PWCG P-38 Lightning Strikes Co-op Campaign

[Reggie]

I shall be present and correct this evening chaps. 

[FoolTrottel]

Aaron Massengill unfortunately got hit in the head by anti aircraft fire. All dead and shift. 

 

 

Doug Grabowski reporting for duty...

 

[DD_Fenrir]

Mission Date 09/12/44

402nd FS - Fighter Sweep, Utrecht

485th FS - Bomber Escort, Gorinchem

410th BG - Attack Infantry, Gorinchem

 

Debrief:

370th FG

402nd FS: (Courtesy of Capt. Sean O'Sullivan)

Quote

Flying as a four ship, the squadron flew the long way North to the interception area, orbited the patrol point for circa 10 minutes and soon realised that the Luftwaffe were not coming out to play.
With the hunch that this could be a distinct possibility based on previous experiences, the squadron had equipped with 2x 500lb bombs for targets of opportunity. Working as pairs, at first with Red 1 and 2 flying top cover, with 3 and 4 dropping down to attack and then the reverse, all that was encountered amounted to a great deal of flak batteries with the hots for our behinds, protecting remarkably little in the way of juicy targets.

With 3 and 4 still up top, Red 1 and 2 were flying low weaving around the trees trying to shake the barrage when leader took a clattering of lead and shrapnel to the right boom of his aircraft damaging engine #2 and causing a fuel leak. Deciding this was all now a trifle on the risky side, it was decided to knock off and head for home. Heading South for the frontline still at low altitude trying to find an opportunity to climb, a column of trucks were spotted approaching a bridge by Red 2 that were flanked by AAA. With a bomb still hanging from his racks, Red 2 decided to drop on his way through. Sadly on the route out, with the AAA now very much awake he was seen to take burst to the back of the head and that was that. RIP 2nd Lt Aaron Massengill. We will certainly miss having the only pilot on strength able to decipher these difficult to pronounce European towns and cities!

Now firmly in friendly territory, Red lead climbed to 20,000ft to give best possible chance of gliding home should fuel starvation occur, though it would turn out that engine number two would give out first. Red 3 and 4 headed home as a pair with only a brief interruption to ID a flight of P-51s and all three remaining 402nd aircraft landed safely at Florennes with five engines between them.

Losing two pilots in successive missions is difficult to take especially when we are already at low strength, but this is war. And war is hell.

 

485th FS: (Courtesy of Maj. Mick Payne-Less)

Quote

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 !?

 

 

410th BG

 

370th FG

Awards and Promotions:

Major Mick Payne-Less is awarded the Silver Star.

 

2nd Lieutenant Roger Over is awarded the Bronze Star.

 

Personnel:

2nd Lieutenant Doug Grabowski has been posted to the 402nd Fighter Squadron.

 

 

Rosters:

TBC

 

 

410th BG

Awards and Promotions:

2nd Lieutenant David Crosby is awarded the Silver Star.

 

2nd Lieutenant Major Major is awarded the Silver Star.

 

Major E. Shoo is awarded the Bronze Star.

 

Personnel:

No changes.

 

Roster:

TBC

[BluBear]

402nd FS Combat Report - 9/12 - Engage enemy aircraft in the Utrecht area

Flying as a four ship, the squadron flew the long way North to the interception area, orbited the patrol point for circa 10 minutes and soon realised that the Luftwaffe were not coming out to play.
With the hunch that this could be a distinct possibility based on previous experiences, the squadron had equipped with 2x 500lb bombs for targets of opportunity. Working as pairs, at first with Red 1 and 2 flying top cover, with 3 and 4 dropping down to attack and then the reverse, all that was encountered amounted to a great deal of flak batteries with the hots for our behinds, protecting remarkably little in the way of juicy targets.

