Planning....
In my case lack of the above.
I flew 3 missions and the first was a lone wolf disaster.
I was a bit late, had no clue what was going on and took off after a bunch of B17s that had taken off from A24, destination unknown.
On the trip East I learned the target was A4.
I think, bummer, a historical matchup with B17s doing Main arena airfield stuff.
Please do not take the above as criticism whoever was leading the bombers, I just feel that strategic targets, ie: cities, refineries, factories, etc should have been the main focus of the bombers.
OK, anyhow, I watched the buffer and tried to cut across to join the bombers and just West and North of the target, I saw a herd of dots heading NE.
They turned out to be a lot of Mustangs looking for the bombers and I think they missed them, the bombers were due North of the target by then and heading 180 and the escorts were already north of the bombers.
I saw dots over the target which proved to be bombers and many cons battling it out and, after making a fast, ineffictive run over the field destroying mainly flowers and sheep, I was desperately looking for a way out of town.
I was picked apart during several attacks and about the last message I saw in the buffer before I exploded was from the fighters asking "Where are the bombers?"
That mission was a learning experience for me, I was on the bomber RW and there was not much communication going on.
I do not know if there was a common bmr/ftr channel but I think there was not.
So, I was late, got wasted over the target and that was all poor planning on my part, If I was with the group I may have made it home, I have no idea how many bombers did make a landing.
Then I decided to try to get a mission to bomb the German city and, while I am ignorant on the mission planner, begging on the buffer got me 3 more bombers and committment for escort, thank you Drill and Mighty1 for the escort.
That mission worked, although there was no opposition the city was bombed and Sharkey, who did a great catchup and join with us, Skipper, Shade324 and I made it home with Drill as shepard.
The second semi organized mission was to the city again with Fury and Skipper seeing me at my usual best.
I messed up climbing and did not clear a hill near A13 and we had to start over.
On the way to the target I saw that there were only 7 Axis and about 9 Allies left in the SEA so I told the Axis we were coming.
We saw a con lifting from A9 as we neared the target but we bombed and were on the way home with Mighty1 watching the con and we were well on the way out of the target area before we met opposition.
That opposition was Minus who made some well executed passes through our formation before engine damage put him out of the fray.
Minus came back in another plane and made at least 3 more extremely well executed passes. I was having trouble tracking him and when he reached the point where the con usually gets shot due to poor energy state he always had enough left to not be where I was shooting.
He shot up the gunners in 1 B17 and suffered engine damage again and had to break off his attacks.
Minus, well done, to nearly survive 3 passes through 3 B17s with good gunners is a credit to your flying skill.
We got home.
This got long and I hope anyone trying to read it is still awake.
This event is what I hope is a big part of the future in AH and we are all still learning how to do it.
I was also disappointed in the numbers after the first mission but I think those will increase as more of us who fly get a bit more organized.
I would rather fly in the SEA with 20 doing something based on WWII than in the Main with 200 doing what we mostly do in the main.
But the main is still fun as long as I do not begin to take myself too seriously.
So, finally, thanks to the guys who schedule and monitor these events and thanks to the guys who flew with and against me.
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When did they put this thing in here and WTF is it for?
[This message has been edited by Sunchaser (edited 09-03-2000).]
