26.5.2002
Red Flight:
GA
Nilsen
Fogold
Swap
Blue Flight:
Selector
Dassmort
dm2
Nifty (guest)
Green Flight:
Bozon
Duvel
Rompa
Iceydee
Brown Flight:
Easykill
Ogun
Malm
Sarge1
P-38L
Mission 1:
CAP A4.
Mission 2:
Rearm and jabo A1.
This time, takeoff and the ordenance jettison procedure went with no misshaps.
We climbed to 20k and GA ordered to devide the formations around the base. My formation was set eastward.
Green formation in a perfect diamon, and panoramic view of the entire squadron.
Shortly after, Blue leader (SELECTOR) calls hi bandits from the W. GA orders Red and Blue formation to head back to A4 dragging the bandits. I'm turning my formation W to meet them while climbing. We pass each other and I spot the formation of 6 zekes at an amazing 30k. Slowly circling around, I bring my formation to climb behind the bandits, and GA orders the squadron to attack. The zekes would not leave their perch and go on cruising about at 30k. Since my formation still had their DT, GA orders us to go E and stay out of the fight CAPing the base.
We comply and the battle is raging behind us. But once over the base we spot 3 more formations comming in from the N, also VERY high (we are at 27k).
EEK.. more bandits...
Those dots turn out to be a formation of N1Ks and Ki61s. I suspected
the third formation to be bombers so we didn't engage the first two, but tried
to ID the third one - which turned out to be more zekes...
All hell brakes loose, bandits everywhere you look. I take my formation around
and order to stay fast and stay high, as we engage a formation of hi ki61s.
As we initiate an E fight, tring to drain some E from the bandits and leaving us on top, I notice it's quite easy. Especially the Tonys (ki61) had a bad high alt preformance. Every turn they tried to pull after us, they lost a couple of thousand feet, leaving us on top.
Tony trying to manuver and loosing alt while I leave some 0.5 bullets in him.
Green flight doing the E thing and are king of the hill...
Now it's time to go offensive. Seems like an endless number of bandits around, and we BnZ keeping our better E state. Meanwhile, we hear on the radio that viking casualties starts to build up.
snap-shooting zekes is like trying to smack flies buzzing around you.
SA is becoming very hard with so many bandits and us 4 vikings. The last I see of Rompa and Icey is them engaging in a lower fight while me and Duvel are carried south with the fight.
It's now just me and Duvel vs. a Tony and 2 zekes. Duvel is a great wingman! whenever I look behind and see a bandit, I know I'll also see Duvel behind the bandit.
as always, if there's a bandit at my 6, there's a Duvel at his 6...
We fight those 3 as more zekes join one by one. I manage to land some pings on a few but no significant damage. It's a wonderfull fight. The two of us vs. up to 5 of them (some joined, some left), clearing each other's tail, disengaging, re-engaging, one in on them, the other grabing E, till I catch one of those zeke's and set his plane aflame.
making some holes in a tony.
Duvel and me switching parts - I'm out, he's in...
now it's my turn to clear Duvel.
diving back into the frey, the zeke I shot bailed.
As we consider disengaging, the zekes disengage themselves and head north back to A4 field. On the radio we hear Rompa is still very much alive and kicking over the base and that there are a lot of bandits still there. Duvel and me climb and prepere to go into battle again. As we near the field we spot a gaggle of hi dots.... that turned out to be the 56th in their jugs comming to assist (range channel is terrific, we could co-ordinate with them and ID each other).
Together we chase the remaining bandits back to A3 (their base) killing the trailers.
can't belive this one got away (and killed by Sancho of the 56th)
Getting low on fuel, we head back to base for re-arming. Getting there we have a happy meeting with brave Rompa who miraculously survived the low alt fight. Only us 3 vikings left.
Rompa and me on final
Rearmed and refueled, we take off and heading to attack port p-38 (target reassigned by GA). On the way, still close to A4, we spot 4 high dots trailing us. I order to stop the climb and go level, max speed, to make them waste their alt for speed, thus draining their E. They dont give up the chase and we are forced to drop the ordinance and engage.
bandits in on duvel, my break formation order comming a little late
We do a nice split, Duvel to one side, Rompa to another and I got high in a big barrel roll to try to get behind Rompa's bandit. A nother Tony is entering the fight and spoiles my move. I try manuvering with him a little, but we are still on close to 100% fuel and the plane is very heavy. Seeing I'm loosing, I dive and extend, and see duvel ahead of me trailing black some (the doing of the first Tony I think). The bandits do not engage us 3 as we regroup and start to climb back to CAP A4. Duvel looses his engine and is forced to crashland his crate.
Just me and Rompa now, helping the 56th gaining air superiority over A4. We push the bandits back to their base, and the fight is now over their teritory. I spot a couple of zekes to the N and tell Rompa I'm engaging. Avoiding one, I get behind the other, and decide to "saddle up". Reducing throttle, I get nicely behind him and fire away. With my lausy gunnery I only get a few pings and he breaks and dive away.
how the hell did I miss this one?
No time to follow him, I get a call on range channel of another zeke diving on me. checking 6 I see him d500 and closing... EEK!
this doesn't look healthy
I dive like mad, rolling fast to make myself a hard target for the compressing zeke, 250 yards on my tail. I manage to get away but he hits one of my fuel tanks and engine 2 radiator. I shut down engine 2 and go on fighting on one engine, turning the second one on just for hard manuvering, then letting it cool down again.
letting engine 2 to cool down
I see Rompa heading away to engage some distant bandits and get clobbered by nikis . I get into some fighting with a nik, but can't bring my guns on him. I get behind him but he easilly pulls away with me on one engine. Rompa reports he's down, and since frame is about to be over, most players already RTB'ed.
I RTB alone and find the niki I was fighting chasing me and gaining. I go into a shallow dive, running for A4 and reporting to GA about my situation. GA finds Snorkey from the 56th who hasn't landed yet, and sends him to my rescue. the N1K gets in gun range just as I get to A4 and Snorkey chases him away.... peww...
momy help!...
I try to join the chase, but can't keep up on the one engine. Snorkey gets to the bandits, back near A3, hits him, but gets damaged himself. The N1K makes it to the field acks before I get to him.
We land just in the last few seconds of the frame...
last viking survivor....
again...
Was a great frame!
<S> to all the vikings who participated.
<S> to green flight. It was an honor to lead you.
<S> to GA for a great job as allied CO.
<S> to Snorkey, for comming to my rescue.
Bozon