S3 Series

We kept them from closing too many fields, but I knew we were in deep doodoo, at the start of the Frame Green: 31, Gold: 54

We did manage to close a couple fields, but they closed 86 (23rd base) by sending 30 or so DO17's, 110's and a few 109's. They had sent about 15 earlier, but the 23rd was able to hold them off the 127 Wing arrived with alt and they bugged out. They concentrated mostly on the Western part of the map while we had the 352nd and Raiders in the Mid-Eastern part of the map.

All in all, I am pleased with the effort that everyone produced and I am sure we will still hold a good sized lead going into Frame 3.<S>

BEAVER:
I'm glad we still hold a lead going into the next frame. I know frame CO job is tough. Thanks for doing it for the group.

Please look into what happened during the bomber group's second sortie where we lost 8 bombers. I would like to evaluate it, so we can avoid a repeat of the loss.

It seemed like we were not covered sufficiently. We were giving position reports, constantly. This time, we came in at 18K to give our fighter support extra room to maneuver and, at the same time, to be high enough to avoid the ack. But, I'm not sure what was going on around us during this time because we were focused on hitting our targets.

I look forward to your evaluation.

Thanks,
Darryl <S>
CO of Doolittle's Raiders

Sorry we couldn't keep the base open, we tried but were bushwacked by LW numbers and the MOB being so far from the front. I'm still wondering why jabo changed the playable area of the map. He basically concentrated action into a much smaller area that hurt us as we were out numbered at almost every turn. He allowed the LW to replane anywhere but made us fly all the way to F152. Basically after F86 closed the 23rd was done for the night. I was pissed off at the donkey when I logged off, but have cooled off and wonder how he'll skew things for the next frame.

If you are heading in on a bombing run, make contact with the group that is supposed to be covering you, simply giving location does not always alert the fighters that you need cover shortly.

In retrospect, I should have based you farther from the front, then if they closed 86, it would not effect you. I expected them to attack F117, so I moved 127 Wing back to F144.

The LW are not allowed to rebase anywhere, if they did then they violated the rules. If we closed a base for LW fighters or bombers, they would need to go to their MOB which was as far back as it could be.

I'm sorry, Beaver, but that doesn't make a bit of sense to me. We give our position to you AND the fighters on ingress, so that, you know exactly where we are. Everyone already knows that we are a bomber group and need fighter cover. No alert necessary. We are vulnerable to attack at all times. I would expect that the frame CO and the fighters would be in position to protect us. If they can't do so, THEY should be alerting US, in order for us to make adjustments. As I recall, we were in contact with the fighters who were actually having us divert our course from time-to-time, which we did.

So, my question now is, were they over us when we were losing 8 bombers or not? If so, what can we do differently in frame 3? If not, why not? And, what can we do differently in frame 3?

Sincerely,
Darryl <S>
CO of Doolittle's Raiders