Flight Sim"war"stories...

[mertio23 0]

I flew an interesting mission a while back.

 

I was in a single player campaign mission in WOE when my flight of four F-15s was tasked with intersepting a formation of eight Soviet bombers. I thought they were MiG 27s as usual, but as I approached them I saw 8 TU22s and 8 MiG 23s flying escort.

 

Crap.

 

I loaded Aim-4 Falcon missiles instead of the usual aim-9s because my squadron was running low on Sidewinders. Anyone who has ever tried using aim-4s would understand my problem. Anyways, I switched to Sparrows and engaged the escorts. Before long, I was out of Sparrows, but 3 MiGs were down. Frustrated, I planted my fighter on the closest TU22's tail and fired a Falcon. I was surprised when it hit. I was even more surprised when a huge yellow shockwave expanded rapidly, turning all the Soviets to dust. Shocked, I turned around and RTBed. Later, I found out that I had mistakenly loaded aim-4 NUCLEAR Falcons instead of the normal ones. I had a big laugh after that.

 

Haha, oh wow!

[+Piecemeal 450]

One fight that's stuck in my mind for over the past year:

 

Operation Rattle Snake. August 1st, 1968.

My flight of four F-4Cs were scrambled to intercept a Parani bomber flight approaching our airbase fast. After my wingmen shooting down two of them with Sparrows, the remainder of the flight was on its final turn in to target, making a hard left turn. As they were turning I was about two miles away. They were on my ten o'clock so I took a hard left turn.

 

Several mental calculations went through my head in the space of about one and a half seconds; too close for an effective Sparrow shot; way off angle for a 'winder shot, so it's SUU-16 a la carte on the menu Mr. Ilyushin.

 

As I was taking the hard left turn so was the Il-28, which gave me a full top view of its fuselage. I managed to get ahead of its turn and the aircraft was now at my one or two o'clock. Just under a mile now. Wait........ Half a mile. Wait............ The Ilyushin was under a quarter of mile from me as I let loose a three second burst. Several rounds went through its inner left wing close to the fuselage like a circular saw as it passed through my line of fire, sending the Ilyushin into an uncontrollable rolling manoeuvre towards the ground while the left wing and engine spun harmlessly earthwards. I levelled off, rolled inverted and afforded myself a quick look at the Beagle spiralling earthwards over the airbase, smiling maliciously beneath my mask as the base's AAA batteries finished the dying bomber off.

 

It wasn't until the remaining Parani bombers and escort MiGs had bugged off home and I was approaching to land that I realised suddenly what the older squadron members meant by time slowing down during engagements. That theory was driven home more in debrief when my combat camera footage was shown. From my hard left turn to the spectacular footage of the Il-28 breaking up took about three seconds. Jeeeezus!! It felt like two minutes!

 

Needless to say, my backseater and I proudly watched the footage about twenty times more before joining the rest of the squadron for a celebratory glass or ten of JD in the bunkroom. Damn those Dhimaris and their rules on alcohol!

Edited January 31, 2011 by Piecemeal

[Vampyre 24]

A memorable Il-2 mission from last year keeps replaying in my mind. I was flying for the RAF in a Mosquito FB MkVI in the WoP Spits V 109’s mod server. My loadout was four 500lb bombs and 100% fuel. The map was 2nd ATAF and I started at the base north of Portsmouth.

I fired up my twin Merlin engines and rolled out to the runway. After takeoff I proceeded on a course of 080° and an altitude of 50 feet. As I approached Margate I noted an aircraft approaching from my two o’clock position at about 150 feet AGL. About a minute later I identified the bogie as a Ju-88A-4. The great thing about the Mossie is that with its heavy forward firing armament (four .303 and four 20mm’s) it eats bombers for breakfast. I lined up the reticule for a shot on the bomber and managed to get the proper lead and timing for a great snapshot that took off his port motor and left his wing on fire. After seeing the damage I inflicted on his plane I knew I did not need to press the attack so I turned back to my original heading. The Ju-88 pilot managed to keep it airborne for another two minutes before his fuel tank exploded sending him crashing to earth.

As I reached the coast just west of Dover I crossed the beach heading directly towards the Pas de Calais. I stayed low, about 200ft above the water to avoid being seen by high flying (probably enemy) aircraft heading west just south of my position. As I crossed the beach into occupied France I stayed low to the ground dodging trees and houses on the way to my target, the Amiens prison. My low level navigation was spot on as I did not even have to adjust my heading to line up on the target. As I crossed the river a couple of AA units opened up on me narrowly missing my ship while I was committed to my bomb run. As I flashed over the target I released the bombs mounted on my wings and managed two bull’s-eyes on the wall of the prison. The time delay on the bombs allowed me to clear the blast radius and complete that part of my mission. I still had two bombs in my bomb bay. I elected to continue to the secondary target on the coast southwest of my current position.

Staying low, I was able to skirt the southern edge of an enemy airfield that had many enemy aircraft taking off without being detected. As I approached my secondary target, a RADAR station, I opened my bomb bay lined up on my target. I put my last two 500lb bombs on one of the larger buildings in the target area and was rewarded with good secondary explosions. As I was flashing over the target several light and heavy AAA pieces opened up on me… I guess I snuck up on them as they only fired on me as I was egressing the target. I was over the beach and pulled a hard 90° turn to the left to a heading of 180. I continued south for a minute trying to check my 6 and not seeing anything near me. As I looked forward again I noticed an aircraft rapidly filling my windscreen. I ID’s the aircraft as a Messerschmitt Bf-109G and my first thought was that he had me cold until I realized he was flying the same direction as I was, just much slower. His failure to maintain a good scan allowed me to set up perfectly on his low 6. As my crosshairs touched his nose I gave him a one second squirt from my cannon and machineguns which cut his tail and one of his wings off. I dodged to the right to avoid the burning pieces of Bf-109 and dived back to the deck continuing to the southwest. After flying for about 15 minutes towards the southwest I started to climb to altitude and start hunting the Luftwaffe. I reached angels 30 I was monitoring radio communications heard several calls to help defend the fleet as the enemy bombers were working it over good sinking several of the ships. Knowing that the RAF was not going to win the mission if the enemy killed our last two ships I started heading to our fleet that was under assault mid-channel. I about halfway to the fleet I spotted a bogie heading the same direction as I was and climbing through angels 20. I dove on the bogie and retarded my throttles so as not to exceed Vne. As I approached the plane I ID’s him as a Focke Wulf Fw-190A. The bandit had not seen me and was holding perfectly still. As I squeezed my triggers the German pilot must have seen me and realized he was in for a world of hurt if he did not do something quick. Unfortunately for him he was too slow for the maneuver he was trying to perform and ended up stalling his plane as my rounds arrived at his position. As I flashed by the Focke Wulf I noticed his engine was stopped and he had many holes on his left wing. I selected full power and climbed back up to angels 30 leaving the German pilot to his fate. While he was not dead he was combat ineffective and there was no use in me wasting my ammo on him when the fleet still needed to be defended. I arrived over the fleet to one of the biggest furballs I have seen in the game.There were close to 30 pilots dogfighting in about a 10 mile radius centered on our fleet. Most of the action was at about angels 10 to 15. I dove down to angels 20 and carefully set up on a Bf-109G trying to get an angle on a Spitfire MkIX. The Messerschmitt was pulling through the top of a loop and vulnerable when I arrived at a firing solution. My one second squirt cut his tail off. As I looked back watching the enemy pilot bail out, green tracers started flying over my left wing. Evidently, his buddy didn’t like me cutting his friend in two so he was taking a pretty accurate pot shot at me. I assume he had been dogfighting the Spitty as well because he did not have the energy to stay with me. As I was extending out to set up for another run on the enemies in the area I noted that the guy who took the pot shot at me had attracted the attention of two more spitties. One of the other pilots on the radio called out the sighting of two Ju-88’s and another pair of Me-410’s approaching from the southwest. I started heading that direction through the dogfight while taking potshots with my machine guns at enemy fighters that presented themselves to me. I only had two minor hits as I was blowing through their fights at high speed. I was saving my cannons for the bombers and heavy fighters. As the dogfight was thinning out a bit we gathered several Spitfires and Sea Hurricanes to engage the bombers, heavy fighters and escorting single engine fighters. I was at about angels 8 and decided to bracket to the right of our formation to allow the Spitfire and Sea Hurricanes to engage the Luftwaffe fighters first. The Mosquito is not as maneuverable and has a far better chance performing slashing attacks on enemy aircraft. As our formation clashed with the Luftwaffe there was a lot of tracers flying and black smoke trails falling in every direction imaginable. I made it through the initial onslaught with a Sea Hurricane and three spitfires to attack the bombers and heavy fighters. I dove on the first Ju-88A-4 taking a long range shot from his high 7 o’clock landing hits on his port and starboard engines, inner wings and cockpit. One of his engines was blasted off and I assume the pilot was killed as he just dove into the water. As I pulled up I had red and yellow tracers fly past me and I thought “great! A friendly is shooting at me!” but when I looked back to see who was shooting at me I noticed a Bf-109G with a heavily smoking engine with a Spitty on his six. That Spitty saved my bacon so I gave him a quick salute and looked for the next enemy bomber. It turns out the other bomber was under assault from a Sea Hurricane and A Spitfire. The Ju-88 pilot managed to kill one of our two ships left before he bought the farm. I looked for other targets and saw one of the Me-410’s going into the drink and the Spitfire who shot him down was heavily smoking. The other Me-410 was running south toward France with a Spitfire on his six so I decided to call it quits as I had used the last of my cannon rounds on my last Ju-88 kill and I was approaching bingo. I RTB’d to my home base and as I was rolling to a stop the mission ended in a draw.

