Cav Trooper
Posts: 237
Joined: 9/7/2004 From: Clinton, South Carolina Status: offline
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<role playing on> Air Minister sir, I have the results of todays combat here with me and it is promising, however, I need to caution against reading to much into this. As you know sir, We tasked the nightfighter gents to pitch in today, and patrol the radar gap. They performed rather well, I believe that they did suffer some losses, but we believe when the LW sawthem committed to battle, we hope they will believe that we are short of fighters and fighter squadrons. The NF boys did produce a number of kills, however, once again the brunt fell upon 10 and 11 group. We are slowly getting fighters moved around sir, and hopefully over the next two days we can put up on grand day of big numbers of fighters against a portion of his raids. I will tell you sir, the good news is that today, we lost the fewest fighters so far, lost the fewest pilots KIA and WIA, but did cause our respectable foe, HS, 62 Aircraft and hopefully 2 or 3 times that in damaged A/C. Minister, the bad news is that he has hit us hard. Currently due to damage we can not replace any lost Hurricanes, as we have little if any production due to damage. We do have a number on hand in reserve, but we can not afford to lose to many until the factories have been moved and production has started anew. Now, Spitfire production is slightly above the required production levels, however sir, it could fall below. Engine production appears to be undamaged for now, however, it could be targetted next. Intel can not tell us what to expect. Sir, presently if our numbers are correct, we have lost less A/C than they have, although not by many. They are still stronger than us presently, I strongly wish that we could get a couple of days or even one day of weather to give our boys a wee little break, but not sure if we're going to be that lucky..That is all sir.. <role playing off> Well, Ron, you almost had me on the down hill side this time around. You did not exploit the Radar gap in the middle as much as I figured you would, so luckily I did not lose to many of my NF covering the gap by day. However, you did come back through the eastern gap, and I relayed my birds into the fight in bits and pieces. My decision to scramble the 12 Group when the raids you sent were over the channel did pay off in some respects, but only because you went a little more north of London than previously. Your raid to the western approach almost sneaked by me, but I planned in an effort to preserve some A/C and get strength back up did allow me to put almost 60 fighters up against your JU-88 raid there. But for both of us, more aptly for you, I was not able to mass my strikes against any one Air Column you sent across...I believe that it will just be a matter of time before I am able to put Leigh Mallory's theory of a big wing into play...I will salute you for opening up the score on me; So, folks, my gamble payed off in some respects. However, if you noticed above, I have not Hurricane production presently, and my spits are still ahead of the curve, but one or two days of strikes on them could start causing some major issues for me. For the most part, I've noticed two trends he has, and I believe that I can exploit them here soon, if I can get a breather of one day or even half a day. First, he always strikes early in the morning, and covers his raids as I have previously mentioned. Secondly, he does not really disguise the raids tactically as well. The exact targets are not known, but he generally moves in a straight line. Only change though is that this time I saw one raid of 100 show up as 100 bombers, but when struck, it was 60/40 bombers to fighters in one raid. Caused some headache here, but still was not expecting this much in this manner.. I am tempted next turn to do one thing and one thing only. Instead of contesting everything across the board, I am very tempted to surge everything against one bomber formation, ignore the fighters, and see if I can't put a hit on one formation in one stream. It could cost me points for unopposed streams, but might pay dividends one time. Then again, If I don't do it next turn, I may attempt it sometime here in the near future. This scenario is difficult to defend against, as there is no one method of defending it, nor can you really pace yourself as in a longer scenario. But HS is giving me a good run for my money so to speak, and I can only hope that I"m giving him fits also... So, let's see what happens next....
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3rd ACR Tanker 3/4 US Cav Trooper Brave Rifles "Professional soldiers are predictable; the world is full of dangerous amateurs."
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