BFE - The Regensburg raid...

[Rami]

Hey buddy,

I appreciated your comments on Battle for Europe, so I decided to make an entirely new mission for you. Missions two and three covered the Schweinfurt raid, but I never attempted the Regensburg mission, so I built one from scratch for you. Here are the details...

"title_string"=Battle for Europe (Allied) - The Regensburg raid
"summary_string"=Let's get airborne! This massive attack by the 8th Air Force will focus on the ball-bearing factory at Schweinfurt along with the Messerschmitt plant at Regensburg. We hope that this massed raid will overwhelm the Luftwaffe, and keep us from being mauled! Following our strike, we'll scale the Alps and head to Algeria, rather than returning back to England!
"objective_string"=The raids on the Schweinfurt-Regnesburg area of Germany in August and October of 1943 proved to be very costly for the 8th Air Force. 60 bombers were lost on the initial August raid, as well as the scores of B-17s damaged beyond repair. Had this massive strike been performed as intended with a closely time-coordinated raid on Schweinfurt, the Germans should have been overwhelmed, and the USAAF would likely not have suffered egregious losses. However, delay of the Schweinfurt strike meant that the Regensburg raiders were mauled, and the Germans were able to land and regroup in time to decimate the Schweinfurt raiders.
"intelligence_string"=The 'Tokio tanks' your B-17s have been equipped with should give you the range to reach your final destination: Bone, Algeria. Your flight path will be an attempt to avoid flying over many Luftwaffe bases, so make sure not to deviate from it. After striking Regensburg, you will fly south-southeast, passing over Austria and Italy before heading out over the Mediterranean toward Algeria. Once you depart Germany, you stand little chance of being intercepted. Good luck!

The FDG B-17F bombers have been modified to include 'Tokio tanks' that add an additional 1,080 gallons of fuel. It is highly recommended that you do not warp...just like in "Tidal Wave." If you do, you will run out of fuel just before reaching Corsica. If you fly it without warping, and use cruise settings to hold 185 knots, you should make it with about 20% of your fuel remaining.

I'll comment more in the next post...but just let me know whether or not you like it. If you do, I will gladly include it as part of Battle for Europe, and include it as an individual mission. There are four different random chance elements, so you may have to fly it more than once.

If you have Battle for Europe installed, you have virtually everything you need, with the possible exception of the Messerschmitt Bf-110g-2.

I hope you enjoy it! And for anyone else, please don't be afraid to provide feedback.

Here is the campaign, if you need it: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?action=jump&catid=44&id=2848

[Rami]

Mksystem,

Here are some more details...

The other half of the Schweinfurt raid was the 1st Bombardment Wing’s raid on Regensburg. This mission was flown a few hours earlier in the day, and 148 B-17s struck the Messerschmitt factory at Regensburg, Germany and then flew over the Alps and across the Mediterranean to land in North Africa, a distance of more than 1,500 statute miles. The losses suffered by these B-17s were heavy, but were considerably less than the B-17s later in the day that struck Schweinfurt and were mauled both to the target and returning from it. The Regensburg force surprised the Luftwaffe by turning south-southeast after striking the Messerschmitt plant while enemy fighters landed and reloaded, anticipating these B-17s to trek back across the Reich to England. The path that the B-17s then took to North Africa led them over areas with virtually no air opposition.

The total concept behind these massed raids makes some sense when you examine the facts. The original intent of these raids was to overwhelm the Luftwaffe, and were supposed to be coordinated with the 15th Air Force out of North Africa. August 1st, 1943 saw the infamous “Tidal Wave” raid on Ploesti by the 15th Air Force. The raid on the Messerschmitt factory at Weiner Neustadt, codenamed “Operation Juggler” was supposed to be flown the same day at the raid on Regensburg in order to split the German defensive force. But when that fell through and Weiner Neustadt was attacked on August 13th, 1943, the 8th Air Force strike on Regensburg was instead coordinated with the strike on Schweinfurt.

Diversionary raids were to be carried out by Martin B-26 Marauders, accompanied by Royal Air Force Typhoons, against Woensdrecht, Amsterdam, and Lille, France.

Had things gone according to plan, the 8th Air Force may have indeed overwhelmed the German fighter forces. However, thick fog and mist prevented the Schweinfurt force from taking off as scheduled, and even prevented them from assembling over the North Sea coast until about 13:30 hours, at which point the German fighters had refueled, rearmed, and were waiting for the Schweinfurt raiders. The Regensburg force had also left Germany, having struck Regensburg at approximately 11:56.

For this raid, I have lessened the severity of enemy air attacks to a considerable degree. In reality, the B-17s were attacked east of Brussels and then from Eupen, Belgium almost all the way to the target, first by single-engined fighters until reaching Mannheim, and then by twin-engined fighters and even night-fighters, which lobbed rockets at the formations and even dropped incendiary bombs on the B-17s until shortly before reaching the target!

P.S. - That severe weather has reached us...tornadoes have been spotted on the ground in the central and western parts of Massachusetts, a rarity for us, and there are severe thunderstorms coming in...time to unplug the computer and batten down the hatches!

[Rami]

Mksystem,

I kept the actual flight path VERY close to how it was in actuality, except I made the flight path over Belgium a bit less "twisty and turny" to save a bit of gas.

The mission is based on a short book..."Schweinfurt - Disaster in the Skies" that another CFS2 member, Hern07, found at a yard sale for 49 cents and said "it had my name all over it."

It's amazing what wives throw out when they're mad at their husbands...:icon_lol:

[Rami]

To all,

Not to change the nature of the thread, but the weather in Massachusetts has been rare. Tornadoes ripped through Springfield and the surrounding communities, in the western part of the state and Sturbridge, in the central part of the state. Cars have been flipped on I-84, which extends down toward Hartford from Central Massachusetts, and I-90, which heads west from Boston to the New York State border and beyond. Some areas have been hit twice.

There is some building damage, roofs blown off, power poles & trees down, power outages, some homes are destroyed, and some buildings are collapsed. Fatalities right now stand at one, and it appears that most people have been spared, though there have been about twenty injuries.

Here in eastern and southeastern Massachusetts, the influence of stable marine air has spared us from anything more than moderate to severe thunderstorms to this point. Storms which rumble through the western and central part of the state tend to wind down by the time they reach my area, at least the severity of them.

This is due to air with dewpoints close to seventy being pushed out by refreshing air with dewpoints in the forties. This is really bizarre...:jawdrop: but so far I'm holding in there.

[mksystem]

Wow!

What an unexpected gift!! Thank you for the amazing work, and the painstaking research involved in all your work. Looking forward to flying the missions.

I am happy to hear that you are surviving the odd weather, thank you again. :salute:

[Rami]

To all,

I uploaded the mission package and placed it in the library.

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/local_links.php?action=jump&catid=43&id=4164

I'll upload Operation Juggler once I get the kinks ironed out of it.