Guinea Pigs Remembered

The other day, I found myself taking my son to a plastic surgery appointment at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead.  I got unreasonably excited at this as this is the hospital famous for pioneering and treating so many RAF aircrew for burns and the use of plastic surgery during World War Two.  Such pioneering techniques and holistic treatment of those aircrew being led by Sir Archibald McIndoe.  Those that were treated formed themselves into the "Guinea Pig Club".  A name to reflect the entirely new nature of McIndoe's work.

So, it felt like a privilege to find the roll of honour board.

The Roll of Honour board, as you might expect in a hospital, obscured by trolleys.

The inscription along the bottom reads, "The above are members of the Guinea Pig Club, founded in 1941, for allied serving airforce men who were treated at the Queen Victoria Hospital during the Second World War."

The work of McIndoe and his team was about more than just treating the horrific burns and injuries suffered. They were also concerned with enabling the men to function and thrive despite their physical and mental scars.  In this respect they were ahead of their time in showing that injury and disability should be no barrier.

To this day, the hospital maintains strong links with military patients and continues to treat service men and women. They also support the training of military staff.

What an honour to spend a few moments reflecting on the work done by the Queen Victoria Hospital, McIndoe, and the "Guinea Pigs".

Tally-Ho Over The Channel

After being given some trainee pilot homework to do in the week preceding, a number of Rejects donned their goggles, gloves and parachutes to fly their Spitfires and Bf109s in the shed of war.

Dan, David and Stuart manned their Spitfire Mark 1a for RAF Fighter Command.

Lee, Steve and Surjit, still fresh from their victories over France, climbed into their 109Es to further the glory of the Luftwaffe.

The models were 1/285 scale from Heroics and Ros.

The rules used were my own.

The aim of the day was to establish a national winner, but more importantly the Ace in the pack.  To do this a number of scenarios were played out.  All pilots started as "officer" (from lowest to highest: sprog, officer, veteran and ace) and had to achieve kills, cause critical damage, earn points from a pilot test and improve their rank.

The first scenario saw an RAF section scrambled to intercept a formation over the Channel.  Each player had one aircraft to pilot.

To start the 109s are closest and to the right.  The Spitfires are furthest away and to the top left.

The 109s with their pilot cards at the start of the game.

The dials on the plane stands turn and show the aircrafts' current altitude.

There is one pilot card for each plane.  These hold vital information such as top speed (in hex), pilot skill (officers have a value of 1, veteran 2 etc.), minimum turning circle, climb and dive information.

On the Spitfire below the starting speed is 4, and the dial is at an altitude level of twelve.

The Spitfires and their pilot cards.

Both sides initially jockeyed for height and position.  They quickly realised that they had to find a balance between speed and manoeuvrability.  Pilots can tighten their turning circles by reducing speed, but can sacrifice height for speed.

Once engaged, my camera work reduced as the need for game flow and umpiring became the imperative... so pictures become few and far between.

The RAF soon let rip with their guns.  However, they seemed unable to do anything more than pepper wings and fuselage with holes.  Meanwhile, Dan found himself suffering engine damage that forced him to turn for home.  Anyone who gets shot down "respawns" as a sprog pilot.  

Dan's crippled plane.  He managed to limp home.  Fortunately, he had sufficient altitude to burn in order to build speed and escape.

With other critical damage suffered, the RAF were deemed to have lost this engagement.  However, no kills could be credited.

Between games all pilots had to take a test based on the homework they were given. This consisted of distance and aim of fire for pilots.  The Luftwaffe scored better than the RAF and Steve achieved the best individual total.

After lunch was scenario two.  Some cotton wool was laid down to represent clouds.  Altitude was assigned to them.  No spotted planes were on the table.  Each players' aircraft was represented by two blinds with the real one needed to be spotted before action could be taken towards it.

Most planes were quickly spotted.  Stuart, flying over a cloud, quickly come unstuck when targeted by Steve's 109.  Accurate and prolonged bursts damaged the fuel tank and set the Spitfire alight.  Stuart successfully bailed out to fly another day.

Stuart's plane ablaze and going down!

The aircraft were more scattered than in the first game.

This proved to be a very different game from the first.  The pilots played a cagey game of cat and mouse using the clouds to get out of trouble when threatened.

Lee taking his camera out for the action.  He has just found himself being tailed.

Throughout the day, the RAF enjoyed accurate firing but were unable to draw critical damage.

Lee's 109 being tailed by Dan's Spitfire.  Lee is desperately diving into the nearest cloud to get out of trouble as tracers flash past his cockpit.  Lee enjoyed incredible luck in surviving a number of encounters... he should be called "the cat" for all the lives he's used up.

Poor Dan then got into trouble himself as a bandit bounced his Spitfire, causing the tank to rupture.  Fortunately, he managed to bail out before being engulfed in the flames.

Dan's Spitfire ablaze.

Lee, then found himself the victim of Stuart's Spitfire, whose accuracy produced an explosive end to Lee's 109.  I have no photo of this as Lee rapidly removed the evidence, and the game ended at that point.

I had fun putting on and umpiring the games.  The clouds made the second game very different and more tactical.  It was pleasing to see how quickly all players used the tactics of the day - like dashing for safety in the clouds, seeking height for advantage, burning height to quickly build speed.

