Wings~of~War: Long Odds

[Tiger]

S!~ All,

Currently there is an historic reenactment available on the Wings~of~War server via the admin panel. The name of the mission is Old 666. It is based on the events of 16 June 1943 when Captain Zeamer and his crew made one of the most decorated flights in history. Here is the mission briefing;

You will air start at 25,000 ft. at a heading of 260 degrees flying in a B-17E with no escort. You are about 22 minutes out from your base at Port Morsby when you are attacked by 15 A6M3 Zeroes and 2 Ki-46 Dinahs. Can you bring Old 666 home? This mission is in IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 v4.10.1 UP3.0 RC4 with GS v4.1.2. The server will restart if a single B-17E Bomber is brought down. It will also restart should you bring down all 17 enemy aircraft.

History

On June 16, 1943 a request went out for a special mission: an unescorted, single-ship mapping mission over hostile territory. Captain Zeamer and crew volunteered. Taking off at 4 a.m. to make use of cover of darkness, 'Old 666' and crew headed for Bougainville, where they were instructed to take reconnaissance of the Japanese controlled island, to determine logistics and enemy strength for the upcoming Invasion of the Soloman Islands.

The flight required flying over 600 miles of open sea to reach the target; By 7:40 a.m., with only 22 minutes of flight-time remaining to complete its mission, Old 666 was intercepted by at least 17 Japanese fighters (15 A6M Zeros and 2 Ki-46 Dinahs) of the 251st Kokutai Squadron, commanded by Chief Flight Petty Officer Yoshio Ooki. After making a pass at the heavily armed tail, the fighters came in against the normally lightly armed nose, only to find that this specific bomber possessed much-heavier forward firepower, resulting in two A6M Zeros being shot down. 20mm cannon shells from a third Zero smashed into the cockpit and nose, wounding both Zeamer and Sarnoski before being shot down itself. Sarnoski crawled out of the nose to seek first aid attention, but when a Ki-46 Dinah attacked nose-on, he returned to his guns, shot it down and then shortly thereafter collapsed. The second attack wave knocked out the plane's oxygen system, forcing the bomber to dive from 25,000 ft to 8,000 ft, where the crew could breathe normally, in just a matter of seconds.

By 8:45 a.m. the American bomber was over open seas, and the enemy fighters, low on ammunition and fuel, were forced to turn back to Bougainville. 6 out of 9 of Old 666's crew were dead or wounded in varying degrees, their aircraft heavily damaged. It was during the return flight that Zeamer lost consciousness and Sarnoski, still manning his guns, died. Upon landing, co-pilot Lt. Col. (then 1st Lt.) J.T. Britton told the ground crews to get Zeamer first, but the ground crew said, "He's gone!"; Zeamer, however, was not dead, and lived to receive the Medal of Honor; Sarnoski was awarded his Medal of Honor posthumously. In one of the most decorated flights in history, the rest of the crew received Distinguished Service Crosses. This mission was featured on the History Channel show Dogfights, episode title "Long Odds".

[Boomer]

Sounds fun Tiger, thank you!!! Just wondering about the multicrew, in the past when we put more than two people in the same aircraft it lagged so badly that you couldn't fly... I hope we can get some people together tomorrow and test it out.

~S~

[Tiger]

S!~ Sir,

I do hope that is not the case. I'd love to try this with a full house.

[Zombie]

Doubt it will work, been tried several times and failed with more than one gunner.

[Tiger]

So we'll get a pilot and a gunner in each B-17E and it will lag? Makes sense. That part now disappears from the text. Pretend you never saw that...