Dweebs of Death

New World Thunder

--Posting from -rhno-, 8 April 2001:

Aloha All

Just a short note on a very short S3 for me tonight. Had a red beacon and system lockup just prior to roll (WB locked up, and that in turn locked up my system. Windows restart did not clear, had to shut computer off and then back on to finally get things {except RW} working again). Managed to roll, in Hurri IIC with bombs, and catch tone and unfg prior to going over the channel. Enroute to target, port N of F19, saw three cons pass from our high 9 to high 8 and then lost them in the distance. Rolled in as a 3 ship on the port, and for once, actually managed to hit and destroy my assigned target. Picked up the egress hdg of 300, and had visual on unfg. About 30 sec later, saw a 190 come roaring in on unfg...made 66666 call on ch 110 and broke into FW, but too late, -unfg- was down by then. Shortly there after, tracers over the canopy and parts started falling off. Bailed and floated about until air-sea rescue managed to pick me up (from the kill buffer, both 190's were from JG54). Overall, looks like 2 out of 3 dweebs dead on first go, with 1 building down, and possibly a second down as well. Shortly after that while "talking" with tone on 110, had a second red beacon and WB locked up again, followed by system lock up again, so perhaps not a bad thing that I died on egress, since I would have been a disco with damage otherwise. Anyone else notice that WB II locks up there system when red beacon followed by connect to host failure msg happens?

In retrospect, we might have been better off in Mossie Mk VI's. They are faster than a 109, and a better match for the FW - about same speed high and low, and almost the same turn rate as FW as well, with better gun package (more 20mm than Hurri plus 4x303's), and better bombload, with 4 vs 2 500lbers. Recommend we go with a straight Mossie flight on the next one.

Overall, a short, but fun S3!

-rhno-

--Posting by -tone-, 22 April 2001:

SpecOps == attack navy ships that will be in or very near Cherbourg -- sink the cruiser. This was obviously F23. Other mission == attack and sink 5 ships that are based in Calais -- in offline mode, I took these as being F22 (since you cannot tell colors at all in offline mode)

When they told us the cruiser was near Calais, I thought "they don't understand! We're supposed to attack THOSE ships after daylight... the OTHERS are the ones for the night attack" If only Jabo had amplified his update when I asked for it, he may have made it clear that ALL attacks.

My only pride in how I ran this was helping get cman up and running on my second system -- he had forgotten his WB password. I wrote a program that I then emailed to cman's wife. She ran it. It found his password on the disk, accessed a webpage which then emailed me the password! hehehe hacking our way to victory!

Rhno missed a rather lethal last mission against the armed ships. We sank the cruiser, but lost 3/5 to 190s and hero landed and unfg ditched. But I got a wonderful kill on a 190 as we ran for our lives on the deck.

Hero was being shot at by a 190 who was chasing him like mad. I zig-zagged enough to let hero and then this 190 pass me, and then I enlisted his help in answering a question I frankly never knew the answer to: "How many 20mm cannon DOES a Mosquito VI carry?" I think we both arrived at agreement on the answer: ENOUGH

This is what I read as our regular mission, and in this we succeeded phenomenally!

-tone-

--Posting by -unfg-, 22 April 2001:

I saw Hero & Rhno both land at F5. Though I use the term loosely in Rhno's case. He tossed his gear and I don't know if he 'sploded or not. My fuel tank took a hit as I was diving on the target and I spent too
much time in level, wave top, flight to be able to gain enough alt to glide to F5. Just as I went dead stick I saw tracers and jinked as much as I could at near stall speed to avoid the 190. Saw he was going to overshoot but was too close to get a shot till he was D3 or better. I hit him 3 times according to score but it didn't phase him at all. He kept after Hero but was deterred by the Ack & an Allied fighter at F5. I don't think I hit with much on first bomb run but did better on 2nd based on damage points I inflicted with bombs dropped (if that's actually what the screwy scoring stuff actually shows). Not a bad night I don't think. Fog of war was definitely in effect.

