[Rain Man]

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B-17 #19 – War Dog

Pilot Baby Lee (10)
Copilot Brock Landers (10)
Bombardier Boozer (10)
Navigator Sure-Oz (10)
Engineer Gunther_Fan (10)
Radio Op. Lightning Rod (10)
Tail Gunner chi3fs (9)
Ball Turret Gunner Chief Faithful (10)
Right Waist Gunner Braincase (4)
Left Waist Gunner morphius (2)

Target: the U-boat pens at St. Nazaire
Mid-formation horizontally, high vertically (moderate vulnerability)
Distance: 6 zones

St. Nazaire is one of the toughest missions, with beefed up fighter defenses and flak at the target. The mission has to fly overland for a good distance as well, which means more opportunity to be intercepted.

Zone 1 Out: Britain

No enemy

Zone 2 Out: English Channel

No enemy

Zone 3 Out: Western Channel

No enemy

Zone 4 Out: France

4 Fw190s attack

Boozer fires, misses
Sure-oz fires, misses
Gunther_fan fires, damages Fw190
Chief faithful fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, kills Fw190

3 Fws miss, break off attack

3 Fw190s attack

Boozer fires, hits Fw190
Chief faithful fires, misses
Morphius fires, misses
Gunther_fan fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, misses

3 Fws miss, break off attack

Zone 5 Out: France – out of fighter range

1 Fw190 attacks

Gunther_fan fires, hits Fw190
Morphius fires, misses

Fw misses, breaks off attack

Zone 6: France (Entering Target Zone)

1 Fw190 attacks

Boozer fires, damages Fw190
Gunther_fan fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, kills the damaged Fw190 as it limps past the B-17

4 Me109s attack

Braincase fires, misses
Chief faithful fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, misses
Gunther_fan fires, misses
Sure-oz fires, misses

3 Me109s miss, break off attack

Me scores 4 hits
-port wing aileron is destroyed
-pilot compartment – gunther_fan loses the first joint of his right pinkie. In the excitement, he shrugs off the bloody light wound.
-waist – morphius’ oxygen supply is hit, so he switches to his backup system
-starboard wing – the #3 engine is hit and begins trailing black smoke

Me circles, attacks again

Gunther_fan fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, kills Me109

Brock Landers, monitoring the engines, reports that the #3 engine is losing oil pressure fast. He doesn’t think the engine will make it all the way back to the base. He and baby lee elect to keep it running as long as possible, especially since they’re still carrying their bomb load. As long as it holds out through the bomb run, they’ll be fine.

1 Fw190, 2 Me109s attack

Boozer fires, damages Fw190
Gunther_fan fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, misses
Braincase fires, damages the same Fw190. The Fw tries to limp away, but is losing altitude fast and obviously won’t make it back to base. Call it a kill.

Me misses, breaks off attack

Me scores 3 hits
-superficial damage to waist
-tail – chi3fs’ oxygen system is knocked out, so he switches to his backup
-superficial damage to tail

Me circles, attacks again

Sure-oz fires, hits Me109
Gunther_fan fires, misses

The Me, though hit, still strafes in and scores 3 hits
-superficial damage to radio room
-superficial damage to starboard wing
-superficial damage to waist

Me circles, attacks again

Gunther_fan fires, misses
Braincase fires, misses

Me misses, breaks off attack

Entering Bomb Zone
Good Weather
Light Flak - misses
The submarine pens loom below, and the flak is not as bad as expected. Boozer lets ‘em fly, and does good – 30% score

Zone 6 Back: France (Leaving Target Zone)

1 Fw190 attacks

Boozer fires, damages Fw190
Gunther_fan fires, hits the same Fw190
Chi3fs fires, misses

Fw misses, breaks off attack and limps toward home

4 Fw190s attack, dropping from a cloud bank to close at point-blank range! The veteran crew reacts well, though.

Sure-oz fires, hits Fw190
Gunther_fan fires, damages Fw190
Chief faithful fires, misses
Braincase fires, hits Fw190
Chi3fs fires, kills Fw190

Despite the heavy damage, the Fws are so close that they too have point-blank shots.

Fw scores 2 hits
-superficial damage to #4 engine
-superficial damage to starboard wing

Fw scores 2 hits
-starboard wing root damaged. It is becoming obvious that the German pilots are aiming toward the damaged #3 engine.
-superficial damage to pilot compartment

Fw strafes across the plane, scoring 6 hits
-nose – the nose gun is inoperable. Boozer and sure-oz now just have the cheek guns
-pilot compartment – control cables are slightly damaged
-superficial damage to bomb bay
-radio room – the radio is now inoperable
-waist – the control cables to the tail are now destroyed. Baby lee and brock landers can’t use the elevators any more, though they can still somewhat control the rudder. The landing will have a higher difficulty level as a result.
-tail – chi3fs grimaces as he takes a light wound to the right hip.

