Lending a hand

[Burzmali]

I've only had the game for a few days, but I've already had a few truly epic battles. The best, so far, was during the close of the Highland Campaign. Playing as a pilot, I took the mission to strike the Oak Hill. As the Oak Hill's destroyer group had already engaged and wiped out the Shadow group on my side, they were already damaged (I had already taken out the other FF) and I was looking for revenge. My flight of Thunderbolts took off, formed up, and set course for the Oak Hill. After an uneventful flight, we found the Oak Hill, already at 50% hull, it proved easy prey for our ASMs. After taking some light fire (I can never seem to dodge missiles as easily as my wingman), the Oak Hill was critically damaged and breaking up. Just as we were planning to pack it in and head for home, a transmission comes in "This is the Gerson, vectoring to engage the Ironhelm". A quickly check shows the Gerson barrelling towards the 2 remaining destroyers in the enemy group. Now, the Gerson has taken some light damage, and one of the enemy DDs in just into it's yellow, but the Ironhelm is unscathed. Counting on the old adaged 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained', I called in for backup, and order the squad to engage the damaged DD (either the Gerson had switched targets or I had misheard the radio call, because the Gerson and the damaged DD were exchanging torpedoes). I figured that at worst, we would draw away a few of the point defense batteries that were shooting down the torpedoes and give the Gerson a fighting chance. My squad came screaming in and began pelting the DD, and my hull quickly got chopped into the yellow (damaging a bunch of systems that I didn't have much use for at that point anyways). I retargeted the DD's fusion reactor and tried valantly to find a quiet spot behind and below the DD. After a few passes the DD's systems came down and it's hull began to disappear. Taking this as an omen I punched the engine to max to try get out of the dentonation radius, but not quickly enough, so my hull went down to red. The Gerson, not to be deterred, then engaged the Ironhelm. Well, I figured I had dropped 1, why not the other? The Gerson was still in the yellow with full shields so I target the Ironhelm and order by wingmen in. I tried the same trick as before, targeting the fusion reactor and looping around behind. After only a few runs, the Ironhelm shield began quickly dropping, and I had 1-2% of my hull left (though reac, eng, and guns were still all yellow). Once again I punched it trying vallantly to escape the upcoming blast. A few seconds later I heard an explosion. First, I thought that it was funny that I heard an explosion as I am easily travelling faster than sounds, then I realized that sound can't propogate in space, so I should be hearing anything at all, finally I realized that were a shockwave catching up with my figther, it could be generating the soound I was hearing. Of course, this thought came a moment too late as the shockwave tore off the last of my armor, ending my run for home.

End result 2 DD's and a FF for us and 1 Thunderbolt for them. I'll take that trade [;)]

[Pheagey]

Dude! Nice. I ask you, where youe ties curling and where u ducking as your tired the turn and burn?

P.S.: Drop that into a ncie short story format and THAT would make a great fiction part for the ocmmunity/

[Burzmali]

Well, it's was simple, the FF had been completely along, so it was an easy kill. However, if I didn't distract the DDs chances were that the Gerson would be toast before I got back to my CV. The math was in my favor, given if I gave up 1-2 fighters to give the Gerson better odds seemed like a good trade. I'll look into writing it in a fiction format if I get a chance.