Balls of Fire

The Ryan FR-1 Fireball (MSD Games) and the Kawasaki Ki-100 (Raiden)...I've had these planes painted for some time, but finally got around to adding magnets so I can host an upcoming game using these oddball planes. The scenario is set in September 1945, and it assumes that the Japanese have yet to surrender, and that the Ryan Fireball, a hybrid piston/jet plane, and historically assigned to VF-66 (the Firebirds), makes it into action. The Firebirds were commanded by John F. Gray, an ace with 8.25 kills to his credit. Gray selected experienced men to join VF-66, including another ace, Kenneth Hippe who had five kills during the war. Overall the pilot quality of the Firebirds was very good with just a couple of new pilots.

On the other side is the Kawasaki Ki-100, which was developed from the Ki-61 (Tony). Both the Fireball and the Ki-100 (known as the Goshikisen) were fairly close in performance from what I could gather, but the Japanese will have a bit of an armament advantage as the Ki-100 has a heavier armament than the Fireball (two modern cannon and two heavy machineguns vs. four heavy machineguns). Also, the Japanese unit that did use the Ki-100, the 244th Sentai led by Teruhiko Kobayashi, was considered to be an exceptional organization, so the Americans do not have a great advantage in pilot skill that one would normally expect at this stage of the war. 

The scenario is a straightforward "shoot 'em up" with four Fireballs facing off against six Ki-100s. An after action report will follow once I host the first game using these rare birds. In the meantime you can grab the updated scenario by clicking the Balls of Fire link on the upper right of this page (the file is housed on Google Drive and is in pdf format).