I completed the first mission for my night fighter command play test games and it was a pretty nasty outcome for both the RAF and the Luftwaffe. After an initial attack on a Do-17 last time, the crew managed to regain contact and fired another three second burst, hitting the engine, fuselage and tail and starting a fire. The Do-17 failed to evade and also missed with the tail gunners return fire, which is hardly a surprise. The Beaufighter then closed in for the coup de grace but missed and ran out of ammunition, resulting in the AI having to reload the cannon magazines, although the bomber also failed to evade or hit the fighter again. However, the subsequent three second burst of cannon fire scored a direct hit and blew the bomber out of the sky, with a confirmed kill from the observer corps in Yeovil.
The GCI now vectored the crew to a He-111 over Weymouth, which had already been damaged by flak on a raid over Bristol and was now attempting to get back across the channel. This time, the AI operator initially failed to maintain contact but with help from the GCI managed to get back into position, eventually guiding the fighter onto the bombers six o'clock. A three second burst inflicted two more hits on the bomber but didn't cause any serious damage, with a second and final burst missing completely, despite the bomber failing to evade or spot the attacker. With no ammunition left, the crew set course for Middle Wallop but a nasty overshoot on landing left the aircraft in a wreck and the pilot and AI operator in hospital for a month with some serious wounds, the pilot having smashed his head on the gunsight and now with a -1 spotting penalty as a result.
I enjoyed the game and it picked up pace after a slow start. I was lucky to shoot down the Do-17 which proved to be a tough customer but also really unlucky not to destroy the already damaged He-111, which only had an Evade of 1, a Spot of 1 and reduced Attack of 2. The crash landing at the end was also a pain in the bum as I will now have to rest the crew for a month, the pilot only needing two weeks to recover but the AI operator being more seriously injured. For the next sortie, they will get a new aircraft and will be operational in early June 1941, so there will be less chance of the 10/10 cloud cover that made spotting a bit more difficult and enabled the bombers to evade.
In terms of the system, I was thinking that the GCI could do a task roll to get a fix on a bomber each turn, rolling a GCI Skill vs Difficulty 1 roll, so that the game could move along a little faster. If the roll failed, the Beaufighter would advance 1D3 sectors onwards then contact the GCI for a new vector, with another GCI roll made to get a fix on a bomber. That way, the Beaufighter would move around the track a bit more and still get a chance to intercept a bomber at least once in the game. From what I've read about early GCI usage, there were occasions when night fighter crews failed to intercept due to ground controllers not vectoring them on to the target effectively or not being able to identify and locate enemy bombers with accuracy. I'll have to play a few more games to see if this works out.
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