01 January 2008
New Year's Day

 

Squad Debrief

 

“New Years Day” - January 1^st, 2008

 

The Specialists held their first squad night of the year on Tuesday, January 1^st, 2008. Turnout was light but expected since it was a holiday. RTS, Skunk, Agit8tor (Ditto), Swoose, and Luft were present.

 

RTS and Luft were running warm-up runs from A1 to A18 while Ditto and Skunk had been pounding A19 from A2. Both fields were swarming with aircraft, both friendly and bad guys. It was a furball lovers dream. The pickings were plenty.

Climb Baby, Climb! (RTS)

 

 

The Titanic Tuesday arena may have been discontinued so we all crammed into the Blue arena. It was up to around 420 aces in there when we started at 21:00.

Since it was the holidays there were plenty of handles like “87699” and “65742”. That can only mean one thing: a newbie dweeb taking a 2 week trial. This is a great thing! Not only because it makes it easier to get a kill but also because it makes it easier to get a kill. And, kill them we did!

 

Ditto showing no mercy on a spit that managed to land with half a wing left but who was still trying to roll to a stop.

 

A close-up of Ditto's target shortly before its demise.

 

Ditto had arranged for us to tune in with another squad– Damage Inc., a fine knight squadron. I have run several missions with Floatsup and crew before and they always have a lot of fun and run some good missions. Usually there are massive numbers of joiners in these runs and the pounding is something to behold. We never got setup for a joint run but should definitely do this in the future. Especially if Specialist turnout is low for that night.

 

Skunk offered up a plan and we went carrier hunting instead. In fully loaded F4’s with rockets and 1000 pounders we lined up on the runway for a Northeast takeoff from Alpha 2 to the 9,8 sector (Just west of A18). The fleet had been spotted there about 10 minutes earlier. We encountered some enemies right after takeoff and a couple of us had to drop eggs to lighten the load.

 

Luft and RTS searched the upper left and right quadrants of the sector but could not locate the fleet. Swoose, Ditto, and Skunk searched the lower half of the sector. After a failed search for the fleet we diverted to A18.

 

This was a good decision. The action was absolutely spectacular and the fighting as fierce as it gets. Ditto had been pounding the field from California for 3 hours. In fact, he was grilling burgers in the backyard while grabbing AFK and then coming back in time to take the controls and get back into the action. The 3 hour time difference has always been tough for the west coasters who are meeting at 18:00 their time.

 

Swoose bringing it around

 

The nature of the map we had, made it hard to capture any fields. A18 was almost taken at one point however. Everything was down in the town and on the field. Several of the Ground Vehicle Hangars, Fighter Hangars, and Gun Emplacements were taken out by Specialists. One of our carriers was also just off the coast so we were able to get right back into the fight if we lost a plane. We fought it out until about 22:20 when only Skunk, Swoose and Ditto were still up. Nobody kept score but I saw all of the Specs slicing and dicing, pounding and hounding, and if we could have called them on radio we would have taunted them as well...it was New Years Day!!!  and everyone was having fun. A good time had by all.

 

I’d like to take a moment to wish all Specialists a wonderful New Year and many successful kills.

Luft

 

 

Hi Resolution Photo Album of 01 January 2008