Saw a post from Frodo that eluded to this but thought it warranted a specific "hat's off" to Zig.
I have to say that over the weekend and into the week I've had some of the most fun that I've had in AH because of the incredible missions that Zig has planned and coordinated for the Rooks. A big salute to Zig for his efforts! Also a big salute to all the rooks who have participated. As Frodo says, you know who you are!
Some highlights for me (this is a only a small sampling of the missions that Zig planned since I was only on for a few hours).
B17 STRIKE OF BISH HQ
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Large flight of (12-16??) B17's flying deep into the bish homeland to cripple the bish radar escorted by several flights of P51D's.
I flew with Frodo in a pair of P51's and we were tasked with suppressing bish aircraft launching from airfields along the way. That was pretty exciting as I winged with him tangling with various bish 109's and N1K2's there. Some moments of heartpounding action there as we tried to fly to our advantage of speed and some altitude. That was just the beginning of the heartpounding.
We next disengaged from field suppression to escorting the B17's to and from the raid. The buffs clobber the HQ and then head for home. The trip home became a long running fight with bish planes trying to bounce the B17's as Fester, Frodo, and myself tried to fight off 109's, N1K's, Ta-152's, P51's, P47's, & FW190's all mostly with altitude advantage. Was a lot arcing around the sky, "check 6" calls, "dots at x o'clock", gunfire, planes going down in flames. I think Fester ended up with 6-7 kills just that mission.
Vulch Busting of Bish Raid
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The bish were hitting a field on the coast launching from their CV. There is a huge red bar in the sector with bish threatening to capture the field. Zig calls for vulch defense in 2 minutes with everyone rolling simultaneously in N1K's in random directions from the field. He calls down the last 5 seconds and a bunch of rooks launch at the same time and totally ruin the bish strike. It was pretty exciting low level fight over the field as we twisted and turned through the smoke from the burning hangars etc. To cap it off, the bish CV gets sunk in the process and the strike fleet gets wiped out. (Zig also called a TBM strike on the CV but it sank before we got there but had a hey day killing the rest of the fleet as well as killing all sorts of bish PT boats!)
Jabo Strike of Knit HQ
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Next it was time to mess with Knits. Zig plans a 14-16 plane Jabo raid of FW190F-8's to take out the knit radar with a few 109G10 scorts. Was a blast of a mission! Part of the flight over, we try to fly all 16 FW's in a line abreast formation! Along the way a knit 109 shows up and gets chased away. I can't imagine what he was thinking when he saw this huge gaggle of 190's! We swarm the Knit HQ and in a matter of minutes destroy their dar.
Anyhow, hats off to Zig for the great missions he's planned for the Rooks the past few days!
