DD_Fenrir

Found these in discord; colourized, but a good job done I think. The originals were taken at Andover in Southern England prior to the move to France. Very atmospheric. Plus anything with a 402nd FS P-38 in it is automatically cool, and definitely trumps any other P-38 squadron image. Period.

Weather looks downright awful tomorrow, but the Met boys report a front clearing for the 30th October [to be flown on Tuesday October 13th 2020] We welcome 2nd Lt. Joe Walsh to the ranks of the 485th! Best of luck.

Debrief for 27/10/44 mission. 402nd: Air Patrol front lines east of Houffalize. Carrying bombs in case the Luftwaffe again refrained from showing up, Lt. Efftee was leading the patrol when bogeys were spotted 12 o'clock high - mistaking these aircraft for P-47s, the 402nd found out the hard way that their aircraft identification needed some work when Lt. Efftee's aircraft was jumped and hit by a Fw 190 before his wingman had time to warn him. Fortunately, Lt. Efftee managed to nurse his plane to just within the friendly side of the front line before bailing, though he has been slightly banged up by the experience. Sufficed to say the rest of the 402nd were not much amused by these actions and took the brazen Fw's to task, downing 3 enemy aircraft, the victorious pilots being 2nd Lts. Casey Baker, Bertie Finknottle and Louis Zook. Revenge was swift, but a statutory lesson not to pay lip service to the Jagdwaffe, even when they appear to be a shadow of their former selves - give them an inch and they'll take a squadron commander! Having used the majority of their ammo in the robust air-to-air engagement and finding slim pickings on the ground they nonetheless managed to root out a number of ground targets to lay waste to, though 2nd Lt. Finknottle picked up some AAA which hit his starboard coolant system and before too long rendered the motor inoperable. However, not unaccustomed to this particular situation he made it all the way back to Florennes and made a better landing on one-engine than some chaps manage with two, so nice work Finky - and part of the reason, no doubt, that upper echelons have seen fit to award you the Bronze Star. Congratulations 2nd Lt. Finknottle! Well deserved. Though you are starting to get a reputation for single-engined returns... . 485th: With instructions to engage enemy ground forces in the vicinity of Houffalize, the 485th was set to continue their record of excellence; however, things started badly with technical gremlins frustrating 3 of their pilots who aborted prior to takeoff. This run of ill-luck was compounded when Capt. David Prang, one of the ground attack luminaries of the squadron, apparently mis-judged his attack pass on an AAA gun and struck trees on egress - the unfortunate fellow was killed immediately. This combined with the enemy adopting well camouflaged positions and forcing some tricky approaches in the hilly wooded terrain, slightly frustrated the squadrons efforts this day. There were however, flashes of the squadrons previous brilliance, particularly from Maj. Payne-less, who alone accounted for 10 of the total 18 targets destroyed by the squadron, including an entire artillery battery who were causing heavy casualties among our advancing troops; they send their wholehearted thanks to the squadron and a freshly liberated case of something to keep you boys well lubricated as a token of their appreciation. So, in all, not the best day all round, and certainly some lessons to be learnt, but a solid performance nonetheless and the GI's certainly welcomed our efforts out there today. Good job fellas.

FT: there is option in the roster screen to 'Change Reference Pilot' - change it to yourself and you'll be able to continue.

Gents: family issues will mean that my attendance this eve is improbable; however, I do not wish to prevent the remainder of you from enjoying the campaign, so, if FT or another server admin is happy to navigate through the PWCG interface and generate a mission and admin the AAR then please do continue without me.

Do it...

Ok Mick I have edited the debrief to more accurately reflect your arboreal adventures.

Developing a fancy for topiary now Mr P?

We welcome 2nd Lt. Dennis Winger to the ranks of the 402nd. Scoreboard and Squadron Rosters as of the morning of the 28th:

