Painless

You see Edgar, ve are blessed mit der sense von humour und ze joking around types of uber mench YA ! If you are free this Saturday evening at around 8.00pm BST we have our tank session. Best have your controls set up and check mit Obergruppenfuhrer Friar for ze details.

Welcome Edgartonian sir, our average physical age is considerably higher than yours, mental age not so much. Hope you find a home here as many have during our 16 year history, (longer than most marriages I’m told 😳🤓)

Another good show 485th. Running a four and two ship flight we were tasked with attacking a transport, (road and rail) hub near Grevenbroich. Completely unable to pronounce our target name over the radio I was relieved to find that our actual target was in fact just south of Düsseldorf as shown on the tactical map. Dignity restored ! We used our 6x500lb bomb loadouts to great effect, enjoying the spectacle of trucks, AAA units and associated personnel flying into the air propelled by US high explosives. Savage?..... not at all, we are in this to win gentlemen. All pilots worked well, heeding Capt Rea’s advice on how to avoid being blessed with lead after conducting a AAA assault...... almost without exception. Once our designated target had been ravaged we headed SW following the rail line to Greveannbroocher? The rail station had a train just sat there so despite the fierce AAA we blew it up along with the bloody AAA. That’ll learn em! Lt Apeehill sustained starboard engine damage to the cooling system necessitating a landing at a forward airfield escorted by 2nd Lt Jimmy Johnson who landed with him. The remaining four ship flight returned to home base to show the ground crews how to perform a textbook midfield break landing (very nearly). Once again superb wingmanship was the order of the day with Lt David Reginald, 2Lt Chet Badame and Lt Apeehill doing a sterling job. Huzzah ! Footnote: we have established that it is Capt Rea who “really hates the Romans” the most ! 👍🏻

Bloody good fun, still very much enjoying multi crew format. We didn’t use whispers at all last night as the numbers were not prohibitive and all was well. Only criticism of leadership would be to suggest that the boss makes sure in the initial briefing that within a multi crew, all crew members wear regalia that doesn’t clash ! ( gives me a headache) 👍🏻

Reporting 4 Due Tea.....

Welcome aboard Norman, glad to have you sir !

Sadly I won’t have the time to fit that in Col. Sounds like it will be good fun though and interesting to see how other folks do things.

485th were tasked with destroying transport on the ground near to Düsseldorf. I lead a flight of four and Capt Rea led a flight of two with a special friend he met in a bar recently ? We climbed to angels 9 carrying 6x500lb each, with a view to dive bombing our target initially to minimise AAA opportunities. Having spotted no flying bosh at all, (the case for the entire mission), we arrived over the target free of holes and apprehension so it was to be line astern for Red flight and White Flight to stay high just in case. After a brief reminder on how to set your aircraft up for a diving attack in we went.... full of confidence I chose a pretty steep angle, air brakes out, zero throttle and max RPM... ..... released two bombs at 4000ft then pulled out in the pre arranged direction all pleased and shift. To my horror, 2nd Lt HP Pookie pulled out just enough to pancake his aircraft at Mach 1 and by a miracle survive. Closely followed by 2nd Lt Clarice Starling who was not so lucky. I can only apologise if the steepness of my attack was a contributing factor to these tragic events chaps. We have done precious little practice in the way of dive bombing the P38, unfortunately it has to be done just so to avoid disaster. On reflection I would have either conducted a low level shallow dive attack or dive bombed at no more than a 60deg angle having reinforced the need to drop no lower than 3000 - 4000ft. After such a traumatic start I have to say that the remaining four aircraft conducted a magnificent game of bash the bosh absolutely hammering ground targets including two airfields one of which was Düsseldorf. Capt Rea was on fire, killing 10 xAAA and his wingman Brams did a similarly impressive job. As a couple they were worthy of the front cover of Vogue Magazine... awesome chaps ! 2nd Lt Jean Artage also hammered AAA with great derring -do and aplomb actually stealing German ammunition from the third reich, hiding it in his aircraft. He was forced to land at Venlo airbase due to the extra weight. Capt Rea escorted him to a safe landing then joined myself and Brams for a three ship home coming.

I love the: painted with a wonky roller and a stinking hangover in the dark look, for the DDay stripes 👍🏻

Reporting for dirty skupper .

We will have a look at that Tuesday morning when Sid hosts Col 👍🏻

You’ve done it now Parts !!! 🤣😂😆😉

I could see all other tank numbers through the gunsight or on externals as gunner. I could not see the numbers on the side of our tank on externals when I was gunner until we finished mission and an external view automatically appears, then the number was visible. Parts was the same as well.

Exactly the same for me as gunner.

