PWCG P-38 Lightning Strikes Co-op Campaign

[BluBear]

Hoping to make it tonight, though I might be 5-10mins late 

[Jabo]

Should be available also

[BluBear]

2 hours ago, Jabo said:

Should be available also

You did make it mate - kind of.

You'll be pleased to hear, flying as you I shot down 5 aircraft and blasted 4 howitzers. 

Was it all a dream though?...

[Jabo]

Did it take this time?

[Painless]

Yup, with almost everyone killed or badly damaged, (with the exception of BluJabo until the very end), the bloody thing took 🙄

[Crash]

So, that means the campaign is back on?

[Painless]

Are we on for tonight Tom ?

[DD_Fenrir]

If I get home in time from Duxford, then, yes.

[Painless]

Ok mate, BoB display today of course ! Hope the weather was kind.

Don’t rush Tom, drive, (or be driven) safe old bean. 👍🏻

[Painless]

I know it was a dream but well flown 485th anyway.
A couple of problems…..we had Artie’s fartys at the start and then Fen had similar followed by a tickle from Dora.
Flak had a “speedy” landing which could have been worse.

Good show for a decent amount of air kills chaps, BUT….. at a cost. Next time we go cheap and keep the “cost” down 👍🏻👍🏻

[Sid]

As an example of co-ordinated flying and attacking the Tiffies produced a corker last night. Take off with 3 AI went fine and all 6 Tiffies set off to the target. Not far from the home airfield we flew past 2 parachutes....we think the escorting P47s must have collided because we didn't see them at all. On arrival at the target bridge we overflew to check for flak but there was nothing...the idea was to send in the AI to suppress the flak but instead they proceeded to attack the bridge and took it out first drop....right in front of Delta! They did that without being ordered to do it. Knowing that I will order them to loiter next time rather than let them muscle in...

No targets in the bridge area so we went hunting. We found flak and trucks around Wesel so I ordered the AI to attack ground targets. They became our flak magnets and drew 90% of the flak...lost 2 of them but we cleared out a lot of ground targets. Ammunition depleted we did a 'Brave Sir Robin' and headed for home. AI landed first, at the correct airfield this time, and we all landed safely.

Well done chaps!!

[Crash]

Are we on for tomorrow?

[DD_Fenrir]

Tentatively... yes.

I uninstalled and re-installed PWCG to the latest version then ran a solo test mission, which 'took'.  Success! 

I then rolled back the campaign so the evolution of the test mission was ignored.

We'll run as is tomorrow and hope it all works.

I have concerns that maybe I fluffed some coding syntax somewhere in trying to add a new player/persona - this should be easy but given the length of the campaign and the number of participants involved the user interface where you admin this stuff is now so bloated with superseded personae that I can no longer add or edit things there; I am obliged to manually edit squadron personnel database files in notepad and then manually try and match these up to a separate file that records which player had what personae assigned to them.

Could be that I've muffed one of these edits slightly for one person, and when they're in the mission it makes PWCG throw a wobbly on AAR creation. That's gonna be a stone cold bitch to tie down if so.

 

[Jabo]

Well done old bean - your efforts and those of your glamourous assistant (FT) are very much appreciated.

[Painless]

Great work Tom, fingers crossed the “stone cold bitch” doesn’t need tying down… they hate that !

Unfortunately I cannot attend tomorrow as it is my eldest’s 26th birthday but I hope all goes well and the 485th royally outperform both the Luftwaffe and the 402nd 👍🏻 
You have the conn Fen, good luck sir.

[DD_Fenrir]

58 minutes ago, Painless said:

You have the conn Fen, good luck sir.

Err... I am but a lowly 2nd Lt., Sir, shouldn't a higher ranking and more experienced officer be leading?

Lts. Artage or Apeehill would appear better qualified...

[Painless]

19 minutes ago, DD_Fenrir said:

Err... I am but a lowly 2nd Lt., Sir, shouldn't a higher ranking and more experienced officer be leading?

Lts. Artage or Apeehill would appear better qualified...

If you can persuade them to do so then yes….. 

….so good luck leading 485th Tom 😉😳

[Crash]

I will be there

[BluBear]

yes

[Reggie]

Apologies guys, I will not be able to make it tonight 😭

[Bob]

On 9/27/2021 at 4:35 PM, Painless said:

If you can persuade them to do so then yes….. 

….so good luck leading 485th Tom 😉😳

Will be there and would like to to give my support to the sensible initiative first introduced by our army colleagues of sending the lower ranks out in front. There have murmurings of late that the lower tone of conversation in the dining room,  strongly correlates with the loss of our higher ranks. We must do everything we can to ensure we protect the higher ranks, as at least the wine selection then includes a modicum of consideration for the food being eaten, rather than just the percentage of alcohol contained within the said wine.

[Jabo]

I shall be there - new (old) joystick firmly in hand...

[BluBear]

402nd FS Mission report (yes, really!) - 27th December 1944

Woke up from a nightmare this morning that it was perpetually the morning of the 27th December, how strange!

Perhaps it was something to do with the 5.30am mission start, we were all a little groggy and irritable having to start so early in this god-forsaken freezing country.
That said; Ophoven looked deceptively peaceful this time of day, they even managed to put the fire out that was blanketing the runway in dense smoke.

Our mission for the day was to intercept enemy aircraft in the area of Zwolle, giving cover to the 193rd Typhoon boys who were slamming bridges and such.
We took off as a reduced force of four aircraft (many pilots on leave / awaiting replacements / didn't read the mission brief yada yada) and headed roughly due North with a pair of precautionary 500s in case Jerry didn't come out to play in the skies. 

There must have been some miscommunication between the yanks and the limeys because they'd already hit their target by the time we got to the front line.
However, at this point somewhere near Nijmegen, Jabo flying as Red 3 duly spotted four bandits co-alt to our 2 o'clock. Four 190A8s - They hadn't seen us. We crept up behind in a sneak attack and let them have it. Both FT (Red 2) and I knocked one down each in the first pass, Red 2 subsequently destroying a second in the short melee that followed. I maintained top cover as Red 3 and Wingflyer flying as Red 4 chased after the remaining Focke, with Red 3 landing a number of crucial blows.
With the limeys calling for help with a possible formation of bombers sighted further North, we let it go as a probable and regrouped on a climbing heading for Apeldoorn. Shortly thereafter we spotted what appeared to be a pair of enemy aircraft in the circuit to land at the airfield near Arnhem. After some confusion it turned out to be the 193rd on their way back attacking the heavily defended airfield. I spotted a third contact trailing them high - another 190 it became apparent - with the hots for Crash. Firewalling it, Red 2 and I closed on the bastard as it was lining up for the attack. A lucky highly skilful deflection shot on the first pass from yours truly sent him to the forest in a fireball, momentarily yet satisfyingly spreading light on the dark fields below.

Meanwhile, Red 3 and 4 had made a run on the airfield, damaging a landed aircraft but upon discovering the level of resistance, thought better of any further attacks.
On the recommendation of the Typhoon boys we headed North East to look for ground targets around the IJssel river; a significant number of initially silent AAA were encountered and our bombs finally found their targets of opportunity. A successful period of strafing ensued but not without some damage to us. Red 3 had his rudder controls knocked out from the waking AAA and with a pair of hot engines headed South for a precautionary early landing at Volkel. The remaining three of us briefly encountered another collection of angry AAA near Doesburg on our egress, word must have got around of our presence, so we dodged and made for friendly lines without further ado.

Flight home was unremarkable except for the slowly rising sun, casting it's crisp bright wintry rays upon the brilliant white canvas of Western Europe below us.
A brief moment of apricity in the cockpit. Peaceful again, for now.

Well done chaps, great team work and a decent haul all things considered. Hopefully, it's the 28th when we wake tomorrow...
 

 

[delta7]

193 squadron were rudely awakened at an ungodly hour, Squadron leader squiddley refused to get out his bed due to it being too dark and cold and remained there cuddling teddy as two brave souls took to the sky. Take off was a bit hairy in the dark but we got off and made our way to target, without the yanks air cover,who as usual were late. 😃

It was difficult to see bridge so I dropped on some ground forces and distracted flak while crash  managed to get the bridge. We mopped up some ground forces then headed home.

On the way back we spotted bandits high  so called for assistance and opened throttles for home. We managed to outrun them and they turned away but were harassed near Arnham, fortunately the calvery arrived in time to assist and we were able to make out way back home and land sucessfuly.

 

[Painless]

12 hours ago, BluBear said:

402nd FS Mission report (yes, really!) - 27th December 1944

Woke up from a nightmare this morning that it was perpetually the morning of the 27th December, how strange!

Perhaps it was something to do with the 5.30am mission start, we were all a little groggy and irritable having to start so early in this god-forsaken freezing country.
That said; Ophoven looked deceptively peaceful this time of day, they even managed to put the fire out that was blanketing the runway in dense smoke.

Our mission for the day was to intercept enemy aircraft in the area of Zwolle, giving cover to the 193rd Typhoon boys who were slamming bridges and such.
We took off as a reduced force of four aircraft (many pilots on leave / awaiting replacements / didn't read the mission brief yada yada) and headed roughly due North with a pair of precautionary 500s in case Jerry didn't come out to play in the skies. 

There must have been some miscommunication between the yanks and the limeys because they'd already hit their target by the time we got to the front line.
However, at this point somewhere near Nijmegen, Jabo flying as Red 3 duly spotted four bandits co-alt to our 2 o'clock. Four 190A8s - They hadn't seen us. We crept up behind in a sneak attack and let them have it. Both FT (Red 2) and I knocked one down each in the first pass, Red 2 subsequently destroying a second in the short melee that followed. I maintained top cover as Red 3 and Wingflyer flying as Red 4 chased after the remaining Focke, with Red 3 landing a number of crucial blows.
With the limeys calling for help with a possible formation of bombers sighted further North, we let it go as a probable and regrouped on a climbing heading for Apeldoorn. Shortly thereafter we spotted what appeared to be a pair of enemy aircraft in the circuit to land at the airfield near Arnhem. After some confusion it turned out to be the 193rd on their way back attacking the heavily defended airfield. I spotted a third contact trailing them high - another 190 it became apparent - with the hots for Crash. Firewalling it, Red 2 and I closed on the bastard as it was lining up for the attack. A lucky highly skilful deflection shot on the first pass from yours truly sent him to the forest in a fireball, momentarily yet satisfyingly spreading light on the dark fields below.

Meanwhile, Red 3 and 4 had made a run on the airfield, damaging a landed aircraft but upon discovering the level of resistance, thought better of any further attacks.
On the recommendation of the Typhoon boys we headed North East to look for ground targets around the IJssel river; a significant number of initially silent AAA were encountered and our bombs finally found their targets of opportunity. A successful period of strafing ensued but not without some damage to us. Red 3 had his rudder controls knocked out from the waking AAA and with a pair of hot engines headed South for a precautionary early landing at Volkel. The remaining three of us briefly encountered another collection of angry AAA near Doesburg on our egress, word must have got around of our presence, so we dodged and made for friendly lines without further ado.

Flight home was unremarkable except for the slowly rising sun, casting it's crisp bright wintry rays upon the brilliant white canvas of Western Europe below us.
A brief moment of apricity in the cockpit. Peaceful again, for now.

Well done chaps, great team work and a decent haul all things considered. Hopefully, it's the 28th when we wake tomorrow...
 

 

Possibly the most romantic debrief I have ever read…. Good show 402nd !