II\JG27 took off with 3 stukas and 4 109s, one small element of a larger strike group to a73. no stukas lost thanks to the efforts of the 109s from VF-15 and 68th lightning lancers. when we got over target the base was pretty much leveled and no defenders in sight. accomplished our assignment and returned to base, had 2 squad mates disco on egress.
Yep - it was a good job with good coordination between the three squads taking part. To be fair, I think there was only one squad of P40B's defending (Swampdragons I believe) against three squads attacking. VF-15 accounted for most of them whilst the Lancers stayed high with the JU88's expecting a second defending squad to materialize. Never happended and our bombers ended up dropping unmolested and to good effect.
The Lancer's 109s egressed to 39 to rearm and came awfully close to getting caught on the re-arm pad by a lone Hurri. 68RacrX, 68Baltar and myself had just gotten back up and manged to chase him away, shooting him down just as a Spit 1 turned up. After a good fight with Spit who did a fine job against 3 or 4 of us, he went down as well. At that point we decided we'd had enough fun for one night and put the planes in the hanger.
If the Spit and the Hurri had turned up together about two minutes earlier, we might have had an embarrassing end to the night. As it was, they damaged 68Slick, shot down 68Baltar and caused 68RacrX to ditch so <S> Becinhu and Drano.
