Dateline Tunisia
One camp rejoices; one camp despairs. Music and laughter echo through the Tunisia night, the local Arabs watch despondently as the Germans whoop it up. When will they ever leave Tunisia? Hitler dances another jig, AVM Tedder eats his hat.
The British Northwest Desert Air Force put up a heavy screen of Spitfire IXs to intercept any Germans foolish enough to try to get at their A20 bombers on their way to Gabes airdrome. The A20 attack bombers were majestic plowing through the hot desert air, clawing for altitude with their P-40E escorts higher to one side. Sure enough, from the NW came the call of “bogies 11 o’clock”, “cons 10 o’clock”, “they’re coming in on us”, “get alt, drop tanks”. Then an uneasy feeling crept through the Spitfire pilots. They didn’t recognize the silhouettes of the enemy fighters coming for them. These were new aircraft to Tunisia. El Duce finally supported his benefactors with quality aircraft by sending all available Maachi 205s to Tunisia. Two whole squadrons of the new, fast, agile fighter swept into the surprised Spitfires. British tactics for combating the Luftwaffe were useless against an aircraft easily as agile and as well armed as their Spitfire IXs. It was simply a fight for survival. Some of the 205s spotted the game A20s and swept down to them while the Kittyhawk squadron powered up and waded into the one-sided air battle, their old aircraft badly outclassed by the Maachis. It was over fast, the A20s never made it to Gabes, the Spitfires and Maachis fought each other down to the deck and the Kittyhawks were, surprisingly, still up and punching above their weight. They just didn’t have enough pilots to make a difference in the fight over Gabes.
Meanwhile, the Germans had gathered together the remnants of their bomber forces and put up a strong force of Ju-88s escorted by 109s and more Italian Mc-205s. Their target: the main American base south of Gafsa, A55. Their escorts encountered the new P-51B fighters and their old enemy the P-38 Lightning. However, with surprise on their side they cleared the path for the bombers and succeeded beyond their wildest hopes in trashing the entire camp, side-to-side and top-to-bottom.
The Americans were hardly quiet, upping a large force of P-38 and P-51 fighter-bombers they sallied forth and did considerable damage to the main German base at Gafsa A26. Their A20 bomber force had been lent to the British. The P-51s were tasked with taking out the AA guns and the P-38s with the hangers. Both aircraft were used to great effect humping bombs to Gafsa and providing escort. They ran into the Luftwaffe bomber force and did considerable damage to them and their escorting 109s and 205s, but their ranks were thinned by a covering force of Fw-190s and by the AA at Gafsa. The downside being that Gafsa was a huge base, so that even losing half of their hangers didn’t hurt their abilities to up fighters or bombers. A small raid on the Luftwaffe front-line base at Mareth A2 put the fighter hanger out of commission, but this base was not used much.
Overall the action for the first hour was hot, heavy and confusing. The second hour was a wind-down, with the Italians taking their anger out on the British base at A25 and the Luftwaffe making their day trashing the rest of A55 and starting on A30.
AX IS
Pilots 102 in 13 squadrons
Country Totals:
Kills 78;
Assists 47;
Objects 65;
Deaths 46.
ALLIES
Pilots 92 in 10 squadrons
Country Totals:
Kills 55;
Assists 20;
Objects 26;
Deaths 64.
OVERALL RESULTS
This SquadOp must be awarded to the Axis forces for completing their limited offensive missions and for largely defending their bases. The Allies had a tough time as offensive missions against equal numbers are harder than largely defensive missions. However, some major errors on the part of Allied bomber squadrons (mostly getting tangled up with enemy fighters before the escorts had time to engage and drag them away) really hurt them.
No shows hurt everyone, especially in Frames 1 and 3, although the LW toughed it out in Frame 1 and came up smiling.
Well done to all squadrons and to the Frame COs. Thanks to Innomin8 and Sling for Setups.
