S3 Series

Sought out and engaged twice our number in bandits over Oahu in the heart of their performance envelope for 30 minutes in order to keep them off the bombers as much as possible. Losses were heavy with few kills as the enemy had plenty of room to dive away.

Sacrificed ourselves due to poor mission planning by strike group and incurred losses as a result.

Very historical I suppose.

Film uploading now.

Once an ass......always an ass!

In the future, we need a Bomber CO and a Fighter CO.

Call Dawger what you want, but he at least went out to try to ensure success for the buffs by engaging and forcing high bandits down prior to strike. 8 V Allied fighter force at 25k plus was not a great bundle of fun...as it was, if we had done close escort we would have been playing "whack a mole" as the moles alongside the 23rd.

At least this way the sacrificial lamb wave only lost some and not all....

So in the future:
--Have a Sweep-- causes confusion and breaks up cohesion of the defenders
-- condense time over target for all strikers by having simultaneous strikes on the targets
---causes dilution of enemy forces--they can't hit both waves that way with full force
--Pick an altitude which will either maximize your success and survivability or maximize the problems for the enemy....preferably a combination of both. The 16k ingress put you in the "I can see you from any alt" block, "I can be above you and hit you with speed"...thus negating escort department, and "I can dive away at my leisure because I know your fighters can't follow" department.
--Consult your Fighter Co to see where their advantages lie in relationship to the enemy in order to maximize their ability to do their job of trying to keep you alive.

Dobs

come on Dew, thats not very productive

First off Dawger, I am sorry that you guys got wiped out. That sucks and we needed you guys.

Secondly, I have been playing this game (it is a game) since 2009. Since that time I have never posted on the boards anything bad about any other squad or individual. I think I am going to take an exception to that today. I read your post last night so have had time to think about it.

I love to do CO duty for frames in the S3. I have been doing it since 2009 and the S6 says I have 15 CO's (which I think is wrong, think I have more). I have never flown a plane, never been to war, like some of our outstanding players. I don't know the good/bad aspects of the planes in the S3. I try to "fly" them in the main to get a idea of what they can do but that is not the same as flying them with a cohesive squad.

That being said, I am an engineer. I like to study the numbers and read the rules. You can ask Jabo, I dig deep into the rules and look for weaknesses and ambiguity and call Jabo out on it. I figured frame 2 that there would be one US squad in F4F's where everyone else seemed surprised. I usually have a fairly good idea of what the ratios are going to be and what out losses are going to be.

When I plan a frame, I spend way too much time on it. I fly the routes, I look for holes and I try to get input from everyone as to where the holes are in my plan. I plan a mission with the intent of providing the most action to everyone, fulfilling the intent of the series, try to maximize our point gain and somewhat try to stay realistic (but this is just marginally).

Last night at T+5 I knew the southern group was screwed. I should have called everyone back to the boat. When the 475th launched and headed straight to F2 we were done. The "Plan" was for you and the 23rd to escort the KoN on the southern route. period. I wanted no one anywhere near F2 until the UMM got there at T+40. The "Plan" was for the 23rd, KoN fighters and the 475th (30 planes) to take on the Pearl CAP (I expected that to be 30 planes) and get out of there before the northern CAP and F4F's got down there.

You decided to engage the entire US force over F2/F12 long before anyone else was near the island. By taking your squad out of the fight you left the 23rd (who did an outstanding job trying to defend the buffs) out to dry. The US took you out and went south in full force and destroyed the southern group. perfect.

Before you bitch about a plan, maybe you should try and follow one first. The only mistake I made was to listen to you and dobs and allow you guys to do a forward sweep. I expected the forward sweep to be along the established flight plan, my mistake. I should have left all orders as planned and we would have had a good night.

Nah.. you're just reading it wrong Mt-Dew. Using our squad issued dawger filter, the AAR reads more like this:

"we set out on a missions of remote escort. We found enemy aircraft climbing in mass ahead of the main strike force. Against ovewhelming numbers we decided it would be better to attack the enemy than to grant them a free pass to the main strike force behind us an lower. We were spotted by the USSN pilots who turned eastward, apparently seeking out even more mutual support. As we engaged, we managed to kill 2 USSN aircraft. Pressing the fight in an attempt to tie up the enemy fighters for as long as possible, we found ourselves trying to take the fight lower and lower. Many USSN aircraft were able to extend and climb above us and began re-engaging us, eventually claiming all but 1 475th pilot. While we were not necessarily happy with mission profile, we did our best to tie up as many enemy aircraft as possible, for as long as possible. We will have to rely on history to determine whether or not our pilot's deaths were in vain or not".

