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31 May 2005
Squad Night Debrief
"WJABO,
all direct hits, all the time"
Missions:
A22 to city in 7-10
A23 to city in 10-10
A29 to carrier
Pilots in Attendance:
Fuzeman
Joker66
Luft
RBS
RTS
Skeksis
SKu
Due to circumstances outside of
anyone's control the anticipated
bomber mission has been delayed
for a week but that did not stop
The Specialists on Tuesday. Over
the course of the evening we flew
pretty much the same mission, with
slight variations in target and
load-outs, and in the process
delivered over fifty thousand
pounds of high explosives in four
sorties to the enemy. I don't
have exact figures as I do not
know the warhead size on the
rockets we all carries and a
percentage of the ordinance
carried needs to be discounted as
jettisoned, so we will go with the
50,000 pounds. That is a lot of
TNT.
As usual I came online early. I
have been having problems lately
and have not been flying well,
getting shot down a lot, not
hitting targets, and so on.
Pretty much the usual but more so,
if that makes any sense. With
some spare time I started out in
the TA and just for the heck of it
spend the time flying the FM-2, a
plane I have little experience
with, and came away with a small
complaint. The FM-2 has small
windows in the floor of the
fuselage, sort of to the sides of
the rudder pedals, which I guess
are supposed to help with spotting
ground targets but one of them is
blocked by the clipboard.
Hopefully when the 'realized'
cockpit is rolled out a better
place for the clipboard will be
discovered. After trying a
bombing raid with the FM-2 on an
enemy VH in the TA (scoring no
hits but getting pretty close) it
was time to go to the MA. Another
reason I come on-line early is in
case of patches and skins. The
only comment I will make on that
is I should have logged in *hours*
earlier as I was downloading skins
all night long.
;-)
I started out with the Spit IX and
a 75% load-out expecting to CAP
whatever field it was I took off
from. It was a reasonable
expectation as the field was under
attack when I took off but the
defending Knights quickly cleared
the skies. As I was heading out
someone asked about enemy tanks
and seeing three friendly GVs on a
ridge not too far away I headed
over to do some recon and spent
most of my 75% fuel watching two
spawn points that were close
together. This lead to nothing as
the enemy VH was put out of action
at some point and with fuel low I
brought in the Spit which I traded
for a P38 as a formation of
bombers had been spotted heading
to the field. I was able to get
off the ground and using some new
tactics that involved a sort of
'roller coaster action' to come up
and shoot and drop down to throw
off the gunner's aim and repeat as
needed, knocked down two of the
bombers as RTS came on line.
Since he was flying a bombing
mission I wanted to land and rearm
having used all of my cannon
rounds on the B26s. I also wanted
to land the kills.
I caught up to RTS pretty quickly
and since the flight was
uneventful I headed in to the
target first to see what threats
might be in the area. It turned
out that there wasn't much as the
Knights had been working on this
field for some time and had the
town flat. The only thing
stopping the capture was a Panzer
right on the edge of the 'green'
around the town. A bunch of the
Knights, myself, and RTS all
attacked the Panzer but it was
hard to take out and almost as
soon as it was taken out a Flak
panzer spawned. In the meantime
the Knights dropped a load of
troops from an M3, a C47, and a
second C47 before the capture was
successful and the capture was
only just successful as the town
had started to re-spawn and was
cleared again just in time. Just
in time did not describe the enemy
counter attack as we had taken the
field before they got there but
they showed up with a lot of
aircraft and took me out of the
fight as I was turning to start to
line up an LA7. I hadn't realized
I was in the middle of a wave of
about a dozen aircraft so I was
completely surprised by being shot
down when I thought all the
enemies were in front of me.
;-)
Meanwhile, Joker66 came
on line and he and RTS were
pursuing a westbound bomber group
and I started to join up thinking
they were heading East but when I
found out they were going the
other way I didn't think too much
of my chances of catching up and
returned to A22 to wait for Squad
Night to begin. It wasn't a long
wait.
Mission One:
Our first mission for the evening
was a strike at one of the enemy
cities several sectors away. We
started on a westerly course and
then changed over to a southwest
course when we were able to fly
pretty much a straight bearing
in. We were heading to 7-10 over
the ocean and we were loaded for
bear. The plane of choice was the
P47 D40 with 50% fuel, two
thousand pounds of bombs, and
rockets and we were going to climb
to 14,000 feet before we got
there. That was the plan at
least. I was having a lot of
problems keeping up and eventually
settled for 10k or so when I went
level as I wanted to get there
before all of the targets were
gone. This didn't go as planned
either but there is an advantage
in being that far behind, I can
sometimes keep tabs on aircraft
that the busy pilots might not
spot, which is how things worked
out. An enemy LA had come up and
was starting to be a threat so I
called the con plus two unknowns
that had just come up from the
nearby field dropped my nose and
was able to get to the party
before it was all over. Fuze,
Joker, Luft, RTS, and everyone
else were already mixing it up
when I made my bomb drop and while
it was not my best it should have
scored something so I suspect that
I had bombed an area that had
already been reduced to rubble in
the first attacks. I am not
trying to sound like I am just
whining here but sometimes I can't
tell the intact buildings from the
already destroyed ones and
hopefully HiTech will make it a
little easier in the next graphics
update. The Specialists reduced
the city from 98% to 49% before it
was all over which is pretty darn
impressive even though we weren't
able to get back home. As we were
going down Fuze instructed us to
wait at 22 so we could mount
another large strike. Ordinance
turned out to be down at 22 when
we all got there so we moved to
the next field over.
