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13 November, Lucky number 13

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13 November, Lucky number 13 Empty 13 November, Lucky number 13

Post  MJDixon Thu Nov 15, 2012 11:01 pm

Date: November the 13th 1943
Time: 20:00 to 22:30
Location: Wetteren and Bavay
Objective: Combat Air Patrol
Pilots: Dixon Hinkel Dezey Acroyer

The Huns seem to be taking this war rather seriously, and the brown jobs have been having rather a tough time of it, as a result we've lost a number of our forward Airfields, Brussels has fallen, as have Reims and Berry-Au-Bac, and Antwerp is too dangerous to use as an operational field - as such by the end of the day we found ourselves operating out of an aerodrome on the outskirts of Cambrai, much like our Fathers and Uncles beforehand - so be it, they seemed to come out alright the last time, and we usually win in the end, but I am confident that we shall do our duty regardless.

Our first order of the day found us patrolling over the town of Wetteren as our ground forces tried to counter a Jerry offensive in the northern sector, with Hinkel and I arriving first on the scene.

All seemed quiet at high altitude, and so I tuned my radio to ground frequency and asked if they'd spotted any Huns knocking about, promptly being informed that a Bf109 and Bf110 were operating over the town, this being the case I decided to dive down for a look, quickly spotting a Messerschmitt Bf110 heavy fighter at some five to eight thousand feet - as luck would have it, I found myself diving down from his high six o'clock position as he attempted to gain altitude. I made quick work of the Jerry machine diving in on him unawares and firing a burst of cannon and gun into his left wing from about 250 - 200 yards out, resulting in the wing tearing off as the rest of the 110 fell down aflame, his discarded wing almost clipping my own as I zoomed back up to altitude to rejoin Hinkel as well as Dezey and Acroyer, who had by now met up with us.

Having cleared the air over town (the previously reported 109 having come a cropper when he crashed into a river while attempting to attack one of our boats) we then set about patroling to the east of town in an effort to intercept any German machines inbound from their Airfield at Gilze - this plan backfired somewhat, however, when we found ourselves set upon by a flight of five or more Bf109s from above, as such we broke away from their attack and split up, Dezey and Acroyer heading west, whilst Hinkel and myself headed south, coming under attack a number of times as we tried disengaging, however neither of us took any damage as the Huns were being very cautious with their attacks - if one of us found a 109 on his tail then our wingman would turn to engage, forcing the 109 to break off to meet the new threat, continuing in this fashion as we headed south and west, losing contact with the high 09s initially, but then coming under attack again a few minutes later - I then decided that when we next lost visual contact with the enemy we would make a sudden vertical dive below the high cloud layer, before a sudden change in course in an effort to throw off the Huns for good, this worked out well, and we found ourselves alone in the sky, and so headed to the reserve aerodrome at Knoke, being low on fuel - while Dezey and Acroyer regained altitude for another sweep over Wetteren.

Listening over the radio as our ground crews refueled and rearmed our Spitfire Mk. IXs, we could hear that Dezey and Acroyer had engaged a 109 to the west of town, however Acroyer had found himself at a lower altitude and to the south east, engaged and outnumbered by a flight of 109s and, despite our best efforts to scramble to assist him once our crates had been rearmed, we could not get there in time, as he had been shot down and the enemy craft dispersed before we could arrive, but thankfully Acroyer had managed to bail out behind the lines of our attacking troops, and so was able to return to the aerodrome in time for our next action.

Meanwhile, the three of us continued our patrol over Wetteren and to the east of town, soon spotting an engagement to the south east, with a flight of three Bf109s setting upon a lone allied aircraft below us, as such we dove in to assist, myself picking out a 109 to the rear of the group, diving in on him at some 420mph - this turned out to be too fast, however - as my controls compressed due to the high speed and so I was unable to bring my guns to bear fully on the slower, more maneuvering 109, only landing a few hits on his left wingtip before I went zooming past. Hinkel had more luck, however - as glancing to my left I could see a ball of fire and twisted metal screaming through the sky where a Hun used to be, with Hinkel flying through the smoke trail to the rear - We then lost Dezey, however - not as a result of enemy action - but as a result of incompetence on the part of his ground crew, he reported over the radio that his ailerons and elevators were no longer responding to control inputs and that his crate was out of control - his colulmn links likely having broken or otherwise been jammed, forcing him to bail out. I expect his ground crew will find themselves transfered to the Falkland Islands, if they manage to avoid the glasshouse.