My sortie lasted for an hour and 42 minutes and was very successful. I ended up with five hard kills and one probable kill (probably one of the Bf-109G's that I hit with machine guns that made it back to base) plus many ground object kills. The RAF side could not have won the map ourselves because we were outnumbered at the beginning of the mission but for me (and many of the other red pilots) a draw was a win in itself considering the numbers disparity. Even with the amount of good pilots on both sides (there were numerous quality regulars on both sides) If it wasn’t for good comms and our ability to come together as a team when it counted we would have lost the mission.

[Vampyre 24]

Server- Zekes vs Wildcats

Map- Rabaul (one of my favorites)

There I was, sitting on the ramp in my VF-17 F4U-1A Corsair during the Solomon Islands campaign preparing for a pre strike sweep on Rabaul harbor. I was number three of a four ship of Corsairs loaded with full fuel tanks, a pair of 1000lb bombs and six .50 cal’s. Our flight lead and #2 taxi out to the runway with my wingman and I following suit filing in behind two A-20 Havoc attack aircraft. I have my seat raised for better visibility over my Hogs nose to avoid running into the A-20 in front of me and I am preparing for takeoff. Wings spread and locked, flaps to takeoff, cowl flaps open. As our first section takes off the A-20’s behind them roll out to the runway and take off one by one and form up for the trip to Rabaul harbor. Six P-38’s and two B-25’s taxi in behind us as my wingman and I are lining up on the runway for a section takeoff. We lock our tail wheels, stand on our brakes and run up our engines to full power before releasing our brakes and making our takeoff roll. As we reach 140kts, I gently pull back on the stick and my heavyweight plane slowly lifts off the runway with my wingman glued to my starboard wing. I pull up my landing gear, close my cowl flaps down a bit and make a turn to the right on our climb out. We clear the top of the mountain adjacent to the departure end of the runway and circle around passing directly over the airfield as the P-38’s are taking off. We join up with lead and #2 as we pass over the beach leaving our little jewel of an island while taking a heading to Rabaul.

