Longbow Part 2, Frame 6 Pictorial

Mission 1

Brooke flew a Bf 109G-2 as a scout in mission 1. He vectored around a bit, but did not get into any fights. He then landed and got ready for duty in I/JG400, a secret squadron assigned to fly Me 163 Komets. SVGA Air Warrior Millennium Edition does not have an Me 163, so the Mig 15 (the closest match available) was used in its place, but with a greatly restricted fuel load (3 minute's worth).

Mission 2

The Me 163 has very limited fuel (3 minutes) and thus a very short range. Use of the Me 163 entails waiting for the enemy formation to get within about 2 sectors of the takeoff base, taking off, hoping the enemy formation doesn't veer away from the takeoff base, finding the enemy bombers, doing a couple of passes at very high speed, then gliding back to the takeoff base. A sector is a 15 mile by 15 mile square of area (the black grid on the map). The map above shows the situation as Brooke makes the decision to launch from Achmer. The white boxes in sector 18, 15 represent enemy aircraft, probably a bomber strike. The red boxes are Luftwaffe aircraft -- they are mostly trailing the enemy strike group at this time.

Brooke takes off in his Me 163 and goes into a steep climb. He steers for the sector he hopes the enemy bombers will be in when he gets there.

As Brooke goes through the sector where enemy aircraft are reported, he eventually picks up bogies down low. He levels off at 26,000 ft. to gain speed and heads toward the bogies. From the distribution of the bogies, Brooke judges them to be bombers.

As Brooke gets close, he sees that the bogies are a large formation of B-17's. Brooke maneuvers his Me 163 around to the rear of the formation. As he does so, he overflies a hapless P-51D Mustang trailing the bomber formation. The P-51 is beset by a lot of Luftwaffe fighters, it seems.

Brooke dives toward the tail of the formation. There is one P-51 visible -- the rest is an impressively tight cluster of lots of B-17G Flying Fortresses. The Me 163 has enough fuel for 2-3 passes, and it is so fast that Brooke can't try slashing side attacks, like he would in a FW 190. Brooke decides that he'll do an attack run up the length of the formation and hope that the enormous speed of the Me 163 will make him hard to hit. He figures it will be very dangerous, though, as the B-17 gunners are deadly.

Brooke opens fire. He's doing 450 knots indicated at 16,000 ft altitude. It is very hard for him to pick one bomber out of the swarm because they are packed so tightly together and because he is closing on them so rapidly.

As Brooke enters the formation, the P-51 (upper right) from previous pictures has positioned himself to try for an intercept. The P-51 has done an excellent job on positioning. However, the Me 163 is just too fast, and Brooke flashes past him without giving a chance for a shot.

Brooke fires as he zooms through the formation. A little way in, he decides to pick the topmost B-17 as his target as that is easier to keep in view. Note in the radio buffer that the secret I/JG400 squadron is a surprise even to some Luftwaffe pilots such as Tarks.

Brooke racing through the bomber stream, firing at one of the topmost B-17's. It seems like Brooke would be an easy target for the many B-17 gunners. However, Brooke has a 200-250 knot closure rate on the B-17's, which makes gunnery for them very difficult.

Brooke flashes past his target B-17's, which is trailing debris as a result of Brooke's gunfire. Brooke takes some hits from B-17 gunners during the last portion of the run, but his Me 163 holds together.

Brooke is out the front of the formation and pulls hard up into the vertical to avoid more B-17 gunfire. He checks for smoke coming out of his Me 163, finds none, and decides to do another pass.

Brooke loops back and flies inverted for a moment to get to the tail end of the formation.

Brooke dives back in for another attack run. He notices a lone P-51 escort near the tail of the formation and does a run on it, but the P-51 sees Brooke coming and does a break turn. Brooke just races past for the bombers.

Brooke firing during his second run up the bomber stream.

Brooke flashes past the forward ships in the bomber stream. They are trailing smoke and debris as a result of Brooke's gunfire. The B-17 closest behind Brooke has also lost its right outside engine.

Flashes out the front of the formation and pulls up. His engine hasn't quit yet, so Brooke loops back for another pass.

Part way through his third pass, Brooke's engine cuts out -- no more fuel. Brooke veers left and descends to keep airspeed. Airspeed is his only defense, and he has to keep a good amount of to get clear of a close P-51. Once clear, Brooke goes into a zoom climb until he hits 150 knots, then holds a 150-knot glide back toward Achmer. He is lucky that the P-51 didn't chase him down, but of course its pilot didn't know Brooke was out of fuel, and chasing an Me 163 under power is a losing endeavor.

Brooke on his final approach to Achmer. He had enough altitude and airspeed when his engine cut out to enable a glide back to base, but he had to conserve his altitude and glide back at 150 knots. Brooke is nervous during the glide back, with no fuel and no other Luftwaffe around, but lands safely. While he travels back, he gets credit for a B-17 kill, and after he is on the ground, he gets credit for another B-17 kill. He got assists on two other B-17's.

Mission 3

Brooke takes off from Sachau in his Me 163. Enemies are not far from the field, visible as bogies in the upper middle of the picture.

Brooke flies to the bogies and finds two formation of B-17G Flying Fortresses. He picks the lower group to attack, as it appears to have more aircraft in it. The formation is turning, which makes it harder for Brooke to set up his run.

Brooke gets hits on a B-17 in the formation. The B-17 sheds some debris as Brooke's cannon shells hit the bomber.

A view from the cockpit as Brooke pours the hits into another B-17 and causes the bomber to start trailing smoke. Brooke is at 15,000 ft. altitude and doing 425 knots indicated airspeed.

Another bomber (one of the front bombers) trails debris as a result of Brooke's cannon fire. Brooke pulls up at the end of the run.

Brooke goes up and over the bomber formation, to split S back down for another pass.

Brooke during a second pass through the formation. He has already fired on the B-17 he is passing and is now firing on the B-17 ahead of him.

A view from the cockpit during a third pass. Brooke has passed his target and is rolling right to get sights on another B-17. He is almost out of ammunition, though.

Once out of ammunition, Brooke banks right and exits the formation. The fighting is right near Sachau, visible at the right side of the picture. There don't seem to be any enemy escort fighters to chase him, but he is not out of fuel yet and can evade if needed. As he heads back to Sachau, he gets credit for a kill. There are clearly many B-17's still left alive after their bombing mission this deep into German territory.

Brooke lands back at Sachau. Formations of enemy bombers are visible from the runway. Three other B-17's that Brooke damaged are subsequently shot down, giving him assists.

Final Results

Brooke flew a Bf 109G-2 for scouting, no kills, no assists, and returned to base. Then he flew two missions in Me 163's, got 3 kills (B-17's), 5 assists (B-17's), and returned safely to base both times.

by Brooke P. Anderson
e-mail: brooke@electraforge.com

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