Here's the report I sent to Sabre. Thanks for all the pilots who participated, I had a blast!
Hello Sabre! Here's my report from today's mission.
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109 Flight Report - ToD 2, Mission 3: Outnumbered!I was the flight leader of 3 Me 109 G-6's. Our mission was to escort our 190 A-5's that intercepted the incoming enemy bombers. Our orders were to fly ahead of our interceptors and engage the enemy escorts.
We succeeded in our mission to drag the escorts away from our interceptors. However, there were simply too many of the escorts, and they shot most of our 190s down later in the mission.
Only one 109 RTB'd without damage. One pilot bailed, one ditched. Live to fight another day!
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Pilots: Our flight included the following 3 pilots:
Camo (FL)
2Cool
Mighty1
We were all on RW.
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Timeline of the mission: Before the mission started, we all joined in the mission Udie had set up. We took G-6's, 100% fuel and a DT. On hindsight, this was too much fuel and we should have taken less.
When the time for takeoff came, we rolled from A22 and climbed South. The enemies were north of A1 at this point, according to radar. Udie ordered our 109's to head East for A14, which we did. When the allied force reached V38, they turned West towards us. We were over V49, and regrouped with the 190s. The radar showed the allies in two groups: the main bomber force and a small forward sweep.
Udie's flight of four 190's grabbed alt W of V49, we stayed above it, grabbing also. It became obvious that the allies' forward sweep would be withing visual range shortly, so we headed E at 27k and dropped our tanks. Soon we spotted 3 P47s at our 12oclock hi. We never had the chance to climb to 28k, which was the fighters' ceiling for the mission.
At the merge, the enemy was slightly higher, and probably much faster. We had just levelled so we were quite slow. We should have dropped the DT's much earlier, since we had our tanks full now.
We blew through below the merge and the fight began. The P47s made slashing attacks on us, we were busy covering each others tails. RW was very effective! Udie reminded us to drag the escorts low, which we did. These 3 P47s were tied with us and never reached the 190s in time.
Mighty1 got into shooting position behind a P47 and got a few pings into him. Unfortunately another P47 snuck up on him and managed to damage his tail. I was chasing that P47 then and tried to shoot him from a 90 degree deflection. No hits though, expended 7 20mm rounds. Mighty1 bailed safely, just N of V49.
Only seconds later I got a P47 behind me, he hit my left flap and radiator. I headed low immediately, trying to disengage. Luckily the P47s didn't follow me. I ordered 2Cool to RTB just as my engine died. I landed my plane safely in a hay field, N of V49.
2Cool had the 3 P47s on his tail, but he managed to reach the ack cover of V49. The enemy fighters lost interest in him so he headed NW and grabbed alt. He tried to chase the bombers later in the mission, but met too many enemy escort fighters to get even within visual range of the bombers. 2Cool landed safely at A22.
Before the mission's end, Mighty1 walked up to my plane, screenshot included in this report. Notice the missing left flap.
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Results by pilot, 109 flight: Camo: Ditched, forced to land N of V49.
2Cool: RTB.
Mighty1: Bailed safely, N of V49.
No kills.
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Summary, 109 flight: 1 RTB
1 Ditch
1 Bailed
The mission was a success, we were able to drag the forward sweep away from our interceptors.
The 190s had managed to make a few headon passes on the enemy bombers. Two of them were separated from the formation, effectively kills for the Axis. The bombers were heavily escorted by fighters. Most of our interceptors were shot down since we didn't have enough escort fighters for the 190s.
There were simply too many enemy fighters in this mission, for us to be able to shoot down enough of the bombers. We also didn't have too much time to climb to alt, but that could have been avoided by climbing more to the W. We engaged slightly too early in this mission. Like I stated earlier, we also had too much fuel. Additionally, the interceptors could have been A-8's instead of the A-5's we had now. The 30mm cannons are much more effective against the bombers.
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Thanks for the mission Sabre, cya soon again!
109 Flight Leader, Camo
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Camouflage
XO, Lentolaivue 34
www.muodos.fi/LLv34 Brewster into AH!"The really good pilots use their superior judgement to keep them out of situations
where they might be required to demonstrate their superior skill."
[This message has been edited by LLv34_Camouflage (edited 08-24-2000).]
