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I can't get my fighter sweeps / night intruders do anything useful. I try to send them through the return paths of the bombers, try to get them to strafe bases known to have enemy planes, and try to send them ahead of the bombers. Nothing seems to work to get them to engage the enemy -- only to get prey to enemy AA.

Any luck there?

Cheers [:D]
fbs

I send fighter sweeps out ahead of my bombing runs and they do a damn good job of wearing down the opposition.

I use sweeps all the time. My best sweep so far took out over 30 Italian planes on the ground in one round.

I send them out ahead of bombers and also into side pockets later in the day when my main bombing runs are going on elsewhere and distracting the enemy. There are many ways to use them but timing and intel is important.

The single deadliest use for an Intruder is to send single-aircraft missions to known NJ bases to "goal-hang". Eg, at start of game, bases like Leeuwarden, Twente, St Trond and Venlo, where you will find the four gruppen of NJG1. Say your Bomber Command Main Force is all heading off at 1900 to bomb Essen or Emden? Then, at about 1930/1940 send off a Beaufighter VIF to each of those four airfields (having relocated, on Turn 1, 141 Squadron from Wittering to one of the 100 Group bases in Norfolk, such as Oulton). Plot altitude at, say, 20k - keeps them out of the flak.

These four Beaus will be able to do nothing to stop the NJ from scrambling, nor can they protect the bombers in the stream. But when the boys from NJG1 start heading home - damaged, low on fuel, or simply run out of target opportunities in the case of the aces - they will have to get past the Beau to be able to land. Sometimes, the entire gruppen will get down intact. But sometimes you will start seeing the message "Beaufighter attacks Bf110-G4 attempting to land..." And this will almost always be followed by "Bf110-G4 destroyed." Not unusual for a single Beau to get four kills in a good night. Bob Braham, the CO of 141 Sqn, has been the first Allied pilot to reach ace status in almost every game I have played, and is almost always the highest scorer as well - if he is overtaken, it is by one of his squadron. Which is not inappropriate since he was the real life top scoring Allied NF pilot. Once in a while, a German NF, circling its homefield before landing, will spot and bounce the Beaufighter instead.

This is the job at which the Beaufighter excels. It has splendid endurance, so 110s in particular, which have been chasing bombers across the night sky, will normally reach bingo and have to go home before the Beau has to pull off its patrol and go home itself. It was also the most heavily armed fighter on the Allied side - so when it does attack, the probability of a destroyed is very high indeed; you will find that Mossie NFs with "just" 4xHispano will sometimes miss the kill. The Mossie is the one, though, for attempting bounces "escorting" the stream, given its speed.

Why just a few Beaus, you may ask? Well, it is a bit of a personal house rule, for 1943, to be honest; the RAF was in real life only just starting to get into dedicated bomber support missions for intruders (141 was the first NI sqn so assigned), as opposed to general intruder missions to make life miserable for the Luftwaffe and decoy from the Main Force. So, for 1943 I usually limit myself to between four and twelve such sorties on any one night that Bomber Command is up in strength, with perhaps another such squadron in Mossies flying multiple-aircraft intruder sweeps along the bomber stream route, though usually to much less effect at this stage of the campaign.

You should ask Swift about the loitering RAF NFs [:D]  One Beaufighter downed three of his 110s whilst patrolling an airfield [8D]  I've got no issues with using the 100 Group units like this, it's what they're there for.  I tend to limit the ADGB NF ops to a single flight patrolling near the coast though.  Patrol heights vary, getting into a standard routine gets my e-pilots killed and they've got enough to worry about as it is [:-]  NFs also get assigned to patrol along the flanks of the bomber stream, more in hope than expectation but I have seen some interecepts from these patrols.

I also got lucky with a fighter sweep in Italy when a Spitfire squadron caught an Italian unit trying to land with the same effects as a NI over an airfield.

if the sweep is not doing anything

was there clouds over the target ? also how much light ? (in daylight as the it gets into winter, daylight gets later and later, you reach the target and it is still dark, the sweeps normally don't attack, can't see anything)

Streams are good, if you don't know where the enemy is, you can plot them to fly close to a number of Airfields, and hope to get lucky, or you can fly them with the raid, and really hope to get lucky


sweeps and Intruders are luck and timing

DBS;

I have been doing the same thing, only I lower the patrol altitude to 6-7k, or 14-15k, depending on the AAA at the airfield. It "seems" as if the lower altitude gets better results. (Don't know if it is programmed in or not)

The Beaufighters I keep around until the P-61's arrive, just for this purpose. Hard hitting and durable the Beau's are great!

In the long campaigns, my highest scoring aces are always NF pros until summer of '44; when the sweeping American long range day fighters take over.
I've had a number of sweepers catch RTB fighters -- over the field trying to land -- and shoot them all down!

TS