Great fight in FSO 3 A6M2 vs 30 P39D

[humble]

I was in a tbm. I droped my 2 bombs form about 20,000ft and missed. I felt mad that I flew all that way for nothing so I dove on some low zero's. I hit 1 from 800 out with the 2 50cals and got his engine i saw him glide back and land. I then started doing loops with another zero,I was able to put him on fire but after re watching the film he was able to ditch to ): . By this time the rest of my flight had died or rtb'd. I was then jumped by 3 zero's and I had been doing spit s's and turns with them for about 5 min when finally help arrived! Friendly p39's came in and flamed all 4 of em. Lucky for me to because I probably wouldnt of taken any more hits. I was eventually able to RTB and land. I was missing an elevator,aileron, back gun, left flap, rudder and had a fuel leak.
<S> to the p39's that saved my but!

Stodd,

You did an amazing job with those zekes, cbizkit and sled were the 1st two (P 39's) in to help out at A40. The rest of us caught up from defending the SBD's and we had a pretty spirited engagement. We finally had to disengage and head for the rally point. As we formed up we realized that we had a straggler somewhere (cant remember who) and we all flew back to 40 (we adhere to the no man left behind doctrine) almost on the deck to find you engaed with at least 3 zekes and our errant squaddie dodging the field ack trying to keep the rest of them off you. You had literally every zeke around 40 furballing on the deck between you so we were able to clean em all up nicely and extract both of you while your planes were still "duct tapeable".

We didnt rack up the big numbers but as a squad we had 24 kills and 30 assists for 12 guys. I do know that 100% of the zekes we engaged did not return to the happy hunting grounds.

[FiLtH]

  No I didnt know there was an issue with the tailhook. DO now

[BnZ]

Yeah, you got my wingman unfortunately. I feel real bad about that, he's a little new, I should have instructed him to play it safe and just make passes. Ran out of bullets trying to shoot you. Leave it to my dumb butt to go tangling with a Zero ace 3 feet off the water while the rest of the squad is having a turkey shoot on the dive bombers. Looks like you deserved a safe landing, what can I say, the curse upon Japanese aircraft strikes again*

<S>

*See my AAR regarding fr1 of back to Tokyo 

  I had a good fight with 2 f4fs that chased and caught me on the deck. Fight lasted a long time. Lost my right cannon and a fuel leak (luckily the flames didnt start). Popped one f4f pretty good, assumed it was a pilot wound as he broke off. Continued fight with a guy named BnZs till he finally broke off. I then flew all the way home, landed like a feather but overshot re-arm on cv.

  As I sat there I thought wow, this is a long 30 seconds to re-arm. Then I realized I wasnt on pad ao I tried to back up with a touch of throttle, but it launched me off the stern killing me. Was kind of a let down after such a good fight.

[FiLtH]

<S> Bnz   Did you happen to notice the DT, and bombs on the wings? I didnt realize they were on till after we broke. I never checked the load out in the mission. 

[angelsandair]

Well, I'd like to send my <S><S>s to the 880, they had 3 players and racked up 9 kills to no losses. 

[Anaxogoras]

  I had a good fight with 2 f4fs that chased and caught me on the deck. Fight lasted a long time. Lost my right cannon and a fuel leak (luckily the flames didnt start). Popped one f4f pretty good, assumed it was a pilot wound as he broke off. Continued fight with a guy named BnZs till he finally broke off. I then flew all the way home, landed like a feather but overshot re-arm on cv.

  As I sat there I thought wow, this is a long 30 seconds to re-arm. Then I realized I wasnt on pad ao I tried to back up with a touch of throttle, but it launched me off the stern killing me. Was kind of a let down after such a good fight.

This is a bug that's been reported many times but hasn't been fixed.  If you try to back up with your tail hook down, you die instantly.  Next time put your tail hook up and you should be fine.

[Adonai]

eh found that out last time i landed to re-arm a corsair, instead of tryin to remember that im just not flying seaplane till its fixed.

[stodd]

Thx snaphook, you and your group did an excellent  job on escorting and wipping the floor with those zeke's. I can only hope that the next time im in a bomber your group is escorting me again.
<S>

[valdals]

FSO frame 2 sucked for me this week. our 15 zeros hit 30 plus p39's. we got roasted.  the zeros refused to take the fight to the deck. they were slaughtered. i managed to get low but had 6 cons on me and no zeros left alive for help. my plane got lit on fire and had to bail out. we have been outnumbered in FSO for 2 weeks. we need a new strategy. engaging p39's at 19000 ft is suicide. you cant catch a p39 at that alt. if you turn on ones tail your toasted by another p39. you cant ho a p39 either with all those guns in the nose. take them NOE and out turn them.

[angelsandair]

Hey Valdals this is ace.  Come on take all the glory I got a kill and 3 or 4 assists.  Not to mention how many times I dove down to help you too.  That was the funnest night of my life even though we lost to who seems to be becoming my friendly rival 1pLus44.
<S>Valdals

<-Got 5 kills in FSO frame 1, 3 in frame 2, no deaths for our squad. 

~1pLUs44

FSO frame 2 sucked for me this week. our 15 zeros hit 30 plus p39's. we got roasted.  the zeros refused to take the fight to the deck. they were slaughtered. i managed to get low but had 6 cons on me and no zeros left alive for help. my plane got lit on fire and had to bail out. we have been outnumbered in FSO for 2 weeks. we need a new strategy. engaging p39's at 19000 ft is suicide. you cant catch a p39 at that alt. if you turn on ones tail your toasted by another p39. you cant ho a p39 either with all those guns in the nose. take them NOE and out turn them.

You guys had about 40 more players than us, you had planes that could turn better, you had planes that got 2nd lives.... You guys have it made. A zeke will tear a P-39 up At-alt. What you guys are supposed to do is bring em low and slow. But most 39 pilots know better since you can turn better than us. 

[Saxman]

VMF-251 got gang-raped in Frame 2. We were the only initial defenders of A1, and my twelve 20k F4Fs got hit by 30 Zeros who STILL had altitude on us. I was the only one to escape that mess alive, but still had a short night as I got vulched trying to roll off the re-arm pad no long after.

[angelsandair]

were you smart enough to dive away and re-group?

[valdals]

our flight has been outnumbered every frame. there were 7 guys for our squad plus we hooked up with 6 more. every engagement was at 19k or better and we were outnumbered 10 to 1 in frame 1 and 2 to 1 in frame 2. a zero cant fight if he is attacked by multiple fighters coming from different angles. the p39's i shot down i was able to get close on their 6. in frame 2 i was hit by 6 fighters at different angles. the hits to my plane were all HO shots.

[Captfish]

video of the HO shots?

[Saxman]

The Zeros never gave us the opportunity to egress. They were too close for us to dive out. F4F can sustain a dive better, but the Zeros were catching us in the initial acceleration. We didn't have TIME to extend before having to break to avoid another one trying to cut us off.