| AAR - A Dark Deadly Rain Week 5 |
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[The following is a narrative report of my experience in the Warbirds flight sim Squad Select Series (S3) event Week 5 of "A Dark Deadly Rain." This is a report of my 30th sortie in the S3 arena (which by comparison to the many S3 veterans, is very few). I had been very fortunate to be winged up with a veteran pilot, callsign Bluzoo, who I will refer to hereafter as my flight-lead, lead, or wingy. Without his help and patient tutelage (and that of other veteran Warbirds pilots), this fun and exciting experience would not be the same. For anyone reading this who doesn't know, the S3 is a "one-life-to-live" 3-hour event in the Warbirds online flight sim, which pits pilots against each other in weekly historical scenarios that focus on fun, realism and teamwork.]
[B]Week 5 of Operation Dark Deadly Rain - Allied Bombing Campaign on German Industry/Oil Targets:[/B]
It's a fighter pilot's dream orders! Free rein to seek and destroy the enemy. The overall goal is still to get our bombers to target and back safely, as it has been in recent weeks, but this time there are none of the restraints of close escort duty, no being bound to a set distance from the bomber group or being unable to pursue below a hard deck. Our job is to hunt the enemy down, chase him down and shoot him down. Just the job the P51D Mustang and the fighter pilots who fly them were made for! With a "Yes, sir!" and a crisp salute we set out for this mission, chomping at the bit.
Full of fuel and ammo, we depart our field near the coast of England and head out across The Channel. We climb to altitude, dropping the first of our two drop tanks, and some of us burn a few gallons of internal fuel, to reduce our fighting weight in case we are jumped early. We know the German Messerschmidt Bf 109 fighters can climb higher than us, so we are ever watchful for being bounced by their advance scouts. Not long after reaching the Dutch coast, the high contact we expect is spotted -- a solo fighter flying over our group. He trails us, seeming to be waiting for the right spot to pounce. A couple of our guys try to zoom climb to him, hoping to possibly goad him down. We are a large group of fighters, and he would be unwise to come down to our playground. Instead, he wisely stays high, with us unable to reach the 5-6,000 feet of additional altitude we need to hit this lighter aircraft. This exercise in frustration continues for some time, and he essentially leads us on a wild goose chase. Clearly he is content to report our position, allowing the ground control operators to vector his comrades around us and out of harms way. And there is little we can do about it until he decides to come down from his perch. It is starting to feel like what may have been a promising mission has already gone awry.
"Here he comes!", someone shouts on the radio. I turn my head to see the enemy aircraft clearly diving down. He performs a hit and run attack, damaging one of our P51's, who's pilot is forced to return to England due to a mechanical problem. But the 109 is not climbing back up this time; now he is diving out! The chase is on! And our side has the faster aircraft. Two of our squadron-mates give pursuit, with no hard-deck or engagement rules to hold them back. The chase goes all the way down to the deck, where eventually our CO exacts revenge for the 109 having reduced our number by one. But, the 109 has succeeded in identifying us as fighters, running us around and splitting us up some. If we were intended for close escort, this would be more of a problem, but not on a fighter sweep -- so our mission continues as planned. My flight lead and I turn to the north and continue scanning the skies.
But the Luftwaffe is nowhere to be found. They are not playing by our rules. And why would they? Their primary target is the bomber group. Likely they are vectoring around our sweeps and looking for the bombers, as we expect. The bomber group has just now penetrated radar, so we turn back to the west hoping we can find some Luftwaffe fighters rallying for a head on attack. My flight lead keeps us always slightly off angle from the bombers' planned route, with occasional turns to the north or south, so as to not to allow the ground controllers a good fix on our heading. Yet another lesson to be remembered, in a seemingly never-ending list of lessons...
Sure enough, there are the bombers. Nine-o'clock low, and headed our way. Right on time. And look at that tight formation, boy! Nicely done, buff drivers. I sure wouldn't want to be attacking that. As if on cue, "BOOM!" something goes up in flames at the rear of the bomber group! Not a bomber -- that was a fighter! It is reported: 109's hitting the battle-group! Continuing our left turn around the formation, we spot them. "Nine-o-clock high, diving into the bombers", my lead and I both report to everyone, almost simultaneously. "Here we go!" he says, my cue that we are attacking. We wing over left and dive in after the enemy!