The 2 hit Fws circle, attack again

Boozer fires, hits Fw190
Gunther_fan fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, misses

2 Fws miss, break off attack

3 Fw190s attack

Morphius fires, misses
Gunther_fan fires, misses
Chief faithful fires, misses

2 Fws miss, break off attack

Fw scores 1 hit
-pilot compartment – gunther_fan takes a light wound to the right hand. He is now having trouble firing his weapon with the two wounds, both to his right hand. With no radio, lightning rod talks with him and they agree to change places. Gunther_fan also reports that he’s running low on ammunition.

Fw circles, attacks again

Braincase fires, misses
Chief faithful fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, misses

Braincase calls out that he’s running low on ammo as well.

Brock Landers shakes his head and reports to baby lee that the #3 engine won’t hold out much longer. The oil pressure is very low and the temperature is rising.

Zone 5: France

Lightning Rod is now manning the top turret gun. Gunther_Fan has opened up the ball turret hatch and has bummed some ammo off of chief_faithful, who says that he doesn’t have much to spare, either.

Baby lee, hearing the ammo conversations, orders the crew to monitor their ammunition and be judicious in their firing decisions.

3 Fw190s attack

Sure-oz fires, misses
Lightning rod fires, hits Fw190
Chief faithful fires, hits Fw190

Chi3fs reports that he’s low on ammo, but the only other guns with his ammo are the top turret and ball turret, which are both low themselves. Gunther_fan yells to everyone to conserve their ammo.

2 Fws miss, break off attack

Fw scores 3 hits
-superficial damage to nose
-starboard aileron is destroyed, which is not good. Since the both ailerons and both elevators are now out of commission, baby lee can maneuver at speed only via the damaged controls to the rudder. As a result, the plane will slowly drift off course until he slows down greatly, and he’s not ready to do that yet.
-bomb bay – the doors are jammed (not that it really matters from a bombing perspective, but now the life rafts can’t be deployed)

Fw circles, attacks again

Sure-oz fires, misses
Braincase fires, damages Fw190

Fw misses, breaks off attack

The #3 engine shudders to a stop. War Dog is running on three engines now.

Carrying around bottled oxygen, the injured Gunther_fan drags back some ammo from the useless nose gun to braincase and morphius.

1 Fw190, 1 Me110 attack

Lightning rod fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, hits fw190
Chief faithful fires, kills Me110

Fw scores 2 hits
-port wing – the #2 engine propeller is shattered. As the plane shakes and bounces due to the uneven forces, Brock Landers curses and shuts down the #2 engine. War Dog is now running on two engines, which means that it can’t maintain cruising speed and cruising altitude. Baby lee tells chief faithful down in the ball turret to let him know if he’s descending toward another B-17.
-pilot compartment – the intercom system is hit and shorts out. None of the crew members can talk to each other, and they can’t coordinate fire. Chief Faithful can’t communicate with baby lee any more, and brock landers leaves his station to check with chief faithful and chi3fs.

Fw circles, attacks again

Gunther_fan fires, misses using the radio room gun

Fw scores 1 hit
-superficial damage to waist

Fw circles, attacks again

Morphius fires, misses
Chief faithful fires, misses

Fw breaks off due to low fuel

Zone 4: France – back in fighter range

Running on two engines, War Dog has to drop out of formation, slow down, and lower its altitude. With no radio, they can’t communicate their location, and hope that one of the other B-17s is letting the fighters know that there’s a crippled B-17 straggling in. Since they started out at the top of the formation, several B-17s saw them drop down. His job done, brock landers moves back to the front of the plane and begins shuttling messages back and forth between navigator sure-oz and pilot baby lee.

Fortunately, the two shutdown engines are symmetrically aligned (#2 and #3). Otherwise, the plane would just be flying in a big circle since the pilots have very few controls left. As it is, the plane is drifting east of its desired course. Working in tandem with sure-oz and brock, baby lee slows down to very low speeds and uses a combination of the rudder and variable engine throttling to keep the plane pointed in roughly the right direction. Slow speeds make them a sitting duck, though, so they begin a pattern of slowing down the #1 engine to push west, then speeding up and drifting east. Sure-oz’s navigating job is getting complicated.

