More Flying in the Friendly French Skies

For our 'Old Guys" Thursday get together last week, I brought over my Wings of War/Wings of Glory WW1 biplanes for some fun dogfighting.  We divided into Allied and Central Powers sides and each of the four players chose two planes, without any consideration of whether they would actually have been in the air at the same time.  I acted as umpire until one of the Central Powers players had to leave to attend to a business conference on Zoom (bah!!!).

Allied Powers:  Russ chose a pair of Nieuport 28s while Steve chose a pair of Sopwith Camels.

Central Powers:  Jay chose a Fokker Dr-1 and a D-VII while Ed chose a Fokker Dr-1 and an Albatros D-III.

We used my new Cigar Box aerial battle mat which, to my eye, looked really good.

After a couple of turns maneuvering for advantage, the action began:

In the distance, Russ and Jay go at each other while close-up Steve and Ed start to get tangled up.

Russ' pair of Nieuport's try to get on the tail of Kempt's Dr-1.

The Red Baron and a Camel (Snoopy maybe) go head to head while the Albatros wanders around.  It was about this time that Steve lost his first Camel, shot down by the Albatros.

Sometime later, Russ lost his first Nieuport to Ed's Dr-1 (Red Baron) and gets Kempf's Dr-1 on the tail of his remaining Nieuport with the Fokker D-VII right ahead.  Steve's remaining Camel is on fire and trying to stay clear.

From a different angle, Ed's Albatros and Dr-1 are looking for targets.  About this time Ed had to leave so I took over his planes.

My Albatros and Steve's burning Camel go head-to-head while Jay's D-VII and Dr-1 also fire at the Camel.  Both the Albatros and the Camel are blown out of the sky.  Russ' remaining Nieuport is keeping his distance.

Another angle of the above action.  Russ tries to figure out what he will do next.

After this, Jay's D-VII, which was badly damaged fled the scene of the action with Russ' Nieuport in pursuit, followed by both of the Dr-1s.  But none of the planes could close into firing range so we ended the game.

Results:

Russ lost one Nieuport 28 and didn't manage to shoot down any German plane.

Steve lost both of his Camels but did manage to shoot down the Albatros.

Ed's Dr-1 shot down a Camel as did his Albatros (under my command) but the Albatros was lost.

Jay, while not shooting down anyone, also didn't have either of his planes shot down.

But the main thing was that we all had a blast!!