By Sensei Lane

Another refight of the Luftwaffe attack on Scapa Flow on 16th March 1940. I played it this time at Firestorm Games but again used the “Scramble for Britain” version of the “Wings at War” ruleset.

This time I played the British forces while James Churchill was the crafty Germans. We “discovered” a rule which I had missed previously which allows defensive fire from the twin engine German bombers to be thrown for before the fighters fire. This didn’t make too much different but it felt right.

However the Hurricanes of No. 3 Squadron RAF, performed poorly. Each of them threw a one early on – Squadron Leader Godden being the first to do so despite being an Ace so could re-roll his first score (two ‘ones’) – so were soon out of ammo. To cap it all one was shot down by a Ju 88 which had jettisoned its bombs and was pursuing the by now unarmed fighter. Another Hurricane was hit by another bomber, and lost control spinning into the sea.

This time the Sea Gladiators went for the Ju 88’s shooting down two and losing three of their number damaged. Two of them too ran out of ammo.
The Germans lost four Ju 88 bombers shot down and two damaged (one hit by AA fire from HMS Nelson) with one He 111 damaged and jettisoning its bombs. The Ju 88’s scored five dive bombing hits on HMS Nelson and then the Heinkel bombers plastered Hatston Naval Air Station with nine hits and destroyed two aircraft on the ground.

Another excellent game. I have just taken delivery of various airfield buildings, hangars, control towers etc from Brigade Models which I shall use to model several RAF fighter stations as targets for the Luftwaffe on Eagle Day and onwards in the Battle of Britain. Think of Kenneth More and Susannah York sharing a trench in the film “Battle of Britain” as the bombs rain down.