Hi klem,
You're right klem, if you and Dutch had been higher, but lower than me, I could have gone
past you to the bombers below you, BUT, I can only get away with that once because I
can't go back up to my original height after shooting at the bombers, in the meantime you
and Dutch would have been much better placed to attack me as we would all be much closer
in energy states, so in reality as high cover you are a "deterrent" to my
attacking the bombers, instead, as any sensible interceptor should do, I have to attack
the higher escorts and work to keep my energy advantage which I had by starting out
higher. This way you have protected the buffs from my attack. When you fly at the same
alt as the buffs, or even 500m higher, you aren't an effective deterrent.
So the variations for us, as "interceptors" of your "escorted bomber raid", is
to engage the escorts with the aim of seperating them their job as top cover, we don't need to
shoot escorts down even, just take you away from the bombers. Then leave the bombers to other
blue's to find and attack, Even as a pair I doubt Bart and I would split up leaving one to attack 2
escorts and the other to attack 2 bombers, I'm sure Bart would agree we would attack the escorts,
aim to kill them then decide whether the bombers were still a viable target for us. If we weren't
in VR we could of course type your position to the rest of the Blue side and let them deal with the
buff's, but we would still engage the buffs first.
I have always said that using fighters to attack AAA is a waste of an IL-2, especially if
you're NOT using the fighter as a proper escort, a fighter flying low, alongside low
buffs isn't really an escort. Having used the IL-2 in the last TAW scenario I learnt the
IL-2 is not "invincible" but it does a much better job of ground attack than a
fighter, which, given it's design and the name of the sim' shouldn't be a surprise.
I would bet that if the 4 of you were in IL-2's Sunday night you could have sunk those
boats in 1 pass and been "light" enough to give each other mutual support from
an attack on the way home, of course you'd need to spend a little bit of time learning
the IL-2, but that doesn't take long.
I was surprised, from watching the film again, that you attacked along the length of the
ships, again those wing mounted bombs on the A20 went each side of the ship, an abeam
"skip" attack would negate that, plus dropping enough bombs to sink the ship in
one pass rather than having to go around again would be a better tactic surely? we've
discussed the bomb drop toggle and how many KG's it takes to sink a ship before.
On a side note I saw that the ACG server was only half full Sunday, about 40 of 84 slots yet it was
password protected, are those guys running squadron missions? Are "we" missing out on a
"squadron missions" based server?
Witch
On 18 Sep, 2018, at 10:41 AM, klem56 <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I was some distance form the A20s because I had been checking the 'earlier'
part of the ship course arrow on the map in case we had missed them. It took a
little longer for me to rejoin.
As Dutch said we were asked to attack the smaller boats as it appeared at the
time that there were no enemy in the area and we wanted to finish the ships
off. The alternative would have been to maintain a (2 man) CAP but as you know
witch, if you came steaming in from the sun there would have been little we
could have done about it. Historically we needed a few squadrons to sanitise
the area. Lone wolfs are always going to get their man (bomber) in the scaled
down maps we have. I suppose that begs the question 'why bother with escorts'
except they are useful AAA killers.
I will report to the CO when I have swum ashore and gone down the escape line.
Should be home by Wednesday. :)
klem
On 17/09/2018 14:41, Lee Fisher (Redacted sender l.fisher for DMARC) wrote:
Bart and I had been in Coco and TAW earlier in the day, in fact before we saw you all in
Coco we had just got a kill between us while fighting a group of 3 Russians, a P40 and 2
I-16's went past us, all a bit higher, they were at 6km, we were at 5.5km, we turned into
them and engaged anyway, their higher energy state and higher numbers meant we weren't
doing too well quite quickly, we found out after it was =LG= (LuftGangasta sqaudron) so
then when we decided to leave, the high diving speed of the 109E-7 meant we had but one
option, down we went, the I-16's couldn't follow but the P40 was all over Bart's tail, we
did a vertical thatch weave, as I saw Bart's nose in my gunsight I fired and took part of
the P-40's tail off, we levelled out at 100m altitude and went home! sometimes
"enough is enough"!
so onto Coconut. We took off in the much better (than an E-7) Fw190A-5's , after half an
hour of patrolling Bart had a screen freeze so I was alone, instead of logging Bart
decided he would do a quick run in another Fw to move it to a forward field for another
day. While he was doing that he shouted "I've found 56, there's low bombers and
fighters", oh no I'm miles away I said, he was winding me up!!!
as fuel slipped away I headed back to Kerch, as I was over the "channel" sea I
spotted 4 low dots, just to the North of our ships, HA!
