After starting out in mid-war purple with RTS we shifted over to join Luft in late-war orange where the planes fly faster and the bullets do more damage…or are larger…however that works out.  As we were getting our bearings Luft sent out a quick email telling The Specialists where we were and then we got down to business.  The question of the day was what could we fly that was fast and that could carry ordinance and chew up a lot of enemy targets.  The answer to this were P38L’s, loaded with all the destructive toys they could carry.

We had a couple of choices; 45 (which looked as if it had broken out in green measles) or 47 which looked like no one was minding the store.  We decided to take the path of least resistance and headed out on a southwest course towards 47 although as usual I turned the wrong way on the way out and fell behind the group (it’s a trend, I always get lost when I play my Hunter in W.O.W…) but arrived on the scene just as RTS and Luft started their attack.  We had the sky…and all the flak…to ourselves, no one else was around, so the flak was able to give us completely undivided attention.  As a side note I think that the flak could be toned down a bit and no one will complain.  I think the flak knocked Luft down and I am pretty sure it also took out RTS while I got lucky and only lost a fuel tank, scoring a barracks in the process.  I wasn’t going to wait around for the flak to get better at aiming and headed back to base where Luft and RTS were planning another raid.  I am pretty sure that this was the raid where an enemy tried to follow me back but he was so far behind when I got back to the base I stopped worrying about him.

The second sortie was going to be almost a repeat of the first, we were going to take heavy P38L’s but instead of going to 47 we were going to hit 45 (the idea was that all the friendlies in the area would distract the unfriendlies) and there were going to be more of us as Fuze and Sk had logged in.  The flight over went without a hitch but it was once again the heavy flak that got in the way and I do not recall who scored what if anything. 

 All I do recall is that the flak took out a fuel tank again plus the radiator on engine 1 which I shut down once I had gotten away from the flak thinking I would start it again if it was needed and/or had cooled down enough.  I didn’t see any flames but the engine did not cool down enough for me to try it for more than a quick test but it wasn’t really needed as no one was paying any attention to anything outside the massive and very hairy furball over the water to the east of the field.  One engine down and having made a wide swing to the west of the field to avoid detection made it a longer trip back but I did get back although I landed to the right of the runway and broke both props so it was counted as a ditch.  Ah well, a ditch is better than dead.

Our third sortie was when we rolled out the really big iron….B26’s formations with bomb loads which we flew as a nape of earth mission, popping up just as we approached the base.  Getting in was the easy part.  It was when we started to drop our bombs and get out that we attracted all the attention from the fighter cover and they extracted payment from us.  Fuze went down and Sk lost both drones pretty quickly and I took some fire from a Spit but he broke off after I returned fire and scored some hits.  The last problem I had was a Tiffie that was looking me over but for some reason he never closed range and I had a pretty easy ride back.  We hadn’t calibrated on the way in, just taking our best shot, but I do not know how well that worked out other than the fighter hanger I got.  RTS made it back to the base before the rest of us but came in too fast and crashed on the runway.  Luft came in next and brought his main plane in fine but left his drones on the runway behind him which seemed like such a good idea I did the same thing.

For the fourth sortie of the night we took fighter of choice and headed out to see how much trouble we could stir up.  We were about halfway to 45 when we came across a lone B24 formation which at first we thought might have been above us but since I was closer I went over for a look.  It wasn't and soon all of us had engaged them.  At this point it all becomes somewhat confused and I do not know what happened to Fuze and Luft.

  All I clearly remember was seeing Sk lose a wing and one pass that I made from left to right with everything just right so I raked the one bomber along the trailing edge of the wings from engine 1 to engine 4 hitting with both machine guns and cannon.  We had shot down two of the bombers in pretty short order and it seemed that I was the only Spec around as I tried to get the last one but I was not able to get the lead set right and when I realized he had dragged me back to the huge furball I let him go.  A quick split-s to build up speed and I was heading back to base far enough out that no one was trying to chase me down and on the way back I got an assist on the last bomber bringing that tally to one kill and 2 assists.  This and a final successful lander were a great way to close out another outstanding squad night.  Once again this was a lot of fun and y'all are a great bunch to fly with.

Salute!

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