I've always liked the game Blood Red Skies from Warlord Games. It's a WW2 aircraft game where squadrons battle it out in different scenarios. The unique thing about BRS is that the opposing aircraft don't have altitude represented - the thing that is essential in any dogfight is the energy you have available, and in BRS that is represented by Advantage, where the stand holding the aircraft tilts either forward (low advantage) or backward (high advantage). A lot depends on your level of advantage.
Another quirk of BRS is the scoring system, which is representative of the punching power of your team. If the enemy get shots in your area, you get a Boom Chit. Let's face it, if someone is getting live shells somewhere near your aircraft you're going to get rattled a bit, and that's what this represents. You then roll to save ie dodge the bullets, but if you don't roll enough sixes then there's been a hit on your aircraft and you lose an advantage level. If you're at low advantage your aircraft is downed and you get another Boomie. If the squadron's number of boomies is greater than the number of remaining aircraft, the squadron bugs out and goes home.
Representing a squadron as closely as possible at 1:200 is a great way to get absorbed in both hobbies, and it doesn’t involve all that sticking together of parts in a kit.
As the BRS community continues to grow, so do chances for more battles and more squadrons. My favourite squadron is the highest-scoring squadron of the RAF in the Battle of Britain. Polish pilots had some advantages over the younger, fresher British RAF pilots – they were hungry for revenge and they were battle-hardened already with over 500 hours fighting in the air. They needed to learn RAF procedures which many found frustrating (as did the RAF when training them) but they were keen to get their own back on the occupier of Poland. On a training flight, one pilot noticed another squadron getting harassed by enemy aircraft. He called his leader and on getting no response, peeled off to join the fight, downing a Bf110.The Squadron went operational the next day on the recommendation of the squadron leader. They were fierce fighters who didn’t ever give any quarter.
Part of their success lay in their determination to get a kill in the air. Departing from RAF procedure which demanded that their guns were harmonised to cross fire streams at 400 yards, 303 Squadron got their armourers to set theirs up to cross at 200 yards. This meant that they had to get in closer to be assured of a kill, and they were less likely to miss. Their seemingly-high kill rate was treated with suspicion by the RAF until confirmed by their RAF flight leaders. These Polish pilots were unflappable, and deadly.
303 Squadron’s Hurricanes claimed the largest number of enemy aircraft shot down out of all the 66 squadrons who took part, despite joining the battle two months late. On Battle of Britain day (15th September), 20% of those fighting in the air for the allies were Polish.
Usually my Hurricanes perform well, particularly if I place their leader ace pilot Witold Urbanowitz in the mix. They have a robust and a tight turn feature against the well-armed and faster Bf109s but if they are outnumbered they can often turn tail and head for Blighty due to excessive boom chits accumulating in the air around them.