Lt. James Cater

I think this is all pretty strange considering that some people here have way more stuff uploaded than me. Perhaps i should go with an offsite solution.

31May67 Why we give the enemy time to recover with a "bombing halt" i'll never know. Me and Bruce Hill went up up at the Ben Thuy Thermal Power Plant and boy it was rather lively. We didn't have that bed a time but there was flak going off everywhere while a short time ago, you could have flown a Piper Cub around Ben Thuy and probaly wouldn't have drawn any fire. the Arrowhead is also back in action. some Navy guys were in the area and lost a plane to some heavy ground fire. Thankfully, the Garden is still our sanctuary. looks the someone high up must like our job results because the gave me the Air Force distinguished Service Medal and a promotion to Major. 5June1967 Did an Armed Recce flight with Capt Haeffner southwest of the DMZ. It was pretty hairy there for a while because once we got over an NVA camp where we were going to begin our low level hunt, a suprising amount of AAA came up at us. I violated one of my rules concerning going after guns because there appeared to be a number of trucks in the area. It was tough but we silenced the guns. Haeffner's aircraft seemed to have suffered some damage (from his own ordnance i suspect) and so couldn't assist when we finally found something really important, a large group hauling supplies on bikes. I made passes with CBUs, rockets and guns until i was winchester. In the meanwhile, i sent the Captain home since i decided to have a quick look over the DMZ. Heading east until i was over the lowlands, i turned north and flew over the Friendlies until i got near the Chanh Hoa barracks. Everything was still busted up from when we last visited and it looks like the North Vietnamese have pretty much conceded much of the area south of the Ca River. I did see a couple of guns, but they didn't seem to be protecting anything of value. So over the coast, turned south and went home.

Ok, looks like i've reached some kind of quota and so i can't post the screenshot of the debrief. 27May67 Went on a mission to take out a tent at a NVA camp up near the NV/Laos border. With me i had LT Hill, Cpt Croker and LT Titus. The target was taken out before we got there so we went looking for something to brop our bombs on. We flew around and took out some guns and a radar site but lost Croker and Titus. Croker flew low into a rocky cloud and Titus was shot down by AAA when we made the mistake of flying near a well defended NVA base area.

Brazil- Shot down Police chopper

Funniest thing i've heard of in quite some time!

Thanks Mike, after a very rough start i seem to have this down with the SPAD. It'll be interesting to see where this goes considering that i'm now used to a plane that can be considered fast moving when it is at 200kts! Also, i found out the hard way not to go into certain places ahead of the other flights like you can do sometimes in the stock setup. WOV Gold has changed everything and it all had to be relearned from scratch.

27NOV66 Talk about getting lucky! Where do they decide to send us? Right back to a dream target. Took off with LT Hill and slowly made our way north. It was a very nice day. Some clouds but no big deal. It was a nice day to be flying. At our cruising altitude we eased off the throttle and flew serenly on, The only thing that did give me some worry was wondering about what kind of defenses the North Vietnamese might have moved into the area. After our last adventure over there you might figure that they would put some guns around since we would surely be back. Thankfully, we had a pair of F-4s out of Da Nang tasked for flak suppression and so my main concern was not to get over the target before they did. Soon enough, west of Da Nang we made our turn towards the target and things did not feel right. I had the feeling that Dodge flight (the F-4s) would be late and so i had to begin thinks of alternatives to our plan. We were just under 30 miles from the target when Dodge checked in. Making some quick calculations, Hill and i figured that there was no possible way that Dodge would be over the target before us so we decided to circle at a distance from the area and kill time. So that's what we did. 10 miles out from the target we circled and waited for the fast movers. Only when they called that they were five minutes out did we line up and get ready for our attack. When Dodge overflew the target and kept going further north i knew we had it good. LT Hill had the honors of going after the primary and down he went. I waited above just in case he(highly unlikely)missed and double checked my switches to make sure everything was just right. Bruce did a textbook approach and blew the primary target away as well as a few other buildings. Then it was time for me to go to work. Seeing as he did his part well and there was no threat in the area, i sent him home. It was truely a fine time! Pass after pass. Bombs, rockets, guns a blazing. Tore the hell out of the place but there is more that can be hit on another mission. While i was doing all this, Dodge was busy at the Arrowhead. Guess that after we finish this place, that's where we will hunt next.