Another successful mission gents. 402nd and 485th had instructions to search for and engage any enemy aircraft in their respective sectors - 402nd in the vicinity of Düren, 485th above the front lines near Meijel. Anticipating a lukewarm reception from our Luftwaffe adversary again, both squadrons elected to carry bombs should some ground targets make themselves apparent towards the end of the patrols, and again this decision paid off. 402nd found a number of airfields in their area of operations and set to with a will destroying AAA, trucks and parked aircraft across 3 separate airfields. The result? A grand total of 31 enemy ground targets destroyed, including 13 e/a on the ground with 2nd Lt Fenton Rea claiming a remarkable 6 Fw 190s alone. If they won't come up to fight, eh gents...?! This is a record haul of ground targets destroyed for the Group in single mission so damn fine work 402nd, keep it up! After a quiet air patrol the 485th again found targets to attack around the front lines ahead of the push by our ground forces in the Wassenberg area. Setting to with their usual fervor, the 485th accounted for 23 AAA and artillery pieces and once again earned the appreciation of our soldiers. Another excellent performance 485th and just what we've come to expect from you hard charging bastards. We were not without loss however; 2nd Lt. Dennis McFly of the 402nd hit the ground whilst attacking the airfield at Strassfeld. 2nd Lt. Sidney Gittens of the 485th had a close call with the flak and took damage and Maj. Payne-Less endulged his horticultural persuasions by collecting a tree during one of his strafing runs; but we are glad to say that they each made it back to force land at friendly airfields near the front. The Met boys say that the weather looks good for tomorrow, the 28th October, so keep the partying low-key 'cos you'll need clear heads for the morning.... [to be flown on Sunday October 4th 2020] The Squadron logs:

Hi Stella! Very nice to make your acquaintance. Rest assured that someone will be along in the near future to help you along; it's just bad luck that you join us on one of our big event days! We'll be in touch shortly to square you away a bit more thoroughly.

Bad luck Reggie, hope you feel better soon chum.

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.

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:

Negative Nick.

Also another skin to download! I've made some revisions and additions to my personal P-38 skin that I have been meaning to do for a while but hadn't had the time to get done till now. Please find attached. P38J25_402nd_Fen.dds

AP is also on his 'olidayze Mick so take note.

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/12826-game-updates/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-999607

A further complication is I suspect the game and PWCG don't attribute ground kills the same way. Example: say you and I each throw a bomb at the same ground target - Chris, your bomb lands first close, but not on; it detonates and reduces the the targets 'health' to 5%. However, my bomb detonates closer a fraction of a second later and finishes it off. Il-2:GBS registers this as a kill to you because you did 95% of the work, you get the message, happy camper, big grin, drinks on Chris. However, PWCG might not be so discerning - it might be looking at the logs for whose weapon was last responsible for causing the damage to target prior to destruction and hence awards me the kill. Chris sad. I think this is partially responsible for some of the lack of reconciliation between what the game tells us whilst we play the mission and what PWCG awards. This, with the added complication that none of your kills were registering at all (which I hope to god has been sorted by my tinkering, cos otherwise I am at a loss as to what could be causing the issue) means I'm scratching around in the murk trying to figure out whats going on with this particular issue.

Done. No more trailing spaces found. No way to do that through automation. I could attempt to manually edit the CampaignLog.json, the 19441021.CombatReport.json and 102370402.json files, which I did for your Ju 52 kill, however at one point when attempting to verify my edits had worked in the PWCG GUI it deleted the entire contents of the CampaignLog, which includes the results for every persona in every squadron - gone! Luckily I had a backup copy, but I had to start the edits from scratch again VERY carefully, and ensured the three matched exactly prior to opening the PWCG GUI again. It took around an hour to do the messing around, find out what needed changing where and go back through the lists - then another half hour after discovering the deletion of the CampaignLog contents and having to start from scratch; doing that for multiple ground targets? Sorry Chris mate, maybe if I was single and without sproglet but that's a big ask. I'd also require a list of your targets destroyed from you, where and on what date - the issue being that the PWCG has not logged the destruction of any target you have attacked; it's not like I can see that target x has been destroyed by "unknown" and just fill in the blanks. They just straight up don't exist in the logs. So I'd have to create them from scratch.

I think I may have found the problem Chris. After PWCG had not registered your air kill last night, I decided that I had to go start digging through the file structure and manually edit the entries to award you the Ju 52 kill. In the process I noticed a small typo; when entering your persona name I had inadvertently put a 'space' at the end. Don't ask me why but it happened. I suspect this has something to do with why your kills are not registering. I have corrected the error and hopefully next mission things should start recording properly for you. My apologies mate, my mistake, though I had no idea of it or the ramifications and it was only by chance that I spotted the anomaly. Fingers crossed that the fix sorts it.

