Independent Swedish Airforce in cooperation with Icebreakers

Debriefing

The results from Operation Steamroller follow.

OSF and Icebreakers gathered Tuesday, March 31, 2200 Swedish time, to perform a heavy bomb raid on F11 from F16, using the new heavy bomber B17. There was some inital tactical problems, since F16 was currently held by the reds, but was under determined attack of the purps. Initially as reds, the mission attendees decided to switch back to purp and help capture F16 so we could get on with the mission.

Tactical plan

Since attendance was quite low, the plans for a two strike mission were scrapped and the green port escaped a certain destruction. Due to the tactical situation, in which the reds had control over the airfields to the northwest of F16 (F28, F29 and F18), a takeoff on runway 4, which would bring the strike group deep into red radar coverage and close to red fields during the initial part of the climb segment, was deemed too dangerous and takeoff was ordered on rwy 22. The flight path followed by the strike group is shown in the figure below. The colored areas depict air superiority, the circles radar coverage.

Flight Path

Strike Group Formup

At the time of briefing, the strike group formation was laid out as:

				-grif-
			-eden-	Element 1	-scout
	aple--						-neck-
g-o-d-	Element 3	kurgan				--th--	Element 2	grendl
	vvman-						-krug-
	Element 5					jerker	Element 4	stubit

saams of Icebreakers had to pass because of bad connection, and -zomb- decided to fly as our top cover. g-o-d-, a new recruit for OSF, was on his first mission. --th--, a former member of the 305'th bomber group and B17 badass, decided to join us as we formed up on the runway.

These pictures show the strike group taxiing to runway 22 on F16 and forming up for a start in formation, as well as on the initial climb after start. Unfortunately vvman- and jerker could not start with the rest of the strike group due to connection problems, and trailed the formation.

To Target

As the strike group closed up their formation and managed to escaped out of the red radar coverage without any cons the long and quite eventless climb segment followed. Several people had connection problems, -scout being the worst treated one. --th-- proved to be an awesome formation flyer as he kept himself glued to -neck-'s left wing as -neck- tried to get the hang of formation flying. For everyone but --th-- it was pretty much a first attempt at this kind of strike force, but everyone did their job nicely and the whole strike force was well within d10 most of the time. Unfortunately --th--, vvman-, and finally -scout were discoed before the drop.

These are some formation pictures from the climb, the first one is an overhead view taken by kurgan, the second is a section view from the leader's aircraft, and the third is a view of the formation from kurgan's cockpit. Note the CO calling -eden-, whose aircraft is seen heading straight out of the right end of the picture...

Over target

As the strike force crossed the IP and entered green radar coverage, tensions mounted. During the 8 minutes it would take the strike force to reach the target, there was a slight possibility that the greens could vector fighters up to our altitude in time. They didn't.

The CO made minute course corrections to bring the strike group directly over the target as the heavy 88mm flak opened up and black explosions enveloped the strike force. kurgan suffered a direct hit and went down in flames (I saw this in the external view but didn't have the sense to capture!) but managed to drop his bombs just before.

The first picture shows the strike group over target, the flak explosions can be seen, as well as columns of falling bombs in the lower part. -eden- is just in the process of dropping, and kurgan's absence indicates he has already given in to the 88mm shell.

The second picture is a map of F11 as the bombs have fallen. It is apparent that we should have had more lateral separation since the bomb streak is quite narrow. Nevertheless we managed to take out most of the heavy structures, hangars, tower, fuel and ammo dumps etc, while the northeastern part of the airfield is largely undamaged. It looks like someone forgot to drop their bombs and panicked by the hangars in the lower right. All in all, the 9*12=108 500lb bombs that fell on F11 doubtless caused severe damage.

Here, kurgan made a run for the Pulitzer. Dead as he was, he instantly changed country to green and stepped out on the catered runway at F11 to document the damage, while our bombs were still falling on the target!