25NOV66 Hit the Jackpot! LT Curtis and i were sent on a Recce mission over what seemed to be a safe area so we decided to carry some extra ordnance and take a look at an area south of the Arrowhead were groundfire had been reported on numerous occasions. We figured that there has to be something there worth protecting on the enemies' part. The weather wasn't so bad considering what were were going to do, so we took off, climbed to 10,500 and headed towards Hue. At Hue we went down and flew low and slow along the coast until we made our turn towards Dong Hoi. As far as we could see, there was nothing but friendly troops and bases all over the area. So after satisfying mission requirements, we climbed a bit to 1,500ft and headed north. It wasn't long before we found something good. We knew that the North Vietnamese had some base facilities in the area, but figured that they probaly had been bombed to rubble by now. Well, we saw some structures off a ways at about 10 o'clock and so veered in the direction in anticipation of flying over yet another friendly base. As we got closer though, we noticed some AAA emplacements on the hill behind the base and so manuvered to engaged the guns. As we set up for our attack i began wondering when all hell would break loose. This obviously was a sizable place and yet it seemed rather lacking in defenses. We didn't hesitate though, CBUs went down and we blew the guns away. What was really strange was that the defenses were 2 100mm guns and yet, not a shot was fired at us. Very strange! Wishing like hell that we had some HE bombs, i swung back around and decided to strafe the fuel tanks on the base and continue with our previous plans. In the process of strafing i looked out the side and saw a lot of vehicles just parked there. On a second pass i also noticed three SAMs on their trailers. It looks like Christmas came a bit early this year! It was almost like some sort of range exercise. After shooting up two more fuel tanks i went to work on the vehicles. After a few passes the smoke got so thick that i resorted to taking a SWAG and to my satisfaction i was doing alright. In the meantime, Curtis wandered off a bit to the northeast and found something. Whatit turned out to be was some PT boats docked near a river mouth and down he went. However, the groundfire was pretty intense and his aircraft took some serious damage. Smoking heavily, he climbed slowly and headed back south towards safety. I continued firing into the smoke until i was pretty certain nothing was still in one piece. Then i got really low and took a good look at the base from a few more directions. sure enough, there were a few more trucks parked around and so i shot them up as well. The 20mms soon ran out of ammo but luckily i decided to carry gun pods for the first time. The strafing finally came to an end when the miniguns finally ran out of ammo. The final score came out to 19 trucks, 3 SAMs and their transporters (makes you wonder if they planned on a site somewhere in the vicinity), 3 fuel tanks and 2 100mm antiaircraft guns destroyed as well as as numerous building shot up as well. I really hope we can get a mission near here soon so we can come back and level the place.

22NOV66 Yet another trip up North! Lt Wiggins and i had some good feelings about this one. I don't know, it just felt like it was going to be a milk run. And thats more or less what it turned out to be. Took off, climbed above the clouds to 10,500ft, cruised over Hue on way to Yankees station, then turned towards the Garden. Due to low clouds and crappy visibility, we decided on using high drag MK117s since they worked just fine on our last mission. Nearing the Garden we went down until were under the clouds. Once the IP was reached, we were in business. I pulled ahead of Wiggins and maintained a steady height of 1,000ft at full throttle. The area had been so worked over in the past few months that we really didn't anticipate any serious AA fire and thats how it worked out. To my embarassment, i missed the target! Not a single shot fired at me, straight and level and i missed! Thankfully, Wiggins came up next and took out the target. Wiggins also didn't get fired at during his attack, but the post target turn and withdrawal did get some attention from the enemy. No big deal though, so back to the Garden we flew and up to altitude and the trip home. Judging from the radio traffic, there seems to be a single spot south of Vihn that is pretty hairy, everything else has been pretty much neutralized.

The worst thing about Chavez is we have to allow that greasy little pissant into our country whenever he wants to go to the UN.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/homicidereport/ All that weather and earthquake related nonsense in California gets kicked to the curb.

