March 7 -- Siege of Malta

[Brooke]

The next "This Day in WWII" event.

Wed., March 7, 8 pm Eastern in Special Events II arena.

Join us to commemorate the Siege of Malta. March 7, 1942 was the date Spitfires first arrived to shore up the desperate British defense of Malta.

The small island of Malta played an extremely important role in WWII. It was an ideal base for British airpower to attack axis supply shipping headed to North Africa. The axis knew this, and there were ferocious battles for control of the island, with the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica hurling their aerial might against tenacious, desperate RAF defense. It was a close thing, with the RAF defenders nearly being annihilated on several occasions. Had Malta fallen, the supply to and battles in North Africa could have gone quite differently.
 
On March 7, 1942, Spitfire reinforcements arrived from the carrier HMS Eagle. It marked the first overseas deployment of Spitfires and the beginning of a series of such vital aircraft-carrier reinfocements of Malta.

[Brooke]

Welcome to This Day in WWII: the Siege of Malta!
 All are welcome to play.
 Runs on March 7th, in Special Events II arena at:
 -- 8 pm Eastern Time
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Objective: Kill enemies, sink enemy ships, and destroy enemy ground objects.
 
Event duration: 2 hours, but play as much or as little as you want of that.
 
Unlimited lives, but arena enforces at most 2 deaths in any 7-minute span. It says "Your max deaths have been exceeded" until you can fly again.
 
Allies (Bishops):
 -- Hurricane IIC, Spitfire V, Boston III (for balance), Wirblewind (for field defense).
 -- Planes enabled at Malta fields (a47, a118, a119), and Spit V at c110.
 -- Wirblewind enabled everywhere on land.
 
Axis (Knights):
 -- Bf 109F-4, C.202, Ju 88A-4, Ju 87D-3, Wirblewind (for field defense).
 -- Planes enabled at a4, a11, and a22 (south coast of Sicily).
 -- Wirblewind enabled everywhere on land.
 
All ships require 20,000 lbs of damage each to sink.
 
Ships stay down once sunk.
 
No dot radar is available -- only sector counters.
 
Ammo Bunkers stay down 10 minutes after destruction.
 
Points:
 -- 1 point per kill of an enemy.
 -- 0.1 point per ground object destroyed.
 -- 25 points per enemy ship sunk.
 
Side split 50/50.
 
Arena Settings:
 Terrain = italy_1
ArenaFlags = 5166
CountryChangeTime = 0
 DeathMaxCount = 2
 DeathTimeMin = 7
 ExitWhileMoving = 508
 FlightModeFlags = 5248
 FuelBurnRateMult = 1.0
 ObjectHardnessMults[SHP] = 2.96
 RadarMode = 0
 StratFlags = 1
 
Object Settings:
 Bunk Ammo, Down Time = 10
 Ship, Down Time = 360; Hardness = 6.76
 
Map of the battle area:
 

[Brooke]

There's a server/terrain issue with Italy, so I'm postponing Siege of Malta to another date, which I'll announce at a later time.

Sorry for any inconvenience for anyone.