AAR Frame 1 Summer Storm

[daddog]

Was not a stellar Squad Ops for the 332nd Mongrels to be sure. Must be the IL2’s we were flying. Last time we flew IL2’s (a Black Sea frame) we were slaughtered. Happened again except this time, except much sooner.

332nd rolled from A44 and were slotted to attack the city near 12.11.4. We were flying NOE and had two squads (412th and U.S.M.C) sweeping ahead of us. We rolled about 8 minutes after the fields were open per orders. There is a small section of sea north of us we had to cross, but we had not even crossed that when calls of high 109’s on our six came in. By the time we were in the air 5 minutes we were under heavy attack. Ten minutes after take off all but three Mongrels were down. We managed to shoot down 6 of the attacking 109’s, but it was a slaughter. Sixteen of us were shot down. One (banana) managed to RTB and one (Maddog) managed to make it to the city and damage it taking out several buildings. 412th and the U.S.M.C did the best they could since the 109’s and 190’s had alt on them. In fact I would say they cleaned up pretty well. 412th (7 pilots) shot down 12 AC and only lost 5, U.S.M.C (18 pilots) shot down 16 and lost 9.

A for effort 412th and U.S.M.C. You guys shot down about 30 aircraft. WTG!

[dtango]

Ugh.  Sorry about that Mongrels .   We should have held you guys much much longer or sent you guys on a really tricky rout or something.  I wished I could have been there.  Sounded like a real doozy.  I asked Rex for an update as to what happened.  This is what he had to say....

logs out already! It went ok, i enjoyed it. I got shot down early but didn't mind as it freed me up to be the traffic cop.

The IL2s got nailed, none made it in sight of target. Didn't get the fighters out ahead enough unfortunately. Luckily the USMC had about 8 planes left after first sortie and went back on bombing runs to city, plus 412th remnants. 412th did ok too, but we lost a few guys to bad landings.Dogs of War had only one guy left after first sortie, so not sure how they went.

The raid on 51 was successful in terms of damage (A20 squads reported good damage) but only 1 bomber made it home I think. Fighter sweep had heavy losses too.

Best success was defence of A55. 5 out of 8 survived, they got a lot of kills and apparently damage at A55 was not excessive. Was kind of funny, they were complaining that nothing was happening and were itchy to go looking for action but I asked them to hold and wait for the raid (which finally came). Then they got amongst it and did well.

It was ok doing CO, wouldn't mind doing it again. If we get similar battle scenarios I think I will hold back the bombers and IL2s for the first 1/2 hour or so till the enemy fighter numbers were whittled down a bit. The losses were too heavy, need to improve their chances of survival. Overall it was pretty good though, most squads had the numbers they had estimated and most knew their orders.

If you need someone to fill in again or just don't feel like doing CO again one time I will be happy to do it. Certainly gives u a new perspective on what is going on.

hope to see you for frame 2, thanks for the tips u gave me too, they helped.

Rex

Looks like the score might be close looking at the logs.  We lost a lot of 2x engine aircraft.  Numbers of aircraft downed by either side was about the same.  Looks like we were able to rehit their city again and it appears that we blew up a lot more objects on the ground but we'll see how it goes!

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[Sikboy]

Shillelagh upped 4 for the defense of A55.

We were tasked as BARCAP pretty far to the west of the field, and I have to say that the LW attack plan was flawless, and would have worked perfectly against us if we had been in La-5s...

Ok, let me explain. We took off and headed to our patrol sectors. While we on the way, we saw the bases at the nortern extremes of our patrol area start to flash. When we approached, we had contact with 190s. But there was another squad on station and engaging, so I had my guys keep their alt, and head south to patrol the radar coverage gap to the south. I thought it was a feint.

Sure enough, within a few minutes we had contact with what looked like 10 FW-190s. There were two possibilities: JABO or Fighter Sweep. We attempted to engage, and we had a pass or two, but the 190s blew past us, and there was no way we could give chase in our beloved Yak-9Ts. So we stayed on station. Had we been in La-5s we probably would have chased those 190s all the way to A55.