Respectfully interpreted, and unofficially submitted,

-dazed.

I believe Dawger needs a time out. There is no room here for someone that criticizes the frame CO like that. You have two options. One, fly the mission as planned and shut up or two not fly. No mission plan is perfect. We all do this for fun and some of us put a lot of time into a frame and it sucks when it go down in flames because someone doesn't follow the plan.

By the way, there is nothing historical about this series outside of the first frame, so just go with the flow and have fun. I agree with Muskyzz's post. I have over 243 sorties and I too have CO'd over 15 frames. Some went good and some went bad. Still, I have NEVER had anyone make a comment like yours.

Thanks to the outstanding job the 23rd and Beavers group did, we were able to get some bombs on target, but kept asking where was the 475th because they were suppose to covering us. Dobs you made the call for your guys and whether that was a good or bad one, you made it. Dawgers comment was completely out of line.

KoN fighters were embedded with the bombers along with the 23rd at an altitude of 5K above the group (20k). We were expecting to get high cover (25-30k) by the time we got to the target area.
We got bounced right at the target area by high p40s. If we'd have known there would be no high cover, we could have split the cover between the 23rd and KoN to have one come in at a higher altitude.
Not sure if it would have done any good or not. It is hard to control Zeke in a dive when chasing allied ac. Tough call.

It seems some in this sim believe there is no use for bombers and wish to have strictly fighter/dogfight scenarios in the S3.
S3s are WWII historically based events, and historically, the main purpose of fighters were two fold - Intercept bombers or escort/defend bombers.
I appreciate the time all frame COs put into planning these events. Thanks Muskie for your efforts on this frame.

Well, there was initially 4 of us on 'high cover' and if I recall correctly, we were 20-22k. We saw the P40s roll over and dive into the buffs and sent 2 down to try to help out but with their superior speed from the dive, we just couldn't run 'em down. Sleepy and myself stayed high and fortunate that we did as 7-8 more came in at even higher alt (my guess is @25k). Being defensive, we lost mutual support but managed to drag them away. We were lucky they gave up and headed back so we could rtb.

Rough frame for us (23rd) but we will see u guys soon from the other side
<S>

Banzai! Salute!

Thanks, Swanee for the p;erspective. And TNX Hairy One for doing all you could do down south to help our Knight brothers.

Gotta admit that the Movers were surprised to see engagements up north well in advance of our arrival. We were only late due to comm problems with the other buffs and the stoopid downgrade a few folks had to install. BFD.

The LAF6 folks with us done real good, and we just needed one more buff to close F2 on one pass, maybe two. So not bad for 4 mudbeaters, really.

Gums-san sends....

Just so everyone was clear the engagement happened BELOW F2.......6 3 5ish was first contact.

We ran into the allied as they were driving SOUTH from F2 toward F9.

They were 25+, they numbered 10+, and they were the first of 3 high groups we encountered.

Now imagine the 3 high groups converging on the Southern strike force at once vs separated groups.

Close escort, LOW does not work when you have an aircraft that is inferior to speed and dive to your enemy.

23rd was aware of our forward position, and I put it out on country when we found large groups S of 2... Think the call was heavy group of bandits 6 2 to 6 3, 25k+. Second call was first group retrograde, and then the Heavy group 25k+ S of f12.

We ran into friendlies before we lost most of our guys.... Had at least a friendly 2 ship come from the South and merged with us....Saw Sqtch dragging S, came in behind his group, they broke off..went back N picked up more who were inbound Pearl and then when we went after them is when we ended up losing the majority of our guys.

475th was not glory seeking..wish my video ran so you can see us forcing guys to dive out...on to next, force them to dive out...intent to get them low so the Southern group wouldn't be playing dodge ball against 450 mph porcupines.

Dobs