With 3 and 4 still up top, Red 1 and 2 were flying low weaving around the trees trying to shake the barrage when leader took a clattering of lead and shrapnel to the right boom of his aircraft damaging engine #2 and causing a fuel leak. Deciding this was all now a trifle on the risky side, it was decided to knock off and head for home. Heading South for the frontline still at low altitude trying to find an opportunity to climb, a column of trucks were spotted approaching a bridge by Red 2 that were flanked by AAA. With a bomb still hanging from his racks, Red 2 decided to drop on his way through. Sadly on the route out, with the AAA now very much awake he was seen to take burst to the back of the head and that was that. RIP 2nd Lt Aaron Massengill. We will certainly miss having the only pilot on strength able to decipher these difficult to pronounce European towns and cities!

Now firmly in friendly territory, Red lead climbed to 20,000ft to give best possible chance of gliding home should fuel starvation occur, though it would turn out that engine number two would give out first. Red 3 and 4 headed home as a pair with only a brief interruption to ID a flight of P-51s and all three remaining 402nd aircraft landed safely at Florennes with five engines between them.

Losing two pilots in successive missions is difficult to take especially when we are already at low strength, but this is war. And war is hell.

[Painless]

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 !?

 

[FoolTrottel]

3 hours ago, Painless said:

(...) taking into account multiple personalities (...)

 

Let's not do that Mick, if we did then 402nd would've lost like 4 pilots this mission!

 

[DD_Fenrir]

Updated Rosters for campaign date 10th December 1944.

370th FG

402nd:

 

485th:

 

 

410th BG

[DD_Fenrir]

Updated Scoreboards.

370th FG

 

410th BG

[BluBear]

Reporting in for today's P-38 shaped fun

[Painless]

Reporting for dirty skupper .

[Crash]

I will be there

[BluBear]

Some of you chaps might recall, a couple of weeks ago, whilst warming up before a Lightning Strikes mission I had a little tree-felling incident.
After a forced landing somewhere in the winter Rhineland map, I ended up skidding into some trees, ripping my wing off in the process.
What I didn't expect was to hear the sound of a falling tree, then looking behind and seeing it slowly crash to the ground.

I had no idea this was modelled in this sim, pretty cool!

 

 

[Reggie]

Chaps I am afraid I will not be there. Had my vaccine and am suffering from side effects so will be in bed early

[Squawk]

Reporting for Duty!

 

 

On a related note BluBear, I agree the trees are amazing.   Caught this during my system test drive.

Shot a Heinkel down and circled the woods waiting.

    

[Squawk]

As per the Italian P38 story told on the way to target in 485th coms.

I read it in "Fork-Tailed Devil the P38" by Martin Caidin.

The B17 pilot was Harold Fisher, and the Italian pilot was Guido Rossi.  Worth a look up.

 

Short version, A P38 got lost and landed low on fuel in occupied Sardinia.  Before he could destroy his ship he was dragged from the cockpit.

Italians tested the aircraft and Rossi hatched a plan to use it to great success attacking allied bomber stragglers.  Lieutenant Fisher was the first to survive the surprise attacks, and report the goings on.

Lt Fisher came up with the idea to use a YB-40 ( B-17 gunship) to decoy Rossi into attacking an up gunned B17 (16x .50's) by playing lame.

 

After finding out the who the Italian pilot was, Fisher painted the name and a portrait of the Italians Wife on the nose.  Eventually he ran into the Italian P38 and when he started talking about the guys wife, Rossi lost his cool and recklessly attacked confirming the P38 was hostile and giving the gunners an edge in shooting him down.

 

Rossi ended up ditching and surviving.  

Fisher perished in an aircraft crash during the Berlin Airlift.

[FoolTrottel]

Doug died.

 George Vanderweit reporting for duty.

[DD_Fenrir]

Mission Date 10/12/44

402nd FS - Reconnaisance, Frontlines, Julich

485th FS - Interdict Transportation Facilities, Dusseldorf

410th BG - Strike Rail facilities, Monchengladbach

 

Debrief:

370th FG

402nd FS:

 

Group CO's note: A difficult day, undermanned as you were with so many of your aircrew struck down with illness, and the loss on only his first sortie of 2nd Lt. Grabowski. The fact you still managed to get stuck in and score an air kill in what must have been something of a sausage party is a credit to you. Hope you find better luck in the coming missions.

 

485th FS: 

 

Group CO's note: A simply breath-taking performance 485th - 56 (!) ground kills in a single mission is, I believe a record for  not only your squadron but the Group as a whole. Sure, it is dampened by the loss of both 2nd Lts. Starling & Pookie, yet the fact that despite these damaging blows your squadron managed to continue on and rack up such a unprecedented tally of enemy ground targets is a credit to the fortitude of your pilots, the skill and leadership of the squadron and it avenges those fallen resoundingly. Magnificent, boys, truly magnificent.

 

410th BG

 

370th FG

Awards and Promotions:

None.

Personnel:

2nd Lieutenant George Vanderweit has been posted to the 402nd Fighter Squadron.

A new pilot has been posted to the 485th Fighter Squadron - we await confirmation of his identity.

A new pilot has been posted to the 485th Fighter Squadron - we await confirmation of his identity.

 

410th BG

Awards and Promotions:

Major E. Shoo is awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

 

Personnel:

None.

[wingflyr]

7 hours ago, FoolTrottel said:

Doug died.

 George Vanderweit reporting for duty.

Oh!! FT not again Bud. I must hurry back and fly your wing again and escort you home. There was a time I flew your wing and escorted you home 3 missions in a row.

 

[Painless]

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.

 

 

[Reggie]

5 hours ago, Painless said:

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.

 

 

Brilliant show chaps - and Major Painless you are a dab hand at AAR's - you should write for Viz magazine 🤣

[Crash]

I missed the railway station and flattened 8 houses. Must try harder.

[Friar]

...meant to hit 10...

[rox]

I wanted to join for my last Lightning Strikes mission yesterday but I took a power nap at 6 PM, only the power nap was so powerful that it lasted until 4 AM.

 

In any case, thanks a lot to Fenrir for the last one year (?) of this campaign, and to everyone else who participated and made it what it is. We're probably the most skilled P-38 pilots in GBS after this lol (at least in strafing pinpoint targets )

[BluBear]

402nd FS Combat Report - 10/12 - Recce in the Jülich area

Firstly, it was a shame to have such a reduced force today; some kind of clap-induced vertigo apparently according to Doc Daneeka, or was it something to do with the liver?
Anyway, flying as a mere three ship today, this was regretfully another mission of ups and downs.

Each aircraft took a couple of 1000 pounders as intel suggested there was an enemy advance in our target area.
Once there and with our patrol complete, we headed down to drop on targets of opportunity. Vehicles, artillery and AAA were all spotted to the South of Jülich as Red leader made an attack followed by Red two. On egress from the attack, Red two was observed to take an 88 shell in the back of the head. This is the second day running the 402 have been struck down in such a way and we mourn the loss of newbie Doug Grabowski. In the meantime, Red three had spotted possible enemy aircraft and had remained high to investigate along with our P-47 escorts.
With Red leader joining in, a short scrap ensued which resulted in one Fw190-A8 destroyed by Red three in a precision sniper attack and a further A8 damaged by Red leader. As the P-47s were keen to get involved, the now two-ship 402 decided that was enough for one day and headed home.

If pilot availability continues to be an issue, we may need to consider our options.

[Sid]

410th BG debrief

The three A20 pilots have a good routine...starting, taxi, take off, rendezvous with fighter escort, plan attack depending on cloud height and target type....

On this occasion Crash, Delta and Sid set out to bomb the rail facilities at Monchen Gladbach. We climbed out and up to the P38 rendezvous at Angels 12, picked up the escort and set off on the waypoints. Looking at the target we agreed that the best approach would be from the south as it meant we could have a good run in along the railway line with ample time for sight adjustments. The decision was made to level bomb from 9000ft. Our ingress to the target was uneventful apart from the fact our P38 escort went hunting sighted contacts and left us unescorted, thankfully this didn't affect us. 410th went south to Julich and then headed north to target.

We had a 20 degree starboard tailwind at 8 m/s on the run in so the drop was a bit choppy. Nevertheless the engine sheds and surrounding area got a good plastering with drops directly on, short and slightly left of the target. Good job 410th.

Got a low level, medium level or high level bombing job...? Give us a call......