S3 Series

<S> everyone for adapting to the mass chaos... This was definitely a tactical scenario rather than a strategic one.

I know LAF6 and AE suffered with high losses - I'm not sure this was a result of the chaos or of uber allied aircraft. I thought I heard reports that even at altitude we were being run down.

The attack on 119 didn't go as planned. Many early P47's that attacked our front fields RTB'd to find the 23rd on the deck and we lost a few.

Shooting down bombers didn't go well due to the uber escorts and fierce otto. LAF6 and AE did, however, keep the enemy busy while 23rd racked up tons of points.

Thanks split for being patient with me and reacting to allies over-extending everything on offense - this cost them dearly as it freed up behind enemy lines... (note the difficulty in tracking radar objects once everything mixed):
TAC38 was closed (18 pts)
A half dozen vehicles were wiped out (~4 pts )
About a dozen bridge spans were taken down (~24 pts)
About a dozen ships were sunk (~30 pts)
F119 was damaged and parked A/C destroyed (~3-5 pts)
F114 was damaged and parked A/C destroyed (~3-5 pts)
Oil storage at C28 was wiped off the map (11 oil tanks - the entire industrial site ~ 15pts)
... this could be as much as 100 pts... hopefully taking out bridges and crippling oil and closing 38 hinders their forward progress for frame 5.

Again, sorry AE and LAF6 had heavy losses.

WTG 23rd.

I too feel for the bomber intercept gents. Our side sure don't have enough numbers to attack a bomber stream with any type of effectiveness. I believe we could've sent all our fighters to the bomber stream and still lost out against it.

In my opinion it appears it may not be worth going after heavy bombers. Have a few fighters go up against the buffs, but just to antagonize the fighters.

Use fighter/bombers to bomb targets where we get big points, while the cap for the buffs salivate on thinking about hitting fighters trying for the buffs. Atleast for the first heavy bomb run and then if they don't change their tactics; do the same for the second heavy bomber run.

Then on top of that we have to worry about people not following rules that state at T-160 if not engaged it's time to RTB and not run to airbases hoping to vulch returning aircraft. Which happened in frame 3 and 4.

FWIW

After what happened I totally agree with that assessment, Yamon.

Ya gotta put up some defense against bombers, if only to keep the escorts engaged, otherwise they reassign and we back where we started. Make em think there re more of us just around the corner and keep em engaged and on their toes....
Hats off to youse guys who kept at the buffs and keeping their max effort into escort..<S>.it really did free up strike for some really good work. Being able to go deep to oil tank storage depot with only a few minutes to spare in the strike frame really paid off. Sank our last 3 ships with only 2 min to spare. e could linger and strafe til ammo was gone...usually its a high speed run letting bombs fly, saying a hail mary and getting hell otta doge with fighters in pursuit!

Of course you have to keep them interested in staying with the buffs, hence saying a few fighters to keep them honest and quivering thinking of all the killing they're going to do shortly.

5-6 fighters flying as singles can confuse the heck out of the escort. If otto is that tough, then run in on the escort take a shot when it's gives you one, then extend (I'm sure 2-4 will chase you), next comes another fighter 30 secs or so and do the same.

Extend until they pull off; get some alt. for energy to bounce them again from the back of the buff/escort box again.

They all won't follow as they'll think the singles are trying to strip them, so they will keep a number with the buffs. It appears the 4th stayed with the buffs until the last 8-10 minutes of the frame, then tried to do the vulch thing after T-160.

That's my thinking anyways.

Germans need to keep down losses over the night. Totally outscored the Allies heavies on BDA in frame 4 by picking the right targets but lost in the individual plus minus points. Allied bombers were very well escorted in Frames 3-4. In Frames 1-2 not so much. Weapons, bufftuff, otto settings etc have not changed from last year except we are not using the CA interface.