Having seen Dezey bail out safely, Hinkel and I then continued to engage the enemy fighters as they flew under cloud and headed east towards their field at Brussels, where we were forced to disengage - Hinkel reporting that he had engaged a second 109 and seen it go down - after which we finished our patrol and returned to base, the skies over Wetteren now being much quieter than before.

After a short break we were next assigned to fly combat air patrols over the town of Bavay, to the east of Cambrai - this seemed a bit of a sticky wicket however, as Bavay was only a few miles from the German aerodrome at Maubeuge - and so we expected there to be a lot of enemy air knocking about.

The Huns must have become over confident with their recent gains however, as - although there were a lot of enemy aircraft flying around Bavay from their field at Maubeuge, almost all of them were at low altitude fighting our low altitude fighters, with no high cover to speak of - this left them well open to attack when we flew in at an altitude of 15,000 feet - diving in to pick off Huns as they tried to line up for shots or attempted to climb, with any high altitude enemy fighters that did appear quickly being countered through 'drag and bag' with good communications throughout - a Focke Wulf trying to latch onto my six at one point, but soon changing his mind as both Hinkel and Dezey dove down on him - then later I saw a 109 try to come up behind Hinkel, so told him to take it west, after which I dove in and confiscated the 109s wing for being so insolent. Our only loss during this early period was to another accident - as we were returning to base to rearm Acroyer clipped the top of a tree on his final approach, sending his Spit careering down short of the field - a total write off, thankfully he managed to get off with a few cuts and bruises - though I expect his wallet will take a hevy beating if the Skipper makes him pay for a replacement Spitfire!

Returning back to Bavay we then ran into the only concentrated higher altitude Huns of the operation - but even this was only a flight of four 109s at 10 to 12 thousand feet, and we made quick work of them - I dove down on one 109 that was trying in vain to climb up behind Acroyer, blowing the Hun apart with a quick burst to his left wing root - while at the exact same moment Hinkel destroyed a second 109 in flames just to the west. The simultaneous loss of two of their number must have taken the fight out of the remaining 109s, as they then tried to disengage - but not before I had bagged a third Hun as he tried to dive away into some cloud - firing a burst into his tail as I lost sight of him in the swirling mass, but seeing the welcome sight of black smoke and red fire mingling together with the white cloud.

Combat continued over Bavay in this fashion for another sortie as we racked up yet more kills on the Jerry fighters as well as one low altitude Heinkel He111 - our only loss coming when a 109 dove in on Hinkel as he tried to shoot down a Focke Wulf - I shouted at him to break, but he mustn't of heard me, or was concentrating on the Focke - I shouted again for Hinkel to break and this time he began to turn away, but was flying too fast and so unable to turn tightly enough to escape the fire of the 109 - which landed hits on Hinkel as he tried to break away, with white smoke streaming from his engine as he reported over the radio that his engine had been knocked out - I tried to down the 109 but he immediately nosed over and dove away towards his airfield, leaving Hinkel to make an emergency landing on our side of the lines, which he managed without further incident.

We remained over the town until the fighting began to die down, the initial melee over town being replaced by the odd recon flight and single aircraft patrols with no real objective other than to cause a nuisance - and so we returned to base for the last time, happy to have given the 'mighty' Luftwaffe a bloody nose - declaring with a total score of seventeen enemy aircraft confirmed destroyed, of which sixteen were enemy fighters and one bomber, for the loss of four of our own aircraft, with only two being lost to enemy action.


Last edited by MJDixon on Sat Nov 17, 2012 11:54 pm; edited 1 time in total
MJDixon
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13 November, Lucky number 13 Empty Re: 13 November, Lucky number 13

Post  MJDixon Sat Nov 17, 2012 11:52 pm

Well that's War and Peace done. Razz
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Post  Acroyer Sun Nov 18, 2012 9:05 am

It was a good patrol, lots of action, and (despite my crash landing due to tunnel vision) probably the best performance I've made to date. That was also the first time I actually did get to eject from my aircraft in game....though the pop up that says 'Are you sure you want to eject?' is really stupid. If I am ejecting, I sure as hell don't have time to find my mouse and then click on the little 'yes' box (because 'NO' is the default!). If I have to press CTRL+ESC to eject, then by God it wasn't by accident!

However, in a video game you can bail out from a crashing aircraft at 60 feet altitude and not crater splash. cheers
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Post  MJDixon Sun Nov 18, 2012 11:00 am

Just pretend that you moving the mouse and clicking yes is actually you pulling back the canopy, popping open the harness, standing up and chucking yourself over the wing. Razz
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Post  hinkel1 Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:39 pm

with my engine knocked out I managed to damage 2 more 109 before running out of energy.

sadly I was not able to destroy them but i must have done major damage to at least one
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