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    CA-WW1 - the French and the Yanks
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    The other nationalities in Wings Over Flanders Fields   Part 1 - the French air service    I can't do a biography-based mission report for the US and French sides as I only have memoirs by British and German pilots. But for the sake of completeness, I'm going to do a separate pair of  mission reports in Wings Over Flanders Fields, one flying for the Aéronautique Militaire, the other for the US Army Air Service. First up, it's the French service, flying the little Nieuport 11, aptly nicknamed the bébé (baby).    The plane Oddly enough, pre-war Nieuport designs were monoplanes. Their first biplane was the two-seat Nieuport 10 of 1915, which set the pattern for the aircraft which were to follow: biplanes with a much smaller lower wing, joined to the upper one with a V-shaped interplane strut. These were intended from the start to be armed. The early Nieuport 10 AV had the observer in front ('en avant', hence AV) with a circular cut-out in the upper wing, to enable him to stand up and fire a carbine or a Hotchkiss machine-gun pintle-mounted on the wing in front. But the later Nieuport 10 AR, and the more powerful Nieuport 12 which followed, moved the observer to the rear ('en arriere', hence AR) where he manned a Lewis Gun on a moveable or rotating mount.   The Nieuport 10 AV   During 1915, some Nieuport 10s were flown as fighters on patrols, with a Lewis Gun fixed above the upper wing to fire ahead, high enough to miss the propeller arc. Their success inspired the Nieuport 11, a smaller, nimbler development. This was arguably the first real fighter aircraft; genuinely capable of air-to-air combat in a way the inferior Fokker monoplanes were not - the latter being interceptors rather than fighters, with a synchronised gun but primitive wing-warping roll control and generally not well-suited to dog-fighting. In the hands of France's emerging aces like Georges Guynemer and Jean Navarre, the Nieuport 11 was instrumental by early 1916 in reversing the German's brief period of ascendancy in the air, 'the Fokker Scourge'. The British contribution was the DH-2, but while also better than the Fokker, this 'pusher' design was a technological blind alley. By contrast the Nieuport 11 proved capable of significant further development. Later versions, the Nieuport 16, 17, 23, 24 and 27, were widely used by both French and British, and later by the US Escadrille Layfayette. RFC aces like Albert Ball and Billy Bishop also rose to prominence flying Nieuport Scouts. The type was widely used by Italian and Russian air forces as well as on the Western Front, despite a continuing and alarming tendency to failures of the weak lower wing, often killing the pilot. All in all, the Nieuport V-strutters were one of the war's classic designs, inspiring the layout of the German Albatros D III which from early 1917, largely swung the air superiority pendulum back towards the Germans.   Recommended reading on Nieuport aircraft would include Crowood's 'Nieuport Aircraft of WW1' by Ray Sanger and Osprey's 'Nieuport Aces of WW1' by Norman Franks.   The unit For this mission, I created a new French pilot and assigned him to Escadrille N.12 (the French gave squadron numbers a leading alphabetic designator which - though a change could sometimes lag behind a change of aircraft - indicated the principal type of aircraft flown - 'N' for Nieuport, Spa for SPAD, for example). The unit had a long and worthy combat history. There's a great online source here; even if you speak no French, the  illustrations, maps and tabular information tell their own story. The unit marking was a blue and while 'fanion' or guidon with the number '12', usually in red, carried on the side of the fuselage.   As you can see, it's 1 May 1916 and we are based at La Cense, near Compiegne. Happily, we are close enough to La Belle Paris for us to have some interesting and diverting 'R and R', on our days off. But that's a very different kind of mission with quite distinct objectives!     The mission Here's the brief for today's mission, which takes us well away from the delights of Paris. It's a patrol along a dog-leg route, up to the trench lines, which are not too far away. I'm leading a flight of three; a second flight of two aircraft is also flying the mission, as 'top cover'. Our briefed mission height is 10,000 feet.     Starting on the grass in front of the sheds at La Cense, I waited till the first couple of machines had roared off then sped after them. All of us were in green and brown 'shadow shading' camouflage, apart from one fellow who was in clear doped linen, with prominent blue, white and red chevrons on his fuselage. This was the aircraft of squadron ace Lt Pierre Dufaur de Gavardine, said in the Osprey aces book to have scored six victories with the unit, before being badly wounded early in 1917.     I was quickly off the ground and climbing steadily. With the front just a short distance away, I hoped to meet the Boche in the air before very much longer and perhaps indulge the superiority of my neat little aircraft, at the expense of some inferior Fokkers, Aviatiks or the like. Would my hopes be realised or dashed? I would find out in good time.     ...to be continued!

