29.12.2018

Icebreakers "Tank Wars" squadnight & "Your most glorious combat" storytelling competition

Flying Focke-Wulf 190 in some historical scenario.
2018 note: Virtual pilot storytime. I found old text file with stories from the Icebreakers squadron days, the file date is 7.2.2001. VLeLv Icebreakers (VirtuaaliLentoLaivue Icebreakers) was the Finnish online simulator squadron that did fly in WarBirds and World War II Online simulators. Very good times. The group was active and pretty skilled and we did have great time flying together online.
We did have weekly squadnights flying organized together and the Finnish pilots flew also together as "Überfinns Perkele" in the regular historical events and campaigns. Icebreakers itself was continuation of the first ever Finnish online combat squadron "Finnish Air Force" from Air Warrior. So there's really plenty of legacy in this virtual squadron. We did have many actual FinAF pilots and personnel in the group too.
Here's some Icebreakers' stories from ye olde goode days of online combat flying.

Icebreakers "Tank Wars" squadnight & "Your most glorious combat" storytelling competition



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Icebreakers "Tank Wars" squadnight results

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Tank Wars  - each pilot took a plane equipped with nose wheel. Probably we taxied to different planes in the airfield and then started driving around the airfield, killing opposing team pilots.

Tank Wars team deathmatch: P&D Arena.
Rules: only use nose wheel equipped planes. No takeoff allowed. Kill other team.
Team 1: Grendel Korva Modo
Team 2: Kruger Ok Visa

Match results (winning team):
2 - 1 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 2 - 2 - draw - 2 - 1
Team 2 won 5 fimes
Team 1 won 4 times

After Tank Wars we then continued with with more competitions. Ki-43 Oscar "Hayabusa" was a Japanese single engined fighter of WW2. It was extremerely agile, though lightly armed. Much dogfighting ensued.
Ki-43 team deatchmatch duel, airborne:
2 - 1 - 1 - 2
Result: draw

Ju-87D Stuka deathmatch, all vs all
Winner: Grendel
Guncamera film: (nope)

Stubit raiding the squadron bar.

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Icebreakers "Your most glorious combat" storytelling competition results

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Pilots love telling stories, even virtual pilots. So what kind of brave things you did in the sky? Tell about it, win eternal fame.

Rules: This is a story telling competition inside the VLeLv Icebreakers squadron.

Please read the stories and then reply by giving two places: the story you loved most and the runner up. Preferably in following format:
1. STORY X
2. STORY Z
You can vote for the coolest, funniest story, most successful sortie, whatever. Just what you enjoyed, loved, was amused or whatever best. The names of the writers are censored and will be revealed when all votes have been counted. The deadline is FRIDAY 02.02.2001.
ICEBREAKERS SQUADRON MEMBERS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO VOTE. SORRY ;-)

RESULTS:

1st place: Grendel, with story 3. 12 points.
2nd place: Lart, with story 4. 9 points.
3rd place: Grendel, with story 8. 8 points.

And a definite GREAT STORY award by Grendel must go to LARK's story 6. :-)

Other well scoring stories: Kossu's story no. 7, Lark's story no. 6 and Grendel's story no. 5.


The classic squadron t-shirt. Made ugly by purpose to protect it from ripping.

STORIES

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WINNING STORY
Story 3: Written by Grendel.

Story from the WarBirds 1.11 days

I had been flying the FW 190 Dora for some time. The enemy, reds I think, were attacking our field from NE with fighter bombers and I rolled in refuelled plane, climbing to eastern direction. After reaching moderate altitude, some 3-4 kilometres, I levelled and started flying north to meet the enemy. And there they came. But this time it looked quite worrying - there was five planes in a loose formation. One Zero and possibly heavy US iron fighter bombers.

I had only a slight altitude advantage and was alone but decided to attack nevertheless. I screamed in from their 9 o'clock, pulled heavy deflection and let the guns sing. Perfect hits, fire, pieces falling - he's a goner. Next enemy plane is almost lined - fire. Hits hits hits boom. Goner. PULLLLLL the stick - third enemy plane fills the gunsight and receives full burst from the two machine guns and two cannons. Lots of flashes and he is a goner. Roll left, pull the stick - short hard manoeuvre and the fourth plane is in the gunsight. He is starting to roll - but is too late - and my weapons sing again sending storm of heavy ammunition at him. ROLL RIGHT, pull - only one plane left - the Zero. He is beginning a drastic evasive manoeuvre, clearing starting a hard look. The world goes black as I start to get the Zero  to gunsight - pull the trigger - and now I'm all blacked out.