Unforgiven (-unfg-)

--Posted by -rhno-, 22 April 2001:

The stationary ships we hit WERE our target (strike mission #9 from Jabo's list, and verbatim from Daddy's web page). We did not achieve the spec ops mission, but we DID complete our primary strike mission.

-rhno-

--Posting by -hero-, 6 May 2001:

Our 1st attack run was to be a low alt ingress to the factory complex at 7.2.7. We reached the target unmolested and popped-up to 5K for a dive bombing run. -tone- and mgyver were to hit the main city, -rhno- and I were to hit the outer factory complex. -tone- and mgyver hit two buildings in the city, I struck both my targets on the right side of the outer factory facilities, but -rhno- took heavy AAA damage on ingress and his bombs swerved and hit targets within the city. Shortly after -rhno- crashed. The remaining three egressed on a 300 heading to rendezvous with -unfg- and stoopd. Suddenly a bolt of internet lightning knocked me out of the sky and down to the desktop, and because I took a couple pings at the factory, was declared dead by Ack Weenies. Robbed of a near perfect mission. Sad that -rhno-'s number was up, but was a good run all in all.

-hero-

--Posting by -tone-, 6 May 2001:

This was interesting.

2 sorties -- one great one with 4 planes that met is mission goals, and an adhoc mission which was chewed to shreds.

First mission showed poor punctuality on DoD, as we rolled with 4 Mossies (tone rhno mgyver hero) from F13 to bomb factories at 727 (south enemy F16). When we were aloft, unfg and stoopd checked in and we had them serve as RTB guardplane and radar operator, respectively. We had to knock down 4 buildings and may have knocked down as many as 8 (WTFG, DoD!) Rhno was lost to ack, and hero was unmistakeably NOT lost to ack, but discoed on RTB for a technical DWD. Each pilot seemed to take down 2 buildings, reportedly, and we rtb'ed.

For second mission, we were asked by jamdru to attack anchored ships at 954 and sink at least 5. We had tone, mgyver, stoopd, unfg, and pickups from 1ACG --paws and man-hi. This mission was socially fun but far too ambitious to be handed out as an afterthought without support. We might have done better had we known what lay ahead.

We had found the ships and had planned to have half our 6 planes attack first while covered, but 4-8 190s were sighted belatedly diving in and on us. We all rapidly went in to attack the targets. Result was that half of us did not get to make attacks or dropped ineffectively. The mission was suicidal -- it appears JG54 was on station over the target. Man-hi scored great bomb hits (perhaps this was --paws), and tone definitely dropped aimed bombs but they didn't score. Only CO tone survived the meatgrinder (with DWD refugee hero in observer). Tentative result was 2 ships sunk in exchange for 5 planes lost.

I think the lesson here is that we should have known that opposition was likely, and perhaps another squad tasked to serve as our escort, or this target should not have been attempted.

Still, better'n flying in the arena!

-tone-

--Posting by -rhno-, 6 May 2001:

Was actually great fun from my perspective...right up to the point where I died. Formation looked good all the way to the target, and SA from radio and radar calls was good as well. On roll in took a few pings, didn't think much about it 'till I tried to adjust my aimpoint and the nose wouldn't track. As speed built up, nose finally started moving, which caused bombs to go long, but then couldn't pull out in time. In retrospect, must have lost the elevator and didn't notice it because when I hit the ground the kill was scored to the ack weenies. Didn't hit the building I was aiming at, but score did show 2 buildings destroyed, so guess I hit something with them afterall.

Watched the radar on egress, and you guys looked good coming out, quick rejoin, and fairly tight cluster so I assume formation was good again. Looks like we left just in time, because shortly thereafter radar showed a large force of LW rtb'ing to F16 (and yes, Tone did read between the lines about a strafing pass on 16 during rtb :), would have been fun, but we would probably have lost a few more to AAA since it was a main base)

All in all, a short, but fun evening!

Rhno