    Desert Storm - Mission 09 - Highway of Death
    beachav8r
    By beachav8r,
      One of the major events that occurred late in the war was the near total destruction of Iraqi forces retreating from Kuwait. The carnage on the "Highway of Death" is cited as one of the primary reasons the war was soon brought to a close because the Coalition thought international support would waiver with continued decimation of the Iraqi Army. Senior military leaders agree that it was important to destroy Saddam's retreating military hardware. Later investigation would show only a quarter or less of the vehicles were military, however the others were trucks and vehicles stuffed with war loot confiscated from Kuwait. The death tolls vary widely, but I come down on the side of those who think it numbered in the hundreds instead of thousands. If the vehicle in front of me and behind me blows up, I think I'm just going to high tail it across the desert. Controversy aside, the attacks on Highway 80 (and the lesser reported Highway 8) were incredible examples of the devastation concentrated airpower can have on pent up forces.   On the night of February 26, an E-8 JSTARS noted columns of vehicles departing Kuwait, retreating north toward Iraq.       The first aircraft on scene were A-6 Intruders that spotted the six mile long column running the length of Highway 80. They bombed the lead and trail sections of the column with GATOR anti-tank mines to prevent the column from moving. From then on, it wasn't much more than a static bombing range for Coalition aircraft of every type.         Heading for Highway 80...     The assembled Coalition fleet in the Gulf...     For my strike, I used CBU-87/B instead of GATOR...         Picking up the coastline and some vehicles on the radar...     In hot!     Soon we have the column burning, which makes for an easy reference point...         My wingman doing some damage with his Snakeyes...         Cont..
    An OV-10 loiters and throws white phosphorus rockets at the enemy column (framerate killer!)...     Care must be taken not to get too low because there are enemy air defense units in the mix...       With the initial strike completed, the entirety of Coalition air power will hit the column for two days, destroying 1500 to 2000 vehicles...       I next take up an A-10 to do some damage. Upon arrival on-scene, I order my wingman to make the first attack and he drops CBU on the column making it easy for my subsequent attacks...           Hmm..stay in my truck or leave my truck?     Leave my truck...     The airspace over the column is positively packed with Coalition aircraft. OV-10s, A-10s, F-4s, A-6s, A-7s, AV-8Bs, and others scream in from all directions...       Deconfliction is a bit of a problem and disasters almost occur..             We keep repeating passes until we run out of bombs..         The temptation to drift ever lower during your attacks is a problem. Soon you find yourself down in small arms territory and you expose yourself to a lot of fire...     The targets are endless...     We switch to guns, which in the SF2 A-10A aren't very effective. They seem to have more bullet drop and less of a "laser" fire feel to them compared to the DCS A-10C. Lazing around at low altitude trying to pick of targets with the gun seems hazardous so we pack up and head home.         I can't imagine what it must have been like to have been in that convoy for those two days. Once the bombs started to drop, I can't imagine many Iraqis decided to stay with their vehicles. Given the choice of showing up without their vehicles in Iraq and the consequences of that though, maybe some had no real choice. It indicates what a callous disregard Saddam Hussein had for his own forces that he would even put them in that position.   BeachAV8R

