Aces High

(http://s13.postimg.org/xv8dvyalj/TEST.png)

S! chaps, our next campaign will be Fortress Malta, so I figured I'd start posting some information about it.

Campaign Overview:

The island of Malta lies in the central Mediterranean. After the fall of France and the declaration of war by Italy it became almost completely isolated with hostile shores all around but was also perfectly positioned as a base to interdict axis supplies heading to North Africa. The war in North Africa was very much a war of supplies, they dictated when offensives were launched or ground to a halt. With British control of the eastern and western basins of the Mediterranean, Axis supplies had to cross it just east or west of Malta. This made it the perfect place to base reconnaissance and strike aircraft, submarines and surface naval vessels to stop these shipments. The downside was that Sicily to the north was only a 15 minute flight away, meaning these assets were very vulnerable to air attack. Great effort was made by axis forces to neutralize Malta from the air and it's considered to be the most heavily bombed place in history.

So this is where we come in, we will be flying as the fighter squadrons deployed to Malta to defend the island. The nature of the missions will be much like the Battle of Britain, scrambling to intercept incoming raids. The briefs will not give us much information, we will scramble and then get instructions via in-flight messages from the ground controller. The campaign will start in the late summer of 1940 and will skip rather rapidly through the rest of 1940, 1941 and the early part of 1942 with the majority of the missions being set during the critical months of March-October 1942.

Interestingly, the difficulty will bounce around a bit at first. Initially the attacks on the island were being made by the Italians, who predictably did so somewhat half-heartedly and were given a bloody nose. As happened in so many other areas of the war, the Italians were then reinforced by the Germans and Malta was in for a tough time. But after a few months the Germans left to go invade Russia (I'm sure that will work out well for them) and neutralizing Malta was once again left in the hands of the Italians. Malta's offensive capabilties began to grow once again and they were taking a large chunk out of the supplies being sent to North Africa but later in that year the Germans returned in full force and things became much more difficult once again.

Aircraft Types:

The beginning of the campaign will see us flying Hurricane Mk.Is, over time those will give way to the Hurricane Mk.IIa, Mk.IIb, Mk.IIc and eventually to the tropicalized Spitfire Vc. Despite Malta's importance to the war in North Africa it remained somewhat of a backwater until the spring of 1942 and was forced to soldier on with the Hurricane well past it's best before date. The specific in game designations are :

Hurricane Mk.I, 12 lbs, 1940
Hurricane Mk.IIa, 1940
Hurricane Mk.IIb, 1940
Hurricane Mk.IIc, 1941
Spitfire F Vc(2) trop 1942

Squadrons:

Initially all of AH all be flying as the same squadron from the same airfield but after about 4 missions the three AH Squadrons and HQ Flight will fly as different squadrons that fought on the island. This will correspond with the three squadrons being split up amongst the three main airfields on the island, so each squadron will eventually have it's own airfield. HQ Flight will spend some time on two different fields. When this split happens :

1st Squadron will fly as 185 Squadron who flew out of Hal-Far.

2nd Squadron will fly as 249 Squadron flying out of Takali.

3rd Squadron will fly as 126 and later 1435 Squadrons and will fly the whole campaign from Luqa.

HQ Flight will fly as 601, 603  and then 229 Squadrons. They will be based initially at Luqa with 3rd before moving in with 2nd at Takali.

Skins:

I will post up a skin pack in the future with a set of generic and blank skins for the Hurricanes. As we'll not be flying the Hurricane for very long I'm not going to do any personalized skins for them. For the Spitfires I will do personalized skins for those who want them but the options for customization will be quite limited. There will be a seperate post and more information about this in the PaintSchemes Requests forum in the future. Part of the pack will also include more accurate blank skins for some of the other friendly and enemy aircraft we will see during the campaign.

Campaign Length:

36 Missions

Start Date :

December 1st


Here is a map of the island with some of the major landmarks and localities listed:

(http://s24.postimg.org/b9zn3hz5h/Malta_Map.png)

The main point of interest is Grand Harbor and Marsamxett Harbor on either side of Valletta. You have Marsaxlokk Bay to the south-east where the Sunderland flying boats land. Filfla is a little rocky island often used as a target for bomb and torpedo practice. The Dingli Cliffs extend up the southern side of the island to Ghajn Tuffieha Bay with St. Paul's Bay just opposite. (St. Paul's Bay is where the RAF rest camp is) And of course the 3 main airfields of this period at Takali, Luqa and Hal-Far. And of course the smaller island of Gozo to the north-west with Comino in between.

You should be familiar with these landmarks as they will be used by the ground controllers to direct you towards the enemy.

If you have any questions so far, feel free to ask.

DW


https://www.dropbox.com/s/vaud18yvhyb79tg/FortressMaltaPracticeRooms.zip?dl=0 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/vaud18yvhyb79tg/FortressMaltaPracticeRooms.zip?dl=0)

Here are two practice rooms, an early version with Hurricanes and a late version with Spitfires. They are dogfight maps so you'll have to put them in a folder in your Missions\Net\Dogfight folder in your main game directory. There are no enemy aircraft in these missions, they are simply to practice flying the types of aircraft we'll be using and to familiarize yourself with the map and airfields.

 Looks awesome!

I am really looking forward to this!

excellent. i plan to be apart of this.  :drinking-43: :drinking-42:

As seperate squads in our own a/F will we be on seperate comms and control.

I'm not sure what you mean by control but as regards comms I suppose that is up for debate. It can be done either way as far as I'm concerned. We've long gone with the everyone on one channel approach, either option has it's pros and cons.

DW

Maybe I should sit back and wait and see before I speak to much.

Christmas comes early.... drool....

Any way start times can be 30 minutes later? West Coasters you know.

Looking forwards to this.,...  :happy-112:

I don't know if a full 30 minutes will fly with the uptight, cranky, rude and self entitled east coasters. We might be able to get 15 min if we're lucky.

S!

~S~
  Just maybe _AH_Gonzo will be one of the ground controlers. That would be scary..eh!

Quote from: _AH_taldrg on November 12, 2015, 02:37:32 AM
~S~
  Just maybe _AH_Gonzo will be one of the ground controlers. That would be scary..eh!

Well there would certainly be more swearing, that's for sure!

DW

I added a link to some practice maps at the bottom of the first post.

DW

Thanks DW... as usual I see youve put alot of thought into this campaign and I am personally looking forward to it.....why its almost like a birthday present ..thanks DW  (wavey)

My plans for repainting this room are encountering delays so the 24th won't work. The start date for this campaign will be December 1st.

DW

Pursuant to what we were talking about during the meeting, how we organize comms and command and control does'nt matter to me from the mission builder's perspective.

If we want to be all on one channel or split squadron comms, there are pros and cons to each.

Same with whether the 3 squadrons and HQ flight act independently or the CO and HQ directs the squadrons.

The briefs will be structured like this :

1 - List of important events that have occured since the last mission, if any.

2 - Mission date, time, brief - The brief itself will often be very short, sometimes little more than a single sentence order to scramble. It might include some further info on what is occuring on that day or the previous few days but that's it.

3 - Slotting instructions - Once the squadrons are split this will be quite easy, for example the guys from 2nd will know the 249 squadron aircraft are theirs and can start slotting in right away.

4 - Skin option info - Just some stuff referring to what generic skin to use with markings on, what one to use with markings off.

You will not get specific information on the incoming raid(s) until you are airborne. I'm using triggers to display messages that represent communication from the ground controllers, these messages will display on screen for 20 seconds each. They might go something like "Incoming plot approaching St. Pauls Bay from the north, estimate 30+, angels 20, over." So you know the enemy is approaching north of St. Paul's Bay, 30 or more enemy aircraft in the formation and at a height of 20,000 feet. How accurate this information will be will vary, it may be perfectly accurate, it may be a little off.  So that's the kind of info we'll receive and it will be up to us to effect the interception.

Sometimes it will be a single incoming raid, other times it may be multiple formations, multiple waves, approaching from multiple directions. You won't know until you are airborne and start receiving messages from the grounds controllers. So how we want to tackle the threats as the info comes in I'll leave up to HQ and the Squadron Commanders.

DW

I'm already scared

Did we confirm a December 1st start date at the meeting? I was a little late.

DW

~S~
   Are the skins out and I missed it?

Yes DW, 1 Dec 1940

No skins yet TD.

There is a skin pack out that includes generic skins, it's in the Paintschemes Downloads section. The custom Spitfire skins have not been done yet as we will not need them for some time, probobly not until mid-January. Right now I'm just gathering up the info in that request thread and when the time comes I will do them up and zip them up into one big pack.

DW

Thanks for the help with the testing last night chaps, it gives me an idea of how the aircraft match up and what we can do with them.

Whats kinda scary is we're gonna first encounter the Bf-109Fs while still flying Hurricanes.   :help-sos-sos-29402:

DW

Team work. I think that's going to be what decides who goes home alive and who don't when it comes to the 109F4 vs. Hurricanes. Sure not going to get them in a flat all out run. Got to get them turning, maybe chasing someone acting as bait. While his wing sneaks in on the turn.

We're certainly gonna have to get used to using flaps for really hard evasive turns in the Hurries. Can't leave anything on the table.

We're also gonna need to exploit any altitude advantages we have to the max. If they go down don't follow and pitch back up, target another higher enemy. Force them to burn their energy coming back up to us.

DW

Here's a thought, campaign nights fall on the 22nd and 29th of next month during the holidays. Are we going to fly one or both of those weeks? I don't know if they are sufficiently spaced from Chirstmas and New Years to be an issue. Something we can yak about at the next meeting.

DW

~S~
   For z5o
<Got to get them turning, maybe chasing someone acting as bait. While his wing sneaks in on the turn.>
Usely it was the wing man who was the bait and his lead who sneaks in for the kill. If it did not work out there were always more wingmen around.

The first mission brief has a bit of a prologue and it's a little wordy, so I figured I would post it ahead of time so you can peruze it at your leisure.

(http://s3.postimg.org/rm7fmwr2b/Malta_One.png)

It's always a good day when I can use the word "peruze" in a forum post.

DW

S! TD,
Kewl, I didn't know that to be honest. Makes since, going to have to try to do that more often.

Beurling wrote a book called "Malta Spitfire". It's an interesting read cause it was written during the war. He was a very peculiar fellow, he was the highest scoring pilot of the campaign, allied or axis. Guy had phenomenal eyesight and was a master at deflection shooting.

Some other books on the topic if you're the reading type would be :

Malta Spitfire Pilot by Denis Barnham - Previously published under the title One Man's Window, as the name suggests Barnham was a spitfire pilot on Malta, kind of the anti-Beurling. He was a very introspective pilot who is quite honest about his fears and his reservations about killing. He was also an artist and did alot of sketching in his diary. I've tried to find digital versions of some of his sketches but have failed so far, some of his self portaits are quite poignant.

Fortress Malta by James Holland - Aside from having a title that makes a great campaign name, this is a recent book that gives an excellent overview of all aspects of the seige of Malta.

Osprey Aircraft of the Aces #83 : Malta Spitfire Aces - This is where I get most of my mission info. This series of books is great for that, they also have some excellent colour plates of aircraft for skinning. These books have alot of dates and figures so they might be a little dry if you are not into that stuff. I also used Hurricane Aces 1939-40 and Hurricane Aces 1941-45 from the same series for a bit of info.

DW

It's spelled peruse in the English language.   Just sayin'.

Huh, could have sworn ages ago I checked the spelling and it was with a z...

DW

It occurred to me today I had'nt thought about scoring, so here is how we'll do it. We'll record sorties flown\sorties survived and of course kills. For the kills, if you land safely or crash land in such a way that you do not need to bail out you will get full credit. If you have to bail out, either in the air or because of a flubbed landing you will get half credit. If you are killed or bail out outside of the friendly zone around Malta and are captured, you forfeit all kills.

So there are basically 3 degrees of success (or lack thereof). Save the pilot and plane, full credits. Save the pilot but not the plane, half credits. Save neither, no credits.

Furthermore, the XO's score will be tweaked based on the campaign builders mood on that given day.

DW

Wow, glad I'm not the XO....

Quote from: _AH_Col._Hogan on December 02, 2015, 12:07:19 AM
Wow, glad I'm not the XO....

Are'nt we all...


Couple last minute notes :

AI will have zero fuel.

All takeoff orders will be paired, meaning we will spawn in two columns side by each.

(http://s27.postimg.org/aw88ca3jn/Paired_Takeoff.png)

So #1 is first on the left, #2 first on the right and so on. And I mean their left/right, as they are facing.

DW

Quote from: _AH_DarkWolf on December 01, 2015, 09:55:01 PM


Furthermore, the XO's score will be tweaked based on the campaign builders mood on that given day.

DW

I just hope that the campaign builders and the wifes PMS are the same week.  At least I can have 3 good weeks a month

just sayin

~S~
   Just one suggestion(if I may)re: takeoff. When I am in my cockpit ready for takeoff I cannot see the plane ahead of me to know when he has started to roll and with all the chatter on coms. I cannot get an answer when I call.."Turbo. are you rolling?".My suggestion(if I may)is no chatter on coms. untill last plane is up except for the call..."___ rolling", Then you count...1 misissippi, 2 miss. 3 miss. and you roll...makes for good spaceing.
Respectfully submitted:
         TD

That method would work fine when we are in one long line for takeoff. With the paired takeoff, so long as everyone rolls in the proper order, this should'nt be necessary. Let me illustrate (click the image to make it a little larger) :

(http://s30.postimg.org/t7dr22jv5/Paired.png)

Here we have the front part of the takeoff line from our runway last night.

Now Bear is the in the #1 position, first on the left. No one moves until he is rolling.

Turbo is in the #2 position, first on the right. He can look to his left and visually see when Bear is moving (indicated by the red arrow) so he knows to roll as soon as he sees Bear move.

