I saw all the action in the A41 area so I upped from a northern field a sector away in my Ta152. I took DT and 75%. My mission: Seek out and find bombers. Barring that, targets of opportunity.
I took off and angled S at full WEP climb. By the time I was at 11k I reduced to normal combat power and kept climbing. Upon reaching the battle area (A34? A36? The one right North of A41) I began my scanning. I spotted one con even higher than I and ahead to the south. I began climbing and dropped my DT, calling out on radio for a friend or foe. To my dismay it was the shift I was relieving. BGgetmo was on his way down for more fuel. I exchanged greetings and then dropped back down to 14k. I set up a flight plan just under the cloud cover and heading toward A41. Upon reaching the area I saw many cons at my level. I hit WEP and rose just above the cloud layer, coming into range of a flight of B26s (friendly) under attack by multiple cons (enemy). I make a pass at a p51 and clear the friendly b26s to their egress. A Hurr2c dared come up to challenge me, but lower and slower it wasn't much of a challenge. I pinged its wing on one dive and finish it off on the other end of a loop. He had dove down and zoomed up trying to engage a head-onshot. My rounds hit. His didn't. I regained some altitiude, back to the cloud layer, and found myself without any co-alt targets.
I could go down to the field but that's not what I'm going to do. Ack is up and I'm in a perk plane. Death to another pilot is one thing, death to aimbot-powered ack is another. I turn N and level out to accelerate and fly N until I'm past the ack. In a climbing turn I then turn SSE (about heading 160) and fly back toward 41 area. I see an enemy typh engaging a friendly just at the cloud level (about 1k below and ahead). I know right away it's a Tempest. Mr. Tempest sees me and turns to me. I turn to him. We merge and I believe I have more speed than he does, so play the merge and re-merge game with the Tempest. He struggles to come around for another pass so I figure he's worse off up here than I am. We did this 2 or 3 times before he managed to shoot me in one of the merges. He came at me from below the cloud layer and up almost vertically. It was very hard to see him. I took at least 4 hits. Aside from a hole in my wing, I lost one of my MG151s. It could have been much worse. I counted my blessings and decided to toy with my meal in a different way. After this vertical pass where I was hit, I could have continued the loop/turn game but decided to play drag the tail game. I kept going, and as he eventually righted himself he found himself 1k behind me.
I believe my heading (SSE again) gave him confidence -- I was heading into his territory. I made sure the distance was about steady and began climbing. He matched my climb at first, but I continuously incrased the steepness of the climb until I was at 170MPH (my craft's best climbing speed). I let him close in. He gained to 800 yards but was lower than me and when he could not angle his guns up at me at 600 yards I knew I had him. I began a series of very slow high-angle weaving turns. It only took a few before I had closed the distance to a few hundred yards so I turned into him and rolled onto target. I got a good burst off, and was greeted with a bright red fireball on his wing. I knew I had him, so I leveled out, retracted my flaps and stabilized before I checked my foe. He was floating down without a wing -- 30mm had found their mark.
I found myself inside enemy territory (over the water SE of A41) at 22k. I headed back home but noticed first one contact and then eventually another almost at the same altitude. The closer one draws near and by the time I am over land again I am in the fight. It is a 109G2, according to guncam footage. We merge and I make a risky move.. I go for a nose high zoom stall. This altitude makes such an attempt risky, but it works. The enemy stalls out beneath me and I dive in. I was not speedy enough at pulling in my flaps and my aim was untrue. The enemy dove away and came up behind me. Intel reports (film review) that said plane dove down then came back up approximately 4km behind me. During the fight I lost visual and thought he had bugged out. I believed (at the time) that this 109 was a new threat, that it was the second con I had seen earlier.
I attempt to engage him but after the merge he enters a high speed shallow dive and extends. I check my fuel status -- enough for a brief chase. I follow him and close quickly. He tries several evasives, trying to get me to roll one way then rolling the other. I don't fall for it. He tries several barrel rolls but I stay on his 6. In the process of several loops and twisting turns I get half a dozen shots off, but no hits. He is still past 600 yards and my 30mm does not like the shots. The good shots I had were under-the-nose and I missed horribly (according to guncam footage). I decided I didn't want to waste my ammo. He was little threat, but would take too much time to kill. I didn't want to end up on the deck just yet. We first engaged at 26k. I was not at 20. I headed N to home and followed 2 suspected enemy contacts. They turned into a P51D and a 190D at 22k. I was too far behind to catch them, but luckily Getmo had refueled and was on-station again to meet them. I dove from 24k (did a little zoom once the enemy got into icon range) but they had already begun their attach on BGgetmo et al. I dove on the 190D, had a high risk deflection shot but missed. Last I saw he was diving away and he never came back. I began the chase on the P51D but with the abundance of friendlies on his tail (4 by the time he got to the deck) I broke off with 5 mins gas reamining. I glided down from 15k to the field, hoping there were no enemy to attack me on landing. I was coming in hot, and this is not in the flight manual but I used full rudder deflection to lose some speed, until my gear could come out. I had a less than smooth landing, due to my rushed nature and my steep glide path. I'm sure it's nothing the crew chief won't forget with a nice bottle of scotch... Or is he a bourbon man?
I only landed 2 kills but it was a hell of a sortie!
