Sunday TOD Frame 3 AAR's

[Kronos]

Mine is pretty simple.  Laid out plan for Axis squads to deal with allied dogs.  Changed squads orders at last minute (literally), juggling aircraft types with numbers, to make my battleplan work the way it was intended.  Upped from A33 in Dora, flew around for an hour.  Went to rtb at A33 to refuel, and as I touched down, bombers were sighted in the northern sector.  Sent squads to reinforce and engage, got onto re-arm pad.   AND THEN ISP (TRUE TO ITS WORD) forced a disconnect for over 6 minutes.  Got back in arena intime to hear casualty reports coming in.  

I would like to commend the Axis forces on their dogged and determined defense of the Fatherland, they did an awesome job of swapping planes and orders at the last minute.  They were able to execute my plan very effectively for the most part, although I don't know what the final damage was.  But, from the reports I heard, not much was destroyed.

Allies gave us a hard fight, just like normal!

guys was a great time.

[Greg Stelmack]

I had the pleasure of flying with 9GIAP as a guest today in a Dora, and had a great time. Spent the first half of the frame re-acquainting myself with high altitude fighter maneuvering, and finally started doing a decent job of at least staying close to the people I was supposed to be staying close to . When we finally got vectored in on the bombers, I got separated a bit avoiding a P-51 that was turning into me, then got to watch the first B-17 fall wingless from above me. I clawed back up into the buffs, getting a couple of snapshots off at 51s that were lining up on other interceptors, but finally got into position to send a burst into the wing of the rightmost B-17. Saw some solid hits, then took my first ping and tried to break away low and right. Took one more ping, but by that time I'd lost my right side guns and control surfaces and could not reduce the dive at all. Ended up having to bail.

I had a great time, and and thanks to 9GIAP for letting me tag along!

[agosling]

We took off from 33 in Doras with a strength of 5 (Kronos, Dawvgrid, Swoopy, Dragon69 and SnoGoose) and climbed west to patrol 15,10 and 16,10 sectors. Saw several groups of dots on the way west that turned out to be friendly fighters heading for their patrol areas.

At the western boundary of our patrol area, we continued climbing to 30k, doing slow N/S sweeps with one section behind the other, separated by 2-3k to increase visual range.

After running our drop tanks dry, we dove fast for 33 to refuel to avoid being caught with no fuel when the bombers showed up. Refueled at 33 and then climbed hard west again. On the way we started hearing reports of the bomber positions. We were then ordered to CAP the refineries. We reached 30k about the time we got to te refineries.

By then, the bombers had been reported one sector west of us. We headed there to find the sky thick with bombers and defenders and dove in to the attack.

Made several passes on the bombers with Dragon downing 2 confirmed, other pilots reported damage but no confirmed kills. P51s tried to distract us without much success. I damaged a P51 after my first pass.

We were pretty separated after the passes on the bombers, and a P38 jumped me and I had to bail. All planes were lost, 2 pilots (SnoGoose and Dragon69) bailed. Swoopy was jumped while limping back to the field, Dawvgrid succumbed to pilot wounds from the buff attack. Kronos discoed (as was half expected due to netstats).

[Dantoo]

We spawned in at A33 in 190-D9 and waited at field.  Plan was to wait ten minutes which would give us sufficient fuel to meet anticipated requirements.  Turned out to be a useful ploy with about 3 discos anyway.
 
Up and round and round the playpen we went climbing to 30k.  

Kronos's plan worked in that he scouted out the buffs and brought everyone together more or less on to them at the same time.  So many bad boys up there.  (I personally wonder if they didn't overdo the escort bit and went light on buff numbers).

 We had a good run into target with a fairly powerful pass being made from their high 8 oclock.   I sent out an order to regroup over home field just before the pass.  Unfortunately the group was pretty small only 3 minutes later.
 
I made the silliest of damn errors and it cost me.  I zoomed in, shot up a buff and rolled away to the left keeping speed high.  A P51 with less E tried to get to me so I then zoomed up and to the right - straight back into the buff stream which I thought was well behind me.  Very bad SA and fixation on the single attacking plane caused it.  I woke up when a hail of bullets from a dozen B17's turned off my engine.  Diving down I tried to set myself up to glide to a friendly field.  The P51 couldn't get over his good fortune of course and shot me down.
 
We are claiming 6 buff kills and 2 damaged probably killed and 2 p51's killed.  Against this we had 12 of our number downed, some ditched, some bailed.  Maybe the logs will be kinder to us.
 
I must admit I am concerned about the death rate we have experienced in the last two TOD's.  It is important that we try to stay alive in these events.  I am not sure why death is so high at the moment.  Some of it would be MA mentality but no more than there has been in any other TOD.  Maybe we just don't attack buff formations with enough skill.  Perhaps the gunning is now deadlier from the formations and the extra gunners?  If so, then we need to improve our skills and respond in the best manner.

to Monk our guest for the day.  He flew well and manfully wrestled that dora until it became a controllable beast.  Just sorry we couldn't keep you alive Greg.