    CA-WW1 - Wings of War
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    Flying the famous Fokker D VII in another WOFF campaign mission inspired by a World War One classic!   The man and the book  I believe Rudolph Stark's 'Wings of War' was first published, in English at any rate, in 1933. It was translated by Claude W Sykes, described by Norman Franks as 'among the better aviation writers of the period' in his introduction to a recent reprint of Sykes's 'German War Birds', written under the pen-name 'Vigilant' and one of my favourite WW1 air war books from my younger days.   'Wings of War' starts during 1917 with Stark a two-seater pilot, yearning to transfer to single-seater 'scouts', as fighters were commonly called in those days. His transfer comes through and he receives his fighter pilot training at Jastaschule 2 at Saultain, near Valenciennes in occupied France. There's little said about this period; he completes his training just before Christmas 1917 and the book really begins with his posting to the Bavarian Jasta 34 at Chenois, flying against the French, not far from where his two-seater unit was based.   Stark flies a sleek Pfalz D III, his lilac personal colours being painted on top of the type's distinctive silver-doped factory finish. His first air combat in single-seaters is nearly his last. With two others, they attack a twin-engined Caudron but a French fighter loops onto Stark's tail and riddles his Pfalz, holing the petrol tank. Stark is lucky to escape after an involuntary spin earthwards. Racing for home, seemingly pursued by further gunfire, he lands to realise the rattling behind him is his seat-belt buckle flapping against the fuselage, the belt having been parted by a French bullet.   In March 1918, Jasta 34 moves north, to Le Cateau, to participate in the German spring offensive against the British. This was designed to win a decisive victory on the Western front, using troops freed up by the collapse of Imperial Russia and the truce with the Soviets, before the arrival of substantial US forces in France swung the balance of forces irreversibly against Imperial Germany. The fighing is intense and Stark, still apparently flying the Pfalz, claims his first victory in late March, a British two-seater. In May, Stark is made temporary leader of Jasta 77, based at the same airfield, and in June, he is appointed to command another Bavarian jagdstaffel, Jasta 35, in the Cambrai area. By August, their attacks having stalled, the Germans are facing a British counter-offensive and Jasta 35 is pleased to receive its first Fokker D VIIs, as replacements for some some of its older aircraft. Supplies of the superb new German fighter are limited, though, and in September, the staffel is compelled to accept instead some more machines from Bavarian manufacturers, the Pfalz D XII, to the disappointment of those pilots who don't get Fokkers.   It is all to no avail. Driven back on the ground and outnumbered in the air, the Germans are clearly losing the war. Falling back as the front is pushed east, Jasta 34 fights on, to the Armistice in November, bombed on the ground and harried in the skies above.   While Stark's book covers just the last year of the war, he had an interesting and eventful time of it, flying in combat the Fokker Dr I triplane as well as the Fokker D VII and the Pfalz D III. His combat memoir is a vivid one with rather more detail on places, units and planes than you tend to get in a wartime account. In fact, most printed descriptions of the Pfalz D XII rely heavily on Stark's quoted views of the type. 'Wings of War' (mine is the 1973 Arms & Armour Press edition) also benefits from the inclusion amongst its illustrations of reproductions of several of the author's own paintings, depicting some of his fights in the air. Highly recommended.     The air war in autumn 1918 By this point in the war, German fortunes were in terminal decline. In an effort to contest the increasing numerical and technical superiority of enemy fighters such as the SPAD XIII, the Camel, the SE5a and the newer Dolphin, the Germans had, in early and mid-1918, held competitive trials for fighter prototypes from many manufacturers, with frontline pilots participating in the evaluations. Anthony Fokker's entry to the trials was his company's V11, which, with a fuselage lengthened to solve initial handling problems, was the star of the show in the early trials. It was ordered into production as the Fokker D VII, regarded by many as the best German fighter of the war and a worthy match for anything in the enemy camp, with its responsive controls and relatively viceless handling. But many units had to soldier on with obsolescent Albatros and Pfalz scouts, against stronger enemy air arms which now included the RAF's 'Independent Force' carrying out 'strategic' day and night bombing and the first units of the United States Army Air Service, flying first the elegant Nieuport 28 but by the end of the summer, transitioning to the often-unreliable but sturdier SPAD XIII.   The mission Here's my pilot for this campaign mission, evidently a family member of the author! I've started him off in September 1918, because this is the month from which the unit, in WOFF, is fully equipped with the plane I wanted to fly, the Fokker DVII. Previously, the staffel was said by Rudolph Stark to be flying a mix of the Allbatros DV, the Pfalz D III and (tho not featured in WOFF) unspecified Rolands.     And here's Jasta 35's line-up for the campaign. I'm starting off in the second flight, with myself and two other pilots. The author himself is in the first flight. As their designation indicates, our Fokkers are made under licence by the Ostdeutsche Albatros Werke (OAW). Despite the late stage of the war, we seem to have plenty of both aircraft and pilots. At this point, we're based at Lieu St. Amand, just north of Cambrai, in Flanders.     Here's our briefing for the first mission. The full staffel is turning out to protect a pair of Hannover CL IIIs on a medium-level reconnaisance mission, down to the sourh-west, to an objective just the far side of the trench lines. The first flight is described as flying top cover so I'll be taking on the role of close (or closer) escort for the two-seaters.     Here we are, both flights lined up on the airfield and good to go. In the briefing stage, you have the opportunity to pick a 'skin' for your plane and here, from those available, I'd chosen that of Xaver Prey. I'm not sure if this skin comes with WOFF or OFF - I've experimentally copied over the skins from OFF to WOFF using Jonesoft's mod enabler pending purchase of the official WOFF skin pack.   Anyhow, you can see from the line-up that there are variations in the 'lozenge' fabric covering of our machines, as there were in real life, but we all carry the Jasta 35b unit colours of a white chevron on the top of the upper wing and a black chevron underneath the lower one. My individual marking comprises the black and white bands you can see behind my cockpit, Rudolph Stark's machine had a lilac nose and fuselage band and a black-edged lilac tailplane.     Off we went, into the clear blue September skies. This was my first campaign mission in WOFF during this late period of the war. Flying for the side which was just two months away from collapse, I was more than a little anxious as to what the next hour or so would bring. With good reason, as it turned out!     ...to be continued!

