Evening
I returned to the action later in the evening. This time we were attacking an enemy base. Or trying to anyway, as we never officially made it over the airfield. Swarms of enemy fighters came out to meet us over the water, which was fine by me.
I was flying an A6M Zeke with 50% fuel and a centerline droptank. By the time I reached the combat zone I was at about 13k altitude and found myself a little bit above the action. There were a dozen planes in a furball below me so I disengaged my droptank and dove in to get engaged.
I got onto the tail of a smoking 109 and finished it off immedietly, gaining an assist. I then got dove on by a P-51 and was forced to manuver towards the enemy pack. This singled me out I suppose, as I immedietly got jumped by a C205 and a Spitfire. I made broad, reversing turns to slow them down and avoid getting popped as I made my way back towards friendlier skies. A group of friendlies dove in and broke them up, and I turned to get onto the tail of the Spitfire. A friendly pumped him full of ammo but was unable to hang into the turn and lost him. I finished the Spitfire off with a deflection burst at <200 for another assist.
I was feeling my oats by now and didn't panic as a Yak-9 tried to jump me from above and behind. I went into a split-S and slid under him, denying him an attack. He pulled up very hard to avoid hitting the water and may have blacked out, as he just flew along the wavetops for a moment in a slight turn. I followed him for a moment and he turned back. We made a head-on pass, but I didn't fire and instead weaved back and forth, trying to get him to burn energy tracking me. It seemed to work as he passed by me, his tracers missing by a mile. I looked over my shoulder and saw the Yak turning hard so I climbed into an Immelman and came down on him.
I pulled up early to avoid an overshoot and cut my engine power. I fired bursts at <400 and <300, clipping pieces off of his wings until he banked. I fired a deflection burst straight into his cockpit and he spun in.
I looked back and saw a Spitfire on me a moment later. I climbed and realized I'd stall quickly so I kept pulling on the stick. We both entered a loop with him chasing me and leveled out a couple of hundred feet over the water. High above us, friendlies and enemies continued to dogfight as the Spitfire remained hard on my tail. I tried S-turns, trying to shake him off or get him to lose enough energy that I could force him into a turn fight.
The Spitfire matched me each time and I finally entered a hard turn. I looked at the Spitfire and was suprised to see him pulling enough lead for a deflection shot. He missed and we continued the turn. He again pulled some lead, but I think he didn't fire. Realizing I was losing this fight, I tried a very slow rolling scissor, which he hung in with. We circled several times before I managed to get behind him. I fired right into his fuselage but immedietly ran out of cannon ammunition, getting perhaps only 2 or 4 shots into him with it.
He reversed, and I fired my machine guns into him again but could only hit the opposite wing. I rolled over him as he seemed to stall out in the hard bank turn and looked down to see him run out of energy and crash into the waves!
I thanked my stars and got the heck out of there, staying low to avoid attention. That mission netted me 2 kills and 2 assists.
Major <S> to LYNX who was piloting the Spitfire. Never seen one turn so well against my Zeke before.
