Over the Owen Stanleys

My gaming urges are still presently being fully taken up with playing 'Pacific Fighters'. Since last posting I have flown an average of a mission a night, all of them involving a longish approach run from Port Morsesby over the Owen Stanley mountain range followed by a rocket attack on an airfield (either the 'New Strip' at Buna on the North coast or a newly constructed one which is just North of where the mountains descend to the coastal plain). There's minimal fighter protection usually, but the flack is pretty intense (especially over the inland target). The mountains usually have patchy cloud, and once I had to take off just after dawn, before the ground mist had cleared over the coastal plains.

The most noteable incident was my first air combat victory. Flying out of the mountains, about to begin descent to inland airfield target, observed two black dots at 12 o'clock, slightly below my altitude. Our fighter escort was busy several miles to the East, engaging four bandits. I turned my nose into the approaching enemy, slightly dived, and opened up from about 500 m (we were closing on each other at about 800kph). One long burst. Hit his engine and it flames briefly. A couple bullets hit my plane, but no real damage. His plane streaming smoke crashes into the jungle a couple minutes later, after an ultimately futile attempt to regain control. I am the only beaufighter of my flight to return to base (having opportunity to both shoot at, and be shot at by, enemy planes on return journey. I am awarded the 'Defence Medal'.

I remember thinking as I accelerated towards the closing enemy 'Oscar' - I have more guns, bigger guns, two engines to his one, if I hold my nerve the odds are my way. It worked. My comrades kept at altitude and concentrated on maintaining course. That allowed the second bandit to come in from underneath. I think that's where my flight lost its first casualty. Haven't had any similar encounters since.

The missions have so far been all ground attack types. I have destroyed something like 8 planes on the ground, 6 AA guns and 3 vehicles in around 10 missions. I have had rudder shot off once and made it back. I have had around 5 occasions of being shot down (meaning that I had to refly the mission), generally from AA on the attack run. Have accumulated 3250 points in 24 missions. Getting better.

The scary thing in a campaign sense is that each mission, the front line moves further south over the mountains, and currently lies along the last ridges before the coastal plain, port moresby and my airfield. I hope my fairly successful ground attacks are helping hinder the invader as his troops on the ground grind down against bitter aussie opposition along the Kokoda track.

Flying from Singapore to Milne Bay

The adventure continues, with nightly flights over the virtual terrain of 'Pacific Fighters' being standard fare when I've been home. The Singapore campaign, where I was flying a Hurricane IIB, ended sadly for me when wounded on about my sixteenth mission - another scramble to intercept overwhelming numbers of 'Betty' bombers accompanied by a swarm of 'Zeke' and 'Oscar' fighters, the first against which wing mounted machine guns don't seem to have much impact and the second having skilled pilots and swift aircraft. I managed to crashland the plane, but that was the end of the Singapore map for me.

The next mission was six months later, and the action had moved onto Milne Bay, at the Eastern tip of New Guinea. Based an hour's flight time away at Port Moresby, the squadron now flies Beaufighters - fast and powerful twin engined fighter bombers, each with a rearward facing navigator/observer. On our first mission, I successfully rocketed 3 AA guns guarding the Japanese landing site, allowing the rest of my flight a free run at the vehicles and stores parked inland. I believe the next flight's a bomb run against Japanese invasion buildup at Lae, on the North coast over the Owen Stanley Mountains.

The Battle of Malaya/Singapore unfolded over several days. By the time I was evacuated the front line had moved South, with Japanese forces advancing primarily down both coasts, leaving a thin strip of allied controlled land in the centre of the peninsula. As far as I could see, the airstrips which were made possible by the perimeter were vulnerable to sudden attack, and all the ground infrastructure was vulnerable to being cut off and surrounded by a Japanese advance across the peninsula at any single point to the South.

Perhaps I was lucky to be evacuated, as that meant I was evacuated before the fall of Singapore and the enslavement of the thousands who were thereby forced to surrender.

As a historical note, I don't think the RAAF flew hurricanes at Singapore. The few hurricanes were in RAF squadrons. The RAAF flew american brewster buffalos and fairley battles. The arms procurement politics which led to them flying such substandard planes is covered in a great book by David Day - when I recall the name of it I'll post it here.

Flying Hours

The past week has continued to see me struggle with the life:gaming equation. My generally busy worklife has accelerated to a pace which I can only just sustain, and is now drawing upon my mental and physical reserves to a degree that it threatens the very experience of an evening flight over the Pacific. But, like all great pilots, I have continued to fly the missions required of me.

I am playing the RAAF Singapore campaign in 'Pacific Fighters'. Flying Hurricane IIB, I have completed 12 missions and chocked up 1070 points. I haven't shot down any jap planes, but have destroyed two ground targets (armoured cars) in separate missions. In attaining this tally there have been something like five missions I had to refly because I had either been shot down (1), crash landed (2), gone missing by bailing out over enemy territory (1) or been seriously wounded before bailing out over friendly territory (1). I have managed to land most times, and have kept my undercarriage intact only once.

I've chalked up about another 12-15 hours flight time in the process. It has been interesting watching the evolution of my skills. Initially I had trouble even staying with my formation, let alone effectively contributing to the squadron's mission. Once I managed to stay close to friends, I found that I was doing my best just to avoid being shot down. After about five missions, I was able to start occasionally putting gun sights onto opponents. Most recently, I was able to jump a zero who was stalking a friend.

I have now evolved to using 'trim' controls to maintain flight in all but dogfight situations (when I revert to the radical maneuvers of the joystick). In the last couple missions, I haven't overheated my engine.

So, progress.

What do you know?

You may recall that in a recent post I mentioned (half jokingly) that it might be a good time for my household to upgrade computers so that I'd be able to fly online with 'IL-46', the latest addition to the series of WWII combat flight simulators which began with 'IL-2'. I made the comment in the belief it would take several months for first the decision and then accumulation of money (we're not a house that lives on credit).

Well what do you know? In the past week we were made an offer we couldn't refuse, and are now proud possessors of a fairly new Pentium 4 machine with attached accessories! It makes flying Pacific Fighters a smoother operation (not that that's helped my success ratio very much) and has eased up the load on our workhorse computer.

So now the push is on to get the skills up to standard quicker, then time the online arrival to be either very soon, or when the next game in the series is released (believe it will focus on Battle of Britain).

Saddest thing generally at present which affects my gaming existence? Fact that I have been extremely under the pump at work and will now have a couple hours extra travelling time each day for a few months. Equals less time or energy for gaming...

Fighter tactics

I'm still flying Pacific Fighters whenever I have the opportunity. I guess I've averaged around an hour a day over the last couple of weeks. It is a very difficult game to master on anything beyond 'basic' level. I haven't even mastered the simple missions I have set up for training purposes.

At present I have flown a selection of missions over the 'Pacific Islands' map. Each mission involves me flying a lone P40E RAAF Kittyhawk against some marauding jap bombers; 'Bettys', 'Vals' and 'Kates'. I generally set the bombers as a pair to come in and am flying out to meet them at about 1500m at scenario start.

Although I haven't set the game to disallow outside-of-cockpit views, I don't use them as a matter of discipline (with the exception of checking to check the extent of damage to my plane). As a consequence, in about 1/3 of my missions I lose the opposition and can't find them again.

In the remaining two thirds of games I generally damage or shoot down at least one of the bombers, sometimes both of them. Despite the fact that my reading tells me that the rear gunners on the Kates and Vals shouldn't be a problem, I find them as destructive as the rear cannon of the Bettys. I must be staying relatively stationary for too long.

Rarely I've shot down both the opposition and survived myself. Twice, without incurring damage.

Once I've upped the odds further, a slow process, I'll start taking on fighters. Once I can consistently knock them out of the sky, I'll be ready for online combat. I think that's still a while away.

At present I am tying together basic control of my plane with the plans necessary to put my guns onto the enemy for long enough to do him serious damage. Thus, situational awareness (not that good, as reflected by fact that I lose opposition about a third of the time) ties together with knowledge of my plane's capabilities relative to opponents, and the skills necessary to co-ordinate tasks so as to combine these elements of knowldege to put me there more often than he can cope with. This is tactics. In the fluid environment of real time air wargre, where the action happens in intense periods lasting no more than three seconds interspersed with maneuvering against a maneuvering enemy, tactics are bloody hard to master.

Just as well I enjoy it!

Painting Philosophy

When painting c20th figures, I have avoided getting too specific with the historically correct paintjobs. The reason is simple. I like to choose my figures so that I can play the widest variety of scenarios possible. Thus, I paint my units so that they 'appear' okay, have a certain level of uniformity, and contain information which is useable in different ways in the scenario.

Thus, for my spanish civil war militia, I have painted them in 'sets' of company sized units. Each 'set' of a certain type (eg. forage cap uniform) is distinct from similar sets, and as a group they are distinguishable from other collections of sets (ie I can make up a battalion of companies that are each distinct from each other, yet all the battalion's units areidentifiable as such). I do this through judicious use of colour selection and coding. Thus, B Company will share the chocolate brown colour with other units of the same battalion but will have it only on their trousers while A Company might only have it on their blouses, and C Company on their helmets. If no other battalion uses chocolate brown in its paintscheme beyond the incidental, the colour identifies the battalion, where it is painted identifies the company. Yet I can call them nationalist, basque, communist or italian for any particular game.

The game is the thing.

It takes a bit of forethought but if properly done allows you to have games set in a large variety of scenarios with at least vaguely correct looking units, without having to paint up more than is needed.

Tigers by the Tale

Who hasn't heard of the Tiger tank? Rushed into service in 1942, it saw action on all fronts from the deserts of Africa, the scrub of Tunisia, the snow of the eastern front, the orchards and urbanity of Western Europe. Heavily armoured and equipped with the feared 88mm gun, Tiger tanks could and did shoot it out with whole formations of lighter allied vehicles.

As a kid, when we gamed with 1/72 scale figures and Charles Grant's rules, the Tiger tank always brought a shudder to the opposition on its arrival. Playing 6mm WWII with friends in my twenties, same result. Playing Squad Leader on the board, or East Front II on the computer, same result.

Overly heavy in weight because of its thick armour, overly high profile, underpowered, the vehicle was plagued by breakdown and poor performance in all areas except that which really counted in tactical engagement (firepower and armour protection).

Simon of Iron Mitten wonders what paint job his (presumably Western Europe front) tigers should get. I believe that a basic olive green, with disruptive markings in red brown should do the trick. Late in the war, dark grey also used for disruptive colours. Should it be the same pattern as other vehicles in the collection? A matter of taste in my belief - historically units were painted with what was on issue at the time they got (re)painted. Thus, I'd paint with different but related scheme to (say) the Mk IV company or the Jagdpanzer platoon. Less monotonous to the eye in the long run, allow for easier identification if using a smaller scale.

Hope that helps (another weekend here of 40'C plus)...

Pacific Fighter Fun

I've been spending a bit of time with the WWII flightsim 'Pacific Fighter' recently. This is the game that was lost but then was found (in an odd box in an odd place where it rested since we moved six months ago). My goal is to become a competent enough flier to make the most of it when I finally (hopefully) work out how to play realtime online.

At the moment this little project of mine thus proceeds on two fronts, off and on line. Offline, I have put in about 7 hours of actual 'flying time' this past week, videoing as I go. Haven't even progressed to simple dogfights yet, have occupied myself flying Kittyhawks on simple bomb and strafe runs to get the hang of the plane with the full flight model the system uses. Not easy. Love it.

Online, I have downloaded all of the various patches to make sure my copy of this 2004 game is fully up to date, and then tried to locate a server that plays Pacific Fighters. Seems that there are aussie flight communities that play with the next in line game of this 'IL2' series of simulations (IL '46), but that requires a DVD drive which our computer doesn't have. Maybe time to upgrade?

More on it later, time for another bomb run!

Playing Pacific Fighter while we swelter

It hit 42'C again today, hot enough that there's little to do but keep having a quick dip between breaks. In the last 24 hours we've had ten people jump in, all of whom would normally be in for at least a simple game (eg. Pass the Bomb, Guillotine, cards). But it's just been too goddam hot. How much worse will it get if global warming gets away from us, which is what the UN scientists think it has already done?

So I've got some flying hours up on Pacific Fighter, though must say it's still a bit of hit and miss for me. It would be good to join a squadron and fly online sometime. Sadly, neither my pilot nor computer skills are quite up to the challenge yet. So I'll return to all those online flight manuals, get my skills up offline while I work out exactly what I'll need to do to play online.

Ye old miniatures look like they'll have to wait the passing of this other fad before they get the attention they deserve.

Hibernation

We're going through a warm summer at the moment, with long evenings and lots of time lounging around on balcony, under pergola or in pool. I've lost the only game I've had much of an inclination to play in the last month (Pacific Fighters, dogfight computer game) so there hasn't been much to do with gaming going on.

I had however thought of beginning to get things prepared to put on maybe a series of three Spanish Civil War games this coming autumn, snapshots based on the Guadalahara battles. Battle 1 would feature the Italian CTV attack through the wooded hills, battle 2 would feature the stalemate reached as the Internationals first block and then start probing the Nationalists, battle 3 would feature the Republican counter attack.

One thing I've been upto recently which will have some influence on future games is read some legal history stuff set set through the times of the English Civil War and the Protectorate. It's reignited my interest in the period again, perhaps I'll start doing something like a 'house divided' campaign (thinking if it could transact over the internet at strategic, operational and political levels, with simple DBM style battles played out at will when required).

We'll see...

Happy New Year - 2007!

Have a good one!

My Rant about Big Brother on Blogger

To see what I think about big brother on blogger, click here.

Continuing Roman Influences

The Senate, (Simon - Iron Mitten)

There's a bit of Rome going on in my life at present. The above drawing is one of the series of illustrations by Simon over at Iron Mitten. I've characterised the fellow who is lecturing his colleagues as Lucius Plaudicus, someone whose character is similar to Cato (though not as asetic). The campaign behind Simon's blog looks like a good set up. Worth regular visits (which is why it's on my 'links' section).