There was plenty of action.  Action Cards were used to spice up the game.  This enhanced the drama and led to some exciting exchanges as player sought to out do player in gaining or neutralising advantage.

The tally for the day was that the Luftwaffe had the best of both encounters.  It was not that they scored more hits it was that with good use of cards and some luck caused more critical damage and two kills.  The Ace of the day went to Steve with one kill, the most damage caused and points from the test.  Well done Steve.

I had a splendid day.  So much thinking, fun and decision making with so few models.

Bad Day For The Luftwaffe

Last night some Rejects gathered online for a little remote World War Two aerial combat.

Jonathan and Lee each piloted a BF109E.

Dan, Ray and Steve each controlled the sticks of their Spitfire 1A.

I was umpiring. We used my own rules to play out the engagement.

Unfortunately, I had little opportunity to take photos what with explaining the rules and trying to keep the action flowing.  So, just a couple of pictures.

Both Luftwaffe pilots in a dreadful situation by the end. Herr Freitag, having taken an engine hit is limping away. Alas, poor Lee has had to bail out of his burning machine over the Channel.

The circling RAF boys. There will be ground crews complaining about the damage to their aircraft.

All in all a very pleasant couple of hours. Plus, the rules seemed to work nicely.

Thanks lads for an enjoyable time.

Save the Factory - Aerial Dogfight

The Rejects got together for their regular Paint and Chat session via Zoom.  But this time we engaged in some dogfighting instead of painting.

Lee, Ian and Steve represented the RAF in their Spitfires.  Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe were piloted by David and Ray.  The German bombers were controlled by the umpire.

The starting positions were that the RAF were vectored in on some raiding DO17s with the mission to stop them from reaching the beer factory.  The BF109 top cover were close at hand, but could appear from any of the yellow markers.

All pilots started as experienced.  Their level could rise by getting kills.  However, it could drop if killed.  Killed pilots would reappear at one of the yellow markers.

The winners would be individual with the most points (2 per kill) and the side with the most points.

The starting positions.

Starting position as seen from behind the Spitfires.

...and seen from the DO17s.

At this point my ability to umpire and take photos utterly collapsed.

What I can say is that poor Ian kept on getting in the way of teutonic weaponry and was shot down twice.  Once by a bomber and another time by Ray.

By the end of the game the dogfighting was intense with Lee and a bomber damaged.

Final positions of the combatants, except one...

Steve had managed to leave the dogfight and concentrate on the raiding DO17s.  He successfully shot one down, but failed to score on the others before they dropped their bombs on the Stella Artois Beer Factory.

Steve desperately trying, but rolling bad dice.

An enjoyable time seemed to be had by all.

With 2 points for a kill and modifiers according to finishing skill level, Ray (Luftwaffe) and Steve (RAF) were joint first with 3 points each.

Ian was last with -1 !!

Overall, the Luftwaffe won with 3 points to 2.  The German fighters did their job of protecting the bombers.

Aerial Shoot-Out

Rather bizarrely, two years after the the first covid lockdown in the UK I decide to host a remote game via Zoom.

The Rejects hold a weekly "Paint and Chat" Zoom get together, and this afforded me the opportunity.

I chose to do something very simple as a debut.  What I did not want was to become bogged down with handling technology as well as dealing with formations, wheeling etc. of troops.  I also wanted to limited the dice rolling and factors.  So, we did a little World War Two aerial combat.

Only three of the Rejects could make it - Lee, Steve and David.

The rules were very simple, not very nuanced, but enjoyable (from PZ8).  Certainly not the rules I would use if we were playing around a table.  Because of the speed of play, I decided to base it as a series of combats with each player accumulating points and experience.

I wanted this to be more fun than historical.  So, each player had a Spitfire and the play was basically a "shoot-out" in the form of a league.  The winner would be determined by the number of kills and survived sorties.
3 points for a kill
1 point for survived a sortie
In the event of a draw the winner would be the higher ranked player.

I figured the games would go quickly and we'd get in between 4 and 6 sorties.  I was soon disabused of this notion.  I have never encountered such a careful, cagey set of players.  There was good banter, dynamic aerobatics and considerable thinking and pondering.  I guess that this is normal whenever hex movement is introduced alongside a third dimension.  In the end, we got three games in.

The fight is on.  The smoke from Lee's plane shows that he has already been hit and is dangerously damaged.

Birds eye view... a very high bird that is!

David is desperately trying to escape Lee's attention.

David's only hope is to try to survive the sortie by reaching the Stella Artois of Safety.

The results
Steve got an early kill but was quickly shot down in turn.  One kill, so 3 points.
David survived one sortie and got a kill, so 4 points.
Lee after being killed in the first sortie become absolutely deadly with three kills in total, surviving one sortie and reaching the honour of an average pilot gained him 10 points.

The rules worked perfectly in this setting.  I enjoyed the occasion, and the decision to keep it simple with rules and hex movement really meant that the focus was on the game not on the technology or my attempts to adapt to gaming with it.

Next time I may try using a more complex set of rules which I think may have some merit for remote Zoom games.  Again, not a set I'd use at a live table, but Check Your Six with it's movement plotting may have some potential in the Zoom arena.  Not sure, just mulling it over.

The mind is pondering over the possibilities.