S3 Series

Just a misfortune of war.....IF I had been on time...you would have been scott free (joke there). But due to it being a great beach day, enjoying time with the family I was an hour late. I was directed to go the rally box and wait for mutual support. I was lucky to get a glimpse of low aircraft and that was it.

<S>!

Not all luck...you asked to turn around and head north.....Somebody kept you pointed south:)

True Dat! I so badly wanted in the North Furball!

Salute! Horrido!

Not so fast Dawgs. Our whole timing was based upon Dobs' concept and we were fairly sure the Spits would be headed to the big wing and not looking down. So I hand the 'attaboy' to Dobs, as most lite pukes would have been trying to grab and turn back north.

Dobs was right about a really neat afternoon here in Baja Alabama. Great weather last few weeks (KVPS).

"Luck is when preparation meets opportunity".

We were able to get outta Dodge with only one loss, then the RAF swine gradually ran us down.

Gums sends...

Great videos all! A really big S! to all the Buff pilots in this series. It's not pleasant knowing you're the bullseye on everyone's gunsite. You showed what you're made of coming back frame after frame to do your duty.

I will remember this series as being one of the very best! Non stop action from start to finish. Very exciting.

Thanks to all who made it possible.

Crommm
American Eagles

Dobs, being an hour late, missed the CO instruction at the frame start.

It went like this

"I expect NOE raids from the southeast to southwest of Malta so LOOK down."

Our CAP was launched with instructions to stay at 10K and look for the NOE south of Malta.

Dobs wanted to go north but if you watch Dazed video you will see me ordering everyone not in contact with the bombers to go to the rally point minutes before Dobs called tally on the NOE raid.

As I said earlier, if the northern raid had flown slower the southern raid would have made a clean run and escaped unseen (not to mention being much easier to escort and protect).

It was a great series because the a/c were a good match but most importantly - the action happened on a 20x20 mile grid on the map rather than endless sorties looking for small groups of a/c hitting random targets like a game of hide and go seek for 3 hours. Maybe not as much fun for the 2 frame COs but way better for the 100 pilots.

Good summary Saspin. I agree it was a very competitive series with well matched A/C. Lotsa of fun. Congrats to Allies for a highly productive final frame. I'd guess Allies pulled off the series win by the number of bombers we lost. Had to log early F5 and sorry I missed much of the frame.

None of our tactics to defend the bomber group seemed to work well this series as allied fighters were always in the right place at the right time. You guys skirted fighter sweeps every frame and went directly at the big guys.


<S> Oskar

One difficulty we had was the top speed of the bombers at 8km. They were markedly faster than our 109s.

Imagine how we felt in our even slower Spitfire Vc's!