Biggin at the beginning

Monday July 29th, 1940

On July 29th, the weather was fine and it was expected that more attacks would be made by the Luftwaffe as flying conditions were as perfect as one could get. It was not until 0700hrs that the first enemy formations were detected coming in across the Channel towards Dover.

The observer Corps reported that the formation consisted of 30+ Ju 87 Stukas and 50 + Bf109s.

Inbound

 We decided rather than get airborne from the Forward Operating Base at Manston, we'd get airborne at Biggin Hill and fly down to intercept the massed formation. This would give us time to get to altitude and hopefully spawn some AI wingmen to deal with the large number of fighters.

After some difficulty with working out how to do this, we managed to get airborne and begin the short hop down to Dover.

We'd just arrived when Swoop spotted a lot of contacts at our four o'clock position. I could see multiple formations of high contacts at my twelve, then got a call to immediately break as we had contacts diving from behind.

Split S'ing down, I could see I had around 10 109's strung out like a washing line behind me.

Brigstock and Swoop seemed unmolested and got stuck in to the Stuka's which were now diving on Dover.

In a world of hurt

Evading the 109's as best I could and flying low over the town I tried to give the AAA gunners some targets. In desperation, I tried to get some assistance from the barrage balloons but to no avail.

Hurricane down

Swoop, Brigstock and Flash were having better luck with the Stuka's who were now heading back off over the channel. Multiple aircraft were seen to be damaged and losing altitude. However Dover had taken a beating.

The Hurri's recovered at Manston and got airborne as quickly as possibly as there were still reports of fighters in the area. Circling Manston, the radar plotters had spotted incoming aircraft from the South East.

Dorniers head for Manston

Around 30 Dorniers were heading for Manston at angels 12. Even with the additional AI's help, it was going to be tough to stop them.

We faired much better against the Dorniers than the Heinkel's last week. Swoop managed to take a wing off one of them in one pass. Despite our efforts, Manston still got a heavy delivery.

Craters and Hangar damage

Good night's flying. Well done Flash on getting out of the blast pens and breaking your CoD online duck.

Still learning a lot with the sim. We need to work out the radio commands to get the AI to attack the bombers rather than follow us round on a sight seeing tour. Especially as the fighting gets heavier the more we get through August.