56 were assigned to fly as 604 Sqdn (Rotol Hurricanes) out of Manston. During the leaders' planning 56 elected to take the He111's (pre)-reported to be heading towards Dover at 13000 ft. The planning went fairly well once we got the leaders together and thanks to Osprey for handling most of that.
We took off very soon after scenario start and climbed to 15000+ inland of Dover with the intention of being above the bombers before turning and meeting them mid-channel, avoiding 109s if we could. Two of our sections (5 pilots) were closer to the coast than mine (2 pilots) and ran into more Hurricanes and one or two lower 109s. We left them as we sighted the bomber formations coming across mid-channel towards Dover (He111s at 13000ft and Do17s at 8000 (allocated to another Hurricane Unit). About now some 109s were sighted. I called it all on leader channel and requested Spitfire assistance. My pair were closer to the bombers and went in first. The other five came in behind us but some ran into the 109s. The rest of us were able to engage the He111s. We knocked down two or three, damaging more but had to rtb when ammo was gone. More He111s fell later. One of our guys had some ammo left and went to help a squadmate still tangling with 109s but he eventually had to bail out from a flat spin. Another of our guys deadsticked at Canterbury due to engine damage from He111 return fire. Another of our guys had to crash land near the bombers target due to engine failure. I landed Manston wounded as did one other. The rest landed safe.
Total 56 score 4.91 which, the way the scores are allocated by share, probably indicates 5 and perhaps 6 shot down with others taking part-shares of the kills. We lost no pilots although at least two were wounded and we lost one Hurricane plus one badly damaged and three lightly damaged.
We had
no PC/game crashes. We did restart our games every time he server was restarted to clear memory (in case the memory leak stories are true). Several of us had skin download turned off.
We will be back for Adler Angriff next week
