(This is the Allied mission map for this frame)
Please be patient, this page contains A LOT of pictures.
(This is the Allied mission map for this frame)
It was Saturday, February 6th. The 73rd Squadron RAF, flying Hurricanes under the command of "hening" and assistant flight leader "scrump", had been ordered to take off from Biggin Hill and CAP the evacuation at Calais. Early on the day the weather was so bad the planned flights were postponed for a while (technical problems with the IMOL servers, the frame started about 30 minutes late). When the roll call finally came, our strength was eight planes.
(After take off, forming on our flight leader "hening")
We saw the Hurricanes of the 85th Squadron climbing southward under the command of "strife". We climbed only to 8k as we followed the 85th Sqdn, then began a zigzag course that would eventually take us Calais. I personally was very happy with this plan, as it would keep us from getting bounced by the high alt 109 sweeps.
(Formed on "hening", the high dots are the Hurricanes of the 85th Sqdn)
At about T+15 our radio pointman "topcat" flew into a stormcloud and had to RTB. He took off at Biggin Hill again, and "corvet" was able to vector him back to us so he joined us over the channel five minutes later.
("topcat" rejoins our squadron over the English channel)
At about T+30 as we were approaching Calais a we spotted a high dot. This high dot began to tail us, so we assumed it was a 109 recon plane. And soon enough the dot became the familiar silhouette of a diving 109. The German fighter made one bounce attempt at our squadron, hitting nothing as far as I could tell, and then escaped eastward.
(A lone 109 diving on an attack pass, not hitting anyone)
Two minutes later as we reached the Calais area, we saw first four, then a lot more dots high above us. We had no ID on them, they might have been the Spitfires of the 92nd Squadron or the 610th Squadron, or a 109 sweep.
(Several high dots)
We didn't have a lot of time to worry about the high dots, as less than a minute later we spotted a formation of co-alt dots inbound Calais. Those had to be JU87s!
(A co-alt formation of dots, most likely a group of Stukas!)
And then the fight was on! "topcat" radioed the sighting to the rest of the Allies, and our squadron attacked! I attacked three different Stukas, getting one kill and an assist. Suddenly I noticed I was the only Hurricane at around 5k alt, all the other friendlies were on the deck, and I spotted three 109s above me. Not wanting to be such an obvious target for the 109s, I dove on the deck into the Hurricanes vs. Stukas furball. I managed to get yet another assist on a Stuka. All the time I had to keep checking six, as there were now several 109s in the furball as well. I never shot at any of the fighters, I concentrated on evading their bounces and on killing the Stukas.
(Gun camera footage of my JU87 attacks, resulting in 1 kill and 2 assists)
The gunner of the last JU87 I attacked (or possibly a bouncing 109 I hadn't noticed) managed to jam my left gun bank, and as I only had 11% of ammo left, I began to look for a chance to disengage and RTB. Suddenly I noticed I had no enemies on icon range, and all the dots I saw were southeast of me, including a couple of pilots from my squadron. I sent several radio messages to "hening", reporting that I was going to RTB to F9 due to a damaged plane and bingo ammo. Soon he replied he was going to do the same, and at that point we found out that we were the only ones still alive of our squadron.
("hening" and myself approaching F9 to replane, at T+41)
We took off again at T+45, climbed to 5k and flew towards Calais again. At T+52 we were at 5k alt above Calais, and began to circle it, looking for low dots. A lone 109 was doing some lazy passes at us, but we left it alone, just evaded his passes. A few minutes later, shortly after "hening" told me he could smell the ju52s inbound, I saw two low big dots northeast of Calais. I dove in to ID them, and as I assumed, they turned out to be JU52s. I radioed in, and attacked the nearest one. There were only a couple of other friednlies in the arena, and nobody else was close enough to attack the other JU52, so after I killed the first one I attacked the other, who was already over the field dropping paratroopers as I caught up with it. So after killing the JU I began shooting at the paratroopers. Luckily at this time other friendlies arrived at the scene and helped clear the field of paratroopers.
(Gun camera footage of my JU52 attacks, resulting in 2 kills, 2 dead paratroppers and
an assist of the 109)
After the attacks I had only 12% of ammo left, and heard that "hening" had had to bail near Calais and thus had been captured. So, I was the only one of our squadron still alive (a weird feeling of deja-vu...). I began to RTB and managed to land at F9 without further incident. I spent the rest of the frame in the tower of F9, watching the Allied CO "dekker" land his spitfire without elevators.
("dekker" approaching F9 with a badly damaged plane)
(The Allied CO "dekker" safely rolls to a stop at F9)
This was my best frame in the Blitzkrieg scenario! Special thanks to our flight leader "hening", who after the initial difficulties managed to lead us into the battle excellently. We were exactly at the right place at the right time as the Stukas attacked, and again later as the JU52s attempted to capture the Calais airfield. We stayed low enough so the high 109 sweeps did not bother us, yet high enough to counter the bombers.
Okay, so here is my score from this frame. Totalling 3 kills (1 JU87, 2 JU52s) and 3 assists (2 JU87s, 1 109). I didn't even get discoed!
Game ID: -pate- Rank: Flight Sergeant
Handle: -pate-
Flying for: Purple
Fighter Score: 514.3 Bomber Score: 81.2
Last Sortie : 293.1 Last Sortie : 25.0
Last Kills : -mmax- phasev -ibon-
Last Killers:
FIGHTER STATS
Sorties : 2 Kills : 3
Landed : 2 Assists : 3
Ditched : 0 Current Streak : 3
Bailed : 0 Longest Streak : 3
Captured: 0 Network Discos : 0
Killed : 0
ACCURACY
GUNS BOMBS ROCKETS TORPEDOS
HIT : 628 0 0 0
USED : 1867 0 0 0
RATIO: 0.34 0.00 0.00 0.00
As this was the last frame of the Blitzkrieg I flew in, perhaps some summaries are in order:
This AAR brought to you by Patrick "-pate-" Aalto.