BBQ is in the #3 position. Now he can not see Bear in front of him from his cockpit but he CAN look to his right front and see Turbo (indicated by the green arrow). When BBQ sees Turbo start to roll he knows Bear is already rolling so its clear for him to go.

TD is in the #4 position. He can not see Turbo in front but he CAN see BBQ to his left (blue arrow). Knowing BBQ will not roll until Turbo is rolling, as soon as TD sees BBQ rolling he knows Turbo has already gone too.

z5o in position #5 is then watching TD to his right front (orange arrow).

That's me in the #6 position watching z to my left (purple arrow).

And so on.

With the exception of the #1 guy on each runway (who does'nt have to wait for anyone) everyone should be able to visually see the guy who is supposed to roll before they do from the cockpit. When they see that guy moving, it's because he's seen the guy whose supposed to go before HIM rolling etc.

So if Turbo fell asleep and was snoring on the runway in front of you, BBQ would not go. Since you are watching and waiting for BBQ to roll first, you would not go.

So long as everyone takes off in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc, this system should keep everyone safe.

DW

~S~

                 OK..copy that.

(http://www.maritimequest.com/warship_directory/great_britain/photos/aircraft_carriers/illustrious_87/1941_01_11_malta_a_ph.jpg)

Here's an interesting picture related to the last mission, taken at Malta on January 11th, 1941. Thats the Illustrious under attack while undergoing repairs, you can see her just to the right of the big crane in the middle of the photo. She's down a bit at the stern.

DW

~S~
   WOW!  Look at all those bomb bursts. One thing I remember about war and hot combat and that is.....It's LOUD!    :bomb-034:

Couple notes after the last mission :

There was some confusion about some of the locations, Grand Harbour is not actually listed on the in game map but if you check the first post in this thread there is a map there that I've added various labels for landmarks all around the island. Same thing with the airfields, someone called enemies over the field and chaps were saying "Well I see 4 airfields..." Again you'll want to be familiar with the specific place names, maybe even print out a small copy of that map so you have it on hand.

Another thing we were talking about was scrambling to altitude. Seems like every aircraft we'll fly can get upstairs with rads wide open, 100% pitch and 100% throttle plus boost without overheating, which is sort of surprising in the mediterranean. But the trick will be to do that while maintaining squadron cohesion. You're going to have to minimize the amount of time between the first and last guy rolling in each squadron (Not much of an issue for HQ as they are only a threesome). The more time you take in this regard the more strung out you will be, the more the leader has to back off to let everyone accordion together the more altitude you are going to be giving up. So squadrons give some thought to that. We're still kind of easing into this campaign but as we go forward the period of time we have for climbing is going to become more acute.

DW

~S~
   Well put DW and if you don't mind the rattelings of an old man I would like to say this. The squad leader should never slow up. If climbing straight out he can weave side to side maintaining climb power till his group is formed..or..fly a wide shallow climbing turn with each member of his group turning sharp inside the turn to form up but never get caught at 3/4 throttle waiting for the flight to form.
     Respectfully submitted:
        TD
ps: I copied that map when you first put it out.

BBC doc. "Battle for Malta",

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOmFqxqRjzc

S!

Nice Hogan, the narrator is the same fellow who wrote Fortess Malta. Have'nt seen this.

DW

Yeah that BBC doc is really good, great overview if you don't have the urge to read Fortress Malta. Some interesting footage in there.

In all these books they always talk about how blue the mediterranean is, man is it ever. Of the Malta maps we have in IL-2 I ended up deciding the use the one we use cause it has blue water, the main three versions have grey\green water.  :thinking-008:

DW

Yup, I remember looking at the water and thinking...... "This is what the ocean is supposed to look like"

Yeah, it's also interesting he mentions the disastrous convoy that they failed to promptly unload. I've just been doing the testing on the mission where we cover that convoy on part of it's final approach to Malta.

DW

Before we fly that mission, you should call the harbor master at Grand Harbor and tell him to unload that cargo immediately.

Quote from: _AH_Col._Hogan on December 19, 2015, 10:52:39 PM
BBC doc. "Battle for Malta",

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOmFqxqRjzc

S!

this was something else...  :surprised-041:

(http://i.imgur.com/0dqXLl0.png)

Yea, surprised no one has taken them as souvenirs yet.

Quote from: _AH_Col._Hogan on December 20, 2015, 05:37:10 PM
Before we fly that mission, you should call the harbor master at Grand Harbor and tell him to unload that cargo immediately.

Lol, nope, sorry, the workers are gonna knock off in the evening like usual. At least they learned the lesson. Similar thing happened with the first Spitfire delivery the USS Wasp was involved in. They could'nt be made ready fast enough due to lack of skilled ground crew and pretty much all of them were destroyed on the ground within 2 days. Again they learned the lesson well at least.

Yeah the cannons sticking out of the ground are bizarre. The stone on Malta is apparently very soft underground, they say you can scratch it with your fingernail. It hardens over time once exposed to the air. So I guess those things are stuck in there like concrete.

*Engage Nitpicking*

Oddly, Holland calls it a 20mm Oerlikon instead of a 20mm Hispano.

*Cease Nitpicking*

DW

~S~
   I just finished watching the Malta film and again it amazed me how awful humans can be towatd one another. The total lose of life in WW2 in the europe campaign was 70 million and the most were civilian with the most of them in Russia. Since Cain killed Able mankind has spent most of time killing each other and it is all in vain.

Just a heads up guys, we'll have Hurricane Mk.IIas and Mk.IIbs starting tonight. There are a couple notable differences from the Mk.Is we've been flying.

Flaps - Unlike the Mk.Is which for some reason had the 3 settings, the Mk.IIs have the usual up or down only setting. So if you get in a tight spot and go for your flaps you're gonna have to cycle them down-up-down-up to get a small amount of flap to avoid jamming them.

Supercharger - These aircraft have a blower. You'll start loosing boost pressure right at about 10,000 feet, so just as you pass that shift to blower 2.

In the climb you should'nt drop below 115 mph, if you do you risk overheating. Faster than 115 they can still go clear to 20,000 feet without overheating. Seems the Mk.IIa will get there a little faster than the Mk.I, the IIb a little slower. Like +/- 15 seconds respectively.

DW

Mission Four Post Mortem

Alright chaps, we took a drubbing tonight, heavy losses all around. It's never my intention to wipe AH out like that in a mission and I feel bad when it happens (Especially when SKAT survives it. Ah well, I'll always have the SKAT killing warmup room...) but having said that I think we made a few missteps that got us off on the wrong foot and we could never recover. I think the opportunity was there for us to do much better, so let's bat around some ideas and look for ways we can improve.

One thing I've been harping on and will keep doing so is altitude, you can't get complacent with it. You've got to think of it like a race, you gotta get off the ground as fast as possible and claw for every foot you can get before contact with the enemy. Having an altitude advantage gives you the initiative and gives you options. In this mission the opening was there for us all to get to 20,000 ft before contact, which would have given us a 5k advantage over the enemy's high squadron which was twelve aircraft at 15k. In the event most of the first guys in were co-alt or only a bit higher, so when they got in trouble the next fellows on the scene had to dive into the fracas with haste which cost them their advantageous position and the bad snowballed from there. Don't look at climbing hard as being an optional thing, it will mean life and death for alot of us.

The other thing to think about is the most basic, concentration of force. Now the chances of us outnumbering them is kinda low but we can take steps to try and ensure that the difference is minimal. Pilots in the squadrons need to know who their Squadron Leader is and stick with em. Furthermore it would'nt hurt to look at more coordination between the three squadrons and HQ Flight. Whether this comes from HQ on down with Hogan quarterbacking in the air or the three squadron commanders just putting their heads together on how they want to work together I don't know, either would work. Or perhaps something else. I think tonight we suffered from some lack of cohesion, we entered the fight kind of pell-mell and it cost us some early losses we could'nt afford.

Anyways, those are a couple of thoughts I had post mission. I hope you guys don't get discouraged, it's meant to be a challenge and I figured we might have some nights like this. I know we're not flying the greatest of kites at the moment and it's gonna get worse before it gets better. Next week we will encounter the Bf-109F-4 for the first time.

Onwards and upwards!

DW

Well.. i recall getting to 20,000 ft and everyone was squawking down low..  i could lived but i went back to help DW who had a whole squadron on him... i should flew away not looking.. hahhaha.. I would have lived and got at least 1 kill... lol... :happy-112:

I don't know if they were all on me initially, me, you and Jack were there when they arrived. After Jack spun in and you clipped one, then they had nothing but me to shoot at. I should have made turns on the deck instead of trying to make a break for Malta. Live and learn. Or die and learn such as the case may be...

DW

I did'nt think comms sounded all that bad that night, I've certainly heard worse. The main confusion I heard was when the enemy was first spotted some guys had eyes on the enemy low squadron, some on the high squadron. So there was some "The enemy is high!", "No, they are low!", "What? No they are up here at 15k!", "No they are at 8k!".

DW

Well you were winging with Olds, right? He's a bit of a special case cause his ping has been varying wildly up and down for many months. Sometimes he's normal and responds normally, other times there is considerable delay in him receiving messages and more delay in his responding. So he's not always there in real time on vent.

DW

I don't think it was that bad JD. However, things can always be improved upon.

For example - before calling out a bandit , know your alt, they're approx. alt and your map grid.



If it's bombers, their heading and the above info.

If it's fighters, their heading isn't as important as they above info. Most likely it will turn into a fight and stay somewhat static in that area.

And yes, Old's comms can sometimes not be in "real time" do to his lag.

Oooh, I know.... Cell phones!!

S!

I as a wing commander would like to talk about the mission before we fly it. Like were we are going the altitude to get too were to meet up at and so on before we launch the flight. of course that would mean one of two things. We have silence on comms so we four can discuss it or we go to a separate channel. Silence on comms is out of the question someone always pops up and says something. So if WE as a group want to survive I think we need to talk and cordinate a little. Instead of going out there half cocked and going for the points as everyone seems to do. Now as of late Third has been flying together and I am rather proud of my guys. What say you.

I agree.. after the 1st bogie was spotted i lost track of my group accept for DW..  low and high bogies were called out but i think some of that confusion was some ppl weren't as high as others.. so low to some was high to others.. i think as 3 individual groups we need to spread out more defined as a group and stick close as a squadron.. make sense.. and yes.. too many loud, bad calls with not enuf info.. "ooo i see 3 infront of me.. where???? Know what your goinna say before you talk and be quick.. no holding the button down for lengthy periods.. and LISTEN to what others are saying..
My 2 cents

Salute All,

Some good points made by Hogan, DW, Lippy and Bear. 

A few things that I think we can touch on.

First and foremost, realized that there will be plenty of enemy aircraft to go after so, let's not go all in at first sight of the first enemy A/C. Like DW stated previous, Keep the initiative and control the fight. 

Within each squad, stick to the flight and element concept that way each pair has mutual support and larger coordination within each squad.

Have a pre-determined altitude for the flights, with some staggered high and low for proper scanning of bogeys.

Since each squad is now flying out of separate airbases, have a pre-determined rally point for each squad. That way if some get separated, they can regroup and attack again in force.

Have uniformity within the speed bar and cockpit gauges, either all in mph and feet or kph and meters so there is no confusion.

Next, work on Comms and implement brevity code such as BRAA calls (Bearing of enemy with respect to friendly A/C, Range, Aspect of bandit to friendly A/C, and Altitude) to name a short few. Like Bear said, short calls with only pertenant information.

Salute

Wood

We have 4 flights. 1 flight should be bomber control (low flight) all others are enemy then bomber. I personally dont like being spread out to far apart. A full squad can be destroyed before others can make it there. But I also know we need to cover the island, and spot the enemy before they hit the island. We dont need to continue calling out on comms hey I got one, or hes going down. We need COMBAT COMMS implimented. Maybe the CO can call it out, that means shut up unless you have something to say about the combat. Dead pilots need to keep it quite as well, too many jokes being said when polts are still engaged. If your dead and you want to bs go to another channel.

God help those German and Italian pilots in Mission 5. They're gonna see the wrath of AH.

~S~
Best advice I have seen Lippy,we need to realize we are flying combat missions,not competing for comedian of the year.

I liked the mission.  Need to get waxed every once in a while


Bring em on

~S~
   Bear and his killers are tooling along at somewhere tween 15 and 20,000 on (lets say 360)and spot a flight of bad guys at about 11,000 on 180 hd'g. They don't see us...Bear calls...hold alt. new hd'g 180 to see what they will do. They do nothing...just heading on their mission. Bear calls....all in...bust 'um up...climb out 270..regroup at 13,000. Now lead and wingman pick out one of the suckers and kill him...others do the same...one by one kill 'em all...zoom-boom...in out..not round and round...in..out..Alt. is golden...we WIN.

Good discussion, couple thoughts on what some of you've said :

Keep in mind that usually we are not gonna know where we are going until we are in the air. Most of these missions it's like we pilots are hanging around the dispersal hut or at the splinter pen or maybe even cockpit readiness. When the call comes in to scramble we go and start climbing like mad men, Ops will get to us with the info once we are airborne. There will only be a few exceptions to this during the campaign.

The confusion with the calling of high and low bandits was not so much our altitude as it was that the enemy were at two altitudes. One enemy squadron was at 8-10k and one at 15k trailing the first a little. Some of AH encountered the high squadron while the low squadron continued on before being sighted by another group of AH. So in fact both calls were right but it was'nt realized right away that there were two seperate groups.

Remember too we are not 4 flights anymore, we are three Squadrons and HQ Flight. Our main strength is in the three squadrons, we can't deploy HQ like a squadron as they only have a maximum of three aircraft. So think of us as having three main units at our disposal with HQ as kind of a roving reserve.

