Gotha! February 1917

However, I found it difficult to make realistic missions for them. They flew at night and although this can be made into a great mission it's difficult to imagine a "realistic" scenario with 40 scouts flying around, trying to shoot down bombers in the dark. It just didn't happen that way.

So I tried to look for daylight bombing scenarios. These did happen initially, but the accounts I found were of attacks on London and Paris and we just don't have these locations on the map (yet?) plus a round-trip would take hours and hours. This will definitely be fun for a special event, but not for an "ordinary" Vintage Mission event on Sunday.

Then I came across the following line on Wikipedia for the Gotha III: "It also saw use by Kagohl 2 on the Western Front, operating from Freiburg." I know, we have the Gotha V in RoF and not the Gotha III, but in fact these machines are quite similar in looks and performance.

So I started making a mission in the Verdun area and thought up a scenario where a flight of Gothas form up over Moncel-sur-Seille (a city I had added to the scenery earlier this year) on the German side and then head over to attack Nancy (also added now). I needed to know which units would have been flying in that area so I started looking for them and I also scanned one of my books "Groupe de Combat 12 'Les Cigognes' ". Imagine my surprise when I read the following paragraph:

'Meanwhile, on 23 January N26 had departed Cachy for Manoncourt-en-Vermois in the VIIIe Armée sector, as GC13 had already done. N3 and N103 made the move on the 29th, followed by N73 the next day. The Germans had recently been bombing the nearby city of Nancy, and the two groups' mission was to prevent further such attacks... Then, on 8 February, GC12 did what it had come there to do when a force of 15 twin-engined Gothas and seven fighters was reported crossing the lines at Moncel-sur-Seille at 1030 hrs. All the Storks scrambled, but it was Guynemer and Chainat who managed to intercept one of the big aeroplanes. Guynemer attacked from the rear and was met by heavy machine gun fire, but managed to score hits on both of the Gotha's engines. The bomber descended quickly, and soon after Guynemer and Chainat landed, a telephone call confirmed that the Gotha G III had crash-landed at Bouconville, and that its three-man crew, from Kaghol 2, had been taken prisoner. The bomber, riddled with 180 hits, was subsequently exhibited at La Place Stanislas Leczinski in Nancy.'

So there we have it, this Sunday's Vintage Mission! I took some liberties in adding fictional German airfields (there are none on the map!) and tuning the plane set a bit (none of the Jastas flew the Albatros DIII then, but I added a couple).

Plane set:

• • Entente: Nieuport 17, SPAD 7 150 hp and one SPAD 7 180 hp (Guynemer only), RE 8

  • Central: Gotha G III, Albatros DII and DIII, DFW CV (as escort two-seater)

Notes:

• • This map will run from sunrise to sunset (8 hrs) and then restart.

  • Both sides will be given orders through subtitles in regular intervals. One AI Gotha (recognizable by its Snake skin) will lead each wave and fly to one of the targets marked on the map. You can just form up on him and attack the same target.

  • Central bombers will only be available just before a raid starts to encourage flying in large formations. You will be warned 5 minutes before the air spawn will be activated again.

  • Use F12 (external cameras) to check damage done to the targets.