After a moment I begin to see again, pull nose down and begin a reflex evasive roll to avoid the Zero that I know is coming at me. Only - there is nothing in my high six, but a burning Zero below tumbling down in the low 6 - with the wrecks of  four other Red fighters still falling downwards.

During an engagement shorter than 10 seconds I was able to shoot down a whole Red strike group of five planes, in pure air combat situation. It was the first "superhuman achievement" I ever managed, and oh man it felt good then.


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SECOND PLACE
Story 4: Written by Lart.

WB 2.something

I gave a ride to a Ju87G for the first time, and I decided to make an aerial attack. I began to climb towards enemy field, where they were launching a major attack towards our main field. I climbed for a while, and I spotted a enemy P51. I levelled and waited if he had noticed me. He had. P51 came after me with quite high speed, he had really alot of altitude to begin with. I made a tightening turn to left, and P51 zoomed past me spraying .50"'s, not making a single hit. I levelled again, and tried to maintain the speed I had. P51 came again, I avoided him again. P51 came in third time, and I avoided him once again. Now he changed his tactic, he climbed straight over me.

Then it hit me - I headed straight downward toward hillside. Stuka was screaming at high speed, and P51 came like a meteor at me. Just when I tought I had time to pull up, I yanked the stick all the way back, and pulled the trim too. Really - Stukas are designed for steep angle divebombing, and P51's are not. Like a meteorites usually do, P51 made a crater on hillside.

On same mission, I downed few fighters with those 37mm cannons. Spits ripped my rear fuselage away, and I jumped. A F4U was pulling at me, I think he was after a someone elses kill or then he was trying to kill me in my chute. I was still at free fall, and I had my pistol handy. I shot three times at approaching F4U. First hit to rear fuselage. Second hit near canopy. Third hit to pilot. Pilot killed. I haven't never again hit any plane with pistol again, IIRC.


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THIRD PLACE
Story 8: Written by Grendel.

Story written to AGW, to "my best kill ever" thread. Daddy spoke as a student of his spanked his arse in the arena, which reminded me of...

In the Blitz convention, last february, here in Finland, I held an ACM lecture about scissors and knife fighting.

(hehe somewhat different from the usual lectures I'm sure, it was held in sauna ;-) And it was so full that not everyone managed to get a seat but had to stand around the sauna, while some others kept throwing water to the rocks, it was fun ;-) )

So anyway, we talked about proper scissoring and tactics, on how to evade a bounce and reverse on him and so on. Later back inside the con plane I showed examples on a computer and it seems many gained a lot from this.

So one day, I decide "what the heck", take up P-51 and theres a cool low level combat between two neighbouring fields. And there I go. After some dances I bounce a 109F in low level, he evades, turns into me and I scream in joy "ya, a good fight coming" and loop/roll on him and begin a fight. Filled with confidence "this is easy" we start to do the finest scissors ever, neither really getting any snapshots, 109 and p51 canopy-to-canopy rolling and turning and I'm slowly getting a feeling "this aint that easy after all".

Couple times I manage to send a short burst but cant remember if I managed to hit. I miss one or two almost good shooting opportunities when the P51 shudders and almost goes out of control. And it takes again quite a bit of work to gain some of the position back I had lost. I hadnt given the 109 any chance to use his climbing ability. So the fight had been very close, very dirty turnin'n'burnin very low.

But finally I'm on the losing side. The 109 beat me in a scissor or two, and is creeping to my 6 position. But then he makes a mistake. On one scissor he starts using his climb ability, clearly meaning to drop on me after the reversal. He goes right, up, begins to turn left - and I go left level and accccccelerate.

I see him dropping behind me in the reversal - but I'm already kicking the Pony forwards, YEEHAAA, and making distance. Huh. Survived. That was hard. Another friendly comes from above and bounces him. He makes the nicest evasive - and the friendly crashes. Maneuver kill of SOMEONE to -tern-. TERN? The bald'n'bearded dude from our sister squadron, Crashers Club. I ain't disengaging from THIS one!

Type on radio: "I see you TERN and I'm coming back". Loop, reversal, coming in from his frontal quarter intending to force him to evade and then loop'n'roll at him. Tern starts a right turn, I take deflection (some 100-120 degrees, from his 10clock), burst and BOOM. Kill of -tern- awarded to (CENSORED).

Tern was one of those students in the scissors lecture and boy, he beat me in my own game :-)

Probably flying in a scenario again. Looks like -=ICE=- pilots and Finnish colleagues
have taken up in Japanese Ki-61. Good plane!

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The rest of the competing stories.

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Story 1. Written by Lart.