Lippy is a Squadron Leader, only Hogan would be a Wing Commander.  :surprised-027:

DW

Bloody Wingco! Wanker!

I think we are making progress here. We do need to keep the comms chatter at a minimum. Just for the record, that was the one night I was not having issues with lag on comms. I did not have a problem communicating in real time with Jetdoc, when I was able to hear him and there was enough space available to key up and communicate. Most of the time the comms were too crowded to talk. It is difficult to tell your wingman to check his 6 or wherever when you cannot break in to do it.

Hopefully, we can implement these suggestions in future missions. If we can't get this to work better, maybe we should consider splitting comms, and having the leaders communicate what is going on.

Just my 2 cents.

Olds

I guess I'm done joking.  I have always believed that the reason AH has stayed together and active through the years is that as a group, we all seemed to remember that the game is, when all else is said and done, JUST A GAME!  I try to always remember that, and to NEVER EVER take it so seriously that it stops being FUN.  What a crock, huh?

Quote from: _AH_Jack on December 26, 2015, 10:09:09 PM
I guess I'm done telling jokes.

I wish I could believe you this time, I really do.

DW

I think what guys are talking about is people joking in the midst of combat, not necessarily objecting to any telling of jokes. Sometimes we do have guys using up air time to make a smart arse comment when it's needed by others. Most of us have done it, I know I have, it does'nt matter so much the fewer the people on comms but on campaign night it can\has been an issue. Just dialing that back a tick is'nt infringing on anyone's freedom to joke and will just ensure a little more space for combat communication.

DW

Quote from: _AH_Hollywood on December 26, 2015, 02:18:42 PM
God help those German and Italian pilots in Mission 5. They're gonna see the wrath of AH.

That's the spirit, let's have at those jerry wankers!

DW

I sure hope so DW and Hollywood lol

And if all else fails we can send in Gator as bait!

DW

Thought this might be useful. This is a map of the flak positions on Malta.

(http://s10.postimg.org/94w14d0jd/Flak.png)

The stars are the 3 airfields which of course have flak. The diamonds are the various AA batteries which have a mix of 40mm and 3.7 inchish guns. The triangles on the harbours are where you might find some additional AA support, depending on what ships are in harbour at that time.

So if you find yourself in a bad spot and need AA help, the southeastern 1/3 of the island is where you're most likely to get it.

DW

Nice DW.

Anything on Goza?

No, nothing on Comino or Gozo.

DW

~S~
   Just a thought. What do we have....15/20 planes? Why don't we just take off...cap the island with flights at 8000..10000...12000 and 15000. We know the enemy is coming to Malta so lets just wait for them to get here...let AAA chew 'um up...we kill the left overs. We could even carry less fuel...not haveing to fly way out to sea...and we would be faster. Every little bit helps.

The AAA is not reliable enough to count on them being able to chew the enemy up to that degree. At one point during my testing I had the flak shredding em and no mistake but I dialed it back from there. If the AAA does all the work for us it won't be as fun, so there is a bit of a balancing act there. Though I did bolster the airfield flak a little after the last mission.

Stacking aircraft at different alts would help to detect enemies down low but that's the only advantage I can see to it. It would mean putting some of our aircraft at an almost certain disadvantage which would concern me. I would always prefer to have as much altitude as possible, you can always drop down if needed.

Ideally you would want to whack the enemy before they reach Malta so they do not bomb our stuff. Having said that during this early period alot of the interceptions were happening over Malta itself. Part of that was a lack of understanding of how to use the fighters by the AoC, part of it was the fighters tended to climb to the south of Malta before turning back north to engage. They did this to ensure they had enough altitude when they did engage. This will change in the future once they implement the Forward Interception Plan, at which point we'll find ourselves vectored into interceptions north of Malta.

DW

~S~
   I figured it would'nt work but it did at Guadalcanal in WW2. The Betty bombers always came in just above the water with aussy coast watchers giving 15 min warning. It was just a thought DW.

I was thinking about Guadalcanal in regards to this campaign as well. I don't know if you remember the 2007 iteration of Moggy's VMF-223 campaign but the japanese often came in very high, we struggled to counter them at first. Something we started doing was instead of immediately climbing west towards the enemy, we climbed east for a couple of grids then turned back which gave us more time to get higher. Kind of like what they were doing climbing south of Malta.

I still had this image dated August 29th, 2007,

(http://s27.postimg.org/n635ewtv7/Homer_Alt.png)

It still rings true today!

DW

Oh also, somebody start giving me a verbal nudge to start a track at mission start. I've forgotten the last two missions, I still managed to start it during the takeoff but one of these days it's gonna escape me completely.

DW

Perhaps Lippy, Hollywood and myself can meet beforehand with a member of HQ squad to discuss a plan.... maybe eh???

:happy-112:

Can't see the pic.

Hmm, the picture is displaying fine here.

DW

Last night's mission.  Here thay come...thay have alt. advantage...closeing speed 500+ MPH...2 enemy go over my head and I see them roll over on their back as they go over...I know exactly what is going to happen...thay split-S...drop on my tail and kill me... exactly...turn out the lights...the party is over.

Looking at the track we had a little less altitude than we could have had, we could have climbed a little harder. Flying out to sea to meet them also decreased the amount of time we had before contact but it was'nt too bad. Our cohesion was better too, 1st Squadron was the first in and 3rd was right behind us. So we had a good 14 aircraft right from the start. 2nd arrived in short order with another 8 kites and we pretty much had em covered from then on.

Dunno what happened with that lag spike and then the wierdness with the enemy external padlock. The effect is present on the track too. At the 14 minute mark everyone starts flying sideways like we are gonna loose the room but after 2 minutes everyone warps back. After that point there is an enemy view that is a black screen with a loud merlin engine sound. Something clearly bugged out, dunno if the lag was the cause or a result of some other error. Hopefully it was a one time freak thing.

DW

I didnt see the warping but the view thing was there indeed..
Maybe if we dont fly straight out to the harbor but gain altitude over the island, is this what your suggesting DW?
~S~ Bear

HQ did that and it seemed to help.

S!

Quote from: _AH_Bear on December 31, 2015, 01:30:39 AM
Maybe if we dont fly straight out to the harbor but gain altitude over the island, is this what your suggesting DW?

What I'm saying is if you head directly towards the enemy, you will run into him faster. If it's a race for altitude the faster we meet the enemy, the less time we have to climb before doing so. By letting them come to us a little more, we gain a little more time and a few more angels.

Like if it takes you say 8 minutes to reach 20,000ft but by flying directly to the enemy you encounter them 7 minutes after takeoff you'll be in a worse position than if you meandered closer to the island while climbing and made contact with them 9 minutes after takeoff. 2 minutes could mean another 5,000ft in a Hurri.

I was actually amazed at the zoom climb the high 109s performed when they saw us. We'll have to be very wary of that going forward, they are cruising with alot of airspeed and can quickly add 3 or 4 thousand feet if they need it.

DW

Quote from: _AH_Jetdoc on January 03, 2016, 08:15:54 PM
well when are the spitfires coming :help2: :give-me-beer-0034:

For 2nd Squadron, mission after next.

DW

Special delivery :

(http://s24.postimg.org/vpo5ejtud/image.jpg)

(http://s1.postimg.org/jbdaqf10f/image.jpg)

(http://s13.postimg.org/crmr46pvb/image.jpg)

(http://s18.postimg.org/bp4sy9kk9/image.jpg)

(http://s22.postimg.org/lz5ff994h/image.jpg)

DW

I was doing some testing with the Spitfire, seeing how fast it will climb.  Using 70% fuel, 100% throttle and pitch +WEP with radiator six, maintaining about 110-115mph in the latter half of the climb gets you to angels 20 in a bit over 6 minutes. So about 1:30 faster than the Mk.II Hurries.

The official testing numbers for a Mk.Vc with +16lb boost is 6:15, so it seems right on. Though I don't beleive that was a tropicalised bird.

Hmm, just tried it with 100% fuel and radiator four, sticking to 120mph and got to 20k in the same amount of time. So it can probobly be improved upon with less fuel.

DW

QuoteI was doing some testing with the Spitfire, seeing how fast it will climb.  Using 70% fuel, 100% throttle and pitch +WEP with radiator six, maintaining about 110-115mph in the latter half of the climb gets you to angels 20 in a bit over 6 minutes. So about 1:30 faster than the Mk.II Hurries.

The official testing numbers for a Mk.Vc with +16lb boost is 6:15, so it seems right on. Though I don't beleive that was a tropicalised bird.

The version of IL-2 compare applicable to us states best climb speed is 160 mph.
At 160 mph and VSI at 4000 ft/min we could technically reach 20k in 5 mins.

I will do some time to climb testing this weekend and post again.

160mph, hmm that's interesting. I gave it a quick try and it added about 10 seconds to 20k. That was with rad four, might be able to close that up even more with the faster speed. Wonder what the middle ground would yield, like a 140mph climb.

DW

I just did two trials using Malta practice map:

70% Fuel, Rad open to 6, 100% Throttle + WEP continuous, climb speed at 160mph = 5:52 minutes to 20,000 ft. No overheat
70% Fuel, Rad open to 4, 100% Throttle + WEP continuous, climb speed at 154mph = 5:42 minutes to 20,000 ft. No overheat

There appears to be an optimum window between 220 - 260 km/h ( approx 135-160 mph)
IL-2 Compare (in your game folder) shows 248mph as best climb speed, so... 154mph should yield the best climb rate.

(http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r286/Riddle_of_Steel/Malta%20IL-2%20Compare.jpg) (http://s147.photobucket.com/user/Riddle_of_Steel/media/Malta%20IL-2%20Compare.jpg.html)

QuoteI want to know is can I run down jerry and kick his butt with out him running away like the coward he is   - JetDoc

Only with a good altitude advantage. The Bf-109 F's have an exceptional zoom climb,.... so more than ever.... altitude is life.

Looking at the fuel capacity, I'm not sure how much you would want to chop the fuel back on the Spitfire. Going by the gauge, the Mk.II Hurri has about 55 gallons at 70% fuel, the Spit is right on 40 gallons at 70%.

Quote from: _AH_Hollywood on January 10, 2016, 04:05:00 PM

QuoteI want to know is can I run down jerry and kick his butt with out him running away like the coward he is   - JetDoc

Only with a good altitude advantage. The Bf-109 F's have an exceptional zoom climb,.... so more than ever.... altitude is life.

Yeah it really depends on the situation. In the horizontal their speed is really good but if you get them turning and they try to evade into the vertical it is possible to hang with them and even reel them in.

DW

Just wanted to say again good job to the Squadron Leaders for taking the time and putting their heads together to coordinate things and look at ways the squadrons can improve how they work together. It's great that the S/Ls are keen to take that on, love to see that type of teamwork.

Just a heads up for the next mission, it won't be the usual scramble. We'll actually be flying some distance east to CAP an incoming convoy. I'll be changing the model of Hurricane Mk.IIc to the Hurribomber Mk.IIc, since that one has drop tank options.

DW

Thanks for the support DW... we needed to come up with a better plan and understanding and I think we had some good dialogue and resolved a few issues..keeping an eye on everybody is a big job but it made for more success in the end.
~S~ Bear

(http://s29.postimg.org/p2yi3bx7r/image.png)

As we were talking about at the meeting, this week is not the usual scramble but we will be flying out to cover an incoming convoy. They will be in the area of BS-7, marked in red on above map.

2nd and 3rd Squadrons have Spitfires, 1st and HQ will be in Hurricane Mk.IIcs. Actually the Hurricanes I have changed to the Hurribomber Mk.IIc as that version has drop tank options. It has a 2x44 gal combat tank and 2x90 gal ferry tank option. So both Spitfires and Hurricanes will have drop tanks available as it's a little bit of a hike out there.

Starting mission #9 we will be an all Spitfire force for the duration.

DW

~S~
   Considering the distance to convoy do we know the speed and direction the convoy is traveling? I am not the lead I was just wondering.

The red box is where we should find them, their course is pretty much a direct line from that grid to the eastern tip of Malta. Their speed is a lowly 10 knots. We will not be escorting them all the way, at that speed they are still a good 3 hours from Grand Harbour. We'll spend something in the realm of half an hour over the convoy.

DW

280* at 11 knots

rgr that I see a strategy already forming. Much like last weeks.

Quote from: _AH_DarkWolf on January 18, 2016, 02:04:29 AM
(http://s29.postimg.org/p2yi3bx7r/image.png)

As we were talking about at the meeting, this week is not the usual scramble but we will be flying out to cover an incoming convoy. They will be in the area of BS-7, marked in red on above map.

2nd and 3rd Squadrons have Spitfires, 1st and HQ will be in Hurricane Mk.IIcs. Actually the Hurricanes I have changed to the Hurribomber Mk.IIc as that version has drop tank options. It has a 2x44 gal combat tank and 2x90 gal ferry tank option. So both Spitfires and Hurricanes will have drop tanks available as it's a little bit of a hike out there.

Starting mission #9 we will be an all Spitfire force for the duration.

DW

So if the leaders see the big N in the water you know you have gone to far.

Quote from: _AH_Archie on January 19, 2016, 11:22:57 AM
So if the leaders see the big N in the water you know you have gone to far.

THAT'S your contribution? Go to your room!

DW

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Tunisia_-_Sicily_-_South_Italy.jpg)

Kinda cool satellite photo of our area of operations, Malta and Gozo are in the middle bottom. Gives you an good idea of why it was so hard to run convoys in from the west, particularly through the narrow area between Sicily and North Africa.

DW

~S~
    I think you have it backwards DW

Have what backwards?

DW

Oh, also 1st and HQ squadron pilots : If you're using the generic Hurricane skins I made you'll have to move them to the "HurricaneMkIIcB" skin folder for use in tonight's mission.

