Leaderboard

Well done gentlemen, especially considering the scope for these missions seemed limited at the briefing. 402nd were slated to run a patrol looking for air to air action in the vicinity of Malmedy-Aachen and the 485th a reconnaissance in the vicinity of Malmedy. The area has come under heavy air and ground attack during the last few days and much there destroyed, so we were not expecting much action on the ground. Furthermore, enemy fighter activity has been meagre of late, so we were expecting similar in the air... However, the 402nd, despite having an ostensibly air-oriented mission chose to pack some 500lb bombs "just in case", knowing that these could be jettisoned should the Luftwaffe venture out; this act of foresight by Lt. Arjen Efftee stood them in good stead. After running their air patrol at Angels 15 and seeing no sign of enemy air activity, the squadron repeated the route at Angels 10 picking up a number of ground targets in and around Eupen - already under spirited attack by the 485th! Not wanting to clutter the area with P-38s Lt. Efftee elected to continue on and leave the 485th their spoils. However as they reached the outskirts of Aachen the 402nd received a call from the 485th Leader Maj Payne-Less to assist in suppressing or distracting some of the AAA. As the 402nd wheeled back to the Southwest a one in a million flak burst detonated under the wing of White Lead 2nd Lt. Casey Bakers aircraft, immediately blowing off the aileron (it almost taking out his wingman, who had dropped into trail for the turn) and destroying his ability to roll his aircraft. Worse was to come. A few second later the wing failed ~3 feet outboard of the right engine nacelle. In a stunning piece of airmanship, 2nd Lt. Baker not only managed to maintain control of his fatally crippled ship but even was able to coax it back over the front lines using just rudder and asymmetric power. Once there, he parachuted to safety. Meanwhile the rest of the squadron set to over Eupen, destroying trains and AAA for the second mission running, and after running out of targets moved up to Aachen where further elements of the German rail system came under attack, with several AAA guns also succumbing to the 402nds firepower. With Red Leader calling for a withdrawal, White Two (2nd Lt. Fenton Rea) spotted further enemy ground units and AAA at the front lines near Plombières; he attacked, destroying a AAA gun and called the rest of the squadron in to it's position. They duly arrived and proceeded to eliminate every weapon in the vicinity. With this attack successful, Lt. Efftee called for an RV over Vervrier and thence a return to base. All in they counted for 19 ground targets destroyed. Good work 402nd! Turns out the 485th didn't need much help with the AAA as they had their own personal Flak exterminator in the air to keep the Kraut gunners square heads down! Capt. David Prang set about in merciless fashion eventually accounting for 11 ground targets in the form of 7 AAA guns (!) and 4 Artillery pieces! On his own he accounted for half of his entire squadrons score for that mission, with Lt. Artiesbi getting a remarkable 6 and Maj. Payne-Less 5, for a total of 22 ground targets destroyed. Stellar work gents, Capt. Prang in particular. However, yet again the cost came at an exorbitantly high price - Capt. Hawker Siddley, trusted and admired flight commander and doyen of the 485th was tragically killed when his aircraft struck the ground strafing near Eupen. His loss will be felt most keenly, not least by his faithful wingman 2nd Lt. Colin Fryer, who by chance had a 24 hour pass this day, and was not in his traditional spot covering his lead. On that sombre note, we have a couple of days to take stock as Met reports some pretty lousy weather headed in. We're due for a break on the 27th October [to be flown on Tuesday September 29 2020], so take the opportunity to get some rest. Here's the stats:

Skye trip

Feel for you Reggie, I'm sorry that we couldn't push a restart for you but we've had so many problems with restarting missions in the past to cater to those who've had issues that we've had to be a little ruthless about it. In one example, we had nearly 50 minutes of continuous restarts, each restart suffering at least one participant with a drop-out or control issue. It got so late without being able to start a mission without someone having a problem that we had to knock-it off for the night and postpone till the next scheduled evening, which as you can imagine left everyone slightly pissed off. Hope you (a) have better luck next time and (b) feel better soon old bean.

Great show chaps - you did extremely well. Apologies for my controls issues, although I didnt join the pre op dogfight, I had tested them earlier offline and they were fine. In the mission everything worked fine except the joystick - which you kind of need...I tried everything to get it all working again to no avail, once the game kicked me to desktop, as soon as I restarted it everything worked again fine. Very odd 😞