As we climb through the clouds in a finger four formation we see the A-20’s, B-25’s, and P-38’s forming up over the island behind us for the trip to Rabaul. We climb through angels 12 halfway to the target and split from a flight into two sections flying in combat spread formation while maintaining visual on each other for mutual support. There are friendly carriers in the area and they are already in the fight as evidenced by the tracer fire low to the west of our position. So far we have seen no enemies. Intel says to expect many enemy aircraft (there were 38 blue pilots in game). The enemies are probably attracted to the tracer fire low to the west near our carrier fleet which makes our sweep very easy. As we approach the harbor we note a dogfight occurring low over the harbor between two Hellcats and two IJA Ki-61 Tony’s. Our first section drops down to bomb enemy ships in the harbor while my section maintains high cover. As our first section egresses the harbor area, my section drops down to bomb the enemy vessels behind them in the harbor my wingman drops his bombs on a destroyer anchored in the harbor and I drop on two merchantmen tied alongside each other near the beach. I scored a two ship kill with one drop of two 1000lb bombs… woo hoo! There is actually little time to celebrate as the lead section is being followed out of the harbor to the west by three unknown contacts. As my section heads their way the dogfight we saw earlier has ended up right in front of us. The Hellcats are on their own… they are not in communications with us and our lead section needs us to clear their six. The lead section is performing a wide shallow climbing turn to drag the contacts following them wide and allow us to catch up quickly. As we are screaming in on the bogies I call my attack on the left bogie and leave the two right ones for my wingman to choose from. I identify the bandits as A6M3 Zeros and a Ki-43 Oscar. My wingman and I have selected the Zeros and dispatch them easily as they were concentrating on catching our lead section and did not check their six to see if they were clear. The Ki-43 pilot watched his friends going down in flames and was making a bee line back to the safety of his base. Our sweep of the harbor was complete and looking back over the harbor we could see the A-20’s, B-25’s and P-38’s having a heyday attacking everything in sight. Our flight lead decided to split us off to defend the carrier fleet while they escorted the friendly aircraft over the harbor back to base. I continued heading west and climbing to angels 20 before turning northeast to our fleet. The fight for the fleet was primarily a low fight (below 10k) so I set us up between Rabaul and our fleet to intercept incoming enemy aircraft. I spotted two large contacts heading towards the fleet with several smaller contacts providing cover for them. I called out the contacts on comms and several F6F Hellcats and FM-2 Wildcats from the carriers responded. My section stayed high while the carrier fighters engaged the enemy aircraft low. Having no contacts up high I elected to take us lower and further to the west near some cloud cover. It turns out that this was a wise move as no sooner had we arrived over the clouds then did a group of enemy aircraft appear within them. I spotted at least two Zeros, a Ki-61 Tony, a G4M Betty and a Ki-43 Oscar (probably the same guy as before). I again called the bandits on comms and had responses from a P-38 Lightning and a couple of F6F Hellcats. They were a ways off still so I elected to lead my wingman down to try to slow them down a bit to keep them from hitting our fleet. I dove down with my wingman in tow and as I ducked below the clouds I was rewarded with the sight of a Zero heading towards me. I managed a close range snapshot on the Zero as he tried to maneuver away from me which lit him up like a fireball. The engagement was so fast that I didn’t even realize I lit him on fire until I looked behind me as I was climbing back up. My wingman had lost sight of me and called no joy. He said he was engaged below the clouds with two G4M Betties and a Ki-43 Oscar. Knowing there were more enemy fighters around I elected to drop back below the clouds to cover my wingman as he was hosing down a Betty. Upon descending back below the clouds I spotted my wingman and five other contacts…he only knew of three other aircraft there. Unfortunately the Betty had a few good hits on my wingman’s aircraft damaging his engine and fuselage. I was really pushing my Corsair to the limits trying to get to my wingman before the other bad guys got to him. Having maintained my energy well I quickly approached the trailing enemy Zero and shot his wing off. As I continued by my first victim, I lined up on the Ki-43 and caused him to break away from the chase as he had spotted me… That Ki-43 driver was a wiley one. I continued past the Oscar and tried to engage the last aircraft, a Ki-61, following my wingman. I managed to get a few hits on him but caused him to break off his pursuit of my wingman. The Betty my wingman had shot was burning fiercely and soon exploded. The Ki-61 and Ki-43 were soon joined by another Zero and were following us to the fleet. I could see the other Betty to our right side and low still heading to the fleet. I was trying my hardest to keep the enemies away from my wingman. He had lost a lot of power from his R-2800-8W engine and could barely stay in the air. I circled around in front of him and turned to engage the enemy planes on his six. I managed to get their attention on me by making a head on firing pass which resulted in the Ki-61 dropping out of the fight with a heavily smoking engine. About this time the P-38 Lightning and F6F Hellcats arrived and chased the enemy fighters away and killed the Betty bomber. My wingman’s engine was barely keeping him in the air and, to me, it was iffy if we were going to make it to the carrier fleet much less home base. I ordered him to ditch his plane next to a carrier. The only issue with that decision was the fact that there was a pretty fierce dogfight around the fleet. I ask my wingman if he thought he could make our base and his response was an affirmative. I maintained a figure eight weave above my wingman all the way back to our island. Being that my wingman could not climb above the mountains near our base we had to weave through the valley to the arrival runway. I formed up on his starboard wing to escort him in, My wingman, being barely able to keep his plane in the air, elected to wait to the last minute to lower his flaps and landing gear. Because of this he could not get his landing gear down in time due to his hydraulic failure and had to belly his plane in on the field. Seeing that my wingman had made a safe belly landing I selected full throttle and circled back around and made a smooth landing.

