Fratricide

By SimHQ on April 3, 2007 in _commentary

by Frank “Dart” Giger

Introduction

Lately my squad mates and I have been subject to a great deal of fratricide in “no icons” servers, and it’s made us slightly nuts. Sure, once in a while a Spitfire can look like a Bf-109 due to the oil radiators under the wing, but when your P-38 is shot down by a Mustang, it’s inexcusable. Yes, yes, we’ve all been there, and to forgive the occasional withering shot is normal — aircraft ID is a skill hard earned. But for the last two weeks it seems like we’ve been aggressively hunted by our own side.

The other night we said “enough is enough” and downed a friendly that had attacked us.

It happened in WWII more than once, sadly, and each time resulted in a Board of Inquiry. Here’s what our Board of Inquiry would go like if I were called to the stand.

The board held in good order, the happenstance of the last day where two Hurricane pilots, 2GvSAP Chief and Dart engaged in a hostile manner one Beaufighter, resulting in its destruction, has been resolved.

The last witness called was 2GvSAP Dart, who was flying in the wingman position.

State the nature of your duty and mission on the day in question.

Well, I was flying wingman for Chief on a patrol ’round abouts this German base. We were about six or seven thousand feet up when this idiot starts shooting at Chief…”

Please limit your responses to the questions. What plane were you flying in?

Hurricane IIb’s. Gotta love ’em, way better that LaGG!

Describe your aircraft in markings and paint scheme, please.

Um, brown and tan squiggly pattern. The same one the factory guys paint on all of them. We had the same RAF roundels and letter codes as everyone else, which is a point I’d like to address. Since I’m on loan from the 2nd Guards Composite Air Squadron, can’t I put my Soviet stars on?

No, you may not address the subject of Red Stars for markings. They are forbidden in the server. What was your position to the lead aircraft?

We were kind of split up, as Chief went right through this big fat cloud and I zagged a bit to avoid putting some chunks in the soup we were in. When I came out, we had about a thousand meters between us. It was okay, I had sight of him and he was turning a bit so I could catch up. Then this jerk starts shooting at….

Please limit your answers to the questions. Were there other planes in your vicinity?

Sure, lots. There were probably six or eight Tomahawks buzzing around, waiting to catch the Huns as they were forming-up off their airfield. And that creep in the Beaufighter, of course.

So tell us what happened…

Finally! So, anyhow, this twin engine job comes outta nowhere and Chief is calling “tracer tracer!” and I’m hollering “Where where!” and he’s shouting “Me me!” and I roll it over towards him and there’s this guy firing at him! Chief does this sweet roll and evades, going high while one of the Tomahawks pops a round or two at the attacker.

So more than yourself and Chief attacked the aircraft?

Oh, heck yeah! Regular conga line! But not until after the jerk pops a couple of holes in my lead, and then he goes high as well, zooming out of the P-40’s range. I had rolled in pretty sweet, and caught him before he could go back in on Chief.

Did you recognize it as friendly?

Not at first. Twin engine job in an area where there were Bf-110’s lurking about, I figured it was a Hun that snuck in through the clouds. Anyhow, he blew a lot of energy in his zoom climb and I was right there, two hundred meters as he nosed down.

And where was your lead?

Thing of beauty — he had reversed sweetly and off my low seven or eight, about two hundred meters off.

What happened next?

We pasted him! A three seconds of firing, both of us right at convergence. His right engine burst into flames and all sorts of junk was flying off of his wing. The jerk went high, and that’s when we saw the roundels.

Didn’t the absence of a tail gunner firing tell you he wasn’t a Bf-110?

No way. The first thing we did was hammer the position where he’d sit — we figured he was dead.

What happened to the plane?

Oh, it went into a spiral, and we saw the chute deploy. I’m sure the Germans scooped him up and put a medal on him.

You don’t seem very remorseful!

Hardly. Look, there were four allied types of aircraft — Tomahawk, Hurricane, Beaufort, and B-25. The Huns had Bf-109’s, FW-190’s, JU-88’s and Bf-110’s; it’s not a hard set to identify from. What was he expecting, little colored numbers floating above our planes? Sheesh.

Other pilots confirm the events you describe, but not as colorfully. It is the judgment of the board that while the actions were regrettable, they were understandable. Though you will remain in a flying status, a letter of admonishment will be sent to the next promotion board as well as recommended to be placed in your permanent record.

Do you have any closing statements?

Yeah, actually, I have a question. Chief was given full credit for shooting the plane down, when it was really an assist. Can I claim half a kill?