Did any of you film the fight?
We always do and it helps a lot, from my film,
The Mustang behind Roke and Stickz didn't fire his guns from before our attack
on the high ponies right until he disappeared with the other 2 Tempests.
Stickz isn't at all warpy in my films.
1st question, why does the escorting pony sit right behind you?
to me this does 2 things, first, he watches you right in front of him instead
of checking your, and his wingman's 6. He doesn't appear to have a wingman
though as he's so far from the other ponies, he clearly didn't see the bounce
on on the 1st or 2nd ponies.
Secondly, sitting there we can bounce him and the plane right in front of him,
we get 2 kills for 1 bounce!
After the big 90' left turn he did exactly the same to pheonix, sits right behind him, that is such
a bad place to sit, you guys really don't want to get used to having a plane right behind you, that
space should be kept clear so that "if/when" a plane appears there you know to
"BREAK".
Back to the 90' left turn, the Tempest pairs were then 2 miles apart. That's
not too far at all to return and provide mutual support. It does lead me to ask
a further 2 questions later on.
The first bounce on the Tempests - Roke and Stickz, they did a level S turn,
neither 109 fired at them, after the 109's rolled over the top the Tempests
were line abreast again, the 109's came down and then the shooting started, at
this time RudeyDudey in a pony joined the fight it was 3 on 3, it could have
been 6 on 3 if the front 3 planes had reversed.
So, to my questions
1, do you have suitable communication between pairs? did pheonix's pair know
the other 2 Tempests were under attack?
2, If the front pair did know, why didn't that come back?
As Bart said, you can keep some information "secret" from us but we are more than happy
to share our tactics and methods, for example, as soon as I was attacked the other 2 109's stop
attacking the remaining Tempest (Stickz) and focus on saving "ourselves", only then do we
assess and decide whether to re-engage, which in this case we did as Stickz was alone, damaged and
had 1 bomb unbalancing him.
I do think JaVa need some debriefing too, there is a lot of experience we have
that we can share with them.
Witch
On 27 April 2021 at 6:56, "Joe Stronach" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
that Red and Blue flights had become too separated and were no longer mutually
supporting...
well, that was because the p51 flying behind us accidently fired his guns and
Roke broke before I could tell him it was a friend, thereafter by time we had
got past the confusion and reformed after S turns we wuz separated from the
other flight.
Oh yes , I'd forgotten that!
Roke
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From: 56raf_firebirds-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <56raf_firebirds-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on
behalf of tim foster <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2021 11:23:02 PM
To: 56raf_firebirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <56raf_firebirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [56raf_firebirds] Re: Skirmish over the northern Kuban sea
1) that Red and Blue flights had become too separated and were no longer
mutually supporting, although the pairs were flying together well;
well, that was because the p51 flying behind us accidently fired his guns and
Roke broke before I could tell him it was a friend, thereafter by time we had
got past the confusion and reformed after S turns we wuz separated from the
other flight.
My connection was on way out - I was above when roke was shot by plane actually
in front of him from my connection. Odd seeing a plane fire and hit the one
behind :) which then promptly hopped in front and started smoking. I was gonna
scream about warping t****ts but seems it was me.
Saw the first two 109s boom pass us, saw another coming in on my high 4(in fact
two but one seemed a fair bit further back), at my 300mph, I should have had
time to avoid as the first ones but rather like the second flight where I was
asking if you had disconnected because you'd disappeared (then 20secs later you
reported I disappeared) it just blinked out, I pulled hard but guess already
was gone. I never bothered flying again, talked to dutch for an hour and t/s
disconnected/reconnected me 3 or 4 times more in that time.
Its been happening here continously since Friday. Tonight is no different.
Internet just keeps going out (or very slow as sometimes the router disconnect
light is not illuminating) - usually its bad weather but summat else this time.
Sometimes get a heads-up hearing a son scream from upstairs. We are all getting
pretty annoyed - we tried to watch last episode at dinner of the expanse and
after 3 buffering episodes just rage quit.
So possibly wont be around until it at least goes back to normal (even if slow
compared to everyone else).
One bomb still hung - just goes to show how in a a20 bomber without techchat
you cannot rely that even three button pushes drops two bombs (or make the
right selection), here highlighted by tempest when I aint gonna look down to
check cockpit. 3 pushes but only one released.