2 Me109s attack, and there are no defending fighters in the neighborhood

Braincase fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, misses
Lightning rod fires, misses

Me misses

Me scores 2 hits
-port tailplane root damaged
-bomb bay – superficial damage (It would’ve hit the bombs, but they’re long gone.)

Both Mes circle and attack again since War Dog is flying alone.

Lightning Rod yells that he is out of ammunition, but no one can hear him without the intercom. He pushes brock back toward the copilot seat and begins shuttling navigation messages himself.

Boozer fires, misses
Chi3fs fires, misses

Chi3fs is out of ammunition, but can’t communicate with anybody.

Me misses

Me scores 1 hit
-tail – rudder is damaged

Both Mes circle, attack again

Chief faithful fires, misses
Braincase fires, misses

Me misses, breaks off attack

Me scores 1 hit
-superficial damage to port wing

Me breaks off attack due to low fuel

Zone 3: Western Channel

Boozer sees some spots on the horizon, and he and sure-oz look with trepidation at their scant ammunition. Fortunately, the spots turn out to be three P-51 Mustangs, which waggle their wings in greeting. Unable to communicate or even waggle back, baby lee and brock landers just nod and grin.

3 Me110s attack – 2 are driven off by the fighters

Boozer fires, misses
Chief faithful fires, misses

Me misses, circles again

Morphius fires, misses

Me misses, circles to attack again but is driven off by the returning P-51s.

Gunther_fan pulls ammo out of the rarely-used radio room gun and carries it to morphius and braincase. He’s feeling dizzy from the exertion and blood loss and has to go collapse in the radio room.

1 Me109, 1 Me110 attack

The fighters go after the Germans, but the Germans are zeroed in on the B-17 and will not be shaken from their mission.

Sure-oz fires, misses

Me109 misses

Me110 misses

Both Mes circle, attack again – the Me110 is driven off by the fighters

Morphius fires, misses

Me misses, but circles to attack again

Braincase fires, misses

The Me109 has figured out that there’s an ammo problem, and barrels in much closer than normal, then pulls up, planting 7 hits on War Dog at point-blank range

-radio room – the radio catches on fire. Gunther_fan can’t operate the fire extinguisher with one hand and crawls out of the radio room for help.
-waist – morphius goes down hard with a serious wound, his right arm blown off at the forearm
-waist – braincase gets knocked unconscious by a grazing light wound to the back of his head
-superficial damage to port wing
-superficial damage to port wing
-superficial damage to the starboard wing flap
-superficial damage to the #4 engine

The fighters finally succeed in driving away the Me109.

Lightning rod runs back and helps gunther_fan. The fire was minor, and goes out quickly.

Zone 2: English Channel

No enemy
Another flight of 6 P-51s comes out to escort War Dog. The brass is determined not to lose this veteran plane.

Zone 1: England

Good weather
The control problems will make for a tricky landing. The crew briefly debates bailing out and letting War Dog fly off into the ocean, but baby lee feels like he’s got a good shot at landing it, and doesn’t want to jinx the crew by letting their lucky plane die. Additionally, with four injured crew members, bailing out has some added risk.

Chief Faithful and lightning rod move up to pass communications between sure-oz in the nose and the two pilots. Chi3fs limps up from the tail to help the three (more heavily) injured crewmen amidships.

After quite a bit of time maneuvering and locating a clear emergency airfield, sure-oz gets them situated at a base near Canterbury. It takes several passes to get lined up properly, which makes the crew a bit nervous and has brock landers tapping on the fuel gauge, but eventually all the stars align and baby lee brings the plane in. It’s a brutal landing, bouncing and grinding and skidding, but the plane is fine and the crew is bloodied but more or less okay (other than morphius, as can generally be expected).

The crew awkwardly tries to shake hands with morphius as he heads off to the hospital, and the rest of them get patched up at the base medical center for wounds that look worse than they are. They emerge with a new zest for life, and enjoy ten days of unexpected R&R in the ancient city as the ground crews get War Dog ready to fly again. The strumpets of Canterbury later report that the men of War Dog approach their earthly activities with an uncommon zeal.

Aftereffects

The mighty morphius once more bids adieu to a crew. It’s stateside and a prosthetic for him.

Eligible for next mission

Pilot Baby Lee (10)
Copilot Brock Landers (10)
Bombardier Boozer (10)
Navigator Sure-Oz (10)
Engineer Gunther_Fan (10)
Radio Op. Lightning Rod (10)
Tail Gunner chi3fs (9)
Ball Turret Gunner Chief Faithful (10)
Right Waist Gunner Braincase (4)
Left Waist Gunner XXX

Rough mission. That’s probably the most gunfire that we’ve seen on a mission to date.