[WW] French Fighter and Ideas

[A Methylated Spirit <hercubadger@yahoo.com>]

My WM forwarded this over the weekend. Bit of a laugh
and certainly a proud member of the “what were they
thinking” category

>>>
This is from the A-Z of Aircraft entry regarding the
Bloch MB.151 & MB.152 - a French fighter aircraft
designed in the late 1930s. It was a loser of a
competition  but the company tinkered with it and
re-submitted it and the government gave them the 'oh,
alright.' For production. They then realised that it
was designed completely wrong for mass-production so
they tinkered with it some more, and got to the point
where a bunch of different factories would make all
the required bits. They finally got an order for 400
aircraft to be built.

'Unfortunately, positive action did not materialise on
the production line, and by the outbreak of World War
2 in September 1939 a combined total of only 120
MB.151 and MB.152s had been delivered. Even more 
unfortunately, not one of these could be used in
action, for all were without gunsights: 95 of them
could not be used at all, for they had been delivered
without propellers. This was the moment when pressure
of circumstances should have eliminated all petty
difficulties, but even at the end of November, at
which
time 358 had been delivered, 157 were still without
propellers and  there were serious problems with
engine overheating which needed attention.'
>>>

This sort of thing opens a wonderful opportunity to
have a little fun with pilot PCs. After they’ve
lovingly memorised every statistic and detail for
their winged steeds, make sure that every aircraft
they get into is different from every other one. Tweek
the stats the airframes (of apparently identical
aircraft) so that some are better than others, some
are exceptional while others are but a fumble away
from being death traps. Give them less speed, fewer
guns, or more of the same. See if the PC’s will suck
up to the maintenance staff to get their own frame in
tip-top condition or to get the down and dirty on
which frames to avoid. Weird Wars gives WMs the option
to enhance the frames with other less obvious traits.
Additional crew members no longer on the flight roster
but still willing to pitch a hand when in the air,
equipment from ‘cursed’ airframes that just won’t work
properly (the stories associated with “Lady Be Good”
work well there) when transplanted into other
aircraft. 

The “Memphis Hell” adventure touched upon this sort of
thing in a way.

Cheers.


=====
"Morituri Nolumus Mori" - We who are about to die don't want to.

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