1700hrs: The combat areas now switched the west. Some 60 Bf109s and 25 Bf110s were escorting a formation of 40 Ju87 dive bombers and were detected to the south of Portland. 10 Group despatch 87 Squadron Exeter (Hurricanes) and 213 Squadron Exeter (Hurricanes) to intercept. Soon after, now realizing the size of the enemy force, 234 Squadron Middle Wallop (Spitfires) were scrambled while 609 Squadron Warmwell (Spitfires) were placed at readiness in case they were needed......
The combined strength of the British fighters was about 20 aircraft, while the German force boasted a combined strength of 125.
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| 109's at height |
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| Incoming |
With the new Team Fusion patch, things have improved significantly. Aircraft performance is closer to the real life perfomance and flying at altitude is possible. Lots of additional goodies, like contrails and the superb reflections from the plane surfaces.
We took off as a four ship which had the hair standing up at the back of my neck, the noise was incredibłe.
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| Sun glinting off the starboard wing |
We faced 40 Ju87's, 60 109's and 25 110's. Defending, we had 12 Spits and 6 Hurries, plus our 4 Spits, so in all pretty poor odds.
It didn't take long before we spotted the contrails high over us, we quickly got seperated and seemed to find a seperate part of the incoming enemy force to deal with. Splash had the 109's, WB and Osprey had the Stukas and I had the 110's.
For the next ten minutes or so, I was just trying to stay alive. I was having to lose height as the 110's were way above. During the odd break I got off a couple of snap shots and managed to get one smoking, though most of the time it was Split S, check six, locate the next attack, break, check six, break, split S, check six.....
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| 110's with Swanage in the background |
Having lost about 16,000 ft, the 110's finally broke towards the needles and I managed to pick off a couple of stragglers.
Splash, having escaped from the 109's with Brigstock had picked up the formation and got stuck in.
Osprey had to dead stick onto the Isle of Wight, whilst the rest of us headed back to base.
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| Splash returns to base |
A good mission, with no lag/slowdowns - the modified netcode has probably helped. If this is the sign of things to come from Team Fusion, this game will soon begin to live up to what it should have been.
Congrats to Brigstock who picked up a DFC for his 10th kill in this life.