    CA-WW1 - No Parachute
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    Bringing Arthur Gould Lee's classic WW1 book to life with Wings Over Flanders Fields!   The man and the book 'Thursday, January 3rd. Ferrie has been killed. He led his patrol out this afternoon, had a scrap, came back leading the others, then as they were flying along quite normally in formation, his right wing suddenly folded back, then the other, and the wreck plunged vertically down. A bullet must have gone through the main spar during the fight.    The others went after him and steered close to him in vertical dives. They could see him, struggling to get clear of his harness, then half standing up. They said it was horrible to watch him trying to decide whether to jump. He didn't, and the machine and he were smashed to nothingness.    I can't believe it. Little Ferrie, with his cheerful grin, one of the finest chaps in the squadron. God, imagine his last moments, seeing the ground rushing up at him, knowing he was a dead man, unable to move, unable to do anything but wait for it. A parachute could have saved him...'   So wrote Arthur Gould Lee in 'No Parachute'. Lee learns to fly in the late summer of 1916 in the Maurice Farman 'Shorthorn', having been commissioned into the Sherwood Forresters. He misses being shipped to Gallipoli due to a motorcycle accident, then has his (third!) application to transfer to the Royal Flying Corps accepted. He then flies the Avro 504 and BE2 with 66 Squadron, still in England. Lacking proper instruction, he crashes an Avro after an engine failure. His injuries delay his posting to an operational squadron in France until May 1917, enabling him to gain more flying hours, including eighteen on the Sopwith Pup he will fly for most of his spell at the front.   His posting is to No.46 Squadron at la Gorgue, which has just transitioned to the Pup from the obsolescent two-seater Nieuport 12. He flies through the summer and into the autumn, fighting many battles against the formidable Albatros V-strutters, with which the Pup can compete only at higher altitudes, outgunned with what Lee describes as 'our pop-pop-pop gun' against the German's twin Spandaus, which by contrast he describes as making a sound like calico being ripped.   During November, the squadron is finally re-equipped with the Sopwith Camel. Although the pilots are looking forward to flying their offensive patrols with an aircraft that will enable them to meet the Albatros on more equal terms, they are instead diverted to 'ground strafing' duties for the Battle of Cambrai, making very dangerous low level gun and bomb attacks on German troops and positions in and near the front lines. Lee is shot down three times in nine days. In January 1918, with the rank of captain and the appointment of flight commander, he's posted home for a well-earned rest. After a period as an instructor, he joins a squadron equipping with the sopwith Salamander - a ground-attack version of the Snipe - but the war ends before he is deployed to France. Looking at his logbook at the conclusion of his combat service, he finds he's done 386 hours solo, 260 of them in France, including 222 over the Lines; he's made 118 patrols and ground-attack flights, had 56 air combats, and claims 5 victories and another 6 shared.   Lee's book 'No Parachute' was published in 1968, but was written at the time, comprising extracts from the many he wrote to his wife, supplemented by some diary extracts. It's a veritable treasure-trove of accounts of air fights, ground attacks and squadron life (including the lyrics of many classic RFC songs) with many snippets of information about aircraft performance and markings of the sort that enthusiasts in particular love to see. Lee rose to senior rank in the RAF after the war and profited from his experience to add to the book appendices criticising the dominance of the Royal Aircraft Factory in aircraft supply, the RFC's persistence with deep patrols and standing patrols, and of course the failure to peffect and supply parachutes to aircrew. It's certainly my favourite WW1 aviation memoir. Lee followed it up with an equally good sequel, 'Open Cockpit', which covers his whole wartime career. Both are highly recommended.   The mission This was originally planned to be a mission flying the Sopwith Pup in mid-1917. But that year was getting a bit crowded and to better illustrate the development of fighing aircraft, I decided instead to fly the Camel later in the year, and to finish this series of reports as planned with Rudolph Stark's 'Wings of War', but flying the famous Fokker D VII rather than the Pfalz D III. I enlisted in 'Forty Six' as Lt Richard Lee, starting in late november 1917, by which time WOFF has us entirely equipped with Camels.       Here's the briefing for the first mission. We've been summoned to the front to deal with some reported aerial intruders. I'm leading 'B' flight with four Camels, whose pilots included Arthur Gould Lee himself. The second flight ('A' Flight, shown in the panel on the right below) includes Ferrie, the pilot whose sad and dramatic death is described in the excerpt from the book quouted at the start of this mission report.     Air defence systems being rudemintary in WW1, I knew there was every prospect that the Huns reported over the front might well be gone by the time we got there, and so it was to prove. We started optimistically enough, roaring off the grass from our aerodrome at Filescamp Farm. I had chosen the skin for Victor Yeates, author of the famous 'Winged Victory', although I'm not sure he served with 'Forty Six' at this point in the war     I turned for the target area, disregarding the planned dog-leg route so as to arrive faster; if this throws off 'A' flight, well, there were only two of them and that was a chance I was prepared to take. My own flight soon caught me up. I opened the throttle and began climbing hard to the south-east.         I didn't trust the briefed mission height of under 4,000 feet and climbed to nearer nine thousand, reluctant to be jumped from above by marauding V-strutters and thinking that if the enemy were indeed low down, I would be able to pick them up from the whitish British anti-aircraft bursts they were more than likely to attract. So much for that plan! When I arrived over the trenches, dodging warily around the large clouds hanging in the sky, there was a lot of shelling going on down on the ground, but not a soul to be seen in the air, apart from our good selves.     Up and down the front we flew, getting intermittently Archied for our troubles. But of the Hun fliers, we saw not a sign, high or low. It began to look like we would have to make our own entertainment.     ...to be continued!

