Combat Comix issue 5: The Empire Strikes back (50 screens this time)

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Tonar is just a little too late to save his comrade who explodes before he hits the ground, which is especially frustrating to him since Bonger owed him money.

A single B-25 was assigned to recon the roads and attack our vehicles apparently, using terrain masking and flying very low (If the pilot would ID himself-I couldn't tell). FHere it takes out one of our 85mm guns covering a road.

The B-25 pilot then straffed a Panther guarding the same rd with no effect other than chipping the paint, contrary to what is often said on the Ubi Zoo.

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The air combat starts as the Luftwaffe escorts led by Rattler and small in number but large in grit (and testicular fortitude) waded into the heavy allied CAP over the beach where the transports were unloading. Our 109Fs and FWs wound up in a hornets nest of Spit mk8s, Seafires, P-51Bs, and Jugs. The fight quickly wound up on the deck.

The large fight could itself generate an extensive thread, but wound up in several daisy chains where the Luftwaffe fighters were always heavily outnumbered, but held their own rather well. Here another daisy chain erupts as Funflak closes on Friar who is chasing a Seafire who is chasing Rattler; a scenario that repeated itself many times.

Funflak's Jug overshoots Friar, who reacts quickly.

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Friar's four 20mm at point blank range blow the 47 apart, and another allied pilot becomes fishfood after yet another furious dogfight.

As Funflak hits the water, Friar sees his wingman below him being harried by a variety of Allied aircraft, all shooting at Rattler.

B Bloke finally comes outta the stratosphere with tremendous speed and angles for a shot at Rattler while Seafires continue firing.

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Bloke closes to near point blank and takes off Rattler's rudder, as the FW has taken heavy damage. Allied buzzards fill the sky smelling blood. The forces of evil are like that.

Rattler eventually goes in from B Bloke's fire and the other damage he has recieved. Meanwhile, his wingman Friar runs for it but also has a month's worth of allied aircraft production behind him. He managed to belly in and made it back to our lines. Being he is our padre, he stopped by a local convent to see if the nuns needed any......."help". Apparently they did, as he has yet to report in.

Directly above this, the 109Fs are mixing it up with the same planes, plus some Hellcats assigned to protect thier shipping. Here Cold Gambler takes out the evil Doubletap, leading ace of the allied forces. He won't be straffing any school buses or orphanages this misn.

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Badaim, as all the Luftwaffe fighters, was totally surrounded and giving as good as he got. Here he continues to engage despite his engine burning.

Here Painless, as opportunistic as ever, adds to his damage in a head on pass as Badaim continues firing.

Knight also gives the allied pilots a hard time, as he is outnumbered by about 3 to 1 like the other axis pilots are. The 109s used excellent tactics but were also just overwhelmed, though they were totally successful in fulfilling their misn to keep the fighters off the bombers.

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While Badaim, Cold Gambler, and Knight are keeping them busy in their 109s along with Rattler's flight in the FWs, the 110s led by Lt. Enforcer of the illustrious Hellhounds k9 squadron (me btw), approach the enemy shipping unmolested by fighters that are too busy tangling with our guys. I see that the carriers are nowhere to be found, so I order my flight to attack the shipping. The sky is full of a big furball and enemy fighters are on either side of us, so we don't have time to stick around.

I nose over in a steep dive to get down on the deck for a skip bombing run on a tanker, almost making my gunner Psycho lose his cookies. YUP, I had one of our best aces as a gunner, so I felt pretty comfy, even if I was bouncing him all over the cockpit. I dropped low and close to the ship.

I pull up hard with my throttles firewalled as Psycho tells me I hit the target...woo hoo.

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In all the excitement, I accidentally hit my nav lights, making me the priority target for any bandits that see me, like Tonar in his Hellcat, who is the only fighter to break through our escorts at this point. My lights are like a sign saying "kill me, kill me". Well, I never claimed to be a rocket scientist. Undoubtedly the enemy thinks that I have taken the valiant action to help guide my planes on target.

Fortunately for me, Tonar gets so fixated on killing me that he flies directly in front My flightmenber Jabo, who opens up with his four cannon as my bomb explodes in the tanker's bowels.

A puzzled and alarmed Tonar pulls off target with a damaged engine and goes RTB.

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Tonar does an incredible job of energy management as he goes dead stick on approach to his runway. Note the hiding enemy carriers in the background at BG's resort he just opened on the Italian beach.

Tonar nearly makes it home intact, but wipes out just a few hundred meters from the runway. He dejectedly hauls ass, wondering how he will explain this to his comrades and the command staff. Taken out by a 110 loaded with ordinance......"I thought these things were supposed to be vulnerable as hell" he later tells his commander. Unfortunately for us, the SEOW does not count this plane as lost. BG can afford to have anything repaired.

Meanwhile, I and my section 8 gunner haul ass on the deck outta there. We wind up right over the town and base that had been getting beat up the entire misn up to this point. Just my luck. One Hellcat sees us and rolls into attack, Psycho bringing his twin MG-15s to bear and giving him a short squirt (sort of like the conception of many of the allied pilots we face).

I change course and hug the ground, as the Hellcat amazingly loses us in all the excitement.