DW

Isn't that large island to the WNW Sardegna?  It looks familiar.

Yep it is, Sardinia. You can see the bottom tip of Corsica right above it. It's a pity we don't have a proper large map of Italy. I think we have one but it's super small scale.

DW

Furthermore, with the warmup room closing 10 minutes earlier at 8:50 EST, I'll open it 10 minutes early at 7:50 EST.

Cause I refuse to loose 10 minutes of watching SKAT die.

DW

Say good-bye to the Hurricanes, some pictures of Spitfires on the USS Wasp (CV-7) en route to Malta :

(http://www.vintagewings.ca/Portals/0/Vintage_Stories/News%20Stories%20E/Cobalt%20Blue/CalTaylor12.jpg)

(http://www.vintagewings.ca/Portals/0/Vintage_Stories/News%20Stories%20E/Cobalt%20Blue/CalTaylor4.jpg)

With HMS Eagle steaming in the background.

(http://www.vintagewings.ca/Portals/0/Vintage_Stories/News%20Stories%20E/Cobalt%20Blue/CalTaylor25.jpg)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Wildcats_and_Spitfires_on_USS_Wasp_(CV-7)_in_April_1942.jpg)

That last one is a nice big picture with Spitfires and Wildcats on Wasp's deck.

You see alot of the spitfires have four cannon. Many of aircraft sent to Malta had four cannon AND four .303s installed but once they arrived the armament was reduced to the normal two cannons. Though alot of the spitfires on Malta actually had two of the .303s removed as well to save weight so they had two cannon two .303s.

The pilots were given some basic instruction in how to take off from the carrier but that was it. During the second reinforcement run Wasp participated in, a canadian pilot by the name of Jerry Smith found after takeoff that he had a faulty slipper tank and could'nt pull fuel from it. There was no way he could reach Malta so they gave him the option of ditching and being picked up or trying to get his kite back on board Wasp. He chose the latter and with no carrier landing training and no hook made the first ever Spitfire carrier deck landing stopping with about 6 feet of flight deck to spare.

(http://static.imodeler.com/uploads/2014/04/Rod-Smith-lands-aboard-USS-Wasp.jpg)

(http://www.worldwarphotos.info/wp-content/gallery/uk/raf/spitfire/PO_Jerry_Smith_RCAF_Lands_Spitfire_On_USS_Wasp_Off_Of_Malta_1942.jpg)

That's Smith coming over the stern to land and the deck crew holding down his kite afterwards.

(http://i0.wp.com/georgesnadon.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/wpid-020718b.jpg?w=674)

An understandably relieved Smith after landing.

(http://static.imodeler.com/uploads/2014/04/Rod-Smith-and-David-McCampbell.jpg)

This is the LSO on Wasp that day saying "I take my hat off to you!" to Smith. The LSO is David McCampbell who went on to be the highest ranking US Navy ace in the pacific flying Hellcats.

DW

Nice Dee Dub

S!

~S~ DW
I appreciate the work you have been putting into this campaign.

~S~ Bear

~S~
   Ditto Col. and Bear  DW.

The events of note section is kinda long for mission nine, so I'll post it in advance.

(http://s24.postimg.org/ede6zos79/image.png)

We don't need to be waiting around for slow readers like Archie, AH waits around for him enough as it is.

DW

What is a "erk" and how to they get a plane combat ready?  Is that some British slang for an aircraft Tech? Or a "Ewok" Star Wars thing?   (Knowing DW.)

I think they left off the 'J'.

"Erk(or Irk) - Aircraftsman (from cockney erkraft)"

It's perfectly ordinary banter, Squiffy.

DW

Just a thought, I notice some of you fellows taking off in the Spitfire with your flaps down. Spits have only an up or down flap setting and when they are down they swing down 90 degrees perpendicular to the wing so they almost act like an air brake as well. This is fine for landing but not great for takeoff, so leave those flaps up for takeoff.

DW

~S~
         Like he says......

~S~ AH,

A few of us were training last night in Malta Spit MkVc's - 2v2 against AI F-4s. (wingman training)

We were discussing a few things and the topic of having 25 guys on one channel, and the difficulty of hearing your mates came up.
Gator again brought up what Lippy had suggested prior to the campaign starting, basically a request to have each flight on a separate channel.

QuoteI'm not sure what you mean by control but as regards comms I suppose that is up for debate. It can be done either way as far as I'm concerned. We've long gone with the everyone on one channel approach, either option has it's pros and cons.  - DW

Perhaps we discuss the pro and cons as we near the half way point of the campaign.

Bear had mentioned that a post existed on the boards, where we could create a 2nd user for the flight leads or something. He said that BBQ might be a good resource for this.
Ideally, we have each flight on separate channels and find a way for the 4 leads (1st, 2nd, 3rd & HQ) to have a shadow Vent user, we'd be able to communicate and coordinate.

Or... can we create whisper channels between people in Vent?

Your thoughts AH?

~S~

Wood

Try this Holly...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MviKmR1fNvk

Thanks Bear...

I got it done... I have two users now... normal and a flight leader comms.

What's the difference between that... and "Voice Targets"?

Is there no function to transmit to all, so you could broadcast to all channels with a seperate key?

I'm fine with it either way but I struggle to find many advantages to splitting. Less congestion of course, so more people will be able to say stuff and perhaps the Squadron Leaders can give more specific instructions in the air.

There is an advantage to having everyone be able to hear everything, it can help keep everyone in the loop as to what is happening. If you need help, pilots of other squadrons can hear you and it's easier to team up with a pilot from another squadron in a general melee where we are all mixed up.

It certainly would'nt hurt to try, as it's been a long time since we split comms. It should'nt be done last minute though, we would need to figure out our method and have everyone who needs it (whether it's programming keys or multiple vent logins or whatever) setup well in advance.

DW

~S~ DW,

I agree, no rush on this....

It came up and thought I'd kick the tires...

Concur, if we split we should do some practice coops after we all have our keys configured. (Put your hand down TD, there is nothing for you to do here).  (glasses)

S!

Seems I have missed a few things

Good to see you back in the saddle sir

~S~ Lippy

Looking at the track from Mission 10, we definitely handled the 109s better than ever we have before but the Stukas did indeed get away pretty much scot-free. 17 of the 24 made it back to Sicily. I'm thinking maybe HQ should snuggle up with one of the squadrons until contact with the enemy, it seems they often head straight out and make first contact which is not ideal for a 3 man formation without support. It has'nt bitten them too badly in the past but it did in this one.

DW

I am taking my ball and going home...      MOM!!

~S~
   Not very important but.....in my coin collection I have a .25 cent coin from Malta dated 1995.

Quote from: _AH_Col._Hogan on February 03, 2016, 04:27:50 AM
I am taking my ball and going home...      MOM!!

I'm just saying, if you guys had come in behind 1st or 3rd in the last mission you would have been free to drop down and have your wicked way with the Stukas.

DW

Yup, never saw the nazi 109 that killed me. I was looking down at the 87's

If we ever decide to split the squads to their own comms channel during missions we can still communicate with all the other squad channels by using a binding in Ventrilo.

You simply use your normal key/button to speak to your squad mates on the channel your in and another key/button to speak with all the squad channels at the same time.

Yeah I wondered if there was something like that AD. The only issue could be you don't know if the guys are talking on the other channels and you might be stepping on them when broadcasting to all.

DW

I thought I asked HQ to take on the bombers even assigned AD to u guys to help. We would like a HQ to meet with the three of us it is odd to assign something when you are not there.

I will not be available to host the mission on Feb. 9th.  I will be out of town.

I'm ok with a scrub for tonight. I'll leave it up to DW.

S!

Hmm. You know I'm not feeling 100% myself, think I'm fighting something off. So let's do that, go dark tommorow night. We'll get back at em next week.

This week we're all down with Malta Dog.

DW

You probably got that dog thing from hanging around that Edmonton tree to much.

Ill host coops

guess you guys all pissed on the same fire hydrant :lol

The tree in Edmonton is not to be made the subject of fun. This will be your only warning.

DW

http://www.treeremoval.com/ca/edmonton/#.VrvI7c_2ZhE (http://www.treeremoval.com/ca/edmonton/#.VrvI7c_2ZhE)

 Looks like the beavers already got to it :  http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-tree-stump-after-beavers-have-chewed-it-down-edmonton-alberta-canada-59678816.html (http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-tree-stump-after-beavers-have-chewed-it-down-edmonton-alberta-canada-59678816.html)   :lol  :surprised-027:

A reminder guys, we were dark last week for Fortress Malta but we're back at it this week.

Be at readiness in the dispersal hut at the usual time. You know, just in case some germans or italians decide to come over. Unlikely as it may be.

DW

Just a heads up to you guys since you've been doing some training and practice vs the 109s, starting next week the ities will start to reappear in the campaign. So we'll start to see the MC-202 and we'll also start to see the Reggianne Re.2000. It was actually the Re.2001 they often fought over Malta which is the inline engined version of this kite. We don't have it in game though so we'll make due with the radial engined version, same aircraft otherwise.

So if you want to practice against these, the specific versions are the Re.2000 and the MC-202 Series III.


Also a couple thoughts on fuel, ours and theirs. One thing I've done for this campaign is test flown the axis aircraft fom Sicily to Malta with 10% fuel, seeing how far I get before running out of fuel and extrapolating from that roughly how much fuel they would consume flying over. I then subtract a little more for the time it would take them to form up and the extra fuel they would burn hauling full tanks. So generally the AI never have 100% fuel, exactly how much they have depends on where they are at mission start. The bombers tend to be better off in this regard while the situation is more acute for the fighters. You've probobly seen some of the fighters bugger off for home suddenly, often that's their fuel getting critical. They know how much they need to get home and will bug out when they need too. This adds a bit of realism and also helps prevent the AI from following us home and screwing around over our base for a long time. (Though that has still happened, I gave em too much fuel during that convoy escort mission for example) So even with the Spitfire's short legs this is one advantage we have fighting over our own territory, greater longevity in regards to fuel.

The last couple missions we've been carrying the 45 gal tank for climbing. I was testing a future mission where we need to fly out to meet another convoy, about a 15 minute flight this time. I did it with the 45, climbing to 20,000 feet along the route at 90% throttle and still had'nt touched my internal fuel by the time I arrived. I hit autopilot and time compressed the mission to check some other stuff and my plane flew all the way back to Malta (albiet in a gentle descent) and still had'nt finished the 45 gal tank off. So we might want to consider going with the 30 gal tank for climbing during a scramble as it might save us a little weight.

DW

I had noticed no one was running out of fuel and was thinking just that DW thanks.

Just a random thought regarding comms, I was re-reading "VIII Fighter Command At War 'Long Reach'" and Lt. Col. Horace C. Craig's last missive is a good one :

"Never cut others out on the radio transmitter, for neither of you have accomplished anything. Most important of all give the radio transmitter to the pilot who is actually engaged and needs it - you may save his life. Remember, it could be you!"

DW

Nice.

I like that thinking...

Comms is getting out of control again it seems that the concept of Combat Comms is out the window. We also have a few new pilots and this may need to be brought back up again. Also those that are getting loud need to roll it down a notch.

QuoteThe first and most important technique is to Think before you Talk.

QuoteBREVITY: Denotes radio frequency is becoming saturated/degraded/jammed and more concise/less R/T transmissions should be used.

http://www.simhq.com/_air/air_008a.html

Perhaps some training on the matter might be considered.

Good find Wood

I completely forgot to post about this, Jack mentioned last week he would need to work tonight so will be unavailable for hosting. Do we have someone with a good enough connection to host 20+ people?

If there is someone who can, please make sure your settings are correct :

(http://s11.postimg.org/rieaytfxf/AH_Settings.png)

I don't know if we'd worry about dot ranges as they are a pain to edit unless you have IL-2 Wingman.

DW

Bear said he can host.

that not the setting jack give me??

What not the setting Jack give you?

Me not understand you nothing.

DW

email me the missions Jack.. badbear1@telus.net

I sent it to you, Bear.

You got the connection for this?

DW

Gator is correct.  You need to also check the No Fog of War Icons, No Enema Views, and Shared Kills Historical boxes.

Oh yes that's right, I missed No Enemy Views.

We don't use Shared Kills Historical, because that actually turns off kill sharing for certain airforces. We like our shared kills across the board, right? For example the germans did not share kills, so with this enabled if we're flying german it will never share kills.

Fog of War Icons is related to dogfight fog of war settings in the FMB is'nt it? Unless you've enabled those in some way I don't think that will do anything, I've never seen it affect a COOP before. Can it?

DW

Yes.. i believe i can do it ok.. fiber optic..

Ok, sounds like we are good to go then.

DW

Ok, here is the advance brief for Mission 14 for you Squadron Leader type peoples. You can click on the images to make them larger.

(http://s15.postimg.org/63ljxts2j/M14_Brief.png)

(http://s22.postimg.org/6ia82un7l/M14_Map.png)

Let me know if you have any questions.

This is the mission I was talking about earlier when we were discussing fuel. Using the 45 gal slipper tank I made it out to the convoy without draining it. That was 90% throttle and a gentle climb to 20k on the way. I was carrying 100% internel fuel as well. We're gonna be well beyond the "safe" area around Malta so I think 100% fuel should be the order of the day.

DW

Slight addendum to the brief for tonight :

(http://s29.postimg.org/yiopqcwyf/Addendum.png)

DW

"Canadian" should be capitalized..

It's an advanced brief so it's a work in progress. It only counts if a mistake makes it into the final version.

DW

PS - Shut up SKAT.