[Tilt]

Wings of Death spawned with 6 P51D's with drop tanks and took up a position high to the north of the buffs which climbed steadily east over the North Sea............

Usual escort problems of holding position and e whilst climbing........

It seemed like the buffs just kept climbing and climbing......just prior to dropping the DT's we were having problems holding a decent alt advantage over the buffs.......... if the LW had attacked over the Dutch coast we may not have been as ready as we should have been.

DT's were dropped over Utrecht and climbing became a little easier to about 33k (dropping to 31 during any manouvre)..... shortly afterwards a lone 262 zoomed under the buffs and played abit more with our forward fighter screen (we thought) and occasionally returned to sweep the flanks.

WoD basically ignored him waiting for the 152's and 190's to be vectored in.

As the buffs turned to the SE our northern position turned into a NE position.

Reports started to come through of a group of 152's and 190's Blowing through a screen group to the north. Sure enough from our 7 position we saw them arcing toward our 5 to target the buffs................

We were not going to stop the 1st pass.....indeed the buffs were very well grouped and the idea of chasing LW through all that freindly fire was not a welcoming one........

We dived to merge with the attackers egress route.......... primary objective to light him up........secondary to force him into an e sapping manouvre and low whilst we held e to return to the buffs.

I played with and lit the wing of a 152 who dived for the deck

We think we got a few.........

Zooming back up we re grouped high (as possible) on the buffs 6.

They were dropping bombs now on the primary target and another wave of LW came through the main buff stream......   we noted some tail enders getting picked off behind us......  this time 262's were participating..........

Whilst selecting a 190 I saw a 262 and a 190 both hit a 3 buff formation together. The space between them went grey with tracer smoke a b17 and a 262 exploded andthe 190 pulled away trailing some black smoke............I reckon the b17 was gunned beyond the  pilot alone.

Reports were that the primary target was aquired but the secondary abandoned......... the buffs were turning for home ................few with complete formations.........many smoking.

A fighter shield was held to the east...... the remaining Wings of Death formed high on the buffs 6 for the egress.  I had one other quick encounter with a 190 that split S east......  I tried to follow but compressed badly.........forcing trim to pull out and return to the  rest of the squad.

Latterly we shallow dived to home....... 3 Wings of Death rtb'd, 2 had been shot down, 1 "lost".

I would like to add a foot note....... frame end was at 10:00 UK time and time was extended to allow those that could to land at a home base to show that the mission was complete and not subject to fuel attrition.

Sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 pm UK time the logs were closed with one allied bomber still limping home with one engine out and one smoking badly.

I had stayed on to prep the arena for a midway practice and can report that at about 11:16 Warlock safely landed a smoking wreck at Manston (F40) field.

Using F5 I stood on the runway and took a snap shot as the remnants of the B17 tettered toward me and past to pull up.

I told him I would post it.............. unfortunately I must report that the picture just shows a multiple smoke trail (in perfect time lag fassion) filling the run way before me. It seems that in F5 with a  fire and brimstone breathing b17 coming at you  the alt S command is not as responsive as one would like.

Any way < S > Warlock

and < S > the axis pilits and axis and  allied CO's and our CM's for an enjoyable frame.

[Busher]

The 880 Fleet Air Arm and No.418 Squadron RCAF were assigned B17's to destroy Fuel and Ammo Factories deep in enemy territory. Due to the unexplained loss of some drones on takeoff, 25 B17's were now enroute.

The B17's upped at A55 and maintained a climb to the dutch coast levelling at 28K and setting track to the IP. All had been quiet to this point, when a lone 262 scout appeared. He did not engage seriously, however we still had 75 miles of flight to the Primary - there were 4 targets in total for the Buffs.

20 miles west of the target, the skies filled with 190's, 152's and 262's. There may even have been some 109's but frankly we were all too damn busy with them to tell. Our P51/P47 scorts did their best to keep the attackers off the 17's but many of us were damaged or going down. Many of the LW attackers were dying to Buff defenses and to allied fighters.

The Primary target was damaged, the secondary was obscured with weather. One brave B17 pilot (Warloc) pressed home and attack on the 3rd target and reported damaging it .

At this point there were 4 remaining lone B17's of the original 25:(
- GWJR3, Escafe, Warloc and me. We were damaged and out of bombs so I ordered a return to England.

As always it was a truly enjoyable TOD. I would like to thank Flossy and all the CM's for their work on our behalf. to all the squadrons and friends that make this arena so good.

[Sebek_PFT]

Hi all

I`ve got only one question for LW. Who was a lonely 109 which tries to catch 3 p51 at hi alt and later was killed by 4th p51?

Thx for latest (and my first here - at AH) scenario and sorry for my english

Sebek_PFT