I appreciate your response, and no "apology" is required. In fact I recognize the stark realities for many of us with regard to "trying to have fun". If I hadn't have stumbled across 71 Squadron I'd have been long gone. I don't have an answer or a simplistic "right way" but I do feel that giving in totally to the "dark side" is wrong.
Does that mean everyone needs to tool around in SBD's...of course not. but whens the last time you guys ran a "fun mission" like a stuka raid or P-40B fighter sweep? You've certainly got the talent for it. As for the 200 stuff, I see you on 200 every weekend i'm up and I'll jump in as easily as the next guy. In fact we've had this conversation on 200 to a degree...the truth is its getting harder and harder to find "good fights" and I miss running into you sirloin and the others in roughly "even" settings. You didn't create the problem but I do think you contribute to it. In fact I believe your sensitivity on 200 at times is an indication it wears on you at times. Just my thoughts...
Humble you seem like an intelligent individual and therefore i am willing to have this discussion, and you're right it is harder and harder to find a good fight and when you do u inevitibly get ganged by LaLa's and ponies on egress. All the nature of the game so don't take it as a whine please.
And against my better judgment last month i ran nearly no NOE missions again Nearly is the operative word, and yes we have done silly fighter sweeps and we even did a japanese torpedo assault on a cv so yes we do those silly things also i think you have to in the name of fun sorry u were'nt there to reap the rewards of that one needless to say we got wallopped lmao but it was fun. Anyway back to the NOE thing there was actually no difference in success with the NOE v Alt missions and we even took some heavily defended bases still had to use strategy but in a more thoughtful way. In the end i'm actually trying to change the fight change the complexion of the map maybe extend the front so there can be some better fights. And remember every mission that fails turns into a great fight for hours.
Here is the big Problem Rooks and Nits and i presume Bish all do this, the fronline base is always covered by those dopes at 30k waiting to pick the incoming. So running missions or fighter sweeps into it while it would be fun quite frankly is unrealistic for time purposes i just don't have the patience to climb to 30k heavy, or even in Fighter trim for that matter now i may be exaggerating a bit but still a 20 min flight is unfortunatly not the easiest to pull off especially when you are gettting pulled in many different directions many people wanting to do many different things and i'm trying to accomodate as many as possible in the 2 hrs i have to fly with my guys.
I don't know if that gives you any perspective or not but i tried.