We had 13 of 21 guys fail to return in Mission 14. So thats a better than 50% loss rate, which is tough. Losses like that always warrant a closer to look to see what went wrong and looking at the track and reviewing each loss, only 6 of those 13 were lost to enemy fire. We had one guy black out and crash, one guy flew through a stuka he was attacking and FIVE pilots ripped their wing off. So half of our losses were self inflicted. I'm not sure if what the tracks shows is accurate but it appears almost all of the guys who lost a wing still had their drop tank which may have attributed to that. Though you still gotta be careful with the spit at high speed regardless.

So let's be aware of those high G turns and make sure we dump those tanks if we have them.

DW

Quote from: _AH_DarkWolf on March 09, 2016, 09:17:38 PM
FIVE pilots ripped their wing off. So half of our losses were self inflicted.

DW

That seemed preventable as I know I stated several times before we flew I suggested to watch your throttle and speed in your dives, just sayin.... :thinking-008:

~S~

No doubt I ripped my left wing off but wasn't in a high g turn or a very steep dive and pretty sure had dropped my tank,not sure. It would be interesting to know how many pilots lost their wings in combat in WWII ,may be wrong,usually am,if the flight characteristics of the AI planes were the same as ours our kill rate would increase and so would our survival rate. I know I wont change anybodys mind on this subject but neither will I.

I like it Gat, lost my wing as well...

S!

Here is a nice argument on the subject. And looking a little deeper it seems there were failures of the wing and tail. However I do think the AI has a different set of rules than us.

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php?topic=124520.0

hmmm... wonder what Aces High group that is from eh ..

I suspect the Aces High Game.

It's hard to tell from the track as there is a little lag in it that affects the representation of the exact attitude of your a/c, but it does appear you descended quite a bit just before the failure, Gat. The track also shows your tank still attached, assuming that is not a lag thing too. Remember that the faster you go, the easier it is to overstress your kite. I was lucky myself, I forgot to dump my tank during the first bounce on the SM.79s and I hit about 446 mph in the dive.

Here is some info on the subject from the 4.10 readme  :

(http://s12.postimg.org/avryvyo0t/image.png)

DW

~S~
Thanks for the info DW. I knew I was in a slight dive and turn but didn't think it was high G and I have a button assigned to drop tank on my stick,I thought I had dropped it but maybe not.

4.10 Read Me:

QuoteWhen you get within 25% of the Service limit a "G" will be displayed on the top of the speedbar. As you get to within 10% of the current Service limit the "G" will begin to flash.

Good to know.... and in the future easy does it... Boyz

I tried to tell you guys not to go over 550 KMH wish I could convert to MPH. Anything over 550 kmh and you pull back on the stick and off comes a wing. anything over 640 kmh the plane disintegrates. You must watch your dive speed. if you find yourself going down drop your prop pitch that will help with not over speeding. I believe we can control the pitch in C version.

The conversions for what you say would be like 550kmh\342mph and 640kmh\398mph. It all depends on how much you pull the stick back too. Like I said I dove in at 446mph which is about 718kmh with my drop tank still attached and did'nt loose a wing or do any damage.  Pay attention to the visual and audio clues, the aircraft shaking and the buffeting air noise that builds up the faster you go. If you get into that state be very gentle on the stick unless you've bled off some of that speed. Be mindful of the negative Gs too, it seems aircraft have less tolerance for the -Gs. Don't bunt sharply at high speed.

DW

Quote from: _AH_DarkWolf on March 12, 2016, 08:28:41 PM
The conversions for what you say would be like 550kmh\342mph and 640kmh\398mph. It all depends on how much you pull the stick back too. Like I said I dove in at 446mph which is about 718kmh with my drop tank still attached and did'nt loose a wing or do any damage.  Pay attention to the visual and audio clues, the aircraft shaking and the buffeting air noise that builds up the faster you go. If you get into that state be very gentle on the stick unless you've bled off some of that speed. Be mindful of the negative Gs too, it seems aircraft have less tolerance for the -Gs. Don't bunt sharply at high speed.

DW

I agree with DW here, I have caught myself over speeding and to pull out of it you must apply very little input in your stick. In fact the last 2 times I found myself in that situation, I didn't touch the stick at all, and used my elevator trim knob to pull her out. Just my experience though so take from it what you will.

Lippy has a handle on this losing wing due to overspeed.... I had some trouble with this early on but now I keep a sharp eye on my speed..... I dont push it to the limit ... keep a safety margin   :help-sos-sos-29402:

Minor note for tonight: HQ has switched from 601 to 603 squadron and will now fly out of Takali with 2nd.

DW

Noted, thank you sir.

It was mentioned in the last mission's brief that George Beurling had arrived on Malta. He's quite a prominent figure when talking about the fighter pilots on Malta so here's some more info.

(http://s21.postimg.org/ldaurv4gn/beurling_1.jpg)

He was from Verdun, Quebec which is a suburb of Montreal (So yes Jack, he was probobly a Canadiens fan). He earned his pilot's license before the war and when it started he tried to join the RCAF but was rejected because of his lack of higher education. He then tried to join the Finnish air force but his parents nixed that idea. His next plan was to ride the rails to the US pacific coast to find a ship that could take him to China to join the fight there. That ended when he got caught by some railroad police somewhere in the US and handed over to immigration which sent him back to Canada. Finally someone gave him the idea of signing on as crew on a merchant ship bound for England and joining the RAF. So he crossed the atlantic only to be told by the RAF recruiter that he needed his birth certificate. So he crossed the atlantic twice more to go get his birth certificate and was finally accepted.

(http://s18.postimg.org/bmd2o7dux/25_frederick.jpg)

So he trained as a fighter pilot and went into action on the Channel Front in 1941 but he was at odds with some of his squadron mates. Beurling was a bit of a loner and did'nt care for authority so he did'nt fit in well with the very regimented flying they were doing. When one of his friends got a transfer to Malta that he did'nt want, Beurling was able to get himself sent in his place. Malta was the perfect place for him since most combats were smaller scale and often broke down into pairs or every man for himself. He had amazing eyesight and was almost always the first to spot the enemy. He was also obsessed with deflection shooting, constantly theorizing and imagining scenarios and became extremely skilled at it. One of his kills over Malta was a deflection shot at a range of 800 yards, which is something like .73 in game. He quickly ran up his score destroying 27.333 aircraft over Malta in about four months and was the highest scoring pilot of the siege, allied or axis. He was shot down twice during that time, crash landing the first time but having to bail out wounded the second time. The wounds were enough to take him out of action and he left the island in late October of 42.

(http://s14.postimg.org/gziymzvld/large.jpg)
This is Beurling on Malta posing with some chunks of an MC-202 he shot down.

The B-24 transport he flew out on overshot the runway landing at Gibraltar and crashed into the sea killing many of those on board though Beurling survived. Once he was on his feet he was transferred to the RCAF proper (something he was'nt thrilled with as he still held a grudge from being rejected) and returned to Canada to travel around the country on a kind of morale boosting tour. He did'nt like it and as time passed his speeches became more and more outrageous, sometimes going into gruesome detail.

He was finally returned to combat in the ETO but had the same difficulties with authority he had before. After one sortie the squadron's pilots walked into the briefing hut to de-brief, the CO had just got done saying they had'nt seen anything when Beurling said he claimed one Fw-190 destroyed. Everyone looked at him incredulously as no one had seen anything. He went on to tell them he had seen a lone Fw-190 above them going the other way and had left the formation, climbed up to it and shot it down, then caught back up and rejoined. No one believed him but when they went and checked his aircraft sure enough, the guns had been fired and the gun camera footage clearly showed an Fw-190 getting clobbered. This rubbed alot of the pilots the wrong way as leaving formation like that was clearly bad form. Thing like this led to him bouncing between several squadrons, no commander was ever able to reign in his behaviour. Beurling even went so far as to lobby the brass to be given command of a squadron of Mustangs, who's pilots he would hand pick and that he would then be given free reign to lead over Germany looking for trouble. Needless to say that never happened, they finally simply retired him from RCAF service. He tried to join other airforces to keep flying but could'nt and could never really find his place in peacetime. He finally signed up to fly for the fledgling Isreali air force. While ferrying an aircraft there in 1948 it caught fire after takeoff and crashed, killing him. There is some suspicion the aircraft was sabotaged. Beurling was the highest scoring canadian pilot of WWII with a final tally of 31.333.

If any of you ever make it to the National Aviation Museum in Ottawa, they have this bust of Beurling on a pedestal containing his wings.

(http://s15.postimg.org/yvy2dvkhn/george_frederick_beurling_c.jpg)

DW

Very nice DW... you have a strange insertion of the apostrophe in your contractions..lol

I'm special that way, apparently...

DW

In the first two pics, he looks like a real....
(https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2390529866/jackass.jpg)(http://s3.amazonaws.com/loablogs/Holes%20in%20Pad%20Big%20One.jpg)

He looks like a donkey well? Huh, must be a regional saying.

How about him greeting his two younger brothers upon his return to Canada?

(http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/49/media-49131/large.jpg)

DW

Quote from: _AH_DarkWolf on March 16, 2016, 12:32:58 AM
I'm special that way, apparently...

DW

Naaaa.. your eastern Canadian backwards different .. lol... whhhaaat?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Beurling did'nt drink or smoke. I believe he was also fairly religious, I seem to recall reading he always carried around a little bible his mother gave him.

DW

QuoteBeurling did'nt drink or smoke

No wonder he looks so sour in those 2 pics.... :drinking-42:

Quote from: _AH_DarkWolf on March 16, 2016, 08:27:49 PM
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Beurling did'nt drink or smoke. I believe he was also fairly religious, I seem to recall reading he always carried around a little bible his mother gave him.

He didn't wear his religion on his arm, but he did carry a bible in his pocket everywhere. In fact, after being shot down and having his left heel blown away, he was recovered in his raft and kept asking where his bible was. His rescuers found it in the folds of his life raft and put it back in his shirt pocket. I would imagine he probably had it on him when he did in Israel.  Here is a great video about Beurling including anecdotes from his brother. If you can stand the Canadian accent, it's definitely worth a watch!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rWHryAjaVYg

Nice 1 Doc!

(http://acesofww2.com/can/aces/beurling/beurling-kills.jpg)

This is a picture of him adding kill markings to his plane after his return to operations later in the war. Kinda reminds you of our own ranking ace in the campaign who has been gradually adding kill markings to his kite.

(http://s18.postimg.org/rzvrqqa8p/Wood.png)

Course, they ARE both pure blooded canadians...

DW

Hey ... Woods only a wannabe Canadian..

QuoteHey ... Woods only a wannabe Canadian..   - Bear

Pfft...    :lol-034:

(http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r286/Riddle_of_Steel/img140.1.jpg) (http://s147.photobucket.com/user/Riddle_of_Steel/media/img140.1.jpg.html)


Now I am sure that Skat will want to defect from 2nd Squad tho.....

Ahahha.. good one buddy!!  How many years have you lived here??

QuoteCourse, they ARE both pure blooded canadians... -Darkwolf

All my relatives reside in the Oshawa, Ont. area dating back to the 1800's, I on the other hand enjoy the mild weather down here in So. Cal much like other AH members like Hogan and SKAT. No GST and no snow plows.
:happy-112:

Quote from: _AH_Hollywood on March 18, 2016, 01:48:17 PM

QuoteCourse, they ARE both pure blooded canadians... -Darkwolf

All my relatives reside in the Oshawa, Ont. area dating back to the 1800's, I on the other hand enjoy the mild weather down here in So. Cal much like other AH members like Hogan and SKAT. No GST and no snow plows.
:happy-112:

I'm in Socal too wood!

Nobody cares about YOU Doc...

Ah so not only does Hollywood have Canadian blood but it's hearty Ontario blood to boot. That explains alot.

You gotta remember theres only like 15 or 20 people that live in Ontario, so we're probobly related!

DW

Quote from: _AH_DarkWolf on March 18, 2016, 08:37:45 PM
Nobody cares about YOU Doc...

Ah so not only does Hollywood have Canadian blood but it's hearty Ontario blood to boot. That explains alot.

You gotta remember theres only like 15 or 20 people that live in Ontario, so we're probobly related!

DW

DW, I wouldnt fret. Im sure the moose out there are in your family tree somewhere. :bomb-034:

Quote from: _AH_Doc on March 18, 2016, 10:54:41 PM
DW, I wouldnt fret. Im sure the moose out there are in your family tree somewhere. :bomb-034:

Well, the good looking ones certainly......I mean......shut up.

DW

As the CO and XO said in the pilot sign in, good job everyone getting airborne on the first try with 27 people in game. Was good to see. There will always be tech issues and glitches that we can't prevent that will screw us up but if we all take it upon ourselves to do our best to dot our i's and cross our t's before mission time on campaign night we can keep the restarts to a minimum.

As Hollywood also mentioned, the bombers did get through. In fact, they were the only e\a that survived. I know there was talk of assigning a squadron to engage the bombers but I think a whole squadron would be overkill.  Most of the raids we are facing at the moment consist of only 3-5 bombers with a heavy escort of fighters. I don't think that many bombers warrant devoting 1/3 of our strength to, especially if you're talking about putting the anti-bomber guys at a lower level. Perhaps when a squadron is tasked with taking care of the bombers, the S\L should assign maybe half his strength to that task and the rest engages the fighters with the other squadrons? Last night each squadron had 8 aircraft so that would mean something like a 4 aircraft flight assigned to hunt the bombers. Granted we probobly won't have high turnouts like that all the time so it might not be a full flight of 4, in which case perhaps we could have the HQ pair reinforce anti-bomber guys? Anyways, just throwing some ideas out there.

It's funny, some of these missions I've meant to be easier and we've suffered heavy losses. Mission 17 was meant to be a little tougher and we hacked every fighter out of the sky with minimal losses. Please be more consistent you buggers!

