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Squad Night
Report for 30-August-2005
“Mind if we butt in?”
Pilot in Attendance
Joker66
Luft
Plus Seal
RTS
Skeksis
The evening started out with us
being down one CO who was
sidelined with computer problems.
For whatever reason it would not
power up, and I hope that it has
been fixed as I don’t think I can
imagine too many scenarios as a
computer gamer that would be more
disheartening than going to turn
on a new machine and
getting….nothing. Since we were
going to be without Fuze to set up
the missions I decided to enter
the arena early to scout out the
opportunities. I had been flying
around getting in a bit of
practice as well when RTS gave me
a shout from A5 where there was a
lot of action to be had so I
headed on over and as it turned
out this was where most of our
Squad Night would take place.
RTS and I rendezvoused at A75;
which would be our base of
operations for the entire evening
and took off in Spits with 75%
fuel and drop tanks for an early
encounter against what seemed like
an overwhelming enemy force. As
we got closer we could start to
see that the odds weren’t that bad
but the enemy did have an edge in
air superiority as the Knights at
A5 were mostly bringing out GV.
If I remember correctly almost all
of our air forces were coming in
from other fields as A5 had been
taking a beating. As soon as we
were close enough to see which of
the black dots had red icons we
dropped our tanks and headed in.
As usual the combat was pretty
much of a blur but when it was
over we had gotten an early start
on the kill board as both of us
had scored and assist, I had one
kill, and RTS had gotten 3 kills.
RTS was down and had to be AFK for
a bit so I logged out to print a
few forms I needed.
When I came back on I was going to
tell RTS that if he and I were it
that Squad Night would be optional
as I also wanted to get back to
World of Warcraft (It is not my
fault I tell you, I have been
seduced!) but when I got back to
75 I found that Luft; followed
very closely by Seal and then
Joker66, was on line asking what
the mission was. Since RTS and I
had started out well at A5 we
settled on a base defense mission
flying as a group out of 75 with
the same Spit IX configuration and
with the same guideline of
dropping tanks as soon as we could
good guys from bad guys. While we
were flying in Seal valiantly took
up the task of town defense in GVs
to buy the field more time for the
cavalry to arrive.
From here on out the evening
became a whirl of activity that
can be summed up as; we took off,
we kicked some, we got kicked, we
started again
(lather-rinse-repeat-yakkity-shmackity-yadda-yadda-yadda)
but it was fun and several
noteworthy events stand in even
now 5 days later although I cannot
vouch for the order things took
place.
- At one point in the evening as
we were flying in a goon was
spotted and some o the squad
dropped down to take it out only
to find that there were two goons
and a bunch of fighters providing
cover. To make it more fun it
seemed that the two goons were
going in different directions
raising speculation that one of
them had been acting as bait to
draw in targets for the fighters.
Those of us who hadn’t dropped in
at first came in after the first
wave has been engaged but I do not
recall it we actually saved
anyone. I think this was right
around the same time that RTS was
on his own over A5 and announced
that he was dragging 10 enemies
along but that he was alright and
had plenty of speed to work with.
- At another point in the evening
RTS was roaming around handing out
punishment to the enemy in a tank
and scored three kills in the
process.
- In what would be our last action
at A5 before it was overwhelmed
and captured, we had flown in as a
group, again facing a numerically
superior enemy. As the individual
fights got started Luft picked up
a A6M on his six and since I was
close I dropped in to engage. I
was able to stay in the fight but
was having a lot of trouble
getting my guns to bear, or to
figure out the right amount of
lead, or both which was a problem
as the A6M pilot was not having
that problem. Luft suddenly went
over the top followed by the A6M
so I followed suit although I was
starting to get concerned about my
energy and speed since in my
experience I have problems with
the Spit if I try to go vertical
for too long. Just as I kick in
the WEP, pretty much just as I was
starting to go over the top the
range suddenly dropped to the
magic number 200 and I opened up
with all guns and then started to
drop my nose back down to recover
some speed. As I did I saw both
aerilons and what I think were
both elevators fly off the A6M and
it started to sink down tail first
but I wasn’t sure that he was
actually going down at first since
tried to take a shot as I flew
by. I did get the kill; and it
was a guy who had killed me at
least once, but it had been too
late to save Luft whose plane went
down due to the damage it had
taken before I could shoot down
the A6M.
- Right after this someone else
tried to jump my Spit but I was
able to maneuver well enough to
keep them from landing any hits.
Shortly after I got what had to
have been a prox-kill as the guy
plowed into the ground trying to
get a better. I started
considering bugging out to land
the kills and was starting to pull
away from the furball yet another
enemy tried to make me a kill
marker but they too hit became a
prox-kill. I think that this one
tried to bounce me and misjudged
how close I was to the ground (I
was under 30 feet) and wasn’t able
to pull up in time. That was
enough for me I gave up any ideas
of sticking around as I wanted to
land those kills (I a lot like
Daffy Duck in that I can be a
greeeeedy little coward
:-D
). I made it back but
damaged the Spit in the landing
and had to re-plane.
The scene then moved to A75 as A5
was captured and we needed a place
that was close by to take off as
we tried to blunt the anticipated
enemy push towards 75. For
whatever reasons some of us were
taking off when I noticed that 75
was flashing but there weren’t any
planes in visual range and the dar
was clear so I started to look
around instead of heading back
into the fight. It took a few
minutes to locate the intruder; a
Panzer trying to creep up from the
spawn point to the field, but once
he was located the call went out
on the general channel and lots of
pilots joined in the hunt. Joker
took to the field in a Panzer of
his own and started tracking the
intruder down as well. There were
many attempts to strafe the
Panzer, including a few I tried
but I have little success with the
Spit in this kind of activity so I
landed and came up with a fully
loaded P38J. As I was landing a
ME109 showed up and started
harrassing the pilots in the
area. For the most part he stayed
high but I guess that when he saw
me taking off he decided to try a
vulch but I was able to maneuver
well enough to prevent that from
happening and promptly unloaded
2000 pounds of bombs on the enemy
tank. This was only the begining
of the offensive though and
additional tanks were spotted as
well as a second 109 which were
soon joined by other enemy
aircraft. I do not know how the
attack went as by this time I was
starting to wrack up the enemy's
scores more than mine and it being
after 22:00 I logged for the
evening.
With everything going on this was
a great evening. We all did well
and I think we all had a lot of
fun. As usual I end with the
kills I am aware of.
Kill Board
Joker66 – 2 kills
Luft - ?
Plus Seal - ?
RTS – 1 assist, 7 kills (3 in a GV)
Skeksis – 1 assist, 1 GV, 5 kills
Skeksis |
