Salute to 412th and theDamned

[AKKuya]

You guys did an outstanding job in finding our strike group after a bad start in beginning of the frame.  Once your respective groups rendevoused with us, you guys did a fantastic job escorting us to the target.

  to you  :airplane:s   

[AKRaider]

Yep.  I want to second that.  Cool heads and focus.  Awesome job, guys.  You put 'em in a vise.

To Trolls:  Yep.  This is a love fest!  Caress your own nether regions.

[Nefarious]

 

It was a great time. My night ended in Disco when my power went out because of the Heavy Snow.

Here are some pics... The B24 is you! Did you make it home ok? (AKKuya)







Got sprayed by an N1K there.

[gyrene81]

Hey, that was me!!! And Kuya got 2 or 3 of us Ki-84s.

I felt very lucky to evade all those F4s and Jugs...I know I got a few hits but nothing noteworthy.

[AKKuya]

After dropping my bombs on the target and getting just one gun emplacement, I heard the call to RTB and was south of AK force.  I proceeded on my own with two bombers left.   

Enroute back home I spotted two dots ahead.  One was friendly.  Asked on range if he needed help and used my bombers to get the enemy fighter to peel off him and vector towards me.  The red plane came at me and I sent him to the ground.

Three friendly fighters showed up then and we all kept heading home.  Then we ran into a pack of Ki's and they all ran straight at me.  i got in my nose gun and sprayed most of them.  I already had used up my tail and ball ammo.  During the initial merge, they killed my last drone and gave me a pilot wound in lead bomber.  Once I was clear of them I had to bail.

Big  to those fighter jocks who tried to help.

[horble]

That was JG11 you ran into Kuya, and I was the one who got your drone.

If I'd only known you had no tail gunner.. 

Your escorting fighters did a great job of keeping us from the buffs, we never could get on top to control the fight.

<S>

[Becinhu]

That was the first time I have seen escorts actually stay with the bombers and not chase bandits diving through the formation.  I was able to stay just above the lead bombers until just before A23 when the swarm of N1k1s came in.  They took alot more punishment than I see them take in the MA. One good .50 cal burst and the light up. Not last night though. I hosed at least 4 different N1K1s with several hundred rounds each and barely knocked a part off.  Reverse the situation and I would have been a candle first burst.  Having some AKs in 47s helped alot. The F4Us were struggling at that altitude to me. Even after I went clean she felt sluggish.

[AKKuya]

That was JG11 you ran into Kuya, and I was the one who got your drone.

If I'd only known you had no tail gunner.. 

Your escorting fighters did a great job of keeping us from the buffs, we never could get on top to control the fight.

<S>

I always look for a challenge in BUFFs for defense.  4 to 5 enemy fighters head on, well nose guns can do only so much.   

Nefarious and Gyrene, those are great pics of the fight.

[thorsim]

yea 23 was far too lightly defended to have allowed that BG to get there apparently unmolested prior to target ...

if you guys were significantly engaged before 23 a big +S+ to you all for the best escort discipline i have seen in an AH event opponent.

the 10 or so 2/jg27 put up were pretty much bugs on the radiator in that one, i think 2 of us got out alive ...

+S+ to allied planning and execution on that one ...

t

[AKDogg]

2 reasons why we were unmolested to a point.  1 is when we saw yas at our 2-3 o'clock (out of icon range, just dots), I immediately ordered the bombers to turn to a NW heading to bring yas at our o'clock position and make yas chase us/catch us if u can, hehehe.  After we got past yas, we turned back N to target.  We were doing 300mph ground speed at 23k.  Don't think you guys were gonna catch us that easy.  The only planes that really got anything on us was the 2 that came head on ealier into enemy territory.  They didn't last long, heheheh.

2nd was the excellent escorts we had.  We basically had our own AK's escort and 2 othe squads.  We had 7 B24 formations, rest were fighter escorts.

[Drano]

Damned AAR: Frame 1 “Armageddon”

The Damned flew 8 F4U1-Ds off the Essex on an escort mission. Our orders were to co-ordinate with the AK’s bomber lead on a point of rendevous once in flight. It seemed something was amiss as we were all spread pretty far apart relative our launch bases and the target location. Ridiculously far for a FSO frame. The AK and 412th fighters changed to a closer launch field. I did some quick figuring and thought we could still catch the main force with a long flight by adjusting our climb rate and keeping in touch with Kuya to adjust our course as needed. Only thing I was unsure of was if we’d all make it to the target in time with all this shuffling. But we kept it together pretty well and made the most of a screwy situation.

We headed Westerly at full throttle in a shallow climb going level for a while in order to get further down range. Along our way we crossed paths with what appeared to be two separate attack groups to our North apparently bound for our TGs to the South of our course. We called in SITREPs on both. We had to quickly dodge the second of these flights that engaged us briefly. I forget which type but they were fighters. Ki-84s I think they were. I ordered our flight to keep drop tanks on, turn North into them and extend a bit before resuming our course. The enemy fighters trailed us for a bit but couldn’t close and they eventually resumed their Southerly course while we continued on to the West.

This skirmish delayed our progress West and put us a bit behind the main force so I adjusted course Northerly. Good comms between us and Kuya got the groups all together in the A32 area. Better late than never! The AK fighters and 412th took up positions above and to the left of the AK bombers while the Damned took the right flank. We’d flown over 200 miles to this point to make the link up. Timing was perfect as things were about to heat up.

The flight continued North toward A23 and started to pick up small groups of fighters about a sector North of A32. They were Ki-84s and N1K2-Js. The escorts quickly took these out of the play. What fighters managed to get past were only able to make a quick pass on the bombers before being chased off. Because of this the bombers received only minimal damage on ingress to the target and continued on a bomb run South to North on A32. A couple of enemy fighters appeared ahead just South of the target and also took a pass on the bombers while in scope but again were shooed away by the clinging escort fighters. The B-24s dropped just before the T+60 mark. Talk about clockwork! The AK B-24s took multiple passes on A23 unmolested in the target area as the escorts had by now spread out to seal off the area.

Group discipline started to break down at this point as some bombers turned right off target and others turned left. Some fighters were engaged low and to the South with the CAP fighters. Things got strung out and as fighters became low on fuel they had to leave the area. As we headed South the remainder our group started looking for targets of opportunity. We found a few dots off to our extreme right and saw the fighter that engaged Kuya and went over to help but arrived too late. After continuing South we picked up some other friendly fighters leaving the area. We saw the rest of the bomber force high and North of us. There were some enemy fighters ahead climbing to meet them but they didn’t make it. There was a mix of Ki-61s, Ki-84s and A6M5s in this group and they engaged us. As the bombers passed overhead and these fighters out of the play time was growing short so I ordered the remaining Damned to break contact and RTB to C93 at best speed. We landed there with just a few minutes to spare before end frame. We’d taken a few scalps but lost a couple in a very rewarding mission.

I gotta admit I don’t remember ever flying that far on a mission in a FSO frame. Was more like a scenario frame. But from an immersion and “realism” point of view I’d say it was spot on. Great comms all around by the AKs, 412th and the Damned were what made that mission happen. One I will remember for a long time. Great job guys. <S>

Drano

[AKDogg]

Only thing that was not historic was landing B24's on a carrier.  There was no way we could even make a land base even if we made only 1 pass on target.