Intense IL2 1946 Patrol

[Stealth Hunter]

I decided I'd go back to playing for a while. Anyway, the date was March 23, 1942 on the Russian Front. I was playing as Oberst Heinrich Albrecht von Kempf in a BF-109 over Smolensk (using the dynamic campaign mod). Anyway, I went up about 0800 hours and came back down at 0900 hours to JG1's home base. I'd already gotten 86 kills under my belt in the entire campaign, and was looking forward to making several more (about an 80% difficulty level). I was flying along until I spotted a flight of 4 YaK fighters. Juicy and challenging targets. As it was, I ordered my wingmen to attack. It was an even battle, 4 on 4, and it was VERY intense.

Immediately upon engagement, I flew after their leader, who was lagging behind the flight for some reason (never take the ones in the front first; you'll have his friends on your ass in no time). He managed to evade me --twisting, turning, looping-- for about a minute until he finally straighted his flight path out. I opened up on him with my cannon and machine guns and watched his rudder break away. Cotton-white fuel began to streak back into the sky, and I knew he was finished. One more burst, and he went down without a tail (bastard had the audacity to break apart on me when I wasn't finished with him!), plummeting at such an insanely fast speed it seemed he'd break apart before he'd even touch the ground (we were at a relatively high altitude: 16,000 feet).

I reared 'round to my left and began attacking the other three YaK fighters, only to find that two of my wingmen were going down (one had lost his engine and the other was burning; horrible way to go). It was just me and No. 4 going against the remaining Yaks (all of which were very much intact... one more reason to doubt the capability of my fellow pilots...), so the battle was still close. We might be down by a bit, but not by much. He engaged one green YaK that was going into a dive... I didn't... and I lived. The two nearly collided, although the YaK managed to pull up in time to avoid a wing-tip on wing-tip hit. However, the YaK got the best of No. 4, and he fired several rounds into the cockpit, apparently killing Ulrich (the pilot of No. 4). He slowly dived away from us, and that was that.

No time to think or grieve. I was busy trying to evade the streaking tracers flying past my plane, several of which had struck me. Then, MORE TROUBLE. Two MiG fighters ascended from below up to join the fight. "Just ****ing great!" I was thinking. Things were looking bad, but then things began looking up toward my situation. As the MiGs began to gain on me, that also began to focus their fire on me. After a few loops and twists, their fire hit the wings of one of the YaKs, sending it down in a spin. Tack up two for the moment, but don't get too cocky. We're not finished yet...

I began descending to 300 feet. My quarries began to follow, as I wanted them to do, so my next decision was to get EXTREMELY low. I couldn't have been more than three or four feet away from hitting the ground as they broke away for altitude (like jackals moving away to let the prey weaken into an extremely easy to hit position). I shot up immediately and took out a YaK, black smoke billowing from the engine. Suddenly, the MiG dove RIGHT IN FRONT of me. He couldn't have been more than 6 feet away (and I'm not exaggerating). He was so close it was insane! Fired my cannon and his engine, flame trailing backwards and consuming the cockpit. He slowly veered to his left --away from me-- towards the ground. I pulled right alongside him and watched him descend into the ground.

The remaining two enemies finally managed to outsmart me. As they took me on, I prepared to jump, because things were honestly looking VERY bad (and I've never bailed in this campaign before, not once in all of my 30 sorties). And that's when it happened. Their guns opened up, my rudder broke off, my engine began to erupt in flame, and my screen began going a dark red (meaning I was wounded VERY badly). They pulled away, and I began going down, my engine dead and still burning. For some reason, the fire went out, and I put my gear down. Made a crash landing behind our glorious German lines, and I was rushed to the nearest hospital. Got my kills, but I lost my wingmen, one of which was a very old veteran (had 30 kills!).

Now, Oberst Kempf is still in the hospital, and he'll probably be out of action for a while (severe burns, bullet wounds, and explosive fragments as well as a broken leg ail him). I'll try an post some screenies later when my Internet decides to move a bit faster (strange for a 768K connection).

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

I began descending to 300 feet. My quarries began to follow, as I wanted them to do, so my next decision was to get EXTREMELY low. I couldn't have been more than three or four feet away from hitting the ground as they broke away for altitude (like jackals moving away to let the prey weaken into an extremely easy to hit position).

Sadly this is something that works most of the time. There's a minimum altitude to which AI fighters follow you from deep dive. Same goes for the minimum cruise altitude, just try and make flight of IL2s to fly to their destination at for example 40 meters. The leader usually manages it, but the others climb to ~200m, dive down, climb back etc. I think this was added at around the time Pacific Fighters as I remember making missions with JABOs flying at VERY low altitudes towards their targets before PF.

[Stealth Hunter]

Fun for me because the bastards took the bait and pulled off (saved me anyway; I don't think any other person would risk going that low either).

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Stealth Hunter

Fun for me because the bastards took the bait and pulled off (saved me anyway; I don't think any other person would risk going that low either).

Yeh, that's what I do too when chased & out of ammo or damaged.

[Stealth Hunter]

Might want to put your gear down in case they decide to get dangerous!:rotfl:

[Stealth Hunter]

No, seriously, I've had that happen before. They take after you, get a few good shots off, and your plane is about to hit the ground and explode into a thousand fragments! Your best bet is to put your gear down in case you're afraid that you might tap the ground. At least it buys you time (only about a second's worth).

[Happy Times]

Youve got 88 kills in 30 sorties?!

[Stealth Hunter]

Yes. I love IL2... AND I SHALL CONTINUE TO LOVE!

[Venatore]

I can see some problems here, firstly you never called for fighter support via the radio? there may have been other friendly fighter patrols in the area, as soon as I'm in contact I immediately radio HQ to vector additional fighters and secondly to avoid your wingmen from flying like pansy's try radioing the message "request assistance" numerous time throughout the battle and they will continue to engage the enemy instead of just flying around like idiots.

I use this method all the time and my wingmen always fight with a bit more gusto and about 60% of the time additional flights come to help. Even if HQ knocks you back on the request for help keep requesting; they sometimes change the minds.

Nothing better then being in the situation that you were in and to looking up and seeing an additional x 4 Me109's screaming in to help you.

100% reality settings is the only way.

[Stealth Hunter]

100% reality settings is the only way.

Not if you want screenshots, which Photobucket has managed to corrupt with their damned bandwidth limits. They have enough money. Buy more bandwidth for the freebie users, you cheap bastards.