INDIANS AND DINOSAURS VS. THE STEAM-POWERED 6 AND 7/8'S CAVALRY
On one side were the Indians, valiantly trying to defend their home against the white men who wanted their land and dinosaurs.
Saturday morning I ran a GASLIGHT Game. INDIANS AND DINOSAURS VS. THE STEAM-POWERED 6 AND 7/8'S CAVALRY On one side were the Indians, valiantly trying to defend their home against the white men who wanted their land and dinosaurs. On the other where the brave men of the 6 and 7/8's Cavalry, lead by the gallant (if a little headstrong) Colonel Armaggedon P. Fluster (no, the P. doesn't stand for Prettyboy). The Indians advanced in a broad front with a Horned One (with guiding Indians) spaced evenly across the battlefield. Lt. Johnson advanced quickly to seize the waterhole (the whole point of this battle) as regular cavalry and Mechanical Cavalry advanced behind him. But where was the pride of the Cavalry, the USLS Vicksburg? Broken down at the back as usual. It spent half the game trying to restart, failing, succeeding, then failing a sustain, and so forth. It's absence through much of the battle cost the Cavalry dearly in the end. Lt. Johnson bravely faced a third of the Indian forces. Using his machine pistol, with help from the Mechanical Cavalry he shotup one band of Braves. Could he survive the Horned One and the other band? Meanwhile, on the Cavalry right. Colonel Fluster and the Steam-Cycles took the hill, while a unit of cavalry deployed dismounted beside it. Lt. Johnson kept dropping savages with his gatling pistol, unconcerned about the other approaching band and Horned One. On the very left a squad of Cavalry and a band of Indians clashed in mounted combat. Oh the terrible slaughter on both sides! The Mechnical Cavalry managed to score one wound on the Red Horned One. On the right Colonel Fluster and Chief Rides Like the Wind engaged in one on one combat, while the charge by an Indian band fell short of the squad of dismounted troopers. Lt. Johnson drove off one band of Indians and, thanks to losing a guiding Indian from Johnson's deadly aim, the white Horned One wandered off. On the very left the clash of the Indians and Cavalry left the Indians holding the field while the Cavalry fled in disgrace. The red Horned One and it's guiding Indians smashed the Mechanical Cavalry, with the last trooper being attacked by Medicine Man Buffalo Skull (in the center). The victorious Indians on the very left charged the troopers in the middle. Johnson was cut off and facing two bands. Did he flinch? Never! Coolly he ignored the arrows falling all around him and gunned down two of the band nearest him (I've never seen so many misses and saves in a GASLIGHT game for one character). The white Horned One meandered around out of control. Finally, the Landship Vicksburg advanced. On the right the band of Indians was drivden off by accurate fire from the Troopers. Chief Rides Like the Wind, after an epic battle, felled Colonel Fluster, and was then gunned down by the Sergeant leading the Troopers. The yellow Horned One's charge fell just short on the now immobile Steam-Cycles, who luckily dropped two of the guiding Indians (on a 1-6 shots from extras hit the dino, 7-10 they hit the Indians guiding it). It promptly failed it's control roll, I mean was driven off by the massive fire of the gatlings, and wandered away from the hill, out of control. The Indians that had charged the Troopers in the center fled, but where replaced by the red Horned One and it's Indians. Despite a valiant attack by an un-named Trooper that wounded the red Horned One before he died, it crashed through to attack the Landship. Gatling rounds bounced off it's thick hide, as it smashed into it (doing 3 damage to it's Start, just what it needed). In desperation, Medicine Man Buffalo Skull charged Lt. Johnson, and in one mighty blow cut him down. Johnson would earn a posthumous Medal of Honor and his single-handed successful fight against over-whelming odds made a story told over and over again around Indian campfires. The red Horned One destroyed the gatling on the Landship, which promptly fled. While advancing towards the Steam Cycles it was dropped by a lucky shot from their gatlings (third and last wound). The remnants of the Indian bands gathered around Medicin Man Buffalo Skull at the waterhole. Leaderless and battered the surviving Cavalry forces withdrew. It was a good game. The high point was Lt. Johnson's stand. He lived a charmed life dodging or saving from everything two bands of Indians could throw at him, while dropping Indians with his gatling pistol. The low point was the Landship commanders bad die rolling. At two cards of a turn it still couldn't move forward until the very last, when it did little but get pounded on by a Dino. Oh well, that's GASLIGHT for you.
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About the only good thing in having your Gall Bladder taken out is you are stuck at home with nothing to do but read, watch movies, and paint. So I have taken the time to finish a couple of projects that have been hanging around on the workbench. The First is an Armored Steam Battle Suit ASBS (just a Warzone BauHaus I dropped a Kepi wearing head in and added a smokestack to). It's next to a 25mm Dixon soldier for scale. The other project I completed was converting a Mageknight Dwarven Steam Tank into a Steam Leviathan. The original model was OK, but I always thought the spikey roller in front to be a bit silly. Wouldn't it get stuck in the ground? I went with the Big Wheel style of armored vehicle, adding two sets of spoked metal tractor tires that I picked up from farm toy supply stores. That was a hassle in itself, I had to go to two different stores which is why the back and front wheels don't exactly match. Next to the same Dixon figure for scale purposes. I also added a couple of front mounted Gatling guns As far as GASLIGHT stats I'd treat it as a Leviathan.
