Please show up at or before 3 pm US Eastern time in Special Events II arena -- the arena will lock after that. (For how that translates to your time, here is a time converter.) End of frame will be nominally at 6:45 pm US Eastern time.

Setup

It is 1943, and North Africa has fallen to the allies. Now they turn their gaze toward Sicily.

First, however, they must take Pantelleria, an island fortress between North Africa and Sicily, which the axis could use to observe and to strike into the midst of allied invasion forces staging for Sicily.

Also, perhaps even more importantly, the allies were not sure that they would have aircraft carriers available for the invasion of Sicily. Pantelleria, if in allied hands, could serve as an unsinkable aircraft carrier.

As Pantelleria was deemed quite difficult to invade, the allies decided to try bombing it into submission But the axis did have substantial air forces within striking range of Pantelleria.

Now, we find ourselves in the battle for Pantelleria, 1943 -- to see which side prevails and what it costs them.

The allies are working to capture Pantelleria, preferably while staying on the tight timeline they have planned for Sicily and preferably without suffering large losses. They have the fighters and bombers of the Northwest African Air Forces and of the RAF, and ships of the Royal Navy, working toward pounding Pantelleria into submission, capturing it, and then turning it into a base for allied aircraft.

The axis is working to deny the capture, or at least to delay it, and to inflict unacceptable losses upon the allies. If Pantelleria is captured, the axis will work to impede it being turned into an unsinkable allied aircraft carrier. They, too, have fighters and bombers, of the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica, and their ships are willing to give risk their lives to support beleaguered Pantelleria.

Main Rules

All players, please read “Date and Time” and “Main Rules” sections.
General:

If you need back into the locked arena, type ".p flossy let me in" into any text buffer, then try to get in even if arena says it is locked.
Everyone including CO's, please follow instructions from game-day CM's, or you can be ejected from the arena.
Please follow instructions from your CO’s, or you can get reassigned or ejected from arena.
Bombers must take off whenever possible with formations and not intentionally lose drones.

Lives:

Pilots get three lives.
You use up a life if you die, crash, ditch, bail, or exit your plane with anything other than a “landed successfully” message.
You may not land on carriers.
Aircraft should land before frame end. (Strong downwind will happen at frame end.)
You can man a gun at any time (for bomber or ground gun), and deaths in guns don't count to your life total.

Bombers

Bomber max alt is 16k.

Fighters:

There is a downwind at 24k. (You can fly into the downwind if you wish, but staying in it will sap your speed.)

Movement restrictions:

Do not change the paths of your task groups.

Map

Pantelleria is the island in sector 5.12. The spawn points are all N launches from the given field and will be at 15,000 ft. North Africa is the land mass to the southwest. Sicily is the land mass to the northeast.

Victory Conditions

If your side fails to do this within the frame, it will get no points at all for that frame:

Bomber groups must Attempt at least three bombing Missions.
When Pantelleria is an available target for your side, bomber groups must Attempt at least one Mission to Pantelleria.
“Attempt” means to bomb a target or die trying.
One “Mission” is launch, travel toward one or more target areas, and land back at a base if still alive.

Frame Points:

+1 point per Enemy Loss.
+3 points for each Successful Drop on a land target.
+4.5 points for each Successful Drop on a ship.

Victory Points:

+1 for each frame won. (Side with most Frame Points in the frame wins the frame.)
+0.5 to allies for Timely Capture of Pantelleria.
+0.5 to the axis if Timely Capture does not happen.
+0.5 to axis for Inflicting Heavy Losses on allies.
+0.5 to allies if Inflicting Heavy Losses does not happen.

The winner of the Scenario is the side that has the most Victory Points.

“Successful Drop” means when a bomber pilot destroys at least one valid target in a Mission.

“Enemy Loss” means, from the log, (1) your side’s Kills, or (2) your enemy’s Sum, whichever of (1) or (2) is greater.

“Sum” means, from the log, [(Deaths + Bailed + Captured + Crashed + Ditched) in the side’s stats] + 2 * [(Deaths + Bailed + Captured + Crashed + Ditched) from the bomber groups’ stats].

“Capture” of Pantelleria happens if the allies have made a cumulative total of 25 or more Successful Drops on land targets (i.e., 75 Frame Points or more of land targets) since the start of the Scenario. Capture is judged at the end of each frame. If Capture happens, the bases on Pantelleria switch to allied ownership for all following Frames.

“Timely Capture” is if Capture happens by the end of Frame 2.

“Inflicting Heavy Losses” on allies happens at the end of Frame 4 if the axis have made a cumulative total of 50 or more Successful Drops since the start of the Scenario.

Note for clarity: A bomber pilot gets points for destroying one valid target in a Mission and does not get more points if his drop destroys additional targets in that same Mission. One is all it takes.

Pre-Frame Placement

Each side will have task groups to place at the start of each frame, prior to takeoffs. These will be fresh task groups each frame. A side can place them anywhere in the given sector subject to:

Each task group’s path is a straight line at least half a sector in length.
Paths stay inside their given sectors.
Task groups and paths do not overlap (i.e., paths do not intersect, and task groups are not placed on top of each other such that ships from one task group are inside the bounding circle of another task group).

The side CM will jump the task group to where the CO wants it. The CO will set a path subject to the above conditions, and that’s how it will stay for the frame.

Allies:

Frame 1 has three task groups in sector 3.14 and three in sector 4.12.
Frames 2-4, if Capture happened, three task groups in 3.14; otherwise same as Frame 1.

Axis:

Frame 1 has three task groups in sector 5.14.
Frames 2-4, if Capture happened, three task groups in 5.14 and three in 6.12; otherwise same as Frame 1.

Valid Targets

All enemy ships in shaded ship areas.
All enemy hangars (fighter, bomber, vehicle) and all enemy bunkers (ammo, fuel, barracks, radar) on Pantelleria.

Objects on Sicily and North Africa generate no points, and any that are destroyed there will be restored right away by the side CM.

Allied Order of Battle

24 Fighters, 10 Bombers; 34 total

# Slots	Group Name	Aircraft
NAAF
6	99th FS/33rd FG	P-40F
6	37th FS/14th FG	P-38G
6	95th FS/82nd FG	P-38G
6	307th FS/31st FG	Spitfire IX
5	486th BS/340th BG	B-25C
5	34th BS/17th BG	B-26B

Bases where fresh planes are available: A3, A53, A54, including the air spawns from each. Pantelleria is not a source of fresh aircraft.

Planes may land, exit, and refuel from any friendly land base (including Pantelleria if your side owns it) -- but MAY NOT land on carriers.

Ordnance:

Fighters have no bombs or rockets.
B-26’s will have 8x500 lb bombs.
B-25’s will have 6x500 lb bombs.

Axis Order of Battle

24 Fighters, 10 Bombers; 34 total

# Slots	Group Name	Aircraft
Regia Aeronautica/Luftwaffe
6	91a Squadriglia	C.202
6	7./JG 53	Bf 109G-6
6	6./JG 27	Bf 109G-2
6	9./SKG 10	FW 190A-5
5	8./KG 54	JU 88A-4
5	9./KG 54	JU 88A-4

Bases where fresh planes are available: A26, A28, A29, including their air spawns. Pantelleria is not a source of fresh aircraft.

Planes may land, exit, and refuel from any friendly land base (including Pantelleria if your side owns it) -- but MAY NOT land on carriers.

Ordnance:

Fighters have no bombs or rockets.
Ju 88’s will have 4x500 kg bombs or 2x torpedoes.

Moving Around Pilots

CO's may split groups up into separate flights and send them on separate missions as they see fit.

CO's may assign walkons as they see fit up to the limit of slots available. If a side is overfull on game day, the axis may put extra pilots into Bf 109’s or C.202’s, and the allies may put extra pilots into P-38’s or P-40’s.

CO's may move registered pilots to different aircraft if the registered pilots are willing. But if a registered pilot wants to keep the plane he is registered for, he must be allowed to stay in that plane.

Items of Note

“Settings” section shows items set differently from defaults.

Fighters do not get points for destroying radar on Pantelleria or on ships, but they are not precluded from doing it anyway as a means to deprive the enemy of a radar location. Note hardness of radar in the “Settings” section -- it is much higher than in melee arena, and is same whether radar is on land or on a ship. Radar on Sicily and North Africa will be restored if it is destroyed.

We try our best at Scenario balance, but we are not perfect, and no Scenario is perfect. Because Scenarios are not 30 Yak-3’s and 10 Tu-2’s vs. 30 Yak-3’s and 10 Tu-2’s on a pizza map, it might end up being harder on one side than the other.

Settings

Terrain: malta
Wind: 45 mph downwind at 24k.
Clouds: scattered cumulus.
Radar and Sector Counters. No sector counters below 1000 ft. Sector counters only, no “dot” radar. Sector counters for enemy only, not friendlies.
Ack and guns: Turned down from Main Arena default. Ships will not have 5” or quad 40 mm.
Objects: Destroyed objects stay down for whole frame but are up for next frame.

ArenaFlags = 13358
BomberWarningRange = 42,240
CommunicationFlags = 3
ChangeCountryTime = (no changing of countries once started)
DownTimeMult = 200
ExitWhileMoving = 508
FighterWarningRange = 42,240
FlightModeFlags = 5248
FogLoFarMiles = 18.0
FogLoNearMiles = 1.0
FuelBurnRateMult = 1.0
GroundAutoLethality[Armored] = 0.1
GroundAutoLethality[Hard] = 0.1
GroundAutoLethality[Soft] = 0.1
RadarMode = 400
RadarUpdateRate = 120
SectorCounterAlt = 1000
SectorCounterRange = 264,000 (50 miles)
TaskGroupRespawnTime = 360
TowerBasedRadarRange = 264,000 (50 miles)
StratFlags = 1

Bunker (ammo, barracks, fuel, radar) hardness = 2, downtime whole frame
ca, de, cv hardness = 2, downtime whole frame

Place ships (axis can draw from c64, 65, 66, 67, 68, and 71; allies can draw from c56, 61, 62, 63, 69, 70).
Destroy 5” and quad 40 mm on all ships (“.det fXXbaa 1” and “.det fXXbat 1” for each).
Create spawn points.
Disable the given weapons.

With Brooke’s script, once you run it, you need only to disable the given weapons. All else is taken care of in the script.

CM Items

MOTD

Welcome to the Scenario "Pantelleria 1943"!

To play, please show up at 3 pm Eastern on Saturday.

If you are not registered, you are welcome to play,

but please stay in country Rook until you are assigned

to a side.

Pilots get 3 lives.

You use up a life if you die, crash, ditch, bail, or exit

your plane with anything other than a "landed successfully".

If you need back into the locked arena, type ".p flossy

let me in" into any text buffer.

Then try to come in even if the arena says its locked.

References

More History

A Test For U.S. Heavy Bombing Tactics

On May 9, 1943, Eisenhower began preparations for the assault on Pantelleria. He ordered a concerted effort by Allied airpower, including units of the Royal Air Force and the U.S. Northern African Air Forces (NAAF) against Pantelleria. He further directed a naval force under the command of Rear Admiral R.R. McGrigor of the Royal Navy to blockade the island and provide gunfire support.

The landing force would consist of the British 1st Division under Maj. Gen. Walter E. Clutterbuck.

On May 13, Eisenhower told Army chief of staff, General George C. Marshall, “I want to make the capture of Pantelleria a sort of laboratory to determine the effect of concentrated heavy bombing on a defended coastline. When the time comes we are going to concentrate everything we have to see whether damage to material, personnel and morale cannot be made so serious as to make a landing a rather simple affair.”

The Allies were initially planning to bomb the island into submission. U.S. Army Air Forces Lt. Gen. Carl A. Spaatz would be in charge of the operation. Spaatz had a potent air force at his disposal for what came to be known as Operation Corkscrew. He had four Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber groups with 192 aircraft (2nd, 97th, 99th, 301st), four North American B-25 Mitchell groups (310th, 321st, 340th, 12th), three Martin B-26 Marauder groups (17th, 319th, 320th) with a combined 285 aircraft, one Douglas A-20 Havoc group with 57 aircraft (47th), three wings of Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters (1st, 14th, 82nd), and three wings of Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighters (325th, 33rd, 324th), to total 300 aircraft.

A Douglas Boston bomber of the Royal Air Force heads for home after dropping its payload on the Axis defenses of Pantelleria astride the invasion route for Sicily.
A Douglas Boston bomber of the Royal Air Force heads for home after dropping its payload on the Axis defenses of Pantelleria astride the invasion route for Sicily.

It is worth noting that the participating U.S. 33rd Fighter Group also included the 99th Fighter Squadron. This squadron was the first of the Tuskegee Airmen squadrons. These squadrons were manned and piloted solely by African American airmen. During the Pantelleria campaign the men of the 99th flew their first combat missions. Flying P-40s were Lieutenants William Campbell, Charles Hall, Clarence Jamison, and James Wiley, and in June, six of the 99th’s pilots became the first black airmen in the Army Air Forces to take part in aerial combat when they traded shots with German fighter planes.

Meanwhile, the British Commonwealth contribution to the campaign consisted of three wings of Royal Air Force Wellington bombers plus one South African Air Force Wellington wing in No. 205 Group, four RAF and SAAF A-20 Boston Mk III bomber squadrons (12th and 24th), RAF 326 Wing with Bostons, two squadrons of Baltimore bombers with Hurricane fighters, and RAF 242 Group.

Concerns About the Operation
The main air assault was to begin on May 18, 1943, and would consist of 50 medium bomber sorties and 50 fighter-bomber sorties daily against the island through June 5. On June 6, the plan would shift to around-the-clock aerial bombing that would increase in intensity up to the scheduled invasion day, June 11. The smaller islands of Lampedusa, Linosa, and Lampione would be reduced after Pantelleria’s fall.

Opposing this air armada were approximately 900 Axis aircraft. These included 90 Italian fighters stationed on Sicily, consisting of 52 Macchi 202 aircraft, 23 Macchi 205, and 15 Macchi 200 aircraft plus seven Me-109 fighters operating within the 1 and 53 Stormo (Wings). The Germans possessed Luftflotte 2 under the command of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, which included 130 Me-109s in JG27 and JG53, 80 FW-190 fighters in Sturmgeshwader 10 and Schachtgeschwader 26, plus 30 Me-110 long-range fighters, and 20 Ju-88 night fighters for about 357 total Axis aircraft. The remaining planes were scattered from Sardinia to Corsica and the Italian mainland but were within striking range of Pantelleria.

The Aces High Scenario Team will bring to you a historical aerial battle that will take place east of Tunisia and west of Sicily in the Mediterranean sea over the stronghold island of Pantelleria. Allied forces primarily represented by the USAAF will fly tactical bombing missions to subdue the garrison on Pantelleria island. The Axis team will be flying anti-shipping missions against the Royal Navy fleet north of the island of Pantelleria . Each team will plan their way to victory.

Credits

Scenario design: Scenario Team and Scenario community.
Game-day CM's: Brooke, AKWarhwk (BB: Swareiam), Ditto (BB: KCDitto), Flossy.
Allied CO: Weiser.
Axis CO: JeffN.
Change Log

v1, 7/25/2018
-- Starter document.

v2, 7/31/2018
-- Fixed Frame Score formula so that ditched/bailed/etc. bomber formation is 3 points, not 1.
-- Made wording of Timely Capture and Inflicting Heavy Losses more clear.
-- Added notation under map pointing out what Pantelleria is.
-- Reworded things to make more clear where fresh planes are available and that you can land and refuel at Pantelleria if your side owns it (but no fresh planes from Pantelleria).

v3, 8/2/2018
-- Changed 31st FG from Spitfire VIII’s to Spitfire IX’s.

v4, 8/3/2018
-- Updated group names on axis side.

v5, 8/5/2018
-- Updated group names on allied side.

v6, 8/9/2018
-- Allowing ships and Pantelleria to have radar, which are also now acceptable targets (as they were historically).
-- See more info on that in “Items of Note” section.

v7, 8/11/2018
-- FogLoNearMiles = 1.0. FogLoFarMiles = 18.0.
-- TaskGroupRespawnTime = 360.

v8, 8/16/2018
-- Put in information on spawn points in “Map” section.
-- RadarUpdateRate = 120 (now that sector counters are all around)
-- GroundAutoLethality = 0.15 (0.2 is too high mortality on bombers in 1st pass)

v9, 8/17/2018
-- Clarified what are valid targets in “Valid Targets” section.
-- Clarified what is North Africa and what is Sicily in “Map” section.
-- Set spawn alt to 15k (because spawns we are using cause planes to overshoot spawn alt a bit).

v10, 8/19/2018
-- Went to three task groups. See “Pre-Frame Placement” for details. We want to be sure it is not possible to run out of targets in a frame.
-- Adjusting autoack lethality down to 0.10 (0.15 is still too high).
-- Clarified what RadarMode = 400 means in “Settings” section, “Radar and Sector Counters” description.