I ended up with four enemy aircraft destroyed and one probable in addition to the two ships I killed in the harbor. My wingman managed two aircraft kills and the destroyer in the harbor. Our lead section ended the sortie with one air kill for the lead and #2 got a probable kill while escorting the main strike force back to base. Then we did it all again…

Edited May 28, 2011 by Vampyre

[Vampyre 24]

Ok, heres a mission I flew last night. My AI wingman and I were taking off for an Strike mission on an enemy comm center. The year is 1986 and we were flying A-10A Warthogs. My loadout was one ALQ-131, two AIM-9M, two CBU-99, six CBU-100, two CBU-24, and six AGM-65D's. I loaded my Wingman down with one ALQ-131, two AIM-9M's, two Mk-81's, six Mk-82's, two Mk-83's and six AGM-65B's. We took off and took a heading to the FEBA. On our way our escort of two F-4G Wild Weasels and four F-15C's. Upon crossing the FEBA we were set upon by a four ship of Mig-23MF's that were dispatched by the Eagles rather handily. As we made our way through enemy airspace we made a snaking rought through to avoid the heavier air defenses around airfields and population centers. Our target was in a city and we had to neutralize a number of the anti air threats just to get to our target. I ordered my wingman to attack six of them while I shot Mavericks at a couple of them myself. I then ordered my wingman to bomb the comm center which he actually managed to destroy. I then posted him to cover me while I worked over targets of opprotunity in the area. I killed ZSU-23 and 2S6 units protecting a SAM site with Mavericks. I then swooped in and put my GAU-8 to work busting the vulnerable SA-6's and their fire control radar. About this time I started getting spiked by hostile air intercept radars. I called AWACS for help as our escort had already turned for home. The controller said help was on the way but clearly would not be there in time. I decided to go fangs out and actively attack the enemy fighters. I selected my AIM-9's and turned to face my attackers. The enemy turned out to be MiG-29's one of which was flown by the Regimental Commanding Officer (so our intel guys said upon our return). I got tone with one of my Sidewinders and let it loose. As soon as it was away my second winder locked up another of the Fulcrums so I fired my last AIM-9 at him and switched to guns. Both winders hit their intended targets square in the teeth but I still had to contend with another two MiG-29's both of which were making head on passes at me. I drew a bead on the bandit approaching on the port side of my ship and proceded to send some 30mm depleated uranium loving is way. Evidently the Mig-29 was not designed for punishment like that as it vaporized right in front of me. I knew the last MiG was going to try to engage me so I went very low in an attempt to lose him. At that time my wingman called fox 2 and I watched his Sidewinder impact the last MiG and send it fireballed into the ground. A few minutes later my cavalry shows up in the form of four F-15A's who now had nothing to do. After that last 2v4 which we should have lost badly, I decided to RTB. We successfully navigated back across the front lines and landed back at our highway strip to re-arm and refuel for our next mission... ops is saying we had to get back in the air immediatly to assist a beleagured unit hold the line at Fulda.

[Vampyre 24]