WarBirds 1.11r3:

I was giving Bf109K4 a try - It felt amazingly limber plane after FW190D9, and I happily went into turnfights. After a while, I managed to damage a P51 in way that forced him to run (fuel or oil leaking). I went after him. After a while, three P51's came after me, in attempt to clean their buddys 6. I didn't know any really good manouvers, so I made few turns, hit the WEP on and began to climb at very steep angle. I received few pings, but I still kept climbing. After a while, I got the kill of the pilot whose plane I damaged, and I looked back to see how all three P51's stalled. I went after them, altough I didn't kill any of them as other people made it first. After that occasion, I really understood why people think K4's ability to climb rather good..

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Story 2: Written by Lart.

WarBirds 2.0 or something:

I was hauling ordnance to enemy field with a FW190A8. I was climbing slowly, trimmed to speed. I kept looking around, and I noticed two purple spits chasing a red P51. P51 had the speed advantage, and as this P51 pilot spotted me, he began to turn after me. Spit pilots began to throw 6-calls at me, and I levelled the plane. When I approximated the distance between me and P51 to be about d13, I rolled 90 degrees to left and pulled hard. After 90 degree change in course, I continued to split-s, and added one split-s more. After the second split-s, I pulled to direct vertical climb, and when speed died, I dropped my Würgers nose to my original direction of movement.

And was that I saw? A P51 at d3, having lost all its E. When grin spread to my face, I squeezed the triggers and made a brutal disassembly of that pony..

"Hey XXYYZZ, I tought he was attacking you!?" "How on earth did you do that?" were the questions from the spits, which I couldn't reply with anything special, as I really don't still have a clue how that P51 managed to arrange himself in that bad situation after having so much advantage.


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Story 5: Written by Grendel.

Story from European Micro Scenario 11 "Dieppe" November 1999.

The Überfinns Perkele squadron was flying into battle at Me 109s and FW 190s. We were flying in roughly two groups, with the 109s below and above the FW  Gruppe, anticipating enemy contact in any moment. Almost at the same time we noticed two enemy groups - low dots passing below us and high dots ahead above. Surely the low ones were the enemy fighter bombers and high ones their Spitfire escorts.

Two orders were given immediately - 109s engage Spitfires, Focke Wulfs split-S and attack.

I roll on my back, yell the FW flight to follow and pull stick. I dive vertically and begin careful pull-up so I'll position myself under his low 6. The Würger is shaking from pressure when I move in. Hurricanes! He hasn't seen me. I move closer and pull trigger at D1.5 and shoot until he explodes. One down. Hurricane group commences their attack on Dieppe installations. One hurricane  bombs and then begins a right hand turn. My Focke Wulf closes the distance. I take careful deflection and let the guns sing. He receives full burst from four cannons and blows up.

Meanwhile the 109s have effectively  engaged the Spitfire escort and none of  them is able to help their escortees. So the whole Focke Wulf Gruppe is reaping  death. Hurricanes are dropping everywhere.

As told by one of them: "I had bombed the target and was withdrawing full throttle towards the sea. One other Hurricane was flying some way behind me, and we both were flying very low. I saw three Focke Wulfs in formation behind us, crossing our path. Suddenly one of them plummeted out of the formation, diving into low six of the other Hurricane. Before I can yell any warning he has closed the distance, coming in  at his low six, opens fire and "HOST: kill of {someone} awarded to grendl from Überfinns Perkele". OH SHIT, its (CENSORED)."

I shot the 3rd victim with another very close cannons only burst and continued WEPpin towards the 4th Hurricane. But this one saw me. I saw careful movements as the pilot scanned his six and kept eye on me. He was taking slight right turn so I took some lead to his turn and was prepared for his counter move. When I getting close he pulled a very hard right hand break turn with slight climb - and I took heavy deflection and shot all guns. Good hits, he goes down. "HOST: kill of -aino- awarded to (CENSORED) from Überfinns Perkele."

As Aino told it, "I saw him coming and then pulled so hard break turn that nobody could ever take enough deflection from so short distance. And then there was all those pings and explosions and my plane went boom."

These four kills came in under two minute time - from the first kill to fourth. Even the CM was having hard time and he confirmed if it was 4th or 5th kill in row. And not only that - the Überfinns were totally wrecking the two RAF units - the kill messages were already scrolling in THIRD screen, with some of the usual talk in the radio buffer of course. It was the mightiest butcher operation I have ever seen in WarBirds - the Finnish pilots were completely annihilating the opposition.

Then the arena crashed.

And we had to fight the frame again next week, and we weren't able to duplicate that success again. But the one short moment, the two minutes of pure annihilation, was no doubt the mightiest killing ground in my WarBirds history - and perhaps one unequalled in the whole WarBirds scenario history as well? It was my finest hour.

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Story 6: Written by Lark.