Hey Bart, I have found them for real!! and now he was miles away, he had to
listen to my commentary :)
At the start of my film, and after checking on TacView:
klem was over 6km away from the A20's on their left flank @ 2km,
slightly better/closer was Dutch, though only 1.5km away from the A20's he was
"behind" them also at 2km altitude.
<1.jpg>
pheonix & Boot, in A20's, began their dive towards the ships from a distance of 4.5 km,
they chose to attack along the length of the ships and going in the same direction. I was
guessing here that as the 56 Strike force was so close to the enemy airfield they chose to go
"straight in" drop bombs and run for Taman.
Anyway, from my position, neither escort was a threat, especially the one so
far to the East (klem), I positioned diectly above the bombers and began my
attack: which was to engage the 2 escorts first, I reasoned if I could get the
2 escorts I could maybe catch the A20's but wasn't too bothered about that far
ahead, plus I wasn't in a position to stop the A20's attacking the ships.
strangely, on my dive down, I noticed "my" escort tgt was on the deck ahead of
the buffs firing at the smaller boats, as this first escort (Dutch) climbed after his gun
run I planned to catch him at the top of his climb but he only pulled up a bit and went
back down to the deck? He was smoking, ship AAA, so he'd be easy to find when I lose
sight :)
I chose not to go so low so climbed back up a bit to look at the situation
again, whilst upside down I could see the other escort was now closer, above
the ships and higher, so he was now my tgt! he also dived towards the ships on
a gun run, I followed him, getting some hits on him (klem).
So at this point the "escorts" were actually attacking the ships and not
covering the A-20's!
I rolled over the top of klem and he continued his climb up, as if not noticing
me, and dived on him again and got some more good hits again, he began smoking
badly.
<2.jpg>
??? then I noticed the A20's were coming back after their first bomb run, they
had swung north and were heading towards the ships again, right on my nose and
slightly lower, I LOVE doing headon attacks against buffs :)
The first A20 dived too steep for me to get an aim but the rear one was coming
at me, How he flew through my rounds is a mystery!!
<3.jpg>
I quickly reversed and went back after the A20's, I knew my speed would help me
as both escorts were smoking and so were damaged, there was a big explosion at
the ships but it didn't stop me taking aim on the rear A20, I got hits on him
all the way through his bomb run, he was smoking badly as I climbed up to
reasses the situation.
<4.jpg>
As I suspected the 2 escorts were now focusing on me, they were both climbing
up right below me, one fired from too far away then the next one did the same.
<5.jpg>
I continued my turn, more innacurate firing, they were at the same altitude as
me now but way slower, I dropped my nose slightly to increase my speed and to
increase the distance between us before reengaging and, oh hello, there's the
smoking A20 2km in front of me, well, I was going to extend the distance
between me and the 2 smoking escorts, and I have the ammo, so why not take the
A20 at the same time, it would be rude not to!
I'm doing nearly 600 kmh already so I'm closing quickly on the wounded buff, he
does a slight right hand turn but he can't outrun my 20mm cannon rounds, the
A20 (Boot) falls.
<6.jpg>
I look around behind me for the 2 escorts, and smile, they are commiting a sin,
they are still chasing me and clearly NOT covering each other, 2 other LW
fighters are approaching them fast, klem and Dutch are both hit at almost the
same time, neither took avoiding action so I guess they never knew the LW
fighters were there.
<7.jpg>
There is some twisting and turning but klem is hit bad and bails, I have time
to roll over and get hits on dutch, both klem and Dutch hit the water within
seconds of each other.
<8.jpg>
That makes 5 kills today (7 if you count the AI as well), "Ace in a Day" for
me, I land on fumes after an hours flying.
Bart has missed these last 2, that'll teach him to wind me up ;)
Witch
