S3 Series

First off, despite the bickering that is on the board sometimes, ALL you guys are great!

The frame started off perfect with the 23rd knocking out the DAR at 175 which is crucial for the rest of the series. Great Job!
Then to spend the next 90min. boring holes in the sky covering our CV's and being ready when the final push came was awesome.

With the con calls I know the 4th and 352nd were just chopping at the bits to get up and fight but restrained themselves and were at the RV at the perfect timing. We had great escort all the way to the target and cover while the buffs were RTB'ing. Then they still all managed to get to the CV to provide crucial CAP during the Kamikaze raid.

As for the buffs, we had some issues. I take full blame for our lack of coordination, I wasn't prepared for the frame.
At the start of the frame I found out that we only had 4 buff pilots. This really put a damper on the plan. All the buffs got up without issue but for some reason Gofly just couldn't keep up. Seemed like all his settings were good but he was lagging all the way to Tokyo.

As we were making our southern climb, I realized we were running about 5 min. behind schedule so we cut some corners to makeup the time but we were not climbing at all. finally as we approached the 5 line I knew we were never going to make anywhere near 28K so told the buffs to level and form up. I dropped speed to 80% for Gofly to catch up but even at WEP he couldn't close so when we became engaged he was really left out to dry. Thankfully, the fighters kept the bad guys off us so we could make it to target.

This is where I really screwed up. I thought I called out the target 71, during the trip to Tokyo but I should have reiterated it along the way. I dropped on 71 and what a neat sight seeing the line of destruction I laid down the middle of it. (not sure if my AI dropped). I was then expecting 3 more lines through the target but saw none. Looking around I saw smoke come up from 67, 73 and 75. We all managed to hit a different target. That was very disappointing.

Since we all were dropping all over the place, we got spread out and gave the IJ some easy targets. The fighter guys were swatting away but we were loosing AI all over the place. Oh well.

Couple of things of note:
1 - the buffs must have a dtf to ensure we stay together and hit the correct target. Again, I wasn't prepared and should have made one but didn't have time.
2 - The B29 should get an airstart if we can't climb. OR we should be able to load much less fuel.
3 - The B29 has flap issues. Actually, after I knew this it was easy to land just had to keep the speed above 175mph. Unfortunately we lost 2~4 B29's not knowing this.
4 - We need to practice more. We were 3 different squads and didn't fly well together. Didn;t help that I screwed up my TS so couldn't talk to anyone.


Side note:
Not sure what to do with such low numbers of Buff's. All we were last night is bait to get the IJ to come down and play. 4 pilots can't do anything to make points compared to what we loose for all the AI shot down. IF we could talk Jabo into a 20~25K start we might even be able to make 2 runs at least.


Thanks again for all the support last night!

MuskieZZ,
Very good plan to start with...of course everything can tend to go South from there. No sweat my friend.
All in all was a good frame, including ground attack, the dreaded boring holes forever, then 15 minutes of terror for the 23rd.

I am terribly sorry for not being there for S3. My computer died and I had no browser, email, team speak, or connection to game, therefore, no contact.

No problem Darryl. I guess I should have asked how many Buff pilots are in the DR
I just looked at the Aircraft tables and saw 14 members. I figured probably 10 were buff guys so thought we would be all good.

On that, how many buff guys are in the DR (compared to fighters)?

Concur! When we saw some knights go down in the buffer, we knew they were flying lights and that gave us a chance to refuel and get a element high, but we knew it was just a matter of time before the Special Attack force showed up! When the fighters pounced, it got pretty intense (ran out of ammo trying to shoot bandits off a wounded squadmate). Thanks to the 4th and 352 for helping even out the numbers a bit

Just wanted to remind you buff guys that we have a bitch of a time trying to protect you when you get all strung out. I got worse post target when everyone seemed to turn a different direction. Glad you noted the need for a dtf route and airstart. We'll do better next time.

Good CO job! <S>

Somebody has got to mention that what we saw at the end of the Frame on the part of the enemy, namely an ESCORTED Kami mission, has to be the definition of a non sequitur. DEAD pilots get to be recycled to fly a mission in which they are EXPECTED to die yet again. Enemy fighters KNOW that we must respond to a Kami raid on our fleet. The enemy KNOWS when that strike will arrive. It's sorta stacking the deck for the rules to allow a fighter escort of a kami flight. (Just a personal opinion and not, necessarily, reflective on any "official" view of the 352nd Fighter Group.)

Deep heavy escorted bomber raids are difficult missions. The IJA pilots knew exactly where we would be and had plenty time to setup their assault. First wave of KI84s we encountered were 36K, far above our performance ceiling for our fuel laden fighters. They outnumbered us and executed a strip of our escorts first, exactly like they did in the Europe series a while back. Then the J2M bomber killers came in to start their attack. Kudos to the 4th and 352nd pilots who were able to stick with the strike team. I was stripped by several diving Franks, as I was out front of the bomber group on point. The poor climb rate of the mustang prevented me from effectively getting back to cover the bomber group until you guys had started your egress.

It was a bit of a surprised how much more effective their KIs were over our Ponies above 30K. I could not get my ride to stay much above 33k. The enemy seemed to easily stay above us. Maybe the Thunderbolts (or Corsairs) will provide the better high alt performance. Of course it helps to be able to take off with 50% fuel load out, and we do like to fly the P51...

Oskar

Dawger has tweaked the service ceiling of the P-51D. Hopefully Ient will agree to release the update mid series. If so it would grant the Mustang a service ceiling of ~41 500 ft (Clean load) instead of the current incorrect max ceiling of 37 000 ft.

<S>
/Robert

Thanks Robert.

So the climb rate and service ceiling of the KI84 was "tweaked" just before the series, but the pony ceiling was somehow incorrectly set? Hmmmmm...