to break the Austrian army’s right wing and achieve a marginal victory.

GHQ Microtanks

Wraith Ho played a North Africa GHQ microtank game with his cousin, Peter Wong.  The background was British against the Italians and their German allies.  

At first, Wraith’s Crusaders did well when again the Italian light tanks, but when the German heavy tanks moved forward, the nightmare for the British began.  The battle ended when Wraith’s last Crusader was destroyed, giving the Axis victory . . . but the Allies will be back; Wraith is just waiting for his British army to form again!

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