Thanks Mick, and sorry you had a rather pedestrian experience. Alas, them's the breaks with a dynamic campaign, if I could ensure some sort of targets I would but I have zero control over that aspect. Debrief is ready... Well 402nd certainly had the lions share of the luck today, with the boys 485th left hungry for action. Having been directed to Aachen to strike rail targets in and around the city, on arrival the 402nd found pickings moderately slim. A single train with only a handful of wagons was observed in the wrecked station and a few AAA guns surrounded the station area. 402 made short work of these but just prior to completion E/A were spotted to the Southwest - on inspection these became 6x Ju 52! However, just as Leakage White flight were about to engage, Leakage Red Leader reported enemy fighters above Red Flight over Aachen - White flight disengaged from the Ju 52s and headed back to Aachen. However a flight of P-51s of the 354th FG covering us, and they apparently made short work of the enemy fighters, the only moment of worry being generated by a single Fw 190 which dived towards and through White flight but whom inexplicably carried on all the way down to terra firma and crashed with a spectacular fireball into woods West of the city. Now free to engage the transports, the 402nd took off to the Southwest and encountered the '52s formed in two flights of three and a merry party ensued; 2nd Lt. Bertram Finknottle downed two of them for his first victories - nice way to break a duck Bertie! The rest fell singly to Lt. Arjen Efftee and 2nd Lts. Casey Baker, Fenton Rea and Dennis Mcfly, the latter on his first mission. A full house gents! Nice work on the clean-up - the Krauts will be smarting that loss, though sending groups of transports out in broad daylight and CAVU conditions, one wonders whet they expected. One assumes a measure of desperation on their part... Gathering the squadron back together Lt. Per Fesser led the group to Eupen to see what they could find as there were still unused bombs hanging off the racks of some of their aircraft - it would be a crime to waste them. Fortunately a train, some howitzers and a smattering of AAA guns were discovered and despite the obscuring of the targets by heavy smoke in and around the town the squadron set to and left the majority of the targets smoking wrecks. However, Bertie Finknottle was in for some excitement when a AAA gun disabled his right engine. Fortunately he was able to feather the engine in good order and, after some discussions as to whether to make for Bierset or try for home base, took off for Florennes with Red 3 covering. At this time, Lt. Per Fesser called a general regroup and RTB, with White Flight taking the opportunity to strafe a AAA gun and an artillery position as they crossed the front. Finknottle made a beautiful singe-engine landing first and the remainder of the squadron landed without incident at Florennes. The 485th saw little of any remark on their patrol near Houffalize, but Lt. Artiesbi managed to vent the squadrons collective frustrations on an AAA gun near Malmedy. All landed safely. No losses today gents - and it's not often we get to say that, so a very big positive in that regard. Another gong has been awarded! Congratulations Lt. Arjen Efftee, it seems your superiors hold your flying skills in some regard as they have deemed you fit for the Distinguished Flying Cross. Well done that man! Drinks are on Arjen boys! Hold up....Where'd he go....? Weather is looking ropey for the next couple of days, but we are expecting conditions to clear on the 24th October. [to be flown on Sunday 20th September]

The Bounce occurs because of either: a) carrying too much speed b) too nose low on touchdown c) too slow The majority of bouncers I saw the last time I was observing the 485th landings were due to a combination of a) & b), and the two are connected; with a too fast approach your nose is lower meaning the nose wheel will touch first. It's rebound will rotate the nose up, adding AoA - and ergo lift - whilst you still have airspeed. This causes the balloon. You instinctively push the nose down - and it puts you straight back into the cycle again; your nose wheel touches first, it's rebound will rotate the nose up, adding AoA, you balloon, you instinctively push the nose down... etc. You will continue is this pattern until you run out of flying speed or the nose-wheel breaks, whichever comes first. The key here is pushing the nose down - don't. If it's a big bounce, power up and go around. If a moderate bounce, hold the nose high attitude (as long as it's not too high!) and use a small addition of power to manage your rate of descent to terra firma. Try to memorise the position of the gunsight reticule above the horizon when parked - this is the attitude the aircraft should be in just prior to touchdown.

As an aside, PWCG keep logs for individual pilots, accessed via the roster screen. This takes you to a pilot dedicated page that includes: personal log book detailing your specific air and ground victories medal box showing all medals currently awarded Pilot Photo (randomly selected from a library of pilot images) If any body would like me to screenshot their pilot page/logbook/medal boxes, then let me know and I'll send them to you, either via PM or I can post here if privacy is not an issue. As an example, here are mine:

So replacement pilots have arrived to bolster our ranks after the losses of the 19th: The 402nd welcomes 2nd Lt. Denis McFly. The 485th welcomes 2nd Lts. David Scott and Denis Richard. Rosters and scoreboard as of the morning of October 21st 1944: