Okay. Here we go.
This is the northwest of France and the southeast of England. The thick black lines in England denote group boundaries; the one facing off against me is 11 Group. In the far west of 11 Group's area of responsibility is the Supermarine factory at Woolston (the blue dots in the corner of Sector A).
The yellow dots are radar stations: Chain Home, the A-shaped icons, and Chain Home Low, the ones with the things on top.
Here's a map of the coverage. If I knock out the radar stations, they'll be replaced by mobile units with significantly shorter coverage ranges.
The green dots are airfields. The vast collection of them on that bend in the French coast house Luftflotte 2, based around Calais. Further south, the airfields in Normandy house Luftflotte 3.
The RAF is currently a stronger fighter force than the Luftwaffe; our commitment hasn't started in earnest yet, and I don't have the forces to be all that tricky.
The RAF organizes itself by squadron, while the Luftwaffe's unit-on-the-map is the Gruppe (group). It normally comes to three or four Staffeln (squadrons) of ten or twelve aircraft each. I have ten or twelve squadrons of fighters (counting the Me 110s as fighters is maybe a bit charitable, but I'm in a good mood), plus about 375 level bombers of various types and 100 Stukas.
Like I said, that isn't enough for serious misdirection yet, so for the morning phase, I'm just going to hit a convoy.
Stukas, as precision-attack aircraft, are well-suited to the task of bombing cargo ships. I order up two Staffeln each of Stukas and Bf 109s, and the raid marker appears on the map.
One Staffel of Bf 109s (from II./JG 51 [you know, see the bottom of this update for the German organization tutorial]) has Free Escort orders, which is to say that they're supposed to be well above the bombers, ready to pounce on any attackers, while the other is to fly attached (read: closer) escort.
None of that goes to plan. II./JG 51 hits its rendezvous point well before the Stukas are there, and proceeds on ahead to the target area, where it runs into a patrolling squadron of Hurricanes. I hop into a 109.
Apparently, I'm able to leverage the 109's performance edge sufficiently to be obviously superior to Hurricanes.
Climb and acceleration are my major advantages, and two of the Hurricane's weaknesses. I slice through the dogfight a couple of times, taking shots where the opportunity presents itself. One pass nets me a lucky cockpit shot from long range with my machine guns, and that Hurricane plunges into the sea.
I find myself on the tail of another, who had been hassling another 109 just before. He pulls up, which is the wrong way to escape from me. A long burst into his tail sees him into the Channel, too.
After that, though, I find myself low on cannon ammunition and down to a half-tank of gas. More worryingly, I see a ton of Hurricanes and now a few Spitfires, compared to only a small handful of fellow 109s. I turn due east, skirting the cloud base, and return to France. I crash on landing, which was a common issue with the 109 (something I might want to practice).
The close escorts also fail to rendezvous with the bombers, probably owing to the long trip the bombers had from Luftflotte 3 territory and possibly some ineptitude on my part. The close escorts do engage an RAF squadron, however, shooting down a few of them against two losses. The Stukas fail to find the main body of the convoy, and claim two ships damaged. Two of the Stukas were damaged, but none were destroyed.
The 109s fared less well. II./JG 51 lost eight aircraft of the twelve that flew, an unfortunate tally. Altogether, the two Staffeln of Bf 109s claimed 14 aircraft against nine losses; the over-claiming effect leads me to suspect something like a 1-1 loss ratio.
That wouldn't be bad, if I were hitting valuable strategic targets, but for a battle over the Channel, it's not the kind of result I wanted.
Fishbreath's personal kill tally: 2.
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Luftwaffe organization:
Jagdgeschwader/Kampfgeschwader/Sturmgeschwader (fighters/bombers/dive bombers): 100-120 aircraft, 3-4 Gruppen. Arabic numeral (e.g. JG 51)
Gruppe: 30-40 aircraft, Roman numeral (e.g. II./JG 51)
Staffel: 9-12 aircraft, Arabic numeral again (e.g. 4./JG 51, 5./JG 51, and 6./JG 51 would be II./JG 51's Staffeln).
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Topic: The End of the Beginning - Let's Play Battle of Britain II (Read 10363 times)