Good fun driving through that spectacular scenery especially at the beginning when it was nearly dark. The visuals were brilliant in the warm up mission. Might be interesting to start a mission in the near dark and have the sun come up ? The bad weather makes spotting targets difficult but it is very immersive 🤗 I know we had a long discussion on TS afterwards about solo vs multi crewing and the associated comms issues. As we all know very well, nearly all problems in life are caused by bad comms, so if we get that sorted by the next mission, it will no doubt be chaotic but much better 👍🏻😉 On that point my vote goes for all in the same channel (multi and single crew) but with whispers set up between the 3 members of each multi crew. Multi crews must get into the habit of pushing that whisper button every time they speak to each other ! This will help keep open comms from being so congested. As we confirmed last night, if you are on voice activated for normal comms, when you push your whisper button to transmit it prevents you from transmitting to everyone else in the channel. The only hectic bit will be if someone is chatting in the channel when you whisper to your gunner for instance, you gunner will hear both voices at the same time...... easy to overcome..... when you “whisper”, SHOUT! 😂 Thanks for making this happen Colin, good work !

It’s not a roundabout, it’s a chicane !

485th comprising of a 4 ship and 3 ship flight, (so 9 in all🤔 taking into account multiple personalities), were assigned to escort a Sqn of B25 bombers. After having taken the trouble to climb to angels 18 for a rendezvous, all we saw of them was a trail of descending smoke in the direction of the rendezvous point from afar. Shortly after that sighting we were assaulted by what can only be described as “absolute Fokkers”. The chaps were in no mood for fun and games having realised that our bomber boys may well have been similarly assaulted..... so we killed them. Superb wingman antics from Lt David Reginald and 2nd Lt HP Pookie throughout by the way, bloody good show ! No joy finding any bombers at all so ground attack became our focus. We had decided not to escort bombers with bombs so straffing would have to be the delivery system for today. Funflak had been experiencing technical difficulties from “the get go” as you yanks like to say. He was able to make a forced landing at a forward airfield. BA was placed under Capt Rea’s wing for his first mission, all was well until he fell out from under it on the way home mainly due to technical issues. We are hoping he will be back in the air with us soon. The ground attack went well, with great team work from pairs yielding a good haul. AAA this time seemed to be on steroids, always picking your approach up early and switching to the next threat readily, not happy with that, not happy at all. The current crop of AAA crews need to be terminated so that they are replaced with reluctant rookies ASAP ! Returned to home base with 5 undamaged P38s with 5 well toned and highly photogenic pilots at the controls........ What !?

As am I.....👍🏻

485th had pretty much the same mission brief as 402nd. Flight of 3 and a flight of 2 proceeded with 2 x 500lb bombs allocated to the Weeze bosh types. However, once again we came across a gaggle of winged box heads, this time Bf 109 G14s near to the front lines. All but two aircraft ditched bombs to engage. All black hearted nasty Nazis were knocked down. As an encore yet more 109s entered the arena (K4s) and were afforded similar treatment. We then communicated with those splendid 402nd chaps and established a “don’t get in each other’s faces” ground attack strategy which avoided any collisions and associated name calling and fist waving, (mostly). Ground targets were sparse but we picked a few off using our remaining bombs for tricky bush bosh bashing. Patrolled north of Weeze along front lines picking off a few more anti social types on the ground before heading over to Emmerich where we found a number of AAA units to have a go at. All targets destroyed BUT, for the loss of Flt O John Johnson whilst attacking a particularly well concealed unit hiding in a pedestrian area adjacent to McDonalds and a Sainsbury’s food hall. Dam shame, he was killed only meters from the home of the Big Mac and a quantity of “taste the difference” Tiramisu. With very little ammo left we returned to our home base, one man down. 2nd Lt Jean Artage showed excellent accuracy with both bomb and bullet on a couple of occasions, well done that man. Lt David Reginald provided excellent wingman cover for my sorry arse, much appreciated. Capt Rea made the entire mission look like a casual sashay, not bad for a popinjay ! Top man.

Reporting for duty scooter....

Panther if possible please Col. 3 man crew : Sidly, Parts and myself, ( the three muskrat tears), will rotate positions and the turret as required.

Thanks sidly, excellent work ! Printed them off mate 👍

Did another two man crew mission in a winter village this morning. It was very different from an open terrain battle where multi crew gives you no real advantage. Having two pairs of eyes trying to spot concealed enemy tanks amongst buildings was a big help but more importantly the driver can react quickly to an enemy tank turning its turret in our direction by driving the tank behind cover quickly once we had fired a shot at the target which did not knock it out first time. The driver needs to concentration on driving only, always keeping a rapid “take cover” manoeuvre in mind. When we got it right it worked really well.