    CA-WW1 - Winged Warfare
    33LIMA
    By 33LIMA,
    Recreating the career of Canada's most famous ace in Wings Over Flanders Fields!    The man and the book  'I dived at him from the side, firing as I came...I pulled my machine out of its dive just in time to pass about 5 feet over the enemy. I could see the observer evidently had been hit and had stopped firing. Otherwise the Hun machine seemed perfectly all right. But just after I passed I looked back over my shoulder and saw it burst into flames. A second later it fell a burning mass, leaving a long trail of smoke behind as it disappeared through the clouds. I thought for a moment of the fate of the wounded observer and the hooded pilot into whose faces I had just been looking - but it was fair hunting, and I flew away with great contentment in my heart.'   So wrote William Avery Bishop in his book 'Winged Warfare', written while on duty with the British military mission to Washingron DC after home leave in Canada in late 1917. He was describing the first machine he shot down in flames, on 20 April 1917.   Billy Bishop arrived in France in 1915 as an officer in a Canadian mounted unit but, frustrated with '...the particular brand of mud that infests a cavalry camp', he applied for the Royal Flying Corps and was trained as an observer. He spent four months 'on ops' in France in that role, from early 1916 with No. 21 Squadron, operating the RE7, a multi-purpose biplane whose speciality seems to have been daylight bombing. Recovering from a knee injury in a crash-landing, he was able to learn to fly and after a short period flying the BE2c on Home Defence duties, he returned to France in March 1917, posted to No. 60 Squadron flying Nieuport Scouts in the fighter role.     The squadron converted to the much-superior SE5 over the summer and Bishop flew on until the autumn, mixing conventional patrols with 'lone wolf' missions and steadily increasing his score. After his leave and service in the USA, he returned briefly to the front as CO of No.85 Squadron and before being posted home again, raised his total of victory claims to 72, including five on his last patrol, another solo effort.  Nowadays, Bishop's record is a source of controversy, due mainly to the to high number of claims that were accepted without witness confirmation. In particular, in June 1917, still flying the Nieuport, Bishop staged a solo dawn raid on a German fighter airfield, claiming to have shot down three aircraft attempting to take off. Controversially, he was awarded the Victoria Cross for this attack, despite the fact that the VC was generally never awarded unless the act of valour was confirmed by witnesses. The belief in many quarters - including some of his comrades and contemporaries - seems to be that Bishop's squadron commander actively promoted his protégé who also had some influential friends in English high society; and as his fame mounted, his value as a national hero fed a tendency to unquestioning acceptance on the one hand and exaggeration on the other. However, whatever the truth, Bishop was undoubtedly a very brave man, having more than once pushed to get to the front when he could have lived out a safer existence on other, less dangerous duties.   As for 'Winged Warfare' , it covers the whole of his combat career and is full of many accounts of the operations and air fights in which Bishop and his comrades participated. It's very much a product of its wartime origins, often extolling the courage and virtues of his own side while disdaining the enemy for trickery or implied cowardice. His openly-expressed preference for shooting down enemies in flames - because the sight made the victory certain - is also rather distasteful, particularly to modern readers. However, he does credit the Germans with ability and courage when he recognises it - for example, when a single enemy two-seater skillfully repells an attack by an entire flight of Nieuports. And as a forceful and vivid account of the career of one of the most famous of World War One's aces, 'Winged Warfare' deserves a place on any enthusiasts bookshelf. I would strongly recommend reading it in conjunction with Alex Revell's history 'No. 60 Sqn RFC/RAF', published by Osprey, which adds much valuable and interesting detail, in covering the fascinating story of one of the most successful British fighter squadrons, including the period when Bishop served with the unit. Bishop's memoir itself is available online here.   