Alan Snider  - Sep 3, 2006 9:28 pm (#1366 Total: 1366)  

Solitaire gaming is crap, but I may have to learn to enjoy it.
http://www.stalag17wargames.com/ 

Panzerschreck #15: Raid on Schweinfurt 

GAMENIGHT, Sept 3/2006: Looks like I am slowly getting back on my horse
(heh). I punched the solitaire game contained in Panzerschreck #15,
"Raid on Schweinfurt". I decided to start with the historical raid of
August 17/1943, this allowed me to see how the system worked as well as
playing through a real life situation. It took away from the pure
randomness that can occur on any particular bombing run, but I always
like trying the historical first in any game that I play. 

I started off with 145 B-17's in my first wave headed to Regansburg, and
230 B-17's in the second wave headed for Schweinfurt. The first part of
the mission involves 'takeoff' and how many planes needed to turn back
due to various mishaps/mechanical failure ..etc. I lost a few planes in
each wave this way (each block of 20 bombers must be rolled for to
determine any losses). 

Then, the planes proceed to 'assembly', where they meet up with fighter
escorts...This is rolled for along with a weather drm (in this case
cloudy). From this dieroll the number and effectiveness of fighter
escorts is determined. Each wave of bombers is rolled for separately and
gets its' own FE factor (fighter effectiveness). The Regansburg run gets
4 FE, while the Schweinfurt run got 3 FE. 

At this point the player has the option to scratch the mission, but this
raises the success VP threshold to 45% (from 40%) to the next bombing
mission attempted. 

The next step is to determine the successfulness of the diversionary
missions. In my game, being historical, this was preset as having no
effect (no drm). 

The bombers and their escorts then run into German fighters whose
effectiveness is determined by the Luftwaffe aggressiveness table;
although in my game it was again a preset variable at "Very aggressive"
Yeow. For 60% of bomber run the escort fighters come into play and take
the damage if any, after that the bombers start being downed... I took
some heavy hits on both waves...rolling high and needing to roll another
d10 to assess losses. 

One then proceeds over the target area to face the flak/anti-aircraft
fire...This was another ugly bit of business...While I didn't lose as
many bombers to flak as I did to enemy fighters it still took a toll. 

Finally, one gets to unload the bombs on the target and roll for
effectiveness (as a percentage)... In this particular case, each block
of 10 surviving bombers gets a roll. I manage to get a total of 29% of
the total. There is a drm for weather over the target area as well. 

The last part of the bombing mission is braving various challenges
making it back home to England safely. Much is abstarcted on this table
including crash landings and fighter escorts. I lost a few more bombers
on the way back. 

Victory conditions go as follows: If you can destroy 40% or more target
damage and lose less than 10% of bombers that set out on the mission you
win. If you can achieve the 40% damage with 10% but not more than 19%
loss, the game is a draw. Any other result, the Germans win. 

My scant 29% damage was not even enough for even a draw, but my losses
were a respectable 12%. Cool little solitaire quickie (took me less than
a 1/2 hour to play).