Johnny Red was Battle’s longest-running series over 13 years, written by Tom Tully and drawn initially by Joe Colquhoun, later by John Cooper and finally by Carlos Pino, (and more recently by Garth Ennis) about a British fighter pilot Johnny “Red” Redburn flying for the Russians in a ‘stolen’ Hawker Hurricane fighter.

Datacards for the following Soviet Union (VVS) aircraft are included:

• Polikarpov I-16
• Yak-1B
• Lavochkin La-5FN
• MiG-3

Traits include – Tight Turn, Great Dive, Rapid Roll, Poor Quality, Sluggish

A New Theatre Card – Falcon Squadron features a new card that will make playing against them a potentially difficult challenge! The General Secretary often took a direct interest in aircraft production. You play the ‘Telegram from Stalin’ card during deployment, allowing VVS planes in one designated squadron to disregard the Poor Quality trait in this battle.

The Aircraft:

Polikarpov I-16 Single engine fighter + 21 points – The I-16 was a truly revolutionary fighter design when introduced in the 1930s; the world’s first operational low-wing cantilever monoplane fighter. Successive upgrades kept the I-16 competitive with its contemporaries and it formed the backbone of the Soviet air force at the start of World war 2.

Yak-1B- Single engine fighter + 31 points – The Yak-1B was an unofficial designation for a host of improvements which culminated in a new standard of production for the Yak-1. By October 1942, among other improvements, the Yak-1B’s engine was upgraded, it had a bubble canopy fitted, a retractable tail wheel, an improved gunsight and cockpit controls including a new control stick based on the Bf109.

Lavochkin La-5FN Single engine fighter + 31 points – The La-5 was born out of an attempt to mate the powerful Shvetsov ASh-82 radial engine onto the Lagg-3 airframe. The result was so successful incomplete Lagg-3s were finished to the new La-5 designation. With a powerful cannon armament and fuel-injected engine, the La-5FN became a well-respected frontline fighter through to the end of the war.

MiG-3 – Single engine fighter + 14 points – The MiG-3 was designed as a high-speed interceptor to catch fast enemy bombers. By the standards of its day, it was blisteringly fast, but it was also extremely difficult to fly in combat and had a comparatively weak armament.

NB: Models supplied unassembled and unpainted