Other bits of Rome intruding on my daily life at present are the continuing saga of Rome:Total War. I am still playing Scipio, and it is now about 203 bc. I have despatched Carthage and Numidia, and am presently at serious war with Pontus in the asian peninsula. Not an easy game, all my leaders becoming aged and all my cities having steadily declining levels of public order.

Which brings me to the last big roman incfluence at present - the tele series 'Rome' on chanel 9. I watched my first episode last night, which is when Caesar has bribed the auger to pronounce his actions as 'Dictator' (spending the whole treasury of the city in a manner to further his popularity with the people and his control over the machinery of government) wholesome, as well as his marching with his army into the city (something that went against the ancient custom keeping the military away from the city). I liked what I saw, but doubt it would make much sense to someone who isn't up on their roman history (I got much of mine from Colleen McCulloch's series of Rome books) or who hasn't watched it religiously from the first episode.

Gaming as History

A comment on my last post made me reflect a little more about what it is I get out from gaming (in the aforementioned comment, Simon points out a link between historical wargaming and the study of history). I most fully concur.I've noticed a couple things along these lines during my own experiences over the years.

My interest in military history preceded my wargaming. I was ten when I started to immerse myself in Christopher Hibbert's 'Battle of Arnhem', it was from there that my knowledge of WWII traces. I was 11 when I came across the concept of miniatures wargaming (Charles Grant's 'Battle', discovered almost by random at the local library).

Making a scenario as 'historical' as is practical adds to the experience of playing the game. Thus, when we recreated classic WWII battles such as the airborne attack on Plimsole Bridge in the (Sicily campaign), the initial assault on Stalingrad, or the fiasco at Malame (Crete) in 6mm - the game came readycast with various roles that each of the players could switch into, adding a 'moral compass' to the simulation.

Thus, at Plimosole, the player who was responsible for Colonel Frost's battalion at the Bridge not only played with valorous troops in a very gritty situation, but had the heightened dimension whilst playing of knowing that real men had had to survive just such a situation as he was presented with, except for real. Thus, the derring-do of his model men was prevented from retreating into farcical make believe by the sobering fact that it had actually happened something like this in real life.

By making the game more real, past history itself becomes (to some extent) experienced.Of course, the whole thing could be trivialised by looking at it as 'playing war', with the insidious effect of trivialising what is a great and tragic dimension of the human experience. Gamers that do this generally run out of thrills fairly quickly, or are so much into their own infantile egos that they become justly labelled 'freak' fairly quickly. But, they can do the hobby's image a power of harm with their worship of war never-the-less.Fear of being mistaken for one of the war worshippers itself acts as a brake on some other more mature gamers, preventing them from prosetylising the hobby as much they would if they didn't fear being mistook for a warjunkie (as I said, wargamers were well represented in this milleniums largest anti war marches).

Another danger sometimes is that, recognising the reality which formed the historical basis of a game's design, one can be sickened by it to the point of not playing the game again. This is what has happened in 'a near run thing'. I have had friends not play the excellent Avalon Hill boardgame 'Geronimo' (very inovative and balanced game of the white man's invasion of the 'west' in the the 19th century in America) because it is too historical, makes it too easy to realise the truth of what occurred, too likely to make you feel physically ill.Overkill on the history, you might say.

More later...

Square the Circle - Myself as Commander

I have just read the posting last entered on a near run thing (a blog I have continued to visit in the hope it keeps the breath of life). It speaks of the existential sickness that can strike a wargamer when they think long and hard about what it is they are 'simulating' - the revulsion at the abstract enjoyment as it builds itself upon historical tragedy. Rob, of A Near Thing, dealt with it by getting rid of his historicals, and venturing out in a smaller way with fantasy/sci-fi stuff. Good on him, hope he keeps on gaming.

From my own experience in my twenties, I remember also going through this 'phase' in my moral development. It lead to a several year hiatus with gaming generally, and then a remergence via a long term fantasy role playing campaign. From there, it wasn't too far before I was introduced to 6mm historical miniatures. And here we are now.

I remember playing the first of my 6mm games, I played the german in a simulation of the 'fourth' DDay beach. It was at a meeting of the South Australian Historical Wargaming Society. I remember thinking about the realities of what I was doing, and wanting to punch out several SS worshipping wargamers who had also been roped in.

As the game progressed, however, I started seeing the game as being more about myself as 'commander', and realised that the commander in 'real life' would have had less contact with the front than I had in the game. I started looking at the decisions I was making as being about minimising casualty while achieving objective, something one has to do when you have no other choices. Far better to get some idea of the mentality needed than to remain ignorant. The experience also led to quite an interest in strategy.

Of course, what made me extra proud as a wargamer was to see so many faces I first saw at that wargaming exhibition on the huge anti war march which Adelaide turned out prior to the present gulf war (over 100,000 marched, the city is about 1,000,000).

Somehow, those of us who have these vital human sensitivities have to square the circle. If we can't, it's not the hobby's fault.