Great shots! So cool with the explosions in the distance and the burning fires all around. What I'm wondering is what the greens build their radars of, it's still standing with a crater immediately next to it! Also, my compliments to Otto the flak gunner, he is still firing in the last picture despite the 54000 lbs of HE that just fell on the field!

Return to base

Despite some reports of low green cons over the target, no one came up to face us and the strike group turned onto the southern leg of the flight without firing a single shot! But now things would start to heat up. A large fight was taking place at F18, just captured by the reds, and the strike group's descent would take them almost straight overhead at increasingly low altitudes!

Configured for descent, 20% throttle, flaps down and doing 150 IAS, we faced the enemy for the first time! It was time for -zomb-, who had been sightseeing so far, to start earning his salary. When the we passed roughly between F18 and F28 the first red FW190's came in on our six. Despite the difficulties of staying tight during descent, the strike group was well formed, it was time to test our assumptions about bomber self-defense! Guns were ordered hot and the Eagle-eyeed tail Otto's acquired the incoming cons. -zomb- did his work well, dispersing the enemies so they came in one at a time, and a fearsome stream of tracers faced the FW190's. The first one went down in flames, the second exploded! -zomb- managed to down one enemy before he bit the dust and gave his life for the safety of the bomber crews.

Our kills weren't for free, however; -neck- and -krug- crashed and burned, and grendl was smoking. The third attacker, a Spit, managed to severly damage -eden- before his demise. -eden- fell out from the formation and tried to draw fire as his crew prepared to bail, and as the fourth attacker made his run the CO himself, -grif- was badly damaged. Not due to the attacker, but by his trigger-happy Otto who mindlessly hosed away at the attacker not minding that a friendly B17 was blocking the line of fire! When -grif- finally managed to order his gunners to cease fire one engine was completely shot out, one barely made turns and a third was in pretty bad shape.

In addition, the strike group had deviated from its course and was now directly due east of F16, in a bad position for a landing on runway 22. A sharp turn northwest was ordered, and -grif- releaved the squadron from his command as they approached the field. The damaged bombers, -grif- and grendl, had priority. -grif- was by now flying on one engine and made it down on the runway with the absolute minimum of altitude!

As -grif- crept off the runway, the other bombers made their way down. Here we can see stubit and g-o-d- making a beautiful formation landing, as well as aple--, making his landing sligtly less by the book as he set his B17 down on the taxiway! He was later called to the CO's office to face the consequences! ;) grendl got his damaged ship down without problems, and the final picture shows the remainder of the strike group parked. A long (>1.5h) mission had come to an end!

Conclusions

I thought this was a blast! It seems like most of us had great fun, and I'd like to do this again some time. But then we will do a two-group strike! :)

What about the questions we had before the missions?

Is the assumption that a large bomber formation can defend itself true?: I would say yes, but not for long, and not without losses. A determined fighter attack on a bomber group will certainly have a bad outcome for the bomer group, but not without a high price for the fighters.
Can a large bomber formation survive the heavy 88mm flak over the target?: Yes! The flak only damaged one of us, and even if that was a hard hit, I'd say that the strike was unimpeded by that line of defense.
Is it possible to keep a coherent formation for a long mission and under enemy attack?: Well... We didn't get a lot of practice on this, but it looked good to me. If enough ships can open up on the attackers, heavy maneuvering won't be necessary. (And with the rewrite of the gunner code in 2.01 it might be downright bad to start turning.
Is the effectiveness of large bomber formations limited due to friendly fire from Otto when killshooter is on?: Yes, at least in my experience! Being the CO in the front of the group, I had my Otto fire through the whole group when the cons came in on our six and after four attacks I got a really bad hit. In my opinion, this is something that should be fixed in the gunner code - you don't shoot through friendlies!

I did quite a lot of planning in advance, checking time to target for the two strike groups, climb time, radar coverage and flight path etc, and I think planning the whole thing and then executing it, with only minor problems, was a great experience! Thanks to everyone who attended!

-grif-, CO, signing off.

Please mail additions, corrections etc to me,

patrik@ucolick.org