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Jabo hits his target as well and overflies his victim.

At the same time, the Stuka flight, loaded with the SC1800 nukes, looks for the carriers, arriving shortly after we do, and in the middle of the furball. However, JP, ejects to act as an observer to give us intel on the enemy shipping movements. This actually had nothing to do with him assigning the space bar (biggest key on the board) to the bail out command and accidentally hitting the thing. That was a rumor started to confuse the allies.

Campi is the only pilot to find the carriers and boldy atacks......they were hidden in a sound a few klicks away to the south.

OK , I got a damn stinking electrical storm going on here......back to finish this as soon as it stops. Damn

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OK, storm over. Im back dammit. As our intrepid Stuka pilot head toward the flattops, BG attacks him. He needs more slave labor to help build condos at his seaside resort he opened, especially since they have lost both KGV class battleships and thier 14 in guns which came in really handy for digging holes for such projects.

Campi tries to get his bomb off, but is unable, traveling over the deck of the Brit carrier. This captured photo was taken on the ships flight deck and was captured when we found a courier trying to sneak into the battle area.

Here's another shot of him taken from the superstructure. It's just a neat shot.

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Meanwhile, Greyknight and Bear attack the transports scoring one each. Here GK pulls off after blasting one.

Bear dives to the water to make a skip bombing run as GK pulls off to the upper left.

Bear drops though the angle isn't the best. No time to improve it as the place is crawling with allied fighters. The huge bomb heads toward the ships hull.

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The bomb is on target, but bounces above the deck and can be seen by the mast as it sails over the ship. I thought it was a miss, as the bomb sailed a good ways past the ship before it hit the water and exploded. Howver, it's so powerful that it sprang the hull plates and the ship sank.

Unfortunately this attracts the attention of every allied pilot in theatre. Here Bucky drops his tank as he lines up to attack the two stukas as they egress.

B Bloke attacks Greyknight's Stuka, but is not able to bring it down with several passes on the wildlly manuvering Stuka.

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Bear fights back and puts a few holes in his tormentors, as does GK.

Greyknight shoots a Jug that is attacking, and manages to escape it and several other fighters.

Painless takes over attacking Bear and flies incredibly low to get under him in some pretty amazing airmanship. He leaves a trail on the water.

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Bear's gunner scores Painless's Merlin, magically managing to shoot below the tail as Stukas are prone to do. First time I was ever glad they did this.

Painless wisely turns back to base and Bear goes feet dry on his way back to Axis lines. Both are trailing smoke.

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Meanwhile the allies are RTB, and the Canadian robber baron BG his mind on his many aquisitions and not on his flying.

And he forgets to lower his gear..........

As I approach my base, on a rather large runway, my gunner reminds me to watch my flying, reminding me how glad I am that I never got married, espeically to a naggy bitch like him. I'm sure he is wondering about the fact that HE is the one called Psycho.

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I dismiss his concerns as the 110 is the easiest plane in the med to land, and I shot about 20 landings that morning with no problem. Well.........

All I could do is sit in my humiliation as my gunner shook his head and reminded me not to be a runway hazard

The allied pilots make it home to, although a Hellcat and two Spits bellly in, the two spits on the beach. None of them are counted lost and are recovered though. This was a tough fight, but the luftwaffe is still a force to be dealt with. War is all hell.

If I left anyone out or mis identified anyone, please let me know. This is about as good as I could do, as there was a great deal going on at the same time. Was a great misn, and I salute our allied opponents on making this a real challenge.

[Knight]

you got an awsome shot of my 109 in half and on fire, thats just painful to look at

[BBloke]

Sweet read Carl.

[Friar]

Message Received from Sisters of Lost Virtue, Northern Italy:

Well done Enforcer, great piece of work.

I shall be returning to duty....sorry guys, time for my massage.

Friar.

[JensenPark]

Very good Herr Karl!

Best one yet.

Thanks for highlighting my stupidity by the way...thanks a whole bunch.

[Enforcer57]

Hey JP, I tried to cover for you. I thought the forward scout in the water thing was pretty...........well, actually it wasn't plausible at all.

I on the other hand, have never done anything stupid.....other than the taxi incident where I ran into the tail of the 110 that time, and my running off the runway and crapping out on take-off, and letting a switch file change my game to an old version accidentally, or......well, that's enough.

Vee vill do better this time.

[Tonar]

LOL!!!

I can't stop being amazed by your story telling Enforcer!!

Superb ~S~

[Enforcer57]

Yeah man, I heard Jabo yelling something about "that hellcat came outta nowhere and flew right in front of me, so I shot 'im". He was really amazed at the shot. Man I knew I had to see what the deal was on that. You must've caught the edge of the burst and a 20mm or two, since a 30mm woulda been kaput city.

A little bit after we withdrew, my gunner (Psycho) said "you got your lights on man?" I looked out at my wings and nearly pooped. I had no idea that I'd been saying "kill me" as I made my run.

The clincher was when I took this screen shot of you hauling outta the crash and saw the look on the pilot's face. I nearly fell outta my chair,and I just knew what I had to do.You almost made the runway to.