Oh, also a note for next week. The supply situation is getting worse on Malta. Ships like the Welshman are making some runs with supplies and some small amounts are coming in by submarine but it is not enough to meet demands. Fuel in particular is becoming an issue, so starting next week there will be some limitations.

DW

Question/concern,  If we decide to send a small number to dispatch the bombers, might they become overwhelmed with fighters coming to their aid?? will we be sending folks to their demise if we send them in small numbers?? perhaps 3 from 2 groups? or something along those lines??

Ideas??
   



And maybe Hollywood should start sharing some of his kills eh .. hahha

Quote from: _AH_Bear on March 30, 2016, 10:56:22 PM
Question/concern,  If we decide to send a small number to dispatch the bombers, might they become overwhelmed with fighters coming to their aid?? will we be sending folks to their demise if we send them in small numbers?? perhaps 3 from 2 groups? or something along those lines??

Ideas??

I think they certainly would if they led the way, which you'd need to make sure they did'nt. In fact you'd probobly want to make sure whatever squadron was assigned to be responsible bombers was not leading the charge into the enemy either.

DW

I volunteer for bomber duty.

I have an idea... need to get with Lippy and Wood..

Quote from: _AH_Col._Hogan on March 30, 2016, 11:43:55 PM
I volunteer for bomber duty.

I will follow you anywhere

QuoteI have an idea... need to get with Lippy and Wood..

Bear I am off tomorrow, so say the word....

personally, I think that the entire group should stay high... if fighters are leading the bombers, a select few can isolate them (bombers), shadow and then BnZ them to death.

Not one enemy should survive...   :unhappy-059:

QuoteFuel in particular is becoming an issue, so starting next week there will be some limitations. - DW

Nice consideration and a bit of added realism from the Master Architect in this regard...  Tip of the Hat!!   :drinking-43:

For tonight, no drop tanks will be allowed but there will be no limit on internal fuel.

DW

(http://s18.postimg.org/egjo2zbxl/Lloyd_Park.jpg)

Alright guys, there are some changes afoot on Malta that take place between tonight's mission and the next that will affect us. For over a year the Air Officer Commanding on Malta has been a fellow named Air Vice-Mashal Hugh Lloyd (left above). Lloyd's background in was in bombers, which was perfect for building up the island's offensive capability but his knowledge of modern fighters and how best to employ them was more limited. When he would send requests back to the Air Ministry in London he was very specific as to what he needed for his bomber squadrons but often added only a footnote about needing more fighters. If you watched that documentary Hogan posted you saw that during the period when the fighter pilots were clamouring for Spitfires and having to make do with the Hurricanes, Lloyd said to a pilot "It isn't the machine, it's the man." and that pilot had to resist the urge to thump him. 

So Lloyd is now tour expired and will be replaced. Understanding that the survival of Malta and it's continued ability to be a big thorn in the behind of the axis supply chain depends solely on the fighters, the Air Ministry decides they need an experienced fighter leader. Enter Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park (above right). The name may be familiar to you, Park led No. 11 Group during the Battle of Britain. No. 11 Group is the area south of the Thames where much of the heaviest fighting took place so you can hardly ask for someone with more experience. He quickly takes issue with the way the interceptions have been executed as they are happening much to close to Malta, often allowing the bombers to get through. He puts in place the Fighter Interception Plan which calls for fighters to be scrambled much sooner and vectored well out from Malta in order to engage the enemy out to sea.

So in practical terms for us this means we will no longer be given the enemy's location and heading and thats that. Instead we will now be vectored to a specific grid/keypad and told to climb to a specific altitude. Our ground controller Woodhall, sitting in the Ops room and with all the information on the plot at hand will be endeavoring to put us in the enemy's path at a superior altitude so we can drop on them when they arrive. The FIP gave Woodhall a free hand in this regard and it was something he was really good at.

So that's how the scrambles will be run going forward.

DW

 :happy-112:

Another note, 185 and 249 can switch to their Late skins starting next week. The mission after that 126 will become 1435 and HQ will make their last change to 229.

DW

Here is the Events of Note section of tonight's brief, as it's a little wordy again.

(http://s15.postimg.org/q8ft2l0aj/image.png)

Another last minute note, the shortage of fuel continues to squeeze us. Once again no drop tanks can be taken and internal fuel will be limited to 90%.

DW

Quite a scrap last night. We took some losses but inflicted greater losses on the enemy. 3 Ju-88s made it back to Sicily, but only one MC-202. Compare that to last week when about 10 enemy fighters survived. I think the plan the S/Ls came up with is sound but the execution just went a little sideways this time.

DW

PS - The sobbing heard in the 2nd Squadron barracks last night was SKAT lamenting his failure to save me.

DW did I hit your pilotless plane as it fell to the sea or did I shoot you by mistake


Arch

I thought you were just joking when you said something about that, I did'nt notice any wierd messages. Lemme look at the track again... Yeah we were no where near eachother and I see messages stating we were both shot down by AI planes. Did you get a message saying you killed me? There is always a little lag in the track, I can't tell what popped your wing off.

DW

I got a message that I Killed you .  It felt like I hit something, I thought it was your plane falling that I never saw

Huh, well that's not possible. You went down right near the Ju-88s and I was nowhere near them when I went down. Were you experiencing any lag at the time? Even then it's strange you would get a completely different message from others.

DW

I think it was just wishful thinking.

Quote from: _AH_Jack on April 14, 2016, 12:44:11 PM
I think it was just wishful thinking.

I have not discounted the possibility of an overactive fantasy life.

DW

I think instead of the bomber guys following us all the way there isnt a good plan. They should hang back about a grid so we can engage the fighters and let the bombers slip thru into their hands. I didnt like one squad go in first idea that needs to be rethink-ed or modified in some way.

Yep./. i think thats a good idea Lippy

QuoteI think the plan the S/Ls came up with is sound but the execution just went a little sideways this time.  - Darkwolf

I agree with DW, the idea is sound.

Upon detection, one squad engages the first wave, the two other squads box them in and look for the second wave.... their fighters being defensive, allows the bomber detail to hang back and take the initiative.

We just need the outer two squads to turn in and be more aggressive on their second wave. Poor communication in this regard hindered the execution.

2nd can be the spear this coming Tuesday and 1st and 3rd can book-end them in..

I do agree with bomber detail hanging back a grid.. I have yet to review the track.. so maybe more on this later.

~S~
Wood

Yup. I was scanning the low cloads and when I looked up I was head-on with Cantz's, 202's and 109's

IF we had been back a grid I think the bomber boys may have done much better.

~S~
    My 2 cents worth:
Three squadrons in the fighter group escorting the bomber combat box usually arranged themselves as follows:

One squadron would overtake the bombers and position above, dividing into two sections, one some miles ahead of the other.
A second squadron also divided into two sections and positioned above and about a mile out from the bombers on each side of their box.
The third squadron acted as top cover some 4,000 feet above the bombers, one section directly above and the other about ten miles ahead towards the sun where it would be ready to intercept any attacks from this "blind spot."

This wider-ranging escort made it possible for the escorts to find trouble before trouble found the bombers.  Fighter group leaders had to resist sending their entire group against enemy.
You want as much distance between you and the bomber stream as you can get and still be able to see - and get to - the bomber group. The more distance you have, the more time you have to interfere with bandits on their way to the bombers. Escorts shouldn't hesitate to move beyond visual range of the bombers if they spot bandits further out.
The escorts usually stay between 5,000 to 8,000 feet higher than the bombers, so as to have enough energy to turn into attacking fighters.

We can use most of these tactics in the game, but we must adapt them to the small number of planes that each team has.For example we can have 5 bombers, 3 escorts in the front, 2 on left side, 2 on right side and 3 in the rear.

TD.... THANK YOU... THIS MAKE GREAT SENSE  AND i TRULY APPRECIATE THE INSIGHT  OF THESE TACTICS YOU DESCRIBED ... IT IS AN HONOR TO KNOW YOU MY FRIEND...AND i HOPE YOU JOIN IN AND FLY WITH US MORE OFTEN.

WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING?

Alright, who super glued Nimble's Caps Lock key again? I'm looking at you Lippy...

DW

uhhh errrr... he put the glue on the top of the key too.... lnow I cant get away from the puter
:help-sos-sos-29402:   and for Hogan....ITS SO YOU CAN SEE WHAT I WRITE     :surprised-027:

Note for the morrow : Once again we will not be able to use drop tanks and internal fuel will be limited to 80% max.

DW

Alright guys, last night's mission was on August 10th, 1942. As you know the supply situation has been deteriorating for some time. The cargo from the two ships that arrived during the Harpoon convoy had pushed back the surrender date by about 8 weeks. With those supplies it was estimated that the tinned and dehydrated food stores on Malta would be depleted by August 15th and that if they slaughtered all the remaining horses and goats on the island it would give them another 5 to 10 days. Which means at most they could last until the 25th, so a large convoy had to arrive before then or Malta was finished.

The solution was the Operation Pedestal convoy which was the culmination of the plans that had been delayed for a couple months. For Pedestal a total of 14 fast merchant vessels were assembled, 13 transports and one large tanker. The British did'nt have any available tankers so they bummed one off the Americans, the SS Ohio. The different types of cargo were split up amongst all the transports, every ship was carrying some ammunition, spare parts, food, fuel, etc. So each ship that arrived carried some of everything. The Royal Navy pulled every available ship from the Home Fleet to bolster the escort which included 5 aircraft carriers (Another Spitfire ferry mission was combined with Pedestal), 2 battleships, 7 cruisers, 32 destroyers plus other miscellaneous vessels. The convoy passed through the Straight of Gibraltar on August 9th and 10th and Operation Pedestal was on.

**Note - Left click on the images to make them a little larger**

(http://s31.postimg.org/3sa3fmvej/Pedestal.jpg)
Some of the Pedestal ships about the enter the med, looks to be taken from a Swordfish or maybe an Albacore. The Illustrious class carriers Indomitable and Victorious are clearly visible.

(http://s31.postimg.org/oydl8meez/Pedestal_Underway.jpg)
The Pedestal convoy underway, I think that's the Ohio just above the back end of the carrier.

The Germans and Italians were aware of Malta's dire situation and were well prepared to contest Pedestal's passage. There were both Italian and German U-boats lying in wait, E-boats, surface vessels of the Italian Navy and of course hundreds of bomber and torpedo aircraft. The battle was joined in earnest on the 11th.

(http://s31.postimg.org/dnu85yyyj/Eaglesinks.jpg)
One of the first casualties was the old carrier HMS Eagle which had delivered so many Spitfires to Malta over many months, torpedoed by a U-boat.

(http://s31.postimg.org/w33zr5i0r/Pedestal_Map.jpg)
As you can see from the map, it was quite a running battle.

(http://s31.postimg.org/4mn1eck1n/Underattack.jpg)
Anti-aircraft fire over the Pedestal convoy.

(http://s31.postimg.org/bbgrffbln/Ohio_Torp.jpg)
The Ohio is struck by a torpedo, as the only tanker in the convoy she was a prime target.

The Axis inflicted a steady toll on the merchant vessels and 9 of the 14 would be sunk. Over the 13th and 14th the 4 surviving transports arrived in Grand Harbour, most displaying the scars of the fierce fighting.

(http://s31.postimg.org/ex6yhci2j/Brisbane_Star_Bow2.jpg)
(http://s31.postimg.org/z50xn4dbv/Brisbane_Star_Bow.jpg)
Torpedo damage to the bow of the Brisbane Star.

The most important ship of the convoy was the Ohio as she was carrying the vast majority of the fuel, especially the aviation petrol. She was struck repeatedly by bombs, torpedoes and even a stuka that was shot down by a nearby destroyer. It skipped off the water then crashed into her deck. Damage caused her to go dead in the water several times and the crew even abandonded ship twice fearing she would explode. When she stayed afloat they would go back aboard and try to get her underway again. She finally went dead in the water one last time within sight of Malta. They tried to tow her but a chunk of the hull was sticking out acting like a rudder so she would just turn in circles. Finally the destroyers Bramham and Penn lashed themsevles to the sides of the Ohio while another, the Ledbury, provided steering up front. At a speed no more than walking pace they inched forward, clearing the breakwater into Grand Harbour in the early morning of the 15th.

(http://s31.postimg.org/r7pfyvzi3/Ohio_Arrives.jpg)
Ohio and destroyers entering the harbour.

(http://s31.postimg.org/qp7s5p7y3/Ohio_Arrives2.jpg)
Another view of Ohio being pushed into harbour.

The Ohio settled on the bottom in a shallow area of Grand Harbour and despite the damage most of her cargo was intact and quickly pumped out.

(http://s31.postimg.org/ye2dm1kaj/Shipsunloading.jpg)
Two of the Pedestal ships unloading in Grand Harbour

By this point almost all the dock facilities on Malta were wrecked so the ships could'nt be properly berthed for unloading. The cargo had to be shifted onto lighters then moved dockside to be loaded on trucks and carts.

(http://s31.postimg.org/bd0ho9mnv/Melbourne_Star_Lighters.jpg)
Cargo being unloaded onto lighters from the Melbourne Star.

(http://s31.postimg.org/r940zjf97/Supplies.jpg)
Supplies being loaded from lighters.

Hundreds of civilians turned out to welcome the ships in, they were all well aware of how important they were. Even George Beurling who was recovering from another bout of Malta Dog got into the air and did some celebratory aerobatics over the harbour. August 15th was also one of Malta's most important feast days, the Feast of Santa Maria. Some Maltese attributed the convoy's arrival to a miracle, referring to it as the Santa Maria Convoy. In the end the ships that arrived landed 32,000 tons of cargo and 15,000 tons of fuel. Other than the aviation petrol, this was enough to supply Malta until December of 42.

In short, no more fuel restrictions.

DW

Thanks DW.... great pictorial and history of the times we are flying... enjoyed it tremendously
:happy-112: :happy-112:   both of me

That was awesome!

