S3 Series

Oh boy....The Allies took it to us in Frame 4.

There was a bit of trouble getting the Dr's buffs launched (Darryl's TS issues may have been the cause) and as a result did not launch until almost T+5. The 4th held in tower for the DR's and at about T+4 launched from field 6 and climbed to await the launch of the buffs. The entire mission to hit F83 was a bust. The buffs were spread out, as a result, our escort was spread out. The DR's low numbers and spread out targets at F83 meant they needed more than one pass to close. The DR's flipped on the Target and dropped but did not close. Several 4th went down to try and close, dropping ordinance on the field but ack was too heavy to risk straffing.(F83 was closed later in the frame)

In the meantime, the Allies were slicing down the middle of our front. Closing and capturing fields quickly. CO of allies, TMOA asked for help up north to slow the allied advance. My mistake was to hold off on these orders to go North while I tried to protect the DR's on their 2nd pass hoping that closing 83 would distract and/or disrupt the allied advance.

It became apparent that we could no longer ignore the loss of fields in the N, I dispatched 4 190's of the 4th to the N while retaining the 109's to escort the DR's. However when our 190's got North, they were vastly out numbered and were at a lower alt than the allied fighters. They bid a quick retreat.

The Allies continued their air assault, pushing to our home base of F6. They pounded F6 with very high B-24's and straffed the field with low fighters. Our numbers were too low and we were quickly overwhelmed. The 4th continued a valiant fight to defend 6, but were eventually pushed back all the way East to F8. We launched several fighters in a last ditch effort to keep F6 from being captured, but we could not stop the relentless attack of wave after wave of allied troop transports and fighter escort. F6 was lost.

The 4th bid a hasty retreat to F8, regrouped and tried to rebase at F20. We were jumped by several allied fighters as we were passing F86. Several 4th were killed.

Our last effort was a small attack on F41 and F42 launched from F20. F41 was closed and F42 hit hard, but the allies pursued us again and we were unable to capture.

In the end, we have a small hold in the North at F4 and a moderate hold in the South thanks to JG-51 and a few DR's capturing 3 fields F94, F20 and F83.

While the evening was a big morale hit for the Axis, having our territories cut in half, we did have a bit of amusement as a 2 of our pilots, Robert and Victim dragged 6-10 allied fighters from F20, to F94 and finally to F86 where they landed safely..barely escaping death on several occasions.

We gave them a fight, but being outnumbered 2 to 1 and launching 5 minutes late, put us at a disadvantage from the start.