Hi Talisman,
Just to say a couple of things
First I have been so busy with museum business, especially during the
shutdown period (I ran two workshops only yesterday) that I have not
been able to keep up with the flood of emails over the past few weeks so
I'll just say I'll be there as and when and will follow the brief :)
Second, I can't make the new earlier Sunday night sortie due to domestic
circumstances but I will be there in time for the later one, again I'll
follow the briefing.
Last Sunday was a nice change, flying with more guys. I think is has
real potential. I did read witch's email about escorts. I'm not sure
we're close escort, maybe more like detached but of course often
hopelessly short on escort numbers to fill all the gaps. Like someone
else I also felt that the P_38 bombers did retain a kind of bomber
mentality on egress instead of switching to an aggressive fighter
attitude as there was still a 'protect the bombers' aspect to the
recovery. Just my feeling.
Anyway, the game is patched, ready to go and I'll see you tonight.
klem
On 20/01/2020 16:07, Michael Colby (Redacted sender michael.colby82 for
DMARC) wrote:
Gents,
We had a long debrief last night so I am not going to cover everything here, also I think we will chat on TS over the next few days about our thoughts and ideas.
So, to be short and concise from my perspective:
*The worst of the bad*:
As I fully expected, particularly on our first night of joint ops, lots of hanging around at the beginning and wasting of time due to ts3 confusion, server connection issues, Combat Box at peak server usage, a large number of us all trying to get in together and staggered arrival times of pilots, etc, etc.
One of the main knock-on effects of all this was us ending up with fighter cover in the air burning too much fuel circling around waiting for the bombers and then the fighters being on the edge all the time for the mission due to low fuel state. This then effected the bomber routing which was amended to accommodated low fuel for fighters and the fighters could not perform so well to protect the bombers due to low fuel concerns. It was also a great shame for Boot that he had a server disconnection on the way home, that was such bad luck after leading the P38s so well.
*The best of the good*:
I have had a message from Bojack that his squadron had a good time and I think we all enjoyed it too. We all want to do it again as expressed on TS :)
We completed one combined strike attack mission with the following results:
*A*. Enemy 'Rally Point' ground target completely destroyed in one pass.
*B*. 2 x enemy fighters destroyed air-to-air (1 x manoeuvre kill to the bombers and 1 x kill by fighter escort).
*C*. 1 x P38 lost to enemy fighter attack, but pilot bailed out and landed safely without capture.
*Organisational Perspective*:
From an organisation perspective, there were many take-a-way's for me from last night, but for now I would like to focus on and tackle the following 2 issues in the first instance:
*1.* Start time.
Even before last night, I have noticed that we often don't get the chance to complete at least 2 good missions like we used to. Some times we only get the chance to complete one decent mission and other times perhaps one decent mission and a bit of a short scrappy one.
I think that one of the reasons for this is that the MP server maps have got more sophisticated and bigger and enemy targets are now further away. Added to this, we are now working with a larger numbers of pilots. I see all of these things as being good by the way. Further more, our usual start time tends to coincide with Combat Box server peak activity. Under these circumstances, I think it is now time for us to adapt and change to a new start time for our squad nights.
Therefore, I would like to leave our regular Wednesday (work day for some) squad night start time as it is, with no change, but bring our regular Sunday night squad night start time forward to 19.00 hrs GMT (20.00 hrs CET). This change to take effect from next Sunday onwards.
With a Sunday start time of 19.00 hrs GMT and allowing for late arrivals and mission planning, I would like to see us starting to take to the air by 19.15 hrs GMT. If pilots can't make 19.15 hrs GMT, then they can plan to arrive ready for a second mission at an estimated time of somewhere between 20.15 and 20.30 GMT.
*2*. Favourite MP server.
I would like us to be ready to fly servers other then Combat Box. Even though we prefer Combat Box and I think that we should fly it whenever we can, with the number of pilots we have now we are constantly going to have problems getting all of us on the same server. The Finish server was mentioned on TS last night, so perhaps we can all have a look at that server before next Sunday as a contingency if Combat Box is full.
*Finally*.
A big thank you to all of you for last night. Your patience, commitment, team spirit, expertise and willingness to work a little outside our normal comfort zone enabled a great evening. Special thanks to Boot for doing a fantastic job as the bomber lead and to Phoenix for helping 322 with setting up their TS.
Also, it was great to see the P38 pilots did so well to join up very quickly after hitting the target.
Happy landings,
Talisman