~S~.. Great job DW..

Just to recap last night, again it was a heck of a fight and we did quite well. The plan for the anti-bomber guys hanging back seemed to work much better, the main squadrons really stripped the escort off the bombers. Some of you were wondering how many bombers survived, there were four still airborne by the end of the mission, two of them were kinda porpoising close to the water and though damaged they did'nt seem like they were going down. It looks like the bomber leader still dropped his bombs on Luqa but he missed short, the wanker.

The only point of concern I have is that we get to the location where we're being directed a little quicker. We kinda meandered around a bit and took longer than we should have to get there such that we came kinda close to porking the timing of the mission. We'll get our directions at mission start +3-4 minutes, at which point we should be making more of less for that location.

Lastly, next up we have the first of two oddball missions. Expect the brief to posted here in advance in the next couple days.

DW

Any chance we could explore splitting up comms. It's getting rough. Just a thought. If not, il just bring a chalk board to communicate with my wingman. I couldn't hear my flight lead until he said he was on final.

The next two missions involve the three squadrons going to different locations, so splitting comms is certainly doable for them.

DW

DW  my compliments on the great job you are doing not only building the missions but also the briefs....  .... ... and Ill try to keep the super glue off the caps lock key :happy-112:

Here is the brief for Mission 21. Left click the images to make them full size, makes the text easier to read.

(http://s31.postimg.org/c00x49m4b/21_Brief.png)

(http://s31.postimg.org/n1soguszf/21_Map.png)

I've marked the grids and target airfields on this map.

The red marks 185's target.

The yellow marks 249's target.

The purple marks 1435's target.

Let me know if you have any questions. You know, pertinent questions. Not silly ones like SKAT or BBQ would ask.

DW

Can we postpone the mission one week? I will be out of town
All in favor!

I dont mind

First , thanks for the enlargement on the brief.... and 2nd...this looks to be a very interesting mission :bomb-034:   but but no bmbs?? :help-sos-sos-29402:

No bombs, stroffing only.

DW

Delay mission one week?

Somebody please host some coops that night then please.
Oh crap, I said please twice (kooky).

"I'm a little Tea Pot short and stout, Here is my handle here is my handle....... Oh F@#$,   I'm a sugar bowl

hogan, wouldnt you rather be... wouldnt yourather bee????? a sugar bowl than a Bloody tea pot>>> :surprised-027:

Ill host coops

Well we have a meeting tommorow so I guess we can decide what we're doing or not doing then.

DW

 

DW,

A few questions on the next mission....

Is there any intel on the 3 bases we are strafing, such as type of A/C at each (fighters, bombers or both), type of resistance (AA)?

Can we schedule a photo recon flight of these targets to get an idea of the actual layout of the airbases, such as placement of revetments, fuel depots, and AA batteries?

S!

Wood

Each field has a mixture of fighters and bombers, I tried to make each field equal in terms of defenses and targets.

You can expect the usual german 20mm and 37mm AA, as well as larger calibre stuff around major town and ports.

As for recon photos, I had'nt planned on that but it's maybe something I could do. I wonder if Adrian Warburton was back on Malta at this point, I'll have to consult me books.

DW

Adrian Warburton: Re: Malta: His second tour finished in mid-March 1942 so he missed the intense battles over Malta in the summer.

The No. 69 squadron operated on Malta in 1942, flying Martin Baltimore's and Spitfire PR Mk IVs

http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/69_wwII.html

Yeah he was on Malta at this time, so I guess I can hardly send you off without recon photos.

(http://s31.postimg.org/5r9qxsd8b/Warby1.jpg)
Adrian Warburton, "Warby" to most that knew him.

Adrian Warburton was another notable airman on the island, yet another pilot who was kind of a misfit but found his niche in the skies around Malta. He was born in England but was actually christened onboard his father's submarine (he was a navy man) while it was docked in Grand Harbour so he kinda had a wierd connection to Malta from the start. He was not renowned as a great pilot initially, he earned his wings with a "below average" rating, which is the lowest you can get and still pass. Once in the air he was alright but his takeoffs and landings were quite iffy. He found himself badly in debt and took the overseas posting to Malta in 1940 to escape it.

On Malta he joined the Reconnaissance Flight and quickly began to prove his worth (after writing off at least one a/c in a takeoff accident and not before his CO arranged for some of his pay to be sent home to settle his debt.). He earned a reputation for pressing on and getting the required photographs regardless of opposition or anything else. He had several stints on Malta from 1940-43 spending some short periods elsewhere instructing or convalescing. He intially flew Martin Marylands, then Beaufighters and lastly PR Spitfires. In time he became a Squadron Leader and commanded 69 Squadron on Malta and eventually rose to the rank of Wing Commander. Despite flying lightly armed recon types he was credited with 9 enemy aircraft destoyed and would be awarded a DSO and bar, DFC and two bars plus an american DFC. He was actually working with a US recon unit in England when he went missing over Germany while flying a P-38 in April 1944. The wreckage of his aircraft and his remains were not located until 2002.

(http://s31.postimg.org/xxs04j6rf/Warby2.jpg)
Warburton (centre) while in command of 69 Sqaudron, with some of his squadron's aircrew. Taken at Luqa.

A few of more tibits from Warby's operations :


He was heavily involved in the reconnaissance of Taranto in advance of the Royal Navy's strike on the Italian fleet in November of 1940. During one such flight on the way home he was consulting with his crew about the number of ships they saw and found they had counted 6 battleships when the previous day there had been only 5. He turned right around and despite the fact that the harbour was now fully alerted, they flew around at nought feet until they had recounted all the ships to find they had previously mistaken a cruiser for the 6th BB.


During another sortie after attacking an Italian seaplane the aircraft was hit and the canopy shattered.
Warby says to his two crewmen "I've been hit."
"Where?" they ask.
"In the heart." he says.
After thinking for a moment his gunner says "If that were the case you would be dead..."
"Well, almost in the heart!" he yells back.

One bullet gone through the instrument panel and buried itself into his chest a quarter of an inch. By this time one of the engines had caught fire too so Warby dove the plane and put it out.
A few minutes later one of the crew says "Are you okay, skipper?"
Warby says "I'm all right now."
So the crewman asks "But what are you doing now?"
And Warby says "I'm extracting a bullet from my chest!"
For the record, he had the bullet out and in his pocket by the time he landed at Luqa.


During one mission in 1942 while flying an unarmed PR Spitfire he was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Sicily. Annoyed, when he got back to Malta he jumped into a fully armed Spitfire and then flew back and emptied his guns into the offending AA position. Still not finished, upon his return he switched back into his PR Spitfire and returned to photograph the damage he'd done on the second sortie.


So I'm sure Warby would be happy to get us some recon photos, I'll post em here when they are ready.

DW

Quote from: _AH_Hollywood on April 24, 2016, 08:57:38 PM
Adrian Warburton: Re: Malta: His second tour finished in mid-March 1942 so he missed the intense battles over Malta in the summer.

The No. 69 squadron operated on Malta in 1942, flying Martin Baltimore's and Spitfire Mk IVs

http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/69_wwII.html

Going back through the book Fortress Malta, it has Warby flying missions with 69 again in late August 1942 which is right where we are at.

DW

Cheers to Wing Commander Warburton.   :drinking-43:

QuoteQuote from: _AH_Hollywood on Today at 08:57:38 PM
Adrian Warburton: Re: Malta: His second tour finished in mid-March 1942 so he missed the intense battles over Malta in the summer.

The No. 69 squadron operated on Malta in 1942, flying Martin Baltimore's and Spitfire Mk IVs

http://www.historyofwar.org/air/units/RAF/69_wwII.html

Going back through the book Fortress Malta, it has Warby flying missions with 69 again in late August 1942 which is right where we are at.  -DW

Somehow I trust your resources over Wiki

Enjoying this campaign, thanks for all your insight and hard work..... Even if you do put apostrophes in the wrong place.  :happy-112:

Warby...  Peace at last

Quote from: _AH_fraggmann on April 24, 2016, 10:41:15 PM
Warby...  Peace at last

Yeah, check this out :

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Adrian_Warburton_grave.jpg/471px-Adrian_Warburton_grave.jpg)

There is a QR code thing at the base of his gravestone, apparently it links to the wikipedia page about him. I've never seen such a thing before.

DW

Wow.

Technology at a grave site...

Love it

So if you missed the meeting last night, the call was made and we are a go for this week. Repeat we are NOT going dark this week.

Here are the requested reconnaissance photos, taken the morning of our strike day.

(http://s31.postimg.org/y29gbfhvf/COM.png)
http://s31.postimg.org/y29gbfhvf/COM.png (http://s31.postimg.org/y29gbfhvf/COM.png)

(http://s31.postimg.org/mcs51m3p7/GEL.png)
http://s31.postimg.org/mcs51m3p7/GEL.png (http://s31.postimg.org/mcs51m3p7/GEL.png)

(http://s31.postimg.org/5tdahpovv/LIC.png)
http://s31.postimg.org/5tdahpovv/LIC.png (http://s31.postimg.org/5tdahpovv/LIC.png)

Left click the images for a larger version.

EDIT : Crap, they get cut off on the right if you just click on them so you gotta scroll left right. So I added the URL links below the images, you can right click on them and then open them in a new window or tab to get the full view.

DW

Awesome work on the intel, thanks DW.

S!

Are the flak guns 88's?  Will our guns be able to take them out?

The flak is smaller calibre, either 20mm or 37mm. Our 20mm should be plenty lethal. There are no 88mm batteries at the airfields themselves but there are some near larger towns and ports in the general vicinity.

DW

PS - Jack, please rehearse the following song in your Elmer Fudd voice :

A stroffing we will go...

A stroffing we will go...

Hi-ho the deeeeriooo....

DW

Just to repeat, next mission will be another oddball mission. We're parking our Spitfires for the week and will be flying an anti-shipping strike. Each squadron will be assigned 6 Beaufort Mk.IIs and 4 Beaufighter Mk.Is to man at their discretion. I can tell you that the Beauforts will be required to carry torpedoes. The Beaufighters may or may not be limited in terms of their bomb loads, I'm not sure yet.

So I recommend brushing up on your takeoffs and landings in these kites. Full brief and map to come in the next couple days.

DW

Im liking it..torpedos..

Uwww, torpedos. Me like.

Quote from: _AH_Jetdoc on April 27, 2016, 03:23:50 PM
DW can you let me know which model aircraft we will
be using

I did, Beaufort Mk.IIs and Beaufighter Mk.Is

DW

Here are the briefing materials for Mission 22. As usual, left click the images for full size.

(http://s32.postimg.org/a04ctnnf9/M22_Brief.png)

(http://s32.postimg.org/fijf79845/M22_Map.png)

Once again 1st's target area is marked in red, 2nd's in yellow, 3rd's in purple.

No recon photos this time, ships can change formation at any time so you would'nt really learn anything from it.

Note on the takeoff, we will all be flying from Luqa with each squadron spawning on a different runway. Takeoff will be by the numbers, so 1st Squadron followed by 2nd and 3rd last. Squadrons should not roll until the one ahead reports all it's aircraft are up.

Again each Squadron has 6 Beauforts and 4 Beaufighters available to it to man at their discretion.

There is no restriction on Beaufighter loadouts as I previously suggested there might be.

Let me know if you have any questions.


This mission represents the kind of operations that were going on to interdict the axis supply convoys heading to North Africa. I thought it would be interesting to throw one in there since a huge part of why we are doing what we're doing defending Malta in our Spitfires is so that submarines, surface vessels and aircraft can do this kind of work. The consequences of these strikes were fatal to the German and Italian armies in North Africa.

It was in the Med where they pioneered the close cooperation of Beaufighter and Beaufort squadrons. Many of these attacks would be made at the extreme range of the Beaufort, beyond where single engined escorts could comfortably fly thus the necessity for Beaufighters to fly cover. (We're not actually flying that far in the mission but that's a compromise in regards to what's practical for us) The main anti-shipping punch was the torpedo carrying Beauforts. The Beaufighters would go in ahead carrying bombs to use on the escorts and were also proficient at raking the decks with cannon and MG fire to suppress the gunners.

The allies would learn of alot of these convoys from ULTRA decripts. In order to keep that secret, they would direct reconnaissance planes from Malta and elsewhere into the paths of these ships (without telling the pilots) who would then "discover" the ships and report back. So as far as the axis was concerned they were just being found by regular air reconnaissance.

Another interesting facet of this was the allies would often learn of convoys or ships returning to Italy from North Africa that were carrying allied POWs. In many of those cases discreet orders would go out forbidding attacks on these vessels. The problem was if every ship carrying POWs went unmolested and everything else was getting pounced on, it would'nt take the axis long to realise something was up. So in order to protect this source of information, in some cases no warning was given and chances were taken that some of these vessels might be found and attacked. Tragically some of these ships were indeed found and sunk with great loss of allied lives.

DW

Little more takeoff info, Beaufighters will lead with the Beauforts parked behind them. Same for each squadron.

I seem to have lied in regards to the takeoff order, we'll actually go 3rd -> 2nd -> 1st.

3rd's takeoff run looks like this, mind the camo net on the left at the very end of the runway.

(http://s32.postimg.org/5jtpf2z4l/3rd.png)

2nd, be careful of the new control tower and ruined control tower left and right respectively.

(http://s32.postimg.org/9kobuy1xx/2nd.png)

1st, watch for the wrecked control tower mid field on the right and the hangars and spinter pens either side of the end of the runway.

(http://s32.postimg.org/me405blud/1st.png)

So everyone do your best to roll down the center as much as possible and you should be ok. Careful of the torque on the fully loaded twins, you may need to build up 20 or 30 mph before you get good rudder response and can go wide open.

DW

Lippy, Wood.. we need to get together and discuss this abit..

