CFS3
I know things aren't all rosy here on the SOH. Things aren't going well in the war either. But I thought I'd post one last message here, a post from the front, to hopefully cheer spirits in these troubled times..
I've been flying an historical pilot, Stan Goble, in a Pup out of Vert-Galant for 8 RNAS. He's my favorite pilot. I'm deeply invested in him now. Siggi's tactic of flying every mile with the guy (no warping for me lately) really does the trick. And he's the guy I was flying the other day when I had the miraculous return over enemy lines to survive and fight again. He's got over six hours, and has shot down at least three planes, but without witnesses, so no confirmed kills.
The past few days have been truly nasty weather. Rain, mist, low clouds, and did I mention rain? Buckets of it. What a mess. There have been two a day missions patrolling the front. It's a messy ride, tossing us about a fair bit, and so far, nothing to show for it. I've taken to taking pot shots at balloons and enemy aircraft parked on the sod, I'm so bored. This afternoon it looked to be more of the same. Seems like HQ realized these missions were mostly for show as they only sent two wingman in this flight with me. We headed for the front as high as we could, about 5000 feet. We were over the line, loitering, and I was about to turn for home when I spotted, far off, what looked like aircraft. We headed for them. As we neared, it looked to be two aircraft. Finally, some action. Boy, was that an understatement.
The two turned, heading back behind their lines. We followed, and almost immediately, from the right, another flight of 6 EA jumped us. Must have been behind some clouds. I turned on labels, and as these neared, I noticed all of them had names. That couldn't be good. Assuming this meant all were aces, I started climbing and turned for home, gesturing for my wingmen to follow. They were scrappy lads, though, and instead turned to close with the flight of six who were only a few thousand feet away now, and about 1000 feet lower down.
So I started turning up high, trying to conserve my advantage against so many, probably superior enemy. My wingmen found themselves with two enemy each on them and headed down to the deck. As the two that singled me out kept climbing to reach me, I took quick dives and bursts and then climbed again. This looked like it might have a chance of working, and I got one of them shot up fairly good when I noticed the first two chaps returning....with some friends. Here came 8 more EA.
These were not survivable odds, so I turned for home and started climbing. I looked around and saw that one of my wingmen was down (leaving the odds at 14 to 2) and the other had two on him still. They were a bit off from the large group, and against my better judgment, I turned to help him. He's my favorite wingman. I've come to count on him. And it's what I'd expect from him. About as I did, he got a good burst into one EA and I watched it spin in and explode. Guess I'll be his witness on that one. I dove on the other and got in a burst and gestured for Frank to form up on me and headed deeper away from the lines.
Unfortunately, by then, four of the aces had caught up with me, and tracers whizzed by my ears. I lost track of Frank in the wild maneuvers following. I saw that I wasn't going to outrun these guys, so the only option was to turn and fight. Four aces against me and my Pup.
We started the dance.
I tried not to ever stick on any one, no matter how tempting the shot. I was constantly swiveling my head to keep situational awareness of all four. Luckily, two of them seemed determined to fly as a pair, lead and wingman, and they were therefore the least of my concern as long as I kept both of them from getting behind me. I turned and took any burst I could on the other two. Mostly high deflection shots, but some hit home. I lucked out and wound up right behind one of them after exiting a tight turn and put a good burst into him at close range. One down, three to go.
But I wasn't getting off scot free either. A few times I took hits and my control authority started to suffer. I couldn't roll well to the right, and had to use rudder to pick up a wing after rolling.
But, I was still fighting. The two who were paired up split up and all three came at me. I got bursts into all three at different times, but I was running out of ammo, even shooting as conservatively as possible.
Where were my buddies? We were at least 2 miles back into friendly territory, and there were airfields nearby.
I had just about crippled another of the planes, but had only a handful of bullets left, about as many as there were in my service revolver at my hip. I leveled out on the tail of the one I'd come to think of as my personal enemy. He was one of the ones that first attacked me over the line right under the thunderclouds and had followed me deep into home territory. I was preparing to spend my last ammo on one last effort to down him when one of the others got a good burst into my plane and engine. Don't know how they missed me. The engine died, but, thankfully, didn't flame. I was only about 100 feet off the deck, so I dove and broke to shake the one on my tail, and then leveled out, which was very hard to do (I was basically flying by rudder alone at this point), pointed the crate at the nearest open area wider than my wingspan and set her down, hoping that one of the three left weren't lining up on my tail ready to finish me off. When I looked around, fearing the worst, I saw three new Pups entering the area and turning to engage the remaining EA. I got my crate on the ground without a spill. And the mission ended.
I hope my boys got those other EA and taught the enemy that incursion deep behind our lines doesn't come without a very high cost.
And I filed a claim on my ace. Pending, with a score of 80, so maybe Stan will get his first confirmed kill.
What an amazing and thorougly thrilling simulation. I'm still just coming down from the adrenaline high.
Whatever the mess currently spilling over from the front into these bunkers here, I'll always be deeply grateful that I found OFF through this forum.
See you in the skies over Flanders Fields.
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