Great Frame and fun frame to plan, control and fight.
Thanks Daddog and TracerX along with the rest of the behind the scenes guys who make Friday nights fun <S> I know there was some serious map issues that folks worked hard at to resolve so all could even fly tonight. Well done.
<<S>> to the ALLIES squads this frame. No issues from my end and the turnout was awesome, I believe 17 shy from max authorized number!! WTG guys. Everyone got the orders, read them and understood what they were to do which made my job easy. Most everyone was in uniform from what I could see. I bounced from tower to tower as the flights left their departure airfields. WHAT A SIGHT!! very impressive watching that kind of massed power move as one.
<S> AXIS Squads great effort and a good solid fighting all night.
My plan:
Send in limited bombers (30 pilots in formations) and have them strike targets generally in the center and south away from the north and the more commonly used bomber targets. Intent was to save the bombers and not lose points. Send in as many fighters as possible , most with very light bomb loads so that they could fight through the defense's, drop ORD's and then turn the tables and kill the defenders. Come back for 2nd and or 3rd strikes dependent upon the targets and squads. All bombers were 1 sortie missions along with the Tempest's as they were limited to 20 and loses are not replaced.
I figured to win the points by shotting down more AXIS planes than we lost, light damage to the rear most targets, heavy damage to the front most targets
What I think happened:
We got hit hard up north where I thought we would. Hence no bombers up there. I am hoping we gave as good as we got. Heard a few reports of 190's passing the fighter strike packages looking for bombers so I know that my plan worked in some cases.
The squads that only upped the light bomb loads seemed to have fared better, but the logs will tell. I know a few squadron CO's elected to NOE, not sure how that worked out but hopfully well.
In the middle received very promising BDA'a from our targets and I saw A31 myself. The bombers in the middle B-17's and B-24's looked like they made it to their targets and home with only limited loses. I am hoping that the airspawn went well also. Great job all and especially to the escorting squads. I placed a combination of Spits, P-51's and Temp's for escort duty thus allowing all types of fighting. Also I provided plenty of fighters as well.
Didn't hear much from the south, not sure if that is bad or not?? LOL I am hoping good. I know the target sector was flashing for some time. I know the B-26's in the south went NOE. I left them up from the runway and not airspawn to reduce loses due to airspawning and crashing as all crashes would count against us regardless of the reup. Hopefully the lighter bomb load B-26's gave them some extra speed and options.
We picked up pretty quick on the AXIS plan to push the fight over our RTB bases trying to catch our guys rearming. Not sure if you did or not, i know there was some good fights at 3 bases along our front as squads vectored to them to engage.
Overall the squad groups that stayed together fared better fighting in a large group, those that separated had a harder time of it from what I could see and read. Prior coordination's and last min tower coordination's helped as well.
Outcome:
The in flight pilots favored the ALLIES all night, however we started with more and gunners would throw that number off a bit. It looks to me like we got good damage as I had hoped to the more front line bases and we limited our bomber loses. So overall a success from what I can see and hopfully I have positioned the ALLIES well for Frame 2 and 3. I don think we walked away with a loop sided victory by any means, but I think we made more points than we lost.
I hope that the ALLIES found this plan fun and different from the normal massed bombers and fighters and hope for the best kind of plan. I heard and saw a lot of positive comments about great fights.
Hopefully from the AXIS side the plan caught you off guard and made you shift squads or placed your jets away from the bombers as I had hoped. And of course I hope the ALLIED plan allowed you guys to have fun also. <S> AXIS CIC and AXIS side.
Viper61
Ops Officer
325th VFG
Frame 01 CIC