Tuesday 11/23 Mission: Moscow 5

[WWCephas]

The primary goal of this mission is to disable the runways at Solodilovo airfield.  

Gold Flight will need to decide which airframe (Ju87, Ju88, or Bf 110) and whether to do low level or high altitude attack.

1000Kg bombs are recommended for scoring purposes.  (Read mission brief)

@WWCraven If I could get one of those runway Maps for Solodilovo that would be great to help Gold Flight make their plans.

The WW homebase is a new field as well at Staritsa.  (If L6 flies with us they will be mounting a feint attack on the field to try and draw any fighters away.  (More info later if this happens)

Edited November 20, 2021 by WWCephas

[WWCraven]

As requested, map of Solodilovo airfield for Gold and one of our new home base Staritsa.

Solodilovo Airfield _Gold Target

Staritsa Airfield - Home Base

[WWCephas]

Do we knew if and how many L6 may be coming tonight?

[WWDarkdiz]

As far as I  know, 3-4 confirmed.  They are downloading our skins, I'm going to install their F2 skins, I think thats what we are flying?

 

[WWCephas]

@WWDarkdiz ALL fighters are now F2's although White Flight does have the option for MC202 although I doubt that will happen.

UPDATED MISSION BRIEF WITH WHITE FLIGHT (JG51) PLAN

1/30/42

The Wehrmacht supply chain problems are creating havoc at the front lines and our troops have had to fall back in the face of a constant Russian onslaught.

Your mission for today is to destroy the runways and neutralize the airfield at Solodilovo.

The Soviets have recently retaken this field and are trying to build it up to extend their ground attack abilities to strike our supply lines in the rear.

 

BLUE FLIGHT: Takeoff immediately and patrol the ingress route Gold Flight will be taking.

BLACK FLIGHT: Takeoff after Gold Flight and provide close escort for them. Optional to load SC250 bomb to assist with airfield destruction if no fighters encountered.

GOLD FLIGHT: Takeoff and head 085 for 64 Km to bomb the runways at Solodilovo and then any targets of opportunities at the airfield once the runways are neutralized.

WHITE FLIGHT: Takeoff and fly °027 degrees for 40 Km directly to Solodilovo Airfield to arrive before Gold Flight. Provoke a response from airfield and then drag any scramble fighters to the East as far as possible from the airfield until Gold Flight has finished their attack.

 

RUNWAY ATTACK NOTES:  Recommended to use 1000kg bombs.

Each runway is broken into 4 sections for scoring. When a section is sufficiently damaged a smoke pillar will appear in that section and there will be a screen message and the Map will be updated.

Solodilovo Airfield runways are °090 and °056.

WEATHER: Light clouds with a 1200 meter ceiling. No measurable wind. -12° Celsius<

F2 pilots: Please do not change the 151/15mm cannon armament.

 

Map navigation assist:

Blue/Gold Homebase: Black smoke pillar.

White Homebase: White smoke pillar.

No enemy smoke markers.

Edited November 23, 2021 by WWCephas

[WWCephas]

Please make sure your inter channel whispers are set so we can communicate between different flights tonight in TeamSpeak.  Thanks.

[WWGeezer]

Will male sure I have the whispers in place. 

[WWGeezer]

okay...added White and Black to my whispers.  Will see what the rest of Gold wants to fly....

[WWChunk]

In the future, can we please stick to the Gold, Blue, Red, White, then Black order for flights? Makes it much easier with one of the MFD’s setup for whispers. No Red tonight is jamming me up!

Edited November 24, 2021 by WWChunk

[WWCraven]

A quick revisit of flight roles,

• Gold-Bombing
• Blue-Escort
• Red-Jabo/Escort
• White-Multi Purpose
• Black-Close Escort

[WWCephas]

I have pretty much been using Black as CLOSE escort for Gold in my missions.  I can switch to Red if you want but I associate Red with Jabo mostly and planes like the FW that do Escort and Jabo well where as Black generally more of a pure dogfighter who keeps enemy off the bombers six by staying very close.

Edited November 24, 2021 by WWCephas

[WWChunk]

That was one of the funnest missions I’ve flown in a long time. Thanks for the mission @WWCephas!

…and thanks for the incredible display of teamwork, Red Flight - @WWCraven & @WWPlague!

[WWCephas]

Gold Flight: I was unaware that Fake vehicles (used on the runway) scored 0 points so it is a bummer your stats did not reflect your good work.

 

White Flight:  The enemy patrol AI is completely random with my Editor routines and sometimes they might decide to hang out at your airfield, it is a battlefield after all and nothing is out of bounds.  My apologies for not warning you of that possibility though.

[WWCraven]

3 minutes ago, WWCephas said:

I have pretty much been using Black as CLOSE escort for Gold in my missions.

Fair enough, adjusted my post to reflect same.  If we are going to continue to slip into separate channels, then let's keep the roles for flights as noted above so we (me in particular) don't need to keep changing flight whispers.

[WWSandMan]

As I noted to Cephas in voice at the end of the mission, the only real issue we had in Gold was that the pre-selected load-out of 2x 1,000kg bombs for the Ju-88's did not actually load; instead we had 4x 500kg. They still worked, but not as effectively. And Caused Gold to make a second attack run after transiting halfway home. It was only then we realized we had two more bombs hanging under the bellies... 

Second sortie, we made sure that we had the mission-advised 2x 1,000kg bombs by jumping into the ventral gunner's seat to eyeball the loadout. 

While we didn't score points, we scored mission success on removing the runways from use. Gold only lost one plane all night, despite all of them being hit to varying (scary) degrees. Kudos to the escort and nearby fighters! 

Personal note to Red: Hope you guys aren't mad at me for defecting to Gold. I felt Gold could use another pilot to discoteque the bombers at take-off and landing.  

[WWCephas]

If I may make the suggestion for Blue's role to be called "Fighter Sweep/Escort" or "CAP/Escort" instead of just Escort.  In most missions I have Blue fly over a wide area doing CAP or Sweep (whichever you prefer to call it) or as a FAR Escort.  

Tonight's mission was a good example of what I would call Fighter Sweep (rather than pure CAP) as Blue ranged ahead to clear the path. 

To keep their title short  "CAP/Escort" might be the best terminology though.

Anyway that is my suggestion for Blue if we are trying to nail down the channel roles some more.

[WWCraven]

I think we're sidetracking the mission thread, so I'm going to suggest we move this side topic into a different thread.  Good suggestions Cephas.

[Braun]

Gentlemen,

Just popping in to say I had a blast last night. Big thank you to everyone involved. Already eager to sign up for another Luftflotte 6 JG51 guest appearance and fly with you guys again. 

~S~ 

IV./JG51 - W. Braun 

Edited November 24, 2021 by Braun

[WWGeezer]

Thanks Braun....it was a lot of fun.  It was great having L6 on a channel with whispers so Gold could stay in touch.  We had multiple times where bandits took runs at as Gold Flight and every time I saw fighter's coming in to protect us.  Nicely paced mission, plenty going on,