The air war in spring 1917 Bishop arrived at the front just before the Battle of Arras and 'Bloody April', when the damage wrought upon the RFC by the German Jastas and their sleek Albatros scouts reached its peak. The arrival of better aircraft in subsequent months - not least the SE5 that replaced 60's Nieuports, but also the Camel and the RE8 - meant that better times lay ahead for the British. The leader of the RFC in France, General Hugh 'Boom' Trenchard, knew perfectly well that the inability of the British to supply aircraft which would close the gap with the German Albatrosses meant that a high price would be paid, but his job was to support the Army whose lot was no better, and he did not shrink from asking his aircrew to risk all in support of the troops for the offensive at Arras. For the Germans, this was the hey-day of pilots like the von Richthofen brothers, Wolf, Voss and Schaefer, who racked up many kills, cutting a swathe through the under-powered and poorly-armed BE's and the obsolete 'pusher' fighters like the DH2 and FE8. In the Nieuport Scout, 60 Squadron were flying one of the few planes that, though under-armed, could even hope to compete with the best of the German fighters. Even so, the squadron suffered heavily during 'Bloody April', according to Alex Revell losing eighteen pilots during the month- a loss rate of 100%!   The mission For this 'Winged Warfare' themed mission, I could have chosen the summer of 1917 or spring 1918, flying the SE5/SE5a. But I've always particularly enjoyed flying the Nieuport scouts in First Eagles, coping well with the Huns (except when outnumbered!) and I was keen to fly the sleek little French machine in WOFF; not least as most of the book features Bishop's experiences flying this type. So 'Bloody April' it was!   Naturally, 60 Squadron is included in the WOFF order of battle for this period. Here's the squadron's 'enlistment screen' for April 1917, which shows us correctly based at Filescamp farm. Note that the  squadron roster includes historical aces from the time, although at 1 April, Billy Bishop had yet to score, and neither he, nor 'Grid' Caldwell nor 'Moley' Molesworth had yet made Major (the rank generally held by the squadron leader, alone).     Although I neglected to save a screenie of the mission briefing, it was a patrol up to the Lines, to the north-east. I'm leading one flight - just the two of us! - but the rest of the squadron is along for the ride, flying 'top cover'. I wondered if me and 'Jock' Scott are providing the bait on this mission! Here's the loadout screen for my little two-plane flight; this provides the facility to select flight formation, though that's hardly worthwhile on this trip, as there's just the two of us!     And here we are, lined up on the grass at Filescamp. If I recall right, the aircraft next to me is the machine of 'Moley' Molesworth, no less, who's leading the second flight.     I let most of the others take off first, intending to formate on the other flight rather than go hareing off on my own with my own solitary flight-mate. Once airborne, I throttled back to allow Scott to catch up. Soon he was tucked in, to my right rear. The weather was fair, with quite a lot of low cloud but bright and dry. A good day for an air fight!     I orbited above and behind the other flight, then followed them as they climbed up along our route to the north-east and the Lines near the town of Lens. About half-way there, they veered off to the left. As far as I was concerned, this wasn't in the plan. If they had been distracted by some enemies, I didn't see them and there was no sign of friendly AA fire. Perhaps they had decided to orbit to gain height, before getting any closer to the Lines. Impatient with trying to guess the un-guessable, I decided, sod it, I'll carry on and trust them to find their way to the patrol zone later. So on we went, up towards 9,000 feet, leaving most of the scattered cloud below us.     Soon, we were over the shelled area, which was getting a fairly regular pasting from artillery fire, although the start of our offensive was still several days away. It wasn't long before the anti-aircraft gunners were also in action; the first black bursts of Archie appeared around us, exploding with a 'crump' that I could hear above the buzzing of my le Rhone rotary engine.     On the ground ahead of us lay a large town, which I took to be Lens. Much of the place was a wasteland, devastated by shellfire, with only its eastern margins looking to be relatively intact.     At this point, happening to look around, back towards my flight-mate, I saw a rather strange thing. One moment Scott was in formation to my right rear, then he swung suddenly off to the left. For a second I watched him, thinking perhaps that he had decided to go off hunting on his own, and looking in his direction of travel, to see where the Hun might be.     Seeing none, the penny dropped and I broke hard right, after Scott. The Hun was obviously behind us. One look confirmed I was right.     ...to be continued!