SHOTGUN PLANE

Here's my story
from my days of glory
It's the one I don't remember
it was ninety-eight december

They used to call me elvis
nothing to do with my pelvis
I used to drive my Spit
I didn't give a shit

About nags for alt dweebing
after all THEY were bleeding
I soared high and pounced
and soon was kill announced

When you drive a Spit
you know when you hit
When the D is zero
It's easy to be a hero

Get close
start to hose
It's a shotgun ride

Stay clean
get mean
Forget your pride

There's no mercy in the skies
tho' I still hear their cries
Can imagine their despair
whining "this ain't fair"

The newbies I was killing
all they were willing
to mess with the big boys
to become more than toys

Get close
start to hose
It's a shotgun ride

Stay clean
get mean
No place to hide

Nowadays I fly a desk
I guess it's for the best
My heart goes to all my victims
who thought they were good at flightsims

All the best, comrades. I hope you learned something.


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Story 7: Written by Kossu.

EMC19 Frame 1

The first fight:

I followed my FL Grendl in tight formation around the suspected enemy fighter sweep, as the Ground Control was vectoring us towards die Dicke Autos. We were vectored just a litte too far North and when we turned in and started our first attack run, we came in on the bombers from their 7-8 o'clock position. A fast slash through the formation guns blazing, and a quick climbing retreat towards North...and into the escorts.

While I was trying to regroup with Grendl for the second attack, I had this strange feeling that all was not well. I rolled the Wurger and checked my hind quarters only to find a twin engined fighter about 60 meters behind me. A Lightning !! I could not believe my luck, the Ami was not firing! Perhaps he forgot to arm his guns or was too busy watching his back to notice me straight in front of him. DON'T PANIC NOW. Full throttle, call Grendl on the radio, drag the P-38 towards the rest of the Schwarm, thump, thump, thump, my heart is beating, and I wait for the tracers. Finally the P-38 starts firing, but he's missed his chance and is chased off my tail by the rest of the Jagd Flieger.

Whew, that was close.

Now, where is my Schwarm ? I can see some dots South and above me and start to turn toward them, when I suddenly notice a lone B-17 that must have got lost. Ahh, breakfast :-)  I start the run from the right side of the B17 and pull the trigger at 400-500 meters and continue firing till I am about 170-200 meters from the Viermot, where I break off. (My convergence is set to 450 for HOs) I walk the bullets from the right wing towards the tail section, where I try to concentrate my shells. I smoke one engine and see the tail fall off just before I roll below and away from the stricken bomber, which starts it's spiralling dive to the ground.

I can see the crew bailing. Good luck guys. < S > Now I'm alone in the sky, while the radio is filled with frantic calls and vectors. The fight is on for the others. I turn my nose back South and try to find my group, but the fight is about over now and I return to base.

Second sortie: The scirmish with Seal's P-38s was down on the deck when we arrived on the scene. The Lightnigs were falling from the sky, but not without losses to the Luftwaffe. I looked down and saw the, now too familiar, twin boom shape of the P-38 trying to escape hugging the ground. Wing over, throttle back a bit, and into a dive behind the enemy. Start shooting from 200 meters, the enemy starts to smoke, looses one engine and breaks left. Pull up, look back. There are two more LW fighters finishing the Lightning off, no use to high yo-yo back to the doomed American.

The Schwarms regroup again and start grabbing altitude towards North. Soon enough we are vectored into a suspected bomber formation. I'm flying tight wing with Grendl, and we dive head on towards the buff box. I ease the formation and follow G in. A couple 20mm hits on the right most bomber and out to reform for another head on attack, as the other Schwarms make their passes ---> Rinse and repeat ;-)  After about 4 passes all the bombers are dead and gone.  Three more assists under my belt and low on fuel I return to base for a well deserved beer :-D

My victims point of view :-)

roblex:
That lone B17 was me :-)  I was supposed to FL of the buffs but while I was checking my maps someone told the buffs to launch and by the time I realised that the people I was talking to were flying rather than in the tower they were about 20 miles away :-o  I chased them all the way but when I was deep in Germany without any sightings other than distant LW fighters I decided I was safer heading NE away from the buff route. By the sound of it I was seconds away from sighting them. I tried my hardest to gun you down from the rear gun but you removed my tail and I was forced to jump :-(  I wish now I had just dropped all my bombs on your runway and turned for home. :-p

Guncam film from some old scenario. The recording program
saved tiny area of the screen from middle when you pressed fire button
and then created a gif animation.

Ps. Tiesitkö että meillä on tällainen makea Retro Rewind -niminen retropelilehti?
Sen voi tilata osoitteesta https://retrorewind.fi/tilaa/ !

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