August 11th 1940. The BEF were licking their wounds and all eyes turned West to the Emerald Isle in Hitler’s War room. Operation Sealion would conclusively finish the British once and for all. First the Luftwaffe must simply remove the air threat so Air Superiority could be maintained for shipping and transportation of the Invasion forces. Thus began what would be know as the Battle for Britain. The Luftwaffen focus initially on Radar installs and Port facilities to weaken the British defence and slow re supply from the USA, and anti sub activity.
August 11th was a cloudy day, with light rain and mild winds. The 41st and 222nd squadrons were patrolling from sector 6/11, Dover.
In 7/11 Eastbourne, Spitfires roam looking for trouble. 1/11 near Portsmouth radar catches a false signal. Spitifres and Hurricanes are protecting Beachy Head.
The 234rd and 609th are up and patrolling for Middle Wallop. Eastbourne and Brighton have the 610th ,501st, 111th and 54th guarding the skies also.
A raid card is drawn first Rochester then Northampton, then Southampton. South Hampton is quickly categorised as a major raid (+2 for Detection!)) we roll a 4 for detection and this ends up with a Early Warning and poor Intel [By taking 50% (1/2 on cloudy weather) of the OCV[Observer Corp Value] (1) + 4 for the Radar nodes and 2 for the Raid size we end up with a 11, thus the Early warning and Poor Intel]. This means that the Air Command must allocate forces before seeing the size of the enemy. Not know what we are doing we allocate only one of the possible additional formations to the intercept.
First Blood:
The size of the approaching enemy force is disturbingly large. The Spitifres and Hurricanes are immediately engaged by a swarm of Me 109’s. Which while effective fighters are mismatched against the Spits!
Tune in soon for the Hunter results, and Bombing Run. Please consider subscribing or liking the posts. For no reason other than it makes my day 😉
Related articles
- Spitfire dig team heads to Burma (bbc.co.uk)
- Duxford war museum’s Spitfire work ‘preserving history’ (warhistoryonline.com)
- Late Spitfire pilot helps save Battle of Britain control tower where wartime classic The First of The Few was filmed (warhistoryonline.com)
I have the Decision Games version on my gaming table now and hope to learn it soon.