The Gun Fighters had a blast!
We had a small hiccup as just before the frame started we attempted to indoctrinate the mass of our squad with classical wingman formations and tactics. This was an abortive attempt as the material was presented in a condensed and concentrated manner that caused a lot of frustration, with little knowledge transfer.
Coming into the FSO frame with this baggage we sorted amazingly fast, and settled into our role as 60/40 P47/P38 defensive fighters for the 49th & 353rd bomber groups. We camped out at 29,900 feet, and about 1.5K in front of the bomber formation. Our defensive screen of 17 pilots was spread out into 3 mass-groups, with a couple of single stragglers who latched onto the bombers to maintain navigation.
I was leading the group of 6 that had un-intentionally shot about 6K out in front of the bomber group. We were doing switch-backs trying to allow the bombers to catch up when at 50 miles to target we made first contact. I had been hearing from the Claim Jumpers – who had gone out in advance as skirmishers – that there was massive contact out there, but this was the first that had found our little piece of sky.
Immediately the tension shot up as the call went out. I expected the contacts – 109’s – to try and mix it up and drive us down, but instead they blew through the merge and pressed for the bombers. Little did they know that I had 11 buddies 5K over the bomber group who would be more than happy to chew them up.
By the time I got my group back to the bombers the 109’s were scattered, and I heard that 2 of the original 6 had already been suppressed. There were a couple of passes by 109’s, and one latched onto a bomber’s six. I sprayed at that guy – trying not to hit the friendly – more to drive him away than to force a kill. It worked and he broke down. I resisted the temptation to follow, and instead climbed up.
Here I encountered two more 109’s. 1 from 2 O’clock high, with a squad on his six, and another that blew through from 8 O’clock with lots of smash, and I had to nose over to pursue. This second 109 got shot down moments later, before I even had a chance to close to guns range.
And then the sky was empty.
I was hearing radio chatter of other fighters engaged with 109’s, pushing the opponents lower and lower. And more of my squaddies, who where comparing notes as they had triple-teamed a 109 (Turned out to be SheGotchya), and were proud that they had captured some of the wingman tactics from the lesson just before FSO. The two fighters chasing the lone 109 down, made the wise decision to break contact and return to the formation. They were at 12 K, 8K below our established hard deck, and now had to struggle to catch up.
Elements of {The Gun Fighters} immediately re-attached to the bomber formation, and we vectored in our remaining squad-mates. Having lost only two pilots, one to compression, one to disco, the entirety of the squad was back over the 49th within fifteen minutes. We then finished high escort back to the gold line, anticipating an enemy screen (Something I had architected last year when I was an operations officer on the Axis side – I never looked at the numbers in flight <Oops>).
Four of our fighter escort, low on fuel were forced to rearm at a FARP base, and then continued on. We provided CAP while the 49th landed, and then touched down our selves for a photo-finish on the start line. This, though, is were we had our one other casualty, as he clipped a gun position during ground operations and had to ditch as his momentum was insufficient to carry him to concrete. All told, we had no losses due to enemy fire, and the 49th only lost 1 or 2 drones, and no pilots to enemy fire.
A banner night!
