The Russian Polikarpov I-16 with a Bf 109 'Emil'
Yesterday evening at the club the game of choice was another foray into the skies courtesy of Angels 20 and the rapidly growing aircraft collection of Mr.Fox. The skies over Russia during 1941 was the setting and saw three Bf 109s pitted against a pair of Yak 1s and a pair of Polikarpov I16s. The German invaders featured an ace and two average pilots whilst the Soviets had a pair of veterans in the Yaks and a pair of average pilots in the I16s. The game proved to be surprisingly tactical and when the action had concluded the Russians had lost a Yak and had one of the I16s crippled whilst the Germans had a hit on the ace (scored, he mentions modestly, by one of the I16s - I was driving both for my sins) and not a lot else besides.
The I16 was a great plane when it came out in 1933 but was hopelessly outclassed in 1941 in just about every area of performance. I fully expected to be turned into so much confetti at the hands of the marauding Emils in fairly short order but managed to survive their less than tender mercies with a fairly substantial amount of luck!
As ever it was great fun to play and many thanks to all that took part and to Mr. Fox for his usual umpirical omnipotence and also for the use of his toys. On which subject....
A pair of 109 Fs - I plan to add a further brace as all my aircraft for this game will be organised in flights of four.
I took delivery today of the first two of four Bf 109 Fs which followed on from the E series. Of all the 109s this version was the truest to the vision of Willy Messerschmitt's design - especially in respect of the wings which in this version did not mount any weapons. Everything was fired either on or through the engine cowling. Historically the F was considered to be the best of all the 109s to fly and looking at the card for it it looks a beauty and I can't wait to get one in the gaming air, so to speak.
In common with my other models in this collection I shall be giving these a bit of a repaint although these particular models are actually not too bad and will only need minimal work. Mr Fox has already ordered some 1/100th scale waterslide decals for use with his models and I shall look forward to seeing what they are like and how he gets on with them.
One of these will certainly be painted to represent the mount of Hans-Joachim Marseille (Hans-Joachim_Marseille) of whom I shall certainly want to learn more about if the Wiki entry is anything to go by!
The paint job above should be easy enough to replicate but we shall see - it will be fun trying in any event!
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