First off, Thanks to everyone!
It is always a pleasure and honor to lead a frame!Turned out to be a tough frame with heavy losses.
BuffsNot sure how many ships we got (the arena was rebuilt this morning already) but hopefully we got a lot. We did close F2, F7, F8, F21 and F23 which will help with the points.
Frame started out badly with the loss of the 475th early in the frame. Hated seeing the kills in the buffer. The knights and 23rd got pounded on down south. The 23rd did outstanding trying to keep the buffs alive under overwhelming numbers. I believe only 1 KoN buff survived the attack. Hopefully their AAR will tell us if they got to the ships first or not.
Up north the LF-6 did great covering the UMM. Unfortunately the northern group was 8 min. late. This allowed the AL to get some planes up north but I think the UMM got out with lite, if any, losses. They were short of pilots so didn't close F2 on the 1st pass but got most things. I tried to swing by about 3 min. after they left to strafe stuff but found 5 P36's waiting for me! I ran like a baby
. Thank goodness the P36 most not have any good guns. Someone on the AL side was pissed I bet because he drilled me good from D3 and I only lost flaps.
After returning to the ship and gathering forces, I change the 2nd run. With only 4 buff pilots left I asked Noflyz to close F2. I was going to wait for T+105 to up again but heard that the LF-6 was still at F2 and was having a hard time. We immediately launched all remaining fighters to go to F2 and the Buff's launched heading to F2. They again made it to target and closed it. Great Job.
Strike GroupThe initial plan for the Strike group was to fly together and hit the northern DAR and swing around and hit the southern DAR. After seeing the 475th heading to F2, and since the NS and RCAF were on the same TS, I changed the strike package. I asked the RCAF to provide close escort to the KoN to WP3 and then to drop and take out F21. and had the NS follow the UMM to WPU2 then break off and head to F7 and F23.
The RCAF had no issues escorting to wp3, the US waited until the buffs were north of there, and dropped down and killed the DAR at F21. Great job! then headed back to the boat. The NS split into 2 groups with with Houndog, coolon and myself going to F7 and Dew and Far going to the DAR at F23. With these closed we also RTB'd to the CV. On the way back I decided to swing by F2 (see above).
For the second strie, we decided to combine the group and close F8. I wasn't sure how well we would do with the 60Kg bombs. We went on a northern route and dropped on F8 almost simultaneously with the buffs on F2. After 1 bomb pass and 1 strafe pass we closed F8. Jabo must have called us out (since all the norther DAR was gone) and we soon found ourselves in a fight with the AE and Haze. Not sure but I thought I saw some F4F's in that fight. The AL had a huge altitude advantage on us but with our tight turn fighting we managed to outclimb them with only 1 loss. Houndog thought he was clear and a AE guy snuck up on him and killed him.
We then tried to find a fight but everything was scattered and we couldn't find any bad guys so we RTB'd.
Sorry to those that had a short night. That was clearly not my intention.
p.s. good luck next 2 frames to the fighter guys! Hopefully you wont find us!
MuskieZZ