~S~ Bear

Bear, Lippy..... Tonight works. 

I work tomorrow until 530 PDT

Im on Vent now

Last minute changeroonie, takeoff time is pushed back 15 minutes to 0745 hours.

This is in game time, I do not mean we will launch from HL later.

DW

Good job on Mission 22 guys. Really well done getting airborne with those Beauforts and Beaufighters on the first try. I would have wagered we'd need at least one restart. 7 of the 9 merchant vessels sunk is a good result considering we were a little rusty in using our torpenae.

I was surprised we did'nt get hit by flak more. I experimented with alot of stuff in terms of rate of fire and skill level. I ended up going with a low skill level coupled with the highest rate of fire possible. I was aiming for an intense barrage but one that would'nt shoot you in the big fat head 10 miles away. Guess maybe they needed a little more skill, the Ju-88s were not as aggressive as I expected either. They were C-6 models with forward firing cannons and MG, thought they would be a threat if they got in amongst the Beauforts but you guys knocked em off without much difficulty.

I had to run the track several times so I could see all the strikes play out, I'm curious about 2nd's attack. It seemed like you guys overshot to the rear of your convoy and came up behind it. Your Beauforts then swung west before making their runs. Was that something planned or ordered on the fly or just happenstance? I ask because the escorts were arranged in a crescent on the Malta side of each convoy. This is something the axis did assuming air threats would come from the direction of Malta. I read a story of a strike encountering this and they had to make the decision, do we go through the escorts on the way in or the way out? They elected to make the end run and come in from the opposite side so they had less flak to deal with on their torpedo runs. Much like what you guys ended up doing. The nature of 3rd's approach was such that they had to swing left or right since they were gonna be bow on and in 1st we went straight in across the escorts.

Anyways, it was interesting to see how it all worked out as each squadron had an identical target. I chose not to reveal the exact ship types, one of them was indeed a Dry Cargo which was discussed before the mission. The other two merchants were an Armed Tanker and Armed Troop Transport. Escorts were two Italian destroyers and one of each type of Italian corvette.

So thus ends our interlude from the scrambles and we're back at it next week. One little snipet from next week's brief:

(http://s32.postimg.org/wqsy7nmpx/G2s.png)

So jerry is adding a new toy to his collection.

DW

Boo on the G-2

Good job last night guys, it was quite a scrap again. I don't think we've taken on quite that many 109s all at once before. They were 109G-2s and though the germans are starting to add these to their inventory in this theatre it does'nt mean that's all we will encounter anymore. The F-4s are still here. Maybe some missions all the 109s we see will be G-2s, some missions they might be all F-4s and sometimes maybe a mix of the two.

Couple thoughts, first when we have an altitude advantage like that don't give it up lightly. If you chase the first guy you attack down you risk getting piled on from above. Try and work the formation from the top down.

The second is something that I mentioned after our last scramble. Once we receive the directions from the controller, we should be heading more directly to that location. The positions and altitudes we are being vectored to are achievable even if we head directly there. If we don't get to that location sharpish there is a great risk the enemy will blow through before we get there. In last night's mission we actually had more time than normal between when we should have arrived and when the enemy arrived and we still only just caught them. There was a flight of four preceeding the main group (It would have been a full squadron if we had been running the alternate version) that almost slipped by. Of course this is bad if the enemy gets past us as they are likely to be able to get in and do their damage to Malta but also from a mission timing and structure point of view if we miss the intercept the mission could become a bit of a cluster. So let's emphasize a more rapid deployment to the point of intercept.

Oh yeah also, we now have 13 missions remaining in this campaign. We are entering the home stretch and these final missions all take place within a 7 day period in October of 1942. Everything is coming to a head in North Africa at this point. Rommel and Monty are engaged in a staring contest at El Alamein while both sides try and build up supplies for their next push. The problem for the Axis is most of their supplies end up at the bottom of the mediterranean due to actions like what we did during Mission 22. Rommel is now desperate for supplies and especially fuel. Malta is the main thorn in the side of the Axis in this regard and it must be dealt with if they hope to stabilize the situation in North Africa.

There is no longer any question of invading Malta as the transport aircraft and troops required are no longer available. Their only option is to neutralize Malta with heavy air attacks (something they have done successfully in the past) to allow more of their shipping to get through. Since the end of August things have been relatively quiet but everyone knew it was the calm before the storm. The new offensive against Malta started on October 11th and was the beginning of an extremely intense period of air fighting over and around the island. The Germans and Italians launched four and sometimes five raids a day, day after day, in what became known as the October Blitz.

DW

I'm not sure what we're trying to write in the sky but I'm pretty sure it's dirty.

(http://s33.postimg.org/tvukj4y3z/il2fb_2016_06_08_03_11_29_93.png)

(http://s33.postimg.org/3og21bsmn/il2fb_2016_06_08_03_11_59_21.png)

(http://s33.postimg.org/r15vin4bz/il2fb_2016_06_08_03_12_34_54.png)

(http://s33.postimg.org/3mp5ylokv/il2fb_2016_06_08_03_36_22_88.png)

Wait....are those bombs?


Also as we're doing alot of fighting over and around the border of the "safe" area around Malta, if you are forced to bail out please stay in the game at least until your pilot hits the water so it registers where you came down.

DW

I feel bad for that Bomber Pilot....

What was that show in the '60's about a silly USMC PFC and his overbearing Sgt?

S!

Kind of a rough mission last night, most of that is my fault, sorry guys. The AI exhibited some unexpected behaviour. I wanted the fighter bombers to press on to target and do their ground pounding. Instead, the minute you guys approached each flight they all dumped their bombs and went spitfire hunting.

The silly pratts.

DW

I've come across this picture in a couple books, something the RAF used to code their transmissions. Funny no one seems to know how it worked.

(https://s33.postimg.org/oemybkicf/Code_Wheel.png)

DW

I may be 5 mins late tonight.

S!

Quote from: _AH_Col._Hogan on July 19, 2016, 11:37:08 PM
I may be 5 mins late tonight.

S!

Okie dokie.

DW

Ok, so we've had a couple really rough missions the last two outings. I'll have to make some adjustments for these last four missions.

During 31 I think alot of it was what we did that resulted in the high loss rate, it was'nt supposed to be that hard. We had the same result if not slightly worse with 32 and it certainly was not meant to be that way. We had 24 enemy fighters to contend with, 6 of them were average pilots with the rest (75%) rookies. We've dealt many times with a comparable escort, so I'm not sure if it was just cause we were a little light or what.

So again, we're not supposed to be getting wiped like this. I'll tone it down somewhat going forward.

DW

QuoteWe had 24 enemy fighters to contend with, 6 of them were average pilots with the rest (75%) rookies.- DW

God help us if we can't wipe out rookies.... or maybe too much grog  :drinking-29:

Well, at 8:30 I was getting fired up for the coop. At or around 8:45 I was sound asleep at the PC. Ive got to find out why I keep doing that. Anyways, sorry I missed the fun.

Seems like we need either a wake up call for some of you or Muster call..

Group text to you Rip Van Winkle types next time?  :sleep-058:

Lippy, this is what happens when you turn over command to Jack.

(https://s31.postimg.org/c9m8v7e9n/3rd_Parking.png)

DW

OMG and here I thought he was doing a good job. Jack report to my tent later for debrief.

Wait.... You're doing what to his briefs in your tent?

Just a footnote to the last mission, for the first time we saw the german bombers dump their bombs short of Malta and scarper. This is something that became more and more common during the last days of the October Blitz.

The germans and italians are starting to suffer from something they called "Malta Disease" which is not unlike the "Channel Disease" of the Battle of Britain. Essentially it's a crisis of morale. Several times a day, day after day they are being sent to attack Malta and suffering losses. Over and over they are told the enemy is weakening and that if they press on just a little longer they will succeed and the island will be neutralized. But in contrast, mission after mission they run into just as many spitfires and just as much flak if not more and continue to take losses. Another axis nickname for Malta was the Hornet's Nest. At first it was used in the context that they were going to "smoke out that british hornet's nest!". In the end it took on a new meaning, as you can only be told to kick a hornet's nest and get stung so many times before you say "To hell with this!".

This is pretty much the conclusion some of the bomber crews are reaching and once they come under attack they are dumping their bombs and getting out. In some cases the bombers would not even try to reach Malta at all. They would fly well out to the east or west, dump their bombs in the sea and go home. I'm not really sure how they pulled off the latter, could the axis not see on radar the bombers were not going to Malta? Did the fighter escorts not wonder what was going on? Or were they complicit? Perhaps these were orders from higher up as it became clear victory was out of reach.

DW

QuoteI'm not really sure how they pulled off the latter, could the axis not see on radar the bombers were not going to Malta? Did the fighter escorts not wonder what was going on? Or were they complicit? Perhaps these were orders from higher up as it became clear victory was out of reach.

I NEED AN ANSWER!

DW ... that photo shot of  Jack is priceless  :happy-112:   but in reality the 3rd flew well.... its just so hard to catch the jerries in those fighters

Awesome campaign Darkwolf, it was challenging and extremely fun at the same time. You are a master builder sir, I salute you....... S!

~S~Col Hogan

I afree with you Sir,that DW does a fine  job on the campaigns but shouldn't I have gotten a shout-out for landing my plane without tearing the wheels off of it on the last mission.WOW

Glad you guys liked it.

DW

Epilogue

The October Blitz represented the last attempt by the axis powers to subdue Malta. After 9 days of heavy fighting they called a halt to their operations, effectively ending the Malta campaign altogether. Though air combat would continue for some time in the form of token fighter bomber raids, the process of dispersing the forces on Sicily to other theatres had already begun.  The focus turned particularly to North Africa and the Anglo-American landings in Morocco and Algeria (Operation Torch) in early November.

The winter of 1942 saw the Malta spitfire squadrons begin undertaking more and more offensive sweeps over Sicily and as the final moves were being made in the North African campaign they were involved in the interception of axis transports attempting to to fly in supplies. With North Africa secure allied attention turned to the invasion of Sicily, the build up for which saw 23 spitfire squadrons crammed into the airfields on Malta. The Malta squadrons would contribute to Operation Husky by attacking axis troops concentrations, interdicting supply routes and providing cover wherever needed.

As the allied armies pushed north across Sicily and into Italy, Malta quickly found itself left behind. In September 126 Squadron left for Italy, followed by 249 and 1435 Squadrons in October. 229 Squadron remained until January 1944, leaving 185 Squadron as the last of the Malta defenders. 185 continued to defend Malta for months, rarely seeing an enemy aircraft let alone shooting one down, they would finally leave for Italy at the end of July.

Events of Note Following the Last Mission :

October 18th - Gatlingun lands without tearing his landing gear off.

October 19th - Axis forces call off October Blitz.

October 20th-21st - Heavy rains render Luqa inoperable, something the Luftwaffe had been unable to do in the previous weeks bombing.

October 25th - First Spitfires fly to Malta directly from Gibraltar using 170-gallon slipper tanks combined with a 29-gallon fuselage tank. The flight takes 5.25 hours.

October 29th - The last carrier delivery of Spitfires is made, 29 of them arriving from Furious as part of Operation Train.

October 31st - A B-24 transport carrying George Beurling and other wounded and tour expired pilots and civillians crashes at Gibraltar. Beurling survives but 16 others are not so lucky including two children and Eric Hetherington, a frequent wingman of Beurling in the battles over Malta.

November 20th - A four ship convoy arrives from Alexandria bringing badly needed food supplies. Though attacked by torpedo bombers, only one ship is slightly damaged.

December 6th - Another five ship convoy arrives from Egypt bringing more food and supplies. This convoy arrives entirely unscathed and heralds the beginning of a return to regular deliveries by smaller numbers of ships. This marks the end of the longest siege in british history.

September 11th, 1943 - The Italian fleet surrenders at Malta.

December 1943 - President Roosevelt visits Malta. "In the name of the People of the United States of America, I salute the Island of Malta, it's people, and it's defenders, who in the cause of freedom and justice and decency throughout the world, have rendered valorous service far above and beyond the call of duty," he said during his address at Luqa. "Under repeated fire from the skies Malta stood alone but unafraid in the center of the sea, one tiny bright flame in the darkness - a beacon of hope for the clearer days that have come."

DW

~S~ DW.. That was an awesome campaign.. well done sir, thank you for the entertainment.

~S~ Bear

Yep. That DW fella is some kind of campaign builder.  Lotsa fun built right in. And with alternate missions to adjust for participation levels, and skins, and historic facts posted in the forums along the way - a little show offy but I'm willing to overlook that this time. I'm not even gonna mention the show offy part on accounta how much time you must've spent.  Really well done, DW. Thank you for all of it.

~S~
   What BBQ said. I did not get to fly as many mission as I had wanted because of this Windows 10 mess but those I did get into it was very very well done.

Show offy?? This coming from one of the highest scoring pilots this campaign who was arse in a day on mission 28?

I learned it from you ok, I learned it from you!


Also, this is what the campaign ribbon will look like :

(http://aceshigh.ws/pages/structure/images/FortressMaltaCampaignRibbon.png)

The blue represents the mediterranean blue our spitfires were painted in, the red and white stripes are the colors of the maltese flag and the little metal pin in the center is the George Cross medal which is what Malta as a whole was awarded for it's perseverance during the seige. One can hardly tell cause it's shrunk down so much but the image I used for that was actually a picture of Malta's George Cross, so rather apropo.

DW

Why, it's beautiful!

I would just like to take the time to thank DW for a challenging and intense campaign.... some very good work my friend and enjoyed by all   :happy-112:

Thanks DW this Camp. was especially fun to lead. Had a blast I am sorry I had to cut out some of it but Life must come first. ~S~ nicely done Sir.

Job well done DW. ~S~     :happy-112: