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Squad
Night Report for 19-April-2005
"You want a piece of us, tough
guy?"
Pilots in Attendance
Lees2
Luft
Plus Seal
RBS
RTS
Skeksis
SKu
Target
A24
As Squad Night started this week
the picture was bleak for the
Knights. In addition to the HQ,
the major city, and one or two
factories, we held about 8
installations and a carrier and at
any given time all but two were
flashing at the same time. I
don't think that any of the eight
or fields were unscathed and some
had serious damage. Since Fuze
was unable to fly (by the way,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FUZE) Plus came up
with a plan. We were going to fly
out of A34 from the northwest
runway and stage a fighter/bomber
raid on A24. Plus and myself took
51Ds with full tanks, 2 500 pound
bombs, and rockets while RTS,
Lees, and SK took 38Js heavy. The
38s held a good formation while I
struggled to keep up with Plus but
we all arrived more or less at the
same time with the 38s leading the
attack.
Fortunately there were other
Knights in the area or we would
have been up against a superior
number of defenders. At first the
attacks went well but we were
unable to bring down the last
fighter hanger and before long the
enemy were able to use this to
their advantage. We were all
light by the time they were able
to put some serious numbers into
the air and we all worked to
distract them while Luft tried to
bring in a goon and take the
town. I haven't seen it yet but I
understand there is some excellent
footage of Luft using the trees
for cover. Sadly he was unable to
get the goons in and one by one we
went down or returned to friendly
fields. I went down as I was
trying to scissors against a group
of three enemies following me and
I did pretty well for awhile but I
had no ideas how to try to get
away and the fight was moving
around too much to make it easy
for Lees and Plus to get into it.
Eventually I ran out of speed and
ideas but man it was fun while it
lasted.
A34 came under heavy attack so we
switched to A32 and returned to
the battle over A24. Lees, RTS,
and SK got to the town and
inflicted serious damage to it
while the rest of us mixed it up
over the field. I got into
several scrapes including one that
didn't last too long as I
misjudged my closure rate while
lining up an excellent shot and
used my Pony as a weapon. The
enemy pilot got the kill but while
I was coming down in the silk I
got the kill for him as well. At
the same time I received a prox
kill on a pilot trying to bring a
P40E into the battle, I know it
was a prox kill as I was without
guns at the time.
;-)
After that I got into a pretty
long battle in which I didn't
score any hits but was able to
keep going long enough for a
fellow Knight to come to my
rescue. Things didn't work out
quite right as another Knight had
to come to his rescue and then I
tried to help out the second guy
but we both wound up going down.
It was a heck of a ride in the
process though. After this the
fight was brought to us so we all
we riding around in our fighter of
choice. I decided to switch back
to the FW-190D which seems to be
working for me. I think I was
shot down at one point but I am
not sure so I am not going to give
it much thought. I know I did get
up and into the fight but as I was
turning towards an enemy I was hit
by one that I had not seen. I was
able to maneuver away with only
the loss of my right aileron. At
this point I thought I was going
to have to land but I found that
my plane still handled well and I
stayed in the fight until I was
down to 7 minutes of fuel so it
seemed to be time to land.
Because of my fuel shortage I
rushed the landing and found I
wasn't able to lower my gear.
Since I had no plans to re-up in
this one I settled for a belly
landing which looked like it was
headed for a building until I used
the rudder to skew the plane and
it finished sliding down the
runway sideways. I had time for
one more flight but it seemed I
couldn't get into anything and
landed successfully and logged
shortly after.
Tally of known Kills:
Lees - 6 buildings, 1 x Niki, 1 x
LA, 2 unknowns
Luft - 2x Tiffie, 38, assist 3
lancasters
Plus - 1 FH
RTS - 2 FH, 11 city buildings
Skeksis - Assist LA7, Assist P40,
P40 (prox), 1 unknown
SKu - 1 x P38, 1 x Niki, 1 city
building
Once again the evening was a lot
of fun and the Specialists fought
and flew exceptionally well. You
guys really know how to throw a
party!
Salute!
Skeksis
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