TTFN
Stickz
On 26/04/2021 21:32, Joe Stronach (Redacted sender jstronach for DMARC) wrote:
Well, from my pov, we saw and heard the p51s were engaged. I saw one aircraft
spinning down (no ID) in the distance, then Stickz and I noticed aircraft
closing on our 6. Without a mirror in the Tempest, I couldn't ID them, but we
figured they may well be hostile so manouvred accordingly.
I knew Java were engaged, but didn't know they were two down. Essentially, I
presumed two or three P51s were still in the fight, and in proximity. The
correct move for Stickz and me - given our E disadvantage and the ACTUAL odds
was to disengage after our initial evasion, and we might have been able to do
that.
Anyway, having miss-read the odds and turned to stay in the fight, I avoided a
head - on from one 109 but was then was insta-killed by Bart, who I hadn't seen
come back down behind me.
I'm not sure if Witch shot Stickz's digital ghost, as I think he discoed at a
bad moment.
Tactical lessons from my pov would be:
1) that Red and Blue flights had become too separated and were no longer
mutually supporting, although the pairs were flying together well;
2) comms weren't as good as they could have been with Java, but I'm not sure
how easy that is to fix.
3) can't really comment on the p51s disposition, although your comment about
them maybe flying higher is fair enough. This would have increased the risk of
them getting too much separation or losing sight of us altogether, but might
have been worthwhile chancing.
There are other things for us to consider too, but as we are bound to clash
again we might need to preserve some discretion, naturally :)
Thanks for the AAR.
Roke
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From: 56raf_firebirds-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <56raf_firebirds-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on
behalf of Bart <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2021 8:01:55 PM
To: 56raf_firebirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <56raf_firebirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [56raf_firebirds] Skirmish over the northern Kuban sea
Blaggards took off in K4’s from Kerch to patrol the northern sea lanes after
flying north and then eastwards we sighted a formation of 5 aircraft.
With instructions of get in and out, no mixing it, I was preparing to take the
rear left(most southern) of the formation. When Witch declared that he had
another aircraft away slightly north and rear of the formation, I dipped my
wing to look and saw another aircraft underneath me to the rear centre of the
formation. So targets were changed and these were the first two.
Witch attacked his target(Biggles) a P51 caused enough damage to knock him out
of any fight, I hit my target(Ice) with cannon and he went into an
unrecoverable spin, two down.
We saw the main formation turn to the south as we recovered from our attack.
With the most southerly pair of Tempests(Phoenix/Pod) with a P51(Jumper)
turning south more or less the same time it left the northern pair of
Tempests(Roke/Stickz) lagging behind and a gap started to open even more.
So now the chase is on we dived down towards the rear pair, noticing the front
three were some way in front, we would have three vs two. I was lining up on
the rear right Tempest(Stickz), they must of seen us as Stickz turned left
followed by Roke. Not being able to follow the turn, I did a classic climb
extend out, roll out then match the flat turn for line up. The fight was on:).
Now unbeknown by us there was a fourth P51(Roode Duivel) who was way to the
rear(east) of everyone else at the beginning, who had now caught up and joined
the fight, but some of the long long range shooting;).
Now we have a 3 vs 3, I managed to get one Tempest(Roke), we then had a conga
line, P51(Roode Duivel) chasing our Red Devil, with Moose, chasing him and
Tempest(Stickz) chasing Moose.
Now I reckon if only Stickz had got rid of all his bombs(the right wing bomb
was still attached), he would have had a better chance of hitting Moose,
especially with those Tempest guns;). As it turned out Moose got the Roode
Duivel which just left Stickz, who was shot down by Witch.
A few things we noticed the 51’s, were at around 18000ft, we were at 23000ft,
and they were well spread out. So maybe they might want to go a bit higher than
they were and operate in closer pairs if possible?
The Tempest were in good finger four formation.
Did you get warned that two 51’s were down ?
When the formation turned south maybe get the northern pair go first, as they
had the furthest to go and could close the gap that way. The gap just got
bigger, and there was no way they were going to catch up, the front group.
Once we saw that the front group were not coming back it helped us dictate the
fight with a 3 vs 2 situation. The fourth 51 almost threw a spanner in the
works as we were then 3 vs 3. If the front group had dropped bombs and come
back to help the rear group at the very least it would have caused us to
disengage. As then it would have been 6 vs 3, and they would have had more
energy as the 51 had, agree or disagree?
https://56punjabvirtualsquad.boards.net/post/459/thread
Any thoughts, how did you see the skirmish go?
Good fight <S>
Bart
--
if you dont live life on the edge you are taking up too much space
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