Save 18 (I want +0 weapons to have some chance of hurting it. It will be hard enough to kill as it is) Speed 4 Start 16 Sustain 17 Spin 30 degrees Armorment 1. Large Smoothbore Breechloading Cannon (the pressures involved in a breechloading rifled cannon would be a bit much by ACW technology) Range 60, SRM +2, Radius 5 inches, Divide by 2, Takes one turn to reload. 2. Two Gatling guns (may not fire on same turn as cannon). Range 36, SRM -9, 3 Shots, Reload No Crew Sections 1. 5 Man cannon Crew Shoot 10(14) Scuffle 7 Save 3(8) Numbers in parentheses are for the Sargeant running the Crew Armed with Pistols 2. 5 man Black Gang (Stokers and Mechanics who keep the Levithan running) Shoot 7 Scuffle 9 Save 3(7) Numbers in parentheses are for the Head Engineer running the Black Gang. Hand-to-hand weapons only (shovels, wrenches, hammers) 3. 5 Man Command squad. Captain who in charge of the Leviathan, also pilots and steersmen. These man the Gatlings when the Leviathan isn't moving. Equipped with steel breastplates and Loyd Rapid Fire Guns (SMG's). These are crossed trained and can fill in elsewhere if needed. At least two people are required to run and steer the Leviathan. Captain provides a -2 to morale modifiers for all crew setions. Note: the morale modifiers for the leaders of the other two sections only apply to their section. Shoot 9(12) Scuffle 7(12) Save 5(10) Numbers in parentheses are for the Captain. This plane is not actually weird, if it was 1916! But in 1931, it was plenty strange. It was created to carry the 37mm COW (Coventry Ordnance Works) gun for use against bombers. The gun is mounted in a fixed position to fire forward and upward at an oblique angle of at least 45°. Provision was made for oversize and automatically-fed ammunition clips totalling 50 shells, the entire COW gun mechanism had to be easily accessible to the pilot and steadiness as a gun platform was a prime requisite. An unequal-span two-bay biplane with comparatively high aspect ratio wings with duralumin plate and tube structure, it had a metal monocoque nacelle, accommodating the pilot to port and the COW gun to starboard, which was faired into the upper wing and raised above the lower wing by splayed N-type struts. The Type 161 was flown for the first time on 21 January 1931, and after provision of a broader-chord rudder, it flew extremely well. The whole idea of a cannon armed airplane to attack bombers was abandoned shortly thereafter.
General characteristics Crew: 1 Length: 23 ft 6 in (7.16 m) Wingspan: 32 ft 0 in (9.75 m) Height: 12 ft 4 in (3.76 m) Wing area: 270 ft2 (25.1 m2) Empty weight: 2,318 lb (1,051 kg) Gross weight: 3,350 lb (1,520 kg) Powerplant: 1 × Bristol Jupiter VIIF 9-cylinder radial, 530 hp (395 kW) Performance Maximum speed: (at 10,000 ft, 3,048 m) 185 mph (298 km/h) Rate of climb: (to 10,000 ft, 3,048 m) ft/min (8.76 m/s) Armament 1× 37 mm (1.46 in) COW automatic gun Now most of the planes I have covered in these articles on Weird Airplanes were produced in small numbers at best. Not so the Heyford, of which 124 were built. The Heyford served in RAF heavy bomber units from 1933 to 1939. First flown in prototype form in mid-1930, the Heyford was the last of the RAF's long-range biplane night bombers. It was powered in Mk I form by two 391.2kW Rolls-Royce Kestrel III engines and in the Mk II and Mk III by 428.5kW Kestrel VI. The Heyford had one Lewis gun in the nose position, one in the dorsal position, and one in a retractable "dustbin" turret underneath (I bet it was a wild ride for the guy in that gun position). The Heyford was an equal-span biplane with staggered wings: the upper wing centre-section rested on top of the fuselage, while the lower was positioned well below the fuselage, connected to the under-fuselage by N-type struts. The inner interplane struts supported the engine mountings. An interesting feature of the design was that bombs of various sizes were carried inside the thickened centre-section of the lower wing, each bomb being carried in a separate cell closed by spring doors. The fixed landing gear comprised two large wheels faired into the lower wing. This design was chosen so the plane could be loaded with bombs while the engines ran, but it left the pilot some 17 ft off the ground. It was well thought of by it's crews, but I imagine they wouldn't have they had to fly it in combat.
