steve's blog

Played another game of Elusive Victory with Paul today. This time scenario EV9 Operation Rimonim – an Egyptian sortie to challenge IAF CAP over the northern Red Sea.

The game played fairly simply with Paul’s Egyptian MiGs (2 x 4 ship MiG-21 formations) flying to intercept my two four-ship Mirage IIICJ formations which idled to the East back over the Sinai and their friendly Hawk batteries.

As the MiG’s reached the Red Sea and turned to the south the Mirages reversed to head west and hit their afterburners. They pair of Mirage flights made a fast head on pass firing radar guided Matra’s at the MiGs, shooting down one MiG and damaging another (soon to be crippled by a mechanical failure random event).

The single MiG kill for no Israel loss was enough to ensure an Israeli victory, so the Mirages carried on past the MiGs and headed east at full speed to safety.

A further flight of Mirages sorted from Refidim to join the fray, but didn’t reach the fight in time along with an additional two Mirages which appears from a lucky random event roll.

Great fun .

Paul and I played out second game of Elusive Victory today.

I took the IAF and he  took the EAF in scenario EV6 Recon in Force.

Paul’s objective was to recon Mitla Pass with a pair of Fitters escorted by a eight MiG-21s. I had six Mirages to use to try to stop him.

It was a very intense game with planes from both sides being engaged by SAMs although the only SAM kill was a MiG-21 lost to a HAWK battery.

Two more MiG-21s and one Mirage were lost in dogfights as I attempted to stop the Fitters.

In the end the EAV scored 13 VP versus the 6 scored by the IAF resulting in a Significant Defeat for me.

A very good game and one that taught me the lesson (again) of concentrating on the objective – rather than engaging the escorts, I should have kept focused on the Fitters to prevent the recon.

Just got back from Paul’s in Arbroath and our first game of GMT’s Elusive Victory.

We played the EV4 Alert Five scenario, consisiting of a small Egyptian raid on Refiden. I took the Egyptians with two four ships of MiG-17s from Faid against Paul’s Mirage IIICs.

My raid took off, crossed the Suez Canal and headed straight for the target. As we crossed the Suez Paul scrambled a dummy flight followed a turn later by the real thing. He intercepted one of my flights, downing two aircraft and disrupting the remaining two who returned to base without attacking the target. My other flight brave the flak over the target causing slight damage to the runway at Refiden and safely returning home.

In the end it was classified as a defeat for the EAF.