 The mission started immediately after I reviewed the briefing for a sweep over the Ardennes. As I mounted my Me-410B-2 heavy fighter with two 30mm MK103, four MG151/20 and two 13mm machine guns for the sweep over Belgium with my tail gunner I noted the weather had cleared up quite well. We have had reports of enemy activity all around the city of Bastogne. I taxied to the end of runway 08 and waited for my wingman who arrived a minute later. Another minute later and we were lined up on the runway and performing a section takeoff. Once airborne we headed northwest at about while spreading into a line abreast at low level. I was on the left hand side of the formation and was keeping an eye out for contacts. On our way to the front we stayed low to avoid the marauding allied fighters flying high overhead. As we entered the area I immediately picked up a contact at 11 o'clock and called tally. My wingman acknowledged and covered me as I turned to intercept. The enemy aircraft also noticed us and took a heading towards us. I put him in my front windshield and ID'd him as a FW-190A-8 when we passed head to head. It looks like the Luftwaffe is out in force today. I gave him a salute and continued our sweep. It was only after we had our formation set up again that the next contact was sighted, this time at my 10 o'clock position. I called tally and my wingman acknowledged and fell into position to cover me. I once again put the bogie in my front windshield and held my fire until I could ID him...A Tempest Mk V... Bandit Bandit I cried in the mic as I let loose on the massive firepower of my Me-410 in a quick head on shot. The enemy was directly in my line of fire and I registered multiple hits on his nose and left wing. As I passed him on the right I watched him fly by with his engine stopped and on fire and his right wing flipping around beside him. Still flying very low, I watched him smash into the ground in a glorious fireball in my rear quarter. Splash one. OK, time to reset the formation. Just as we were trying to get back to our heading my wingman called a tally on a fight about 10km to the north so I took position below and behind him and followed him towards the fight. As I watched him merge with the fight he took a shot at an aircraft and continue on straight ahead. He picked up an enemy P-47D Thunderbolt on his tail which, through design was magically lining himself up in my gun sight... perfect. I waited until he was squarely in my gun sight and pulled my trigger. I registered hits on his aft fuselage which immediately separated his tail from the rest of the aircraft and his plane crashed right in front of me scattering parts all over the place. I looked to the left at my 5 o'clock position  just in time to see another P-47D crashing. My wingman confirmed it was his kill a moment later. It turns out that it was not an aerial fight but the two P-47's attacking a German convoy on the road below.

We decided to continue with the mission and pushed on northwest toward a German controlled airfield. As we approached the area we notices a lot of activity around the airfield. I saw several FW-190A's and Bf-109G's fighting with allied Spitfires and P-38 Lightnings. this time we stayed in line abreast and blew through the fight over the airfield. As we emerged on the other side I noticed two large aircraft approaching with several smaller planes escorting. I took a heading to the rapidly approaching aircraft and identified them as two C-47's, a Spitfire and two P-51D Mustang's. The C-47's were trying drop paratroopers to capture the airfield we had just passed over. I took a head on shot at one of the C-47's and lopped the entire cockpit and one of the engines off with one burst which sent him crashing to the forest below. My wingman did a head on pass with a Spitfire and exploded the Spitty in the air but not before he was mortally wounded. He tried to make it back to the airbase we just passed over but bled out and crashed just short of the airfield. I circled around after my initial pass to try to get the second C-47 which was rapidly approaching the drop zone at the airfield. The problem was that the Mustangs were now in on me in yet another head on pass. I fired a burst at one of the Mustangs which stopped his engine. His buddy managed some hits on my starboard wing. I checked my instruments quickly to verify my engine were still running properly and continued to press on to the C-47. As I came within a good firing position on the C-47 I hammered him with a hail of 30mm, 20mm and 13mm rounds blowing off his number one engine both of his horizontal stabilizers and his port wing which sent him smashing into a hangar on the airfield. As I watched him falling I could hear my tail gunner hammering away at the Mustang rapidly approaching from my rear. I could see him approaching me from high on my starboard side so I decided to  turn left to put him in a better position for my gunner to engage him at. The Mustang driver dove down and was taking hits from my gunner as he started firing. His engine started smoking and he flew directly into the ground aft of my plane.  He managed to get some good hits on my port wing and stopped my number one engine. My number two engine was smoking and sputtering so I trimmed up the aircraft as best I could and turned to try to make an emergency landing at the airbase we were defending. As I approached the runway two P-38’s were attacking AA targets on the opposite side of the airfield but luckily they were being harassed by friendly FW-190A-8’s and left me alone. My hydraulics were shot out so I was frantically trying to get the landing gear down in emergency when I got hit by fire from an unseen Tempest. That killed my remaining engine and I sort of dropped out of the air at the end of the runway breaking my main landing gear off and sliding to a stop right beside the approach end of the runway. I yelled at my gunner to get out I turned and looked after I got no response. Unfortunately he was killed by 20mm fire from the Tempest that had just made a pass on us. Damn! I hop out of my demolished aircraft and start running to the tree line as I see the Tempest again. He is chasing one of the FW-190’s and ignoring me and my burning hulk of an aircraft. Hopefully I can make it back to my base. The Allied armies are driving relentlessly on and must be stopped.