Koba and Swoopy decided to do a Lancaster run to an enemy city.
They upped, got into close formation, and started their climbout.
About 5 minutes after they upped, I came online. They stated their objective, said they were in lancs, so I came up from a nearby field in a P51 to escort. A few minutes later, Sailor, another 272 pilot, got online, and he joined us in a P51 aswell. So now, we had 2 formation of lanc's with 2 p51's for escort otw to an enemy city.
The lancs got up to 20K, and leveled out, in close quarters. I ranged to the left and slightly ahead of the lancs, and sailor came in to the right and slightly behind of the lancs. We maintained an alt of about 5-10K above the bombers, and throttled our speed to maintain the flight.
Upon nearing the target, we began to call out cons. Sailor and mine's objectives were simply to drive the cons away from the bombers, not necessarily to kill them. The bombers made the first pass on the city. Koba announced his intent to make a second pass, and around we went. At this point a 109 engaged.
Sailor had first contact with him, and the 109 blew right by him, intent on downing the bombers. I was hi and over the 109, I promptly rolled over and dived to engage. Near compression, I was closing, however, at the last minute the 109 pulled up hard to make his pass on Koba's bomber formation. (Was definitely a G10, the 109 was extremely fast, and had 30mm's, as we soon found out.) In that single pass, he managed to destroy 2 of Koba's bombers, however, we were now hot on his tail, and he had to dive to get away.
The bombers finished their second pass, and headed home. They had accomplished their mission, the city was heavily damaged. The 109 was engaged by sailor at this time, and I moved in to help sailor so we could disengage and follow the bombers home. We did so successfully, and regrouped with the bombers for the flight home.
(Unfortunately) sailor had an emergency and had to log off, but we had accomplished our mission, however not without causualties. Swoopy and Koba regained formation, and made quite an impressive little box formation on thier return flight. Almost to base, Swoopy called out a con 6 oclock hi long. I was inbetween both the con and the bombers, so I wasn't too concerned.
Now, getting the bombers on the ground safely became the priority. I reversed, and headed for the con. Again, it was a 109.
We passed each other, and just like before the 109 headed for the bombers. I reversed back again, and started gaining on him, but I knew I couldn't get to him really before he could make it to them. However, the bombers had already gotten close enough the the field that he would be risking an ack attack if he attempted to engage them. Finally he reversed and came on me again. I tangled with him (although low on fuel) until the bombers called in to say that they were safely on the ground.
I then disengaged and rtb'd.
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I posted this because this is the type of things that 272 does every time we are online. Whether it's fighter sweeps, jabo attacks, bomber/escorts, we work together as a team and have great fun doing so. We're not the best yet, and there is room for improvement in our team tactics, but we are working on them. Anyone interested in joining an established squadron with a core of veterans, look no further. We are mainly a European squad, but we do have 1 or 2 stateside members. And new players are welcome too, we are willing to train.
