10bears - my response

[Wotan]

vv Nighthawks were ordered to fly g2s

my 3 guys were the "small" squad of g10s.

[sling322]

Thats enough guys.  

This thread needs to die.

[dtango]

19-23 G-10's???  I thought the allowed limit was 8 G-10's?  What's up with that?

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs

[Swager]

I fly what ever the frame CO assigns the squad to fly.  No complaints.  I am just happy to be part of the TODs.  

If anyone complains about these things going off without a mistake, I suggest they buck up their name to CO a frame.

It is always easy to blame the frame CO when you are not one!

Basically, it is always easier doing some elses job when you're not the one doing it!

Constructive critisim is one thing, personel insult is another!

There is your new thought for the day!!  

[ghostdancer]

Tango I made a mistake in my memory on friday night:

There was a limit of 8 me262s and I believe a limit of 8 fw109-D9s. The limit on the 109-G10s was one small squad and one large squad .. Arabian Knights just happens to be a very large squad.

me-262s did not engage until way in the frame (not sure if they go any kills). There were tons of 109-G2s and I think that is what we first ran into. Remember 109-G2s climb like bats and with the optional gun package they have 3 20 mms and tend to be good bomber killers.

From the Nightmares experience it was the lack of numbers on our sides that really hurt. We fielded 22 planes and 2 pure gunners. We had 12 buffs and 10 P51s .. but from sector 8,10 to 11,10 we were under constant attack.

The LW knew there stuff and might have been practicing. It was very enjoyable from my perspective as a gunner. We flew very tight box formations but the LW would form up and shadow us at 1.2 - 1.5k away. You could almost see them making their decision on which buff to attack and then 4 - 6 109s would making slashing firing attacks on one buff .. blasting through our formation and each fire off a burst or two into their selected target and then getting the hell out of there. They really seemed to respect the fire power of the combined B17s.

But they continued to do this until they wounded a B17 and it fell out of formation. I remember seeing TyrNM right engines go and then smoke start streaming behind him and slowly he fell out of formation. As soon as he did they pounced all over. They repeated this process over and over  and we were slowly winnowed down. The only thing we could do was tighten thingsup .. I think at one point we modified our formation so that we had 6 B17s as tight as we could manage .. farthest from syzygy's buff was 800 yards and closest was Dodge at 120 yards.

I think the tight flying formation got us as deep into Germany as we did. But since Wotan had built a layer defense we would punch through one layer only to run into new defenders who we had not damaged. At the end we ran into a new group of 109s and a lot of 110s.

Our P51Ds did their best to chase of the LW and break up their attacks but our 10 Nightmare escorts got overwhelmed also.

Remember the LW radar allowed them to pull in their north and south defense force and vector them back to intercept the buff stream on radar.

Was very intense.

[Steven]

It's a shame about the disparity in numbers in the last frame, but since this is generally an extracurricular activity behind family and work, there is no sure way to prevent it from occurring.

Flying for the LW this TOD, I think we learned from the first two frames (be it the command level, squadron level and personal player level.)  I felt pretty good about our overall plan this last frame and even my squadron tried a new thing or two.  Actually, I don't see any problem with the Allies' plan either because we had a couple squadrons setup for orbits waiting for inbounds from other directions, but that never happened and so we got vectored to the fight and that's probably why it looked like planned waves of attacks.   From my personal perspective, the Allies can do best if they just mass everyone together.  Man, I know this is just a game, but my heart rate quickens and my palms get sweaty when I see all them buffs and escorts.  However, this last frame spelled problems for the Allies because the Axis learned a little (in my opinion) compounded by the difference in participants.

I thoroughly enjoyed this TOD and wish to provide a positive note to all those who give their time to these activities.

[Midnight]

Originally posted by 10Bears
Had you spent a little more time planning, you would've realized that drawing a stright line across Germany crossing 5 major cities would be foolish.]

I spent time planning, more than most probably do. I flew the entire route two different ways. The straight line to target was the only way the B17s could go if they expected to make it to target and back before frame end. I took 1:45 minutes at maximum power to make the trip, and that was with no waiting for other B17s to form up. Realisticly, the B17s would have to fly at reduced throttle to allow everyone to stay in formation.

Originally posted by 10Bears
Had you not been AWOL and sent the orders in a timely mannor, we might've found out how many jets they planned to sortie we couldn've pitched a squeak.

What would we squeak about? I saw the projected numbers and that's how it goes. I supposed you would have wanted to whine about it?

Originally posted by 10Bears
Also, Had you not been AWOL, more allied pilots wouldn've shown up. Many didn't because maybe they thought the event was cancled.

Cancelled? Come off it, 10bears that is the lamest thing you could have said. If it were cancelled, there would have been plenty of posts about it in here and everyone would have known.

Originally posted by 10Bears
Now what's your excuse? Real life matters?... I can understand that but what I don't understand is how you can't find time in an entire week to send at least a little note to someone.. anyone describing your situation.

No my friend, this MASSIVE LOSS is your responsability and yours alone.

1) I don't like you making public privite messages when my email address is available

2) I don't like you trying to deflect responsability when you know damn well it's your fault.

I'm not your friend and your not mine.

I have no need to make an excuse. Had my orders been issued on Monday, I highly doubt that it would have changed the outcome very much.

Too bad about making this public. Had you stuck around after dropping your comment, I would have been talking to you in private about it, but when I tried to tune you on private channel, you had already left.

Originally posted by 10Bears
Please don't come back here and start some kind of flame war with me.. that would be unfortunate  Just take your lumps and go on with life. There are reasons why I can't get involved in a flame war at this time, but I suggest two good books.. Aircraft Combat Manouvers and the Art of War... read em and re-read em. Find out how you can use stealth and surprise to defeat your enmey.

I don't need to read those books to know how to plan missions. I have made several battle plans for TODs now, and have had plenty of success with then.

I know all about stealth and suprise, and would love to have gone the long way in to throw off the LW. However, time contraints prohibited the long flight, and with our forces on radar the entire flight, there was really no chance of any sort of stealth mission anyway.

----

To other squads that may have been stuck in B17s each frame, I appologize. I wanted to review the results for the first 2 frames, but the events page was down. I know it would have been good to allow others to be in fighters, however skernsk requested "a lot" of B17s, and I knew at least MAG-33 and Nightmares would be able to put up 12.

Midnight - CO
412th FS "Braunco Mustangs"

[skernsk]

however skernsk requested "a lot" of B17s

This nobody cannot argue with Midnight:)  All frame CO's upped a large number of B17's.  Although many do not like flying them, the Mighty 8th TOD without B17's is like the Battle of Britain without Spits's.