    Desert Storm - Mission 08 - Mirages
    beachav8r
    By beachav8r,


    Our next series of missions takes a look at one of the lesser appreciated airframes of the Gulf War – the Dassault Mirage F1. The French Air Force sent F1C and F1CR to participate in Operation Daguet while the Kuwaiti Air Force flew their F1CK from bases in Saudi Arabia. Since Iraq also fielded Mirage F1s, the Coalition F1s were held in reserve until complete air superiority was achieved to prevent misidentification and possible blue on blue incidents.

    * A reminder that these missions are just general representations and are not historically accurate with respects to bases, missions, and loadouts. *

    The French F1CR was well suited to its reconnaissance role and I believe later in the war they also performed direct bombing attacks. They were also apparently paired up and utilized as pathfinders for the Buccaneers since they had better avionics and navigation capabilities. For our mission today, we will perform a recon flight to assess the strength and disposition of an Iraqi fortified area on the border of Kuwait and Iraq…



    Heading off with wing tanks and the center mounted reconnaissance pod…





    Dropping to low level over the Gulf on approach to the Kuwaiti coastline…



    Elsewhere the Kuwaiti Tornados are gearing up for a mission…



    That’s not a MiG-29 shooting a missile, that’s a MiG-29 that just dodged a Sidewinder!