Heyford Mk IA Wingspan 75 ft 2 inches Length 58 ft 1 inch Height 17ft 5 inches Max speed 142 mph Ceiling 21,000 feet Range 920 miles Westland Pterodactyl Mk1 A and MK 1B You just have to love a plane that it's own designers named after an extinct flying lizard. In the early 1920's G T R Hill began studying aircraft design in order to design a plane with better low speed stability and handling. He and his wife built a glider that he demonstrated to the British Air Ministry (yes, this series of planes was actually ordered by the British Government, unlike so many American weird planes that the designers had to fund themselves). Sufficently impressed, a powered version was built (using a 34 hp British Cherub Engine). This was later modified to a Mk 1b with 70hp Armstrong Siddeley Genet and small rudders. Two seater with a wingspan of 45 ft 6 inches. This lead to the Pterodactyl Mk IV-1931 A three-place cabin aircraft powered by a 120hp D.H. Gipsy III four-cylinder air-cooled engine. With a wingspan of 44 ft 6 inches, a max speed of 113 MPH, and a max altitude of 17,000 feet. This very capable plane was able to do acrobatics. One feature it had was a gear, by which it was possible to sweep the wings backward and forward through an angular range of 4.75°. This operation, which enabled the machine to be trimmed when the centre of gravity was varied by alternative loadings, could be effected by the pilot while in flight. The success of the MkIV lead to the ultimate Pterodactyl
Westland Pterodactyl Mk V-1932 The other Pterodactyls had been experimental planes of limited military use, The Mk V was an attempt to use the concepts that the early planes had developed to build a proper military aircraft. A 2- seater fighter it had a 600hp Rolls Royce Goshawk steam-cooled vee-type engine, a wingspan of 47 ft 8 inches, a max speed of 190 mph, and a max altitude of 30,000 feet (for comparison a Hawker Demon 2 seat fighter from the same time had a max speed of 182 MPH and a ceiling of 27,500 ft). Armed with twin Vickers it was also to have an electrically-operated twin-gun turret that had an incredible field of fire. Fully acrobatic and capable of inverted flight. This is the last listing of weird aircraft built and flown in America in the 20s and 30s. There are a few that I left out, mainly those that didn’t fly or crashed on their first flight.
Campbell F http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/campbell-f.html Great Lakes XSG-1 http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/great-lakes-xsg-1.html McGaffey Aviate http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/mcgaffey-aviate.html Nemeth http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/nemeth.html Northrup Flying Wing (his first one) http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/northrup.html Stearman-Hammond http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/stearman-hammond.html Stout Skycar http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/stout-skycar.html Vance http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/vance.html Weick http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/weick.html Here is a YouTube video on the Abrams Explorer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsaAeLaNr60 Burnelli’s Flying Wings Most of the aircraft I have covered so far have been oddities that in the end didn’t amount to anything. Vincent Burnelli’s work was a serious attempt to radically change aircraft design. It didn’t succeed but was a noble effort to build a better airplane. Which he actually did. Why his designs went nowhere, even after many successful demonstrations, is a mystery to me. Some claim it was a conspiracy by the airlines and/or airplane manufacturers and/or the government. I think it was more the case that his designs were so different that people couldn’t accept them. Though called flying wings, they are actually what is known as lifting bodies, because they had tails. True flying wings are suppose to be tailess. RB-2 http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/rb-2.html CB-16 http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/cb-16.html UB-20 http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/ub-20.html UB-14 http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/ub-14.html Though this after the time period that this series of posts covers, Burnelli built one more aircraft during the war, the CBY-3 Loadmaster. It could take off in less room and carry a ton more cargo than a DC-3, but by the time it flew (1945) DC-3’s were cheap and readily available. Now why is this plane so important to Pulp Gamers. Please note the following photo of the bad’ guy’s airplane from the Dick Tracy Serial and the Fighting Devil Dogs serial. So let’s hear it for the Burnelli Flying Wings, The Pulpiest of all Pulp Airplanes.
Some more weird aircraft
Besler http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/besler.html Brown http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/brown.html A lot of people and companies you’ve never heard of built air planes in the 20’s and 30’s. Usually just one or a few, but sometimes several dozen. Most were conventional such as a two-seater biplane with fixed landing gear or a high wing monoplane three engine transport, but some were a little strange. Since my gaming has shut down for a while I thought I’d go over some of the stranger planes that might be suitable for pulp gaming.
Alcor Duo 6 http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/alcour-duo.html American Gyro Crusader http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/american-gyro.html Arup Flying Wing http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/arup.html Auto Giro http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/auto-giro.html Abrams http://mysteriousbill.weebly.com/abrams.html I recommend the following two sites for more info on American planes of all eras. http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/index.php http://www.aerofiles.com/aircraft.html The GI Joe Rise of Cobra line has a neat miniature called the Mole Pod. I can't decide if I'm going to use it for Pulp or VSF.
http://captainbill.weebly.com/mole-machine.html |
Mysterious BillI've been gaming since the 1970's and even wrote some RPG adventures in the 80's for the Judges Guild. It seems that I can only get in miniatures is gaming at cons, but I do regularly play boardgames and RPGs. Archives
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