Solaris Uziel

19NOV66 Sometimes things just end up exactly as they should. Off we were to hit a NVA base up in Laos. Lt Hill and I were loaded with high drag 750 pounders considering the combination weather and terrain we were going to face. Takeoff and cruise were uneventful, the only real interesting moments involved various throttle changes so as not to arrive too early. You see, the Navy had a strike going into the area and our own guys were supplying a pair of F-4s for flak suppresion. In addition to the Navy guys, Hill and i figured that any AAA should be reduced somewhat before we begin our attack. And that is exactly what happened. Except that the zoomies only made a single pass and took off (BOO!BOO!BOO!HISSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!). They didn't even bother with CBUs, they just fired some rockets and thats it. The Navy guys on the other hand, did a hell of a job and totally shut down the ground fire. I got to make sure to get a bottle of some good stuff out to those two guys. Me and Bruce had a perfect approach with not a single shot fired at us. It was just like being on a range back home. You can bet we took advantage.

Really want a cynical view on things? Considering Chavez's statement of a US occupation in Haiti as well as the various strains of public bitching you can find in the media of various countries, if it were up to me ALL US military and civilian personel would be on their way home within 72 hours. If you want to be more specific...As soon as two other countries have any citizens on the ground and operating, get out, get out, get out as fast as possible and go home.

Clipping the wings of a hawk.

Nov66 Another successful mission! Dave Titus and i made the trip up North. For the sake of experimentation, we each hauled a single 3,000lb. The object of the heavy ordnance was to see what kind of blast effect it would have around the target area. Dave would go after the primary and i would drop on the PT docks. Everything was routine until we began our attacks. I let Titus go in first and followed him down through the overcast. Well, things went wrong as usual. Dave didn't even come close with his bomb and my target was already rubble(gotta love Intell's guesses) so i switched to the primary and missed also! The triple A was non existent so i went down and took out the target with my guns. As it turns out, I also got a PT boat with a number of rounds and blew it away too! Got to love kentucky windage sometimes! Since there was no AAA i decided to go after some structures that looked like barracks or storage facilities and lo and behold, the other PT boats on the river opened fire with a withering blast of fire. So i rounded up Dave, turned for home, and called it a day.

17NOV66? Got a call for yet another strike at Vihn and so we got set. Took 1LT Wiggins on the now routine route. North to Da Nang, then to Yankee station, and swing towards Vihn. The flight out was nothing really special except for the bothersome cloud that had us socked in from about 6000 to 13,000ft. Well, we had such a good climb to altitude and cruise that we circled on two occasions to make sure that we weren't first in the target area. Granted, i do feel that the second time was somewhat of a mistake. Getting ready for our attack, we found out that the target(a truck park) had already been hit and so we quickly had to find the secondary targets. So towards the waterfront we went and much to my disapointment and dismay, damn near everything of value that could be easily soptted was already destroyed so i basically aimed in a direction where i knew something had to be, let fly the bombs, and took off back out to sea with AAA chasing me. As i turned i spotted some PT boats at their dock so i ordered Wiggins to get them. That he did and home we went. Turns out my bombs took out a pair of cranes, a container ship and Russkie freighter which everyone knows were already damaged. After all how else can ships go down without a direct hit. Gee, you might have thought they were carrying ammunition or something! Unknown Pilot-Keep at it. This was going to be my last A1 pilot since my prior ones got nailed so quickly. It really took a while to get used to the Skyraider and to the new particulars of the enemy defenses in this sim due the the WOV Gold mod.

I enjoyed it very much even if it appears to be a spoof. Around here we have Hells Angels, Bandidos, Mongols and Vagos. God help you if you do anything that implies desecration of their colors. Simply disrespecting them is bad enough but throwing paint at them is virtually commiting suicide.

One trick VS IL28s is to get as low as possible and close in until you are virtually underneath them. Then chop throttle, pull up hard and spray them from nose to tail with your gun. As you pass over them go full burner and set up for the next pass. Alternately, you can "porpoise" from their 6 and time the rear gunner. If it works out right you can get for a 0 degree shot from near point blank range.

Glenn Gould-Goldberg Variations

Hellhammer-Apocalyptic Raids

Makes one wonder about the fate of BC bud!

Trying not to thread hijack but... Let's just say that it's somewhat of a feat just to have reached this age and i know for a fact i'm not going to make it past 55 at the most due to damage caused to the body by amongst other things, a rather severe alcoholic intake over the span of several years. This is coming from someone who grew up in places where dying via gunshot was considered a natural death. I still believe that someday i'm going out via acute lead poisoning... AKA 6 in the head. Better that than rotting away somewhere. Know thyself!

Now listening to Sempiternal Pandemonium by Incantation