Saturday multiplayer mini campaign

[Winston DoRight 3]

On Winston's Saturday sessions beginning Saturday 20 March, I will host a fantasy 4 part mini campaign. These will be rather long missions and different from what we've been previously flying. I'm hoping for a good turnout, the more human players we have the better our chances for success. There's still time to get new players checked out before Saturday, just follow the necessary steps in the sticky post on the general discussion topic page or check the OFF calendar for the info. Then contact me or drop by teamspeak Tues through Fri for a checkout.

 

Synopsis: We all volunteered for this assignment and have been training hard for the last few months. Today word has finally come down from HQ about our upcoming mission. We must destroy or severely damage an enemy aviation gas refinery far behind enemy lines. HQ has determined that this would greatly reduce the enemys aircraft presence in the south and with fewer enemy aircraft in the air we could launch larger offensives and perhaps shorten this bloody war.

 

1st mission briefing: We will ferry our Sopwith Pups from Fontaine airbase to Friedrichshafen airbase in the mountains to the southeast. Friedrichshafen was just recently captured from the enemy and is in a perfect location to launch our offensive from. We are expecting our new Sopwith Camels soon, but until they arrive we will continue to rely on our trusty Pups. We've been issued a double ration of Ale today, bottoms up and go get some well deserved rest. We depart at dawn on saturday. And by the way, sorry about this but there is to be absolutely no contact with the local civilians from now until we depart.

 

[Red-Dog 3]

I'll be in Winston, and thanks for the Grid map mate.

[Winston DoRight 3]

I'll be in Winston, and thanks for the Grid map mate.

 

I'm sure we'll all enjoy the scenery, thanks Red-Dog for bringing this area to my attention. I'm also looking forward to your missions here. and about the grid maps.... Burning Beard has developed a much better grid map than I have done. I strongly suggest that we all download and install them before saturday: http://forum.combatace.com/topic/54059-new-map-grids-for-western-front/

 

I've already done so and the new maps will cover every area including my next mini-campaign over the English Channel.

[Burning Beard 14]

I'm sorry that download is so big, but I tried to make it as easy for youse guys as possible. I have included the default maps as an automatic back up (like Winston did). All you should have to do is just unzip it to the WW1 Scenery File and you are good to go.

 

Beard

[Winston DoRight 3]

.....I'm sorry that download is so big....

I did notice that some of the maps were save as 16 bit resulting in 10mb file size whereas the original maps are 8 bit and about 3mb in size. I just loaded the big ones into my paint program and resaved them as 8 bit and then put them in the correct map folders.

Edited March 17, 2010 by Winston DoRight

[Burning Beard 14]

I tried with the 8 bit and got some color distortion and graininess. Actually they were saved as 24 bit, so I guess we can all be confused by the magical world of Corel or computers in general.

 

Beard

[Winston DoRight 3]

Tired of the AI wingmen crowding you in our MP formations? I think this will be the way we'll fly our Saturday session flights.

 

[Burning Beard 14]

I may be a little late today Winston. I have a guy coming to pick up a sign at the shop around 9 this morning. Lets hope he is on time.

 

Beard

[Winston DoRight 3]

20 Mar., 1917

 

It seems that many of our pilots were unable to fly today, a mysterious sickness attacking them sometime earlier in the week. But we few remaining brave souls flew anyway today, sucessfully flying our Sopwith Pups and Bristol F2b's from Fontaine airbase to Friedrichshafen. We encountered a few enemy flights along the way, engaged some and let some others go. What a wonderfully scenic flight we had over the mountains of northern Switzerland. Imagine our surprise when we arrived at Friedrichshafen and could still see the German cross' on the fabric hangars. Our engineers haven't yet had the time to paint our insignias on the recently captured airbase.

 

We also marveled at the fact that this was once an Axis Zeppelin base, and we got to view up close a captured fully operational Zeppelin. Maybe we can find a use for it in the future?

 

I snapped a pic of a few of our planes after we landed and taxied over near the Zeppelin Hangars.

[Winston DoRight 3]

After our long flight in to our new airbase, we all had a quick meal and a short rest. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our new Sopwith Camels were already here! As soon as the mechanics got them serviced, refueled and armed we set off on a recon flight to find the exact location of the enemy refinery.

 

Here's our briefing map:

 

We flew our waypoints, engaged an enemy flight and spotted the refinery. The Camels cleared the way for the Bristols who were supposed to take photos, but the Bristols camera shutter buttons were frozen from the cold at altitude and would not function. We were lucky that one of the Camel pilots brought his personal camera with him wrapped up and under his leather coat. Hopefully his snapshots will develop well and we can use them to identify the air defenses at this facility.

[Axgrinder 0]

Yea, the mysterious illness was spring fever! The weather was great here in Ohio for the first time in 6 months (65 degrees and sunny) so you know I had to get out in that! Cleaned up the yard and stuff like that.

[Winston DoRight 3]

Yea, the mysterious illness was spring fever! The weather was great here in Ohio for the first time in 6 months (65 degrees and sunny) so you know I had to get out in that! Cleaned up the yard and stuff like that.

 

With those two flights done there's only two missions remaining in this mini-campaign, the flight to attack the refinery and one other. Hope you can make it next Saturday for the grand finale, the more the merrier.

[Axgrinder 0]

Sorry Winston! I will be doing this all day next Saturday -

 

Big WW1 Aerodrome game going on with people from Columbus and Dayton.

Edited March 21, 2010 by Axgrinder

[Winston DoRight 3]

Have fun Ax! I tried a large scale BoB game like that once, but I fell asleep! Take a thermos of strong coffee!

[Axgrinder 0]

Two of my kids and I play this game quite a bit and it is fairly fast paced. You have to plot three moves ahead each turn. No time for naps or you get your butt shot off!

Edited March 22, 2010 by Axgrinder

[Winston DoRight 3]

Here's the photo of the refinery. Hopefully the scouts can damage or destroy some of the air defenses and allow the bombers to concentrate on the refinery itself.

[Winston DoRight 3]

Today we flew mission 3 to attack the refinery and destroyed much of it. Then in the final mission, we were attacked at our home base by the Germans who were furious that we attacked their precious refinery. We scrambled to intercept 2 flights of bombers and 3 flights of scouts. All enemy were shot down except for 3 DFW CV's who managed to escape. Little damage was done to our airfield.

 

Photo's 1 & 2: The refinery after our attack.

Photo 3: Vasco was hit by AA on his first bombing run.

 

I'll be away next Saturday, then we'll continue the following Saturday with a new mini-campaign (more news on this later). If somebody wants to host next week in my absence, that would be great.