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Wow! What a Frame. Four sorties of nonstop action. It's pretty much a blur but I'll try to make some semblance of it. We had 14 pilots at the start (Besea, Countt, Crommm, Darken, Foss-j, Heaven, Hookem, Okdoc-, Ozzone, Pppepp, Rock--, Swanee, Waagaa, Docgxx) with late arrival Hookem manning the Dar. Hookem's overwatch would prove to be very valuable. Thanks Hookem! At T+0 American Eagles launched two pairs of scouts and sent them to the Southern Channel to look for ships. The remainder launched when our Buffs went wheels up and escorted them to the target area. Before long, our scouts found two separate fleets of ships and reported their location to our Buffs. Our Buffs braved fierce Ack and made kindling of both fleets fairly rapidly. As they attacked, AE scouts were engaged by high Spits and fought a running battle back to the main group of AE who were now higher than the Spits. Our high element rescued our scouts and forced the enemy to withdraw NW shooting down 2 EA in the process.
By now, the Buffs were headed home after successful drops and AE commenced rtb. On the way, Hookem reported a large mass on radar moving east south of the 'No Operations' line. Eagles diverted to the 9.5X area to intercept. A flight of Wellingtons without escort crossed the Operations Line heading for our port at F55. We annihilated them shooting down 7 to the loss of 1 of ours to a collision. We rtb'd to F55 to finish Sortie #1.
Sortie 2 and 3 are a blur as we were all over the map. The Buffs we started out escorting were assigned to the northern target area when no additional targets could be found down south. Our huge assault on Dover by our Stuka squadrons ran into resistance and the Eagles were reassigned to support them. Before we could get there, the assault ended with the tragic loss of many Stuka's and the withdrawal of the enemy NW. Eagles were retasked to help on the northern coast of France where several attacks by Hurricanes supported by Spits were occuring. From this point we protected our shipping as best we could shooting down 5 Spit/Hurri's and another large flight of 8 Wellingtons versus the loss of only one of our own. Fuel and ammo exhausted we rtb'd to F21 and F52.
AE relaunched for Sortie 4 to rendezvous over the Northern French Coast. More attacks were reported on our shipping and we responded, shooting down 1 Hurricane and chasing others back across the Channel at low level. At T+160 the surface attacks ended and we headed back east towards home. The allies were having none of this and a small flight of 3 followed. As they got closer we elected to dispose of them and engaged. Alas, during this fight we were set upon by several more Spits and Hurri's and a furious fight occured low level mid-channel. We lost 4 in this engagement (two to maneuver kills). Eventually the rest of AE managed to escape and rtb'd to end the frame.
Special Congrats to Swanee, Ace in a Frame with 5 kills and 1 assist.
Final Tally:
Kills: 23 (9 Spit/Hurri's and 15 Wellingtons) Besea 4, Countt 2, Crommm 1, Foss-j 3, Ozzone 3, Rock-- 3, Swanee 5, Waagaa 1, Docgxx 1
Assists: 7 Besea 2, Foss-j 1, Okdoc 1, Ozzone 1, Pppepp 1, Swanee 1
Losses: 5 Crommm, Darken, Foss-j, Okdoc, Docgxx (including 2 maneuver kills and at least 1 collision)
Thanks to Jabo, Phenix, and all the side CO's for a phenomenal effort putting on an extremely challenging S3. You outdid yourselves.
S!
Crommm
American Eagles
(edited per Phenix S6.)
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crommm
