S3 Series

Will start this off as I was acting Frame CO for first portion, then Dawger rolled in and took over:)

Take off as planned, all units heading to assigned sectors.
Initial contact was AI followed by "small" number of escorts in Whiskey Box.

475th turned South of the Zulu container to hedge our bets vs a "Hey Diddle Diddle, Bombers down the Middle" run again. Second human group caused 475th to commit South to ensure Shooters coming straight down the 270 did not get jumped.

Requested remainder two Northern groups to stay North and LF6 to turn East for 2 minutes and then back West.:
Large group (50+) from GCI caused a full blown commit from the Northern Groups. Might have been an error in communication since it appears that everyone went South (including LF6) when I just wanted the 2 Northern Groups to come South. Would have to review comm buffer and see if I can see....

Initial contact with small group was 10+ fighters who turned North when they saw us (or at a preplanned point) and we ended up chasing them North then West. We dropped them as we went feet wet and headed back to 58 for Rejoin Point. Turned back to West to intercept the now merged two fighter escort groups and from that point on, lost SA on the big picture. Swirling dervish with escorts...trying to get them to split S out....guys going defensive...etc... Had an Action! crash on 2nd contact...loss of probably the best action of the series for us.

Northern groups now in the fray, and escorts partially stripped.

From my perspective, a much better job by escorts on this one. We never got them fully stripped to almost Berlin, and they launched a successful reception escort. Buffer looked in our favor, but did not get a final tally.

Well flown final Frame!

Dobs

Orders were to send all groups 180 .... Rat confirmed "dobs" all groups? Reply was "all groups". I would have loved to disobey this order as I was on a 270 heading to the buffs. But we followed orders. At this time we didn't have GCI.

And within Intra-squad comms, Red flight asked for confirmation of 180*.

After 3-5 minutes of south flight, we banked left 045 to position for intercept.

Ugh..bad on my part. Did someone else answer or did I? Just saw in the buffer ratenp calling by group his vector. Completely missed on my part.

Just wanted the Northen X-Ray Groups down...wanted you Cold for 2 minutes then back hot. Wanted escorts off bombers before you got there.

Bad part about flying and CO'ing.... my apologies.

How bad did it throw you off the bombers?

Not bad at all, IMO. We were able to make three or four passes without significant fighter interference. Hutani had another excellent frame and was top pilot in this series for Tainan. Tracer's return was rewarded with at least one real player kill and one AI (IIRC). Mspiro and Jugggo both scored hits and credits. I was the weak link this frame. I am terrible in the A8. Strange, because I love the A4 and Dora.

A brief summary from my perspective.

I had an excellent Sunday diversion.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Houston Grand Opera performance of Madame Butterfly. Dinner afterwards was an excellent pan seared Grouper with a nice Pinot Grigio.

Upon my arrival at my southern remote headquarters I saw the enemy was indeed trying to rabbit up the middle again, much to my surprise. A quick survey of the situation found the AI bombers getting pounded, and the massed enemy escorts getting all they could handle from our outnumbered but aggressive units.

I saw no real need to interject in what appeared to be a situation well in hand. All units looked to be on task and needing minimal direction. A strong believer in letting on scene commanders handle themselves I worked a little GCI.

The enemy did indeed seem to have a better plan relying more on relay escort instead of the less effective security blanket of previous frames.

I almost decided to retire for the night as I had been battling an extremely painful infection for four days, had my fill of fish and wine and longed for bed's warm oblivion.

I wish I had because my decision to fly was a poor one. I promptly led the 475FG into 12 P-47's on reception duty, got two in a luftbery and an unseen third riddled my flaming corpse halfway to Valhalla.

Back to GCI duties to watch a beautiful radar picture as our units swarmed the human bomber group. Only 120 west of Berlin outbound did they finally get some relief from there reception escort and the remainder limped home as our victorious survivors returned home for the night.

Every unit seemed well prepared and needed no handholding. Results throughout the series have been excellent and even though the Allied fighters were much better this frame I don't expect a major deviation from previous kill ratios.

<S> All

It's easy to CO when all you really need to say is "Keep on keepin' on!"