    A-7 Corsairs getting shot off the carrier will add to the mix…



    Soon we are abeam Kuwait getting ready to turn westbound toward the target area…





    As we make the turn, we turn our ECM pods on…



    We have a massive screen of Coalition aircraft to our north acting as barrier to any enemy fighters that might be working their way south…



    We stray a bit north of the inbound course line in order to keep some distance from some mobile SA-8 sites that appear on the map…



    Nearing the target area we pop up to a few thousand feet and snap our photos…



    As soon as we cross the target we drop back down to about two hundred feet for the quick egress to the south, chased out of the area by a couple SAM launches from the compound we overflew…



    Back at base safely with the recon photos in hand…





    We hand off our intel to the Kuwaiti pilots who are eager to hit back at the Iraqi forces…





    Since the F1 is a bit outclassed on the battlefield, it is a good idea to slow down a bit and let the bulk of Coalition aircraft push out ahead to clear out the airspace…



    Our Kuwaiti fighters reenter their homeland…





    A few miles out they spot the target from mid altitude and dive down to low altitude to deliver the high drag bombs…







    The party gets started as the base defenses kick into gear and start launching SAMs…



    Pickle!



    A great example of my poor interval setting (I forgot to set it!) versus my wingman who has a better spread on his stick of bombs delivered from a slightly higher altitude…



    His bombs hit just before mine – he gets good hits while my cluster of bombs goes long and hits just outside the perimeter fence…







    As we peel off to the south the smoke rises from the Iraqi compound…



    Not content to let us get away unmolested, the SA-8 opens up on us…



    My wingman pays the price for lingering at too high an altitude. Safety is found below 200’ or at much higher altitudes. Medium altitudes are suicide…



    Two went out – only one returns…



    In a nod to the fact that not all of the air war was uncontested, there were a few brave Iraqi Air Force pilots that flew into impossible odds on impossible missions. Iraq also fielded their own F1 Mirages but many fled to Iran after the onset of hostilities and a few more were shot down. A fairly bold strike was attempted by the Iraqi Air Force on January 24 when a pair of F1s and two MiG-23s were sent on a mission to strike the major Saudi oil refinery at Abqaiq . AWACS vectored a pair of Saudi F-15s toward the incoming strikers and the MiGs turned tail and ran while the F1s tried to press on. One of the Saudi F-15s quickly dispatched both of the F1s, effectively ending Iraq’s offensive air operations for the duration of the war.

    An Iraqi F1 takes off for a strike against Saudi oil facilities near Dhahran…







    I flew this mission multiple times and found it was near impossible to work south into Saudi airspace without being detected and promptly hunted and executed. Even getting into the air from some of the Iraqi airspace can result in fairly quick action. Here we’ve just taken off and intercepted an F-18 strike coming toward our base…







    The Coalition F-15Cs are impossible to defeat or evade. I assume this is fairly true to form since Coalition air dominance was pretty complete throughout the war.



    If you are patient, and can wait for the bulk of the air activity to calm down, you can pick your way south. Here we try an extremely low attack profile from over the Gulf…



    Soon the oil complex on the coast comes into view through the HUD…



    Without a CCIP HUD display, it is a bit of guesswork to release the Beluga CBU cannisters…



    I get lucky with my guesswork and the CBU bomblets rip across the complex…





    We break hard to the east and hope the Coalition air defenses are late to the switch…



    While escaping to the north you had better be careful to avoid the Coalition fleet in the middle of the Gulf…





    Things don’t end well..



    Flying the Iraqi side of the Operation Desert Storm campaign is pretty brutal. I don’t care what side of the conflict you are on – if you take up arms and fight for your country, that takes courage and even though the Iraqi Air Force never had a chance, there were still some moments of extreme bravery shown. The Mirage F1 saw some interesting action in the Gulf War on both sides.

    BeachAV8R

     

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