A Little 1948 AIW After Action

Initial Egyptian Setup

I have these lovely painted planes for the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, but the Rob W. scenarios I have from Wargames Illustrated are all rather small in scope, which prevents me from hosting moderately sized games at the local store. So I decided to just throw a dogfight together to allow me to get these birds on the table. Of course, I also wanted to show off my new gaming mat, so here we have AIW over Pearl Harbor!

And the Israeli deployment

The planes I decided to use, so nicely painted by Kevin at Miscellaneous Miniatures, were four Spitfire Mark Vs and two Macchi M.205s for the Egyptians, facing off against two Spitfire Mk.IXs and two Avia S.199s for the Israelis. I had each player roll randomly for aircrew quality, the Arabs having a one in four chance for a skilled pilot, and the remaining pilots as green. For the Israelis, there was a one in four chance for a veteran, the rest defaulting to skilled. The results? Six green Egyptians against one veteran S.199, and the remaining Israelis skilled. I was thinking this might not be a good day for the Egyptians.

The Israelis sweep in from the Egyptian ten o'clock

Each side closed in, but early in the fight an S.199 was shot down, odds increasing to 2:1 for the Egyptians. For several turns to follow, a lot of dancing around occurred, and even a conga line was formed at one point. The veteran Israeli, flying the S.199, lined up an Egyptian Spitfire at close range, hitting the Spit. This occurred three times with the same antagonists, but the Arab's dice were "lucky" as all three times double sixes were rolled, fighting off engine or airframe damage, but resulting in lucky hits. In every case the lucky hits (two engine fire chances, two panics, and one chance for a fuel tank leak) were ably handled by the Egyptian. From now on, that plane will be given a veteran aircrew!

The skilled Avia S.199 takes the sole engine hit of the game

Two Egyptian Spitfires were lost, one which had declared a shot at an approaching plane, and rolled the dice. The plane happened to be one of the Egyptian Macchis! Fortunately the shot was a miss, but that player will always be reminded of that faux pax. 

The Israeli Spitfire heading for home before calling it a night

The veteran Avia, having rolled many doubles himself, was down to heavy machineguns. One of the two Israeli Spitfires was downed, and the other one ran out of ammo. At this point it was one against four as the Israeli Spit that had no ammunition left to engage dove for the deck. The game was called at this point. Both sides lost two aircraft, but points leaned towards the Egyptians, and certainly a moral victory for the Arabs.

Planes are Raiden, mat is Deep Cut Studio.