Yes, my parting comment was that if we were to do an attack so close to
an enemy airfield again, we would do ONE PASS and scarper.
Lesson learnt.
56RAF_phoenix
On 18/09/18 09:14, Lee Fisher (Redacted sender l.fisher for DMARC) wrote:
Thanks for replying Dutch, yes Ship AAA is very tough, a while ago Bart and I took Fw's to attack enemy ships we were both destroyed by single hits from FlaK.
Considering where the ships were positioned, so close to Kerch, it was always likely to be a suicide mission, that's why 3 other Blue fighters turned up so quickly.
Cheers
Witch 23
On 17 Sep, 2018, at 07:46 PM, Dutch Raf <dutchraf@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Good show and write up.
I was ordered to go and shoot the smaller ships, and I always follow orders! I really had to because I was still ashamed flying into our fearless leader when doing too low passes.
When I passed the ship I fired on, me and my plane were a big mess. Engine damaged, perferated something and my canopy was shot and mostly red and very blurry.
I just decided to just try and die.
Grtz,
Dutch
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
*From:* 56raf_firebirds-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:56raf_firebirds-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> <56raf_firebirds-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of Lee Fisher <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Sent:* Monday, September 17, 2018 3:41:07 PM
*To:* 56raf_firebirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:56raf_firebirds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* [56raf_firebirds] Sunday Night
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