Leveling off just behind the bomber formation, there seem to be 109's everywhere. There are two right in front of me, with my lead chasing one. Checking six, I see another closing behind me! I barrel-roll, clearing my six and check my lead's six -- he is clear too. Another 109 climbs right in front of me, maybe the same one I just avoided -- with my head on a swivel tracking two 109's along with keeping an eye on my lead, it's hard to say. I'm closing on the climing 109 fast. "I'm guns range on one!" I announce. "Roger. I see you. You have lead!" my wingy declares. I put a short burst in front of the 109, but he breaks left and starts to dive. "He's diving out." I announce. "Stay with him, you're clear." my wingy says. So, down we go in a shallow dive to the left. I bring the nose around to lead his turn just a little and close the distance. "I'm gaining!" I say, though it seems to take ages. "You're still clear. Get the bastard!" my wingy encourages me, all the while watching my six.
I'm fangs out now, working hard to trim the plane to maintain speed and steady up for a good shot. I'm inside guns range already, I know, but I'm still gaining. I fight the urge to pull the trigger as I look for a better shot. A notch of flaps and I steady up on the target more. I put a few rounds into him, but he's evasive now. He's working for the overshoot, I can tell, so I work the flaps and throttle carefully. Everything is working in unison now, things moving without my consciously thinking -- trim, flaps, roll, rudder, all trying to keep the 109 steady and growing larger in my gun-sight. There's the shot! I give him a good long burst now, and get hits all along his fuselage, but he doesn't blow up like I had hoped. He's hurt badly, though, fuel and oil leaks springing from the many 50-caliber holes I've punched in him. Only a matter of time now. "You're still clear" my wingy reports, giving me confidence to stay with the evasive 109.
I'm still closing -- more than I'd like, actually. In goes the second notch of flaps again. But, he noses down sharply and I try to follow the move, making my first mistake in a game where the first mistake is usually your last. The red out is a short one, but I know that I'll overshoot. I pull up and roll, hoping to do a yo-yo while blind, shouting "Red out! I'M OFF!" on the radio. I hear the 109's cannon firing even before I go by. He's done this move before, I'm certain, anticipating the overshoot and firing before I've even cleared his nose. Dang, this guy's good. Then, BOOM, the explosion.
As my vision clears, I see a puff of smoke where the 109 once was and I'm still in one piece, my wingy (lead again, now) close by. That was the deciding factor. That was my ace in the hole when all the chips were in the middle. My wingy was there. The unlucky 109 was alone. "Teamwork", I say to myself. "That's what this is all about."
"Two seven zero." he says immediately, vectoring us out. Then "Good work."
"Thanks for the finish." I try to say confidently, knowing that he may have also saved my ass. But now is not the time for handshakes and high-fives. We're on the deck and still deep in "Indian Country". I resume my usual routine of checking our six, especially our high six now, repeatedly. I have my eyes outside the cockpit so much, I fail to notice for a while that my fuel gauge has been dropping lower and lower. "Hey, I'm bingo fuel." I report in the latest revelation. Under a third of a tank. Enough to make it home, but not enough to play with. "Roger we're RTB then." says my lead. He reports back that he has a little more fuel than I do (since he doesn't burn any internal fuel early on -- more confident in his ability to handle a heavy aircraft than I am, and clearly the wiser in conserving fuel).
"I've got a lone low contact here" he then reports. "I'll check him out, you continue west." I don't like leaving him, and now I'm really regretting burning those few gallons of internal fuel earlier. I'm feeling like I'm letting my wing-man down by not being able to stick with him. But less than two minutes later another enemy 109 is felled to his guns. His confident pilot swagger is well-earned, I think. "He was alone" he reports. "Alone", the word echoes in my head. Now we're alone too -- just as vulnerable as our last two victims were. The thought remains present in my mind as I continue to scan the sky. "Just need to stay vigilant", I think to myself. At least we're RTB with two in the bag. Funny how quickly one goes from cat to mouse, though. And I was just starting to like being the cat. I check my high six again...
[B]Continued[/B]
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He turn'd his charger as he spake, upon the river shore. He gave the bridle-reins a shake, with 'Adieu for evermore, my love! And adieu for evermore.'
This post has been edited 9 time(s), it was last edited by Adieux on 01-04-2010 at 16:35.
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