Fortress Malta Campaign

[_AH_DarkWolf]

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

[_AH_Col._Hogan]

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

[_AH_DarkWolf]

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

[_AH_Col._Hogan]

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

[_AH_Autorotate]

BBC doc. "Battle for Malta",

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

S!

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

[_AH_Col._Hogan]

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

[_AH_DarkWolf]

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

[_AH_taldrg]

~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.

[_AH_DarkWolf]

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

[_AH_DarkWolf]

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

[_AH_Bear]

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:

[_AH_DarkWolf]

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

[_AH_DarkWolf]

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

[_AH_DarkWolf]

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

[_AH_Col._Hogan]

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!