But since we stayed in the gap, we found some Ju-88s coming in, escorted by a few FW190s. The 190s did an excellent job of keeping us off of the bombers. -DK- managed to get one Ju-88 before being chased off, and I wasn't able to get into firing range. I pulled off the bombers, and engaged a 190. At some point in the fight I aquired a 2nd, and found myself on the deck with them. It was insane. I had a snapshot on one, but totally missed. After some crazy on the deck maneuvers, one of the 190s plowed it in, and the other dissengaged.

I RTBed to rearm and refuel, then joined the Sick Puppies to continue the defense of A55 (while I was dealing with my own crisis, the rest of my squad was taken out).  We patrolled for a while, then found some Ju-88s trying an NOE attack (note to COs:NOE rarely works).

I was impressed by the attack plan, as I understood it:
Feint to the north to draw off defenders. Then JABOs blow through, drawing off more defenders, then escorted buffs should be able to get through whatever was left.

I had a lot of fun.

-Sik

[rexnord]

My apologies Daddog, I didn't realise one of your guys made it to the city. Sorry it was over quick for u guys, I walked you into a bad situation.

Looking at the logs after the frame I realise the 'picture' I had in my head of what was happening didn't quite tally with the real thing - I put that down to the Fog of War. During the frame bits of info were coming in and it was like putting a jigsaw puzzle together with some pieces missing while on amphetamines - the final result resembled reality to some degree but there were inaccuracies.

You guys did well to get the kills you did. Hope Frame 2 is more fun for you guys.

Rexnord

[Nefarious]

to both sides,

This was the First Squad Ops Ive flown in Months, and Midnight graciously gave me an invite.

We climbed out North, and ran into high 109's, They ignored the La5's and dove right on our IL2's, For the next few minutes a horrednous fight ensued, I nearly lost it plenty of times, especially due to to the extremely poor handling of the La5 at low speeds.

I havnt checked the logs, but when it was all said and done, I claimed two 109's.

edit:

Just check the logs, three 109s destroyed.

[Dawggus]

Originally posted by Sikboy
I was impressed by the attack plan, as I understood it:
Feint to the north to draw off defenders. Then JABOs blow through, drawing off more defenders, then escorted buffs should be able to get through whatever was left.

Hehe, thanks Sikboy, it almost worked .  Mares had 14, so we outfitted in 4 Ju88 formations and 10 Jabo Fw190Fs.  The feint you saw from the North was actually the 51 CAP extending out enough to set off some base warnings.

We came in from the West at 20k, the FWs in the lead, and the JUs lagging a sector behind, for exactly the reasons you stated.  We couldn't draw you Yaks in, so a couple of our FWs peeled off to protect the buffs, and the rest of us continued to 55.  We drew the remaining Yak CAP down with our Jabo attack, and the JUs had a clean run at 55.

That second late-frame unescorted JU run was either going to be a success or not depending of if there was a CAP left.  You stuck it out and won the prize .  Nice job of defense, was a fun Frame for us too!

Cya Up!

Dawg

[daddog]

No need to apologize Rexnord, those things happen. I was not angry at all. We have been slaughterd before and it will happen again. We have also slaughterd a few groups ourselves so what goes around comes around. That is the nice thing about Squad Ops, you never know what mess or fruit ripe for picking you will find.

No worries.

WTG Nef glad you were able to fly and have a good time. We had a guest too. Call sign "Tinkr", he saw us on these boards and wanted to fly with us.

[TracerX]

USMC also appologises for the heavy loss of IL-2 aircraft.  I must clear one thing up, I followed the instructions in the frame description pop-up window, and set our squad mission launch time for 12:05 by the game clock.  Unfortunately the fields were opened at 12:00 instead of 12:05 like I thougt I had read, and we were unprepared to launch.  Because we launched at the same time the 412th did (T+5 min), we lost out on both altitude, and separation from the IL-2's.  We fought defensively at first since every enemy con had at least 5K advantage, but after a short time, things had worked in our favor.  I was suprised to hear that some of the 109's (or another group we didn't see) had made it clear past us and were working on the IL-2's.  Our engagement began at around 20K, and it slowly worked its way to the deck.  It didn't seem like there were many 109's diving past us to get to the IL-2's, they were too busy with us.  It was very intense, and difficult fighting, for the first 30-45 minutes and then, the skies cleared and we hardly saw another enemy the rest of the night.  We turned our La-5's into dump trucks and started droping ordinance on the City.  Our whole squad had a good time, hope things go better for you next frame Daddog.