Mission Two:
This mission started from A23
because we couldn't take ords from
A22 and it was changed a little
bit as we now took 75% fuel and
were going after a different
target but other than that, the
basic plan was the same. We would
take heavy Jugs and pound a city
as hard as we could. Fuze
suggested that I use the auto-take
off option but for some reason,
probably because I was rushing to
get it set before we all rolled,
something went wrong and it did
not engage. I had also made a
mistake and not taken the correct
load out so I augered, fixed the
problems, and headed back out.
The rest of the group must have
been about 10 miles in front of me
as all I could see was RBS at 4
miles between where I was and a
lot of dots but I was closing the
distance at a steady pace (in
other words this was going better
than the last one). After I was
between RBS and the main group I
decided to try to climb which once
again put me way behind everyone.
I have to admit that I wonder if
the auto pilots are interfering
with airspeed and that my best
option is to use the trim but I
will leave that for another time
as I haven't mastered that yet
either.
;-) Anyway, when I got to
join this party most of the
buildings were down but I was able
to score a few buildings with my
rockets before I was once again
shot down. That part isn't a
surprise as I as low when we were
jumped and I didn't see many ways
to break off and run away. Before
he went down Joker scored an
outstanding 26 buildings on this
attack and the rest of the
Specialists were just adding to
the enemy's discomfiture by adding
to their tallies of destruction.
I do not know how much damage we
doled out to this city but it had
to be sizeable, we were there long
enough and employed enough
ordinance to put a major hurt on
it. As with the first mission we
held at the designated field until
we were all together. This I feel
is a good policy to follow when a
lot of the squad is already down
as it let's us come back as a
unified force rather than strung
out. For the next mission, which
was going to be another city
strike, we grouped at A29 but as
things turned out we ended up
carrier hunting in what was (for
me) the most enjoyable part of the
night.
Mission Three:
Up until this point I had not been
doing very well, the problems with
keeping up with the group plus my
not hitting much of anything had
really gotten to me but I wasn't
going to give up and go home.
Instead of doing a manual takeoff
I let the auto-take off do the
job, which it did much better than
a previous attempt and things went
fine until while reaching for a
pen I accidentally whacked the
stick which shut off the auto-take
off and caused me to drop out of
the group. At least this time I
wasn't too far behind the group
but of course I was off course.
;) This actually worked out to
the squad's advantage though.
While I was catching up the rest
of the squad had gotten through
the enemy fighter screen and I
wound up with a F4F looking me
over. I didn't think I had that
much of a chance to get past him
so I decided to tangle with him
and try and buy some time for the
squad. I cleaned up as quickly as
I could and started flying as
defensively as possible while the
squad was putting serious hurt on
the fleet. While I am reversing,
rolling, and diving to build up
some speed to pop back up; and for
a while got into a scissors with
the F4F, Sku took out the carrier
amid a rain of HE-based
destruction. Fuze, Joker, and the
rest of the squad kept the
pressure up on the enemy fleet
scoring more hits and racking up
more damage. I am pretty sure
that the action I was in wasn't
all that long but it seemed like
it on my end and it wasn't too
long before I had attracted other
enemy pilots to the fight but I
had a lot of fun and for the first
time in the evening I left like I
was contributing to the squad.
Eventually it ended the way one
would expect but not until I had
three or four of them on me and
that was three or four that
weren't defending the carrier and
the way I look at it *they* lost
an entire carrier, we lost *one*
Jug, which I just don't think is
as important as a carrier. ;)
Besides I am a little bit proud
that I held my own in a plane that
I never try to dogfight in and
bought the time the squad needed
to do what they came to do. I
think I am justified in that.
Mission Four:
This was my last mission for the
evening and like the other three
was a jabo strike in heavy P47s.
The idea was go out and finish the
rest of the fleet, which went very
well and soon all that was left
was a small flotilla of PT Boats
that must have launched as the
carrier went down. The rest of
the Knights must have put down the
bulk of the enemy CAP before we
got back as I do not recall seeing
too many red tagged planes in the
area; all of the red icons were at
sea level trying to maintain a
coherent group while maneuvering
to avoid our attacks. To a degree
their twisting and turning was
working however with the other
Knights and us there were a lot of
planes in the area and we were
starting to cause them some
problems. My first run with the
2000-pounders had no effect but
when I came back around and fired
6 of the rockets as I ran the
length of the column I scored 4
kills which at first I just did
not believe (I took a screenshot
though just to prove it to myself
later). At first I thought they
were PT Boats but later it did not
seem that there were any less of
them so I suspect I actually
killed gun crews. I fired off the
last rockets in a half-hearted
attack and then decided enough was
enough and left to land the
kills. As I was heading back to
base additional kills were being
reported by the squad which was a
very good thing.
This is the first week that I am
using the new method of recording
kills. It is not as dramatic or
exciting as listing all of the
various aircraft, objects,
vehicles, ships, and etc but it is
easier to record while in flight.
As always I record the kills I am
aware of.
Kill Board:
Fuzeman - 2 assists, 28
buildings, 4 field objects, 1
kill, 1 vessel
Joker66 - 51 buildings, 1 kill, 2
vessels
Luft - 15 buildings, 2 field
objects
RBS - 3 buildings
RTS - 1 assist, 16 buildings, 4
field objects, 1 kill, 3 vessels
Skeksis - 13 buildings, 6 kills*
SKu - 12 buildings, 6 field
objects, 1 kill, 4 vessels
* 2 before squad night
I have to admit as I go over this
report that I have a feeling that
I am missing something. I recall
that SKu was credited with two
carrier kills but I don't have
mission notes for two fleet
strikes. Perhaps I just missed
that part somehow. :) Regardless
we had an excellent night and left
swath of destruction behind us.
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