[daddog]

No need to TracerX, you guys did just fine. Made up for our losses by taking out so many of them.   We had a good time in the MA after our slaughter.

[DOWJackL]

The DOW had 6 pilots in La5's.  We took off from A43 and headed NE to A32 to cap.  We split into 2 groups at 10K and 20K, then got split up and started chasing each other thinking we were seeing enemy cons   .  We got to A32 without any enemy contact and took out most of the ack (during which I crashed trying to fly the La5 like a Spit).  We then had to RTB for fuel.  The enemy must have planted mines on the A43 runway because when the 5 remaining planes tried to land 4 of them ended up with broken gear .  Our remaining plane went to help at A44.  We never made any enemy contact.  I never saw a list of enemy bases, but I'm assuming A32 was indicated as an active base that the Axis chose not to use.  It sounds like it we might have made contact if we had gotten closer to A42 on the way to A32.  Oh well, it was a fun, albeit short, time!

[dtango]

DOWJackl:

I was thinking about that in retrospect.  I should of had you guys press toward A31 instead with the USMC and 412th as a 2ndary.  A32 was an active field.  There was an off chance the Axis could have launched a long range strike into A55 from A32 but I felt that was pretty remote.  

One of the problems we had was that both sides didn't apply the restrictions of no more than 2 squads launching per field.  I mistook it to mean that no more than 2 squads couldn't roll the same time.  Looking at the logs the Axis rolled in mass from a couple of fields.  Oh well.  Hope you guys have more fun next frame!

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[daddog]

The enemy must have planted mines on the A43 runway because when the 5 remaining planes tried to land 4 of them ended up with broken gear

332nd Mongrels had a frame like that a couple of months ago. About 10 of us landed after a mission and 4 or 5 of us broke our gear.

Hummm....

[Sled]

First of all, this was a great frame and I had a lot of fun. I also want to say Thanks to all of the people that make this happen, you guys do a great job (especially with the AHII switch). And I thank you for doing it. I also want to say, I am a member of a KICK bellybutton SQUAD! What a great bunch of guys I have the privilege of flying with.

I have a comment on starting times, based on Tracers comment.

We have had this happen to us before, the starting time that is posted in the MOTD (or otherwise stated) is off from when the Fields actually open up. In this case it made a HUGE difference in our ability to cover our attack craft. Not to mention (like Tracer noted), we were on the defense, within 10-15 min of take off, from an enemy that was very close to our base of ops. and they had a 5K or more ALT advantage.  We were able to make a good thing out of a very bad starting position, but it could have turned out much worse.

My point, We need to make sure that the time that is posted and given as a start time is accurate! Your enemy starting 5 min before you is a make or brake situation.

Please note I'm not pointing fingers, or trying to bad mouth anyone. I'm just stating that this has happened before, and defiantly needs to be rectified.


Sled

~USMC~ VMF-323 Death Rattlers

[APDrone]

SLED,

The MOTD stated that the frame would begin at 1105 PM Eastern ( 12 noon on game clock ).

I opened the fields at that time ( with maybe 10 or 15 second lag between the two countries due to getting the countrycanfly option brought up ) .. but certainly no 5 minute delay for any country.  I also announced at the time the fields were open. You can check the logs to see takeoff times.  Nobody was forced by the CM to wait to launch.

Hopefully, I'll get the scores figured out Tuesday night.  Silly cloning has arrived about 20 years too late for me.

[Sled]

NP Drone. no finger pointing here.

I never said anyone was being forced. But there is confusion regarding times. The problem was what times the CO's are setting for there mission start.

With all due respect, might I suggest that we post both EST and AHST (Aces High Standard Time) on the MOTD. Once I get into the SEA I am looking at the AH clock for game times. and I know that other guys are to.

The fact that the AH clock is showing 12:00 pm when Real EST is 11:05 pm, can be a little confusing for guys who are trying to set-up a mission, talk to squad mates, talk to the frame CO, get all his guys to the right base, make sure everone is in the squad, send invites to those who aren't. ect.

Just an idea.