Thursday NATS 2008

Most of the captains at NATS were able to get blood transfusions after night battle. Of few of them refused treatment and were a little more light headed on Thursday then normal. The morning started out with cloudy skies and light wind. We knew a rain storm was headed our way so we tried to hurry up and get the first sortie in before the rains came. Shortly after battle was called Fluegel’s VDT went out of control and circled on the left side of the pond. He announced that he was out of control several time, Leif also let us know of his plight. But the Allies had other fish to fry and left him to circle. We also knew if we did go in there for Fluegel that we would be surrounded by Axis and sunk ourselves. The Allies main goal for the battle was to sink Steve’s Bismarck. Most of the fleet spent a great deal of time chasing him around the pond. He collected a lot of holes but was still on top of the water when battle ended. The Axis were out to get Chris Grossaint. Finster pulled along side Chris to exchange sidemounts for a run down 1/3 of the shore. Finster's doubles gave twice as much as he was getting from Chris and both ships pulled away pumping pretty hard. Paul’s Rividavia sank with no damage and also collected two ram penalties. After Paul got out of the water action continued. Paul’s Nagato was chasing Don’s NC and paid with a bow full of trips. Don also got a good trip stern pass into Peter’s TMGBC. Andy Dahl was the next one to sink. He also had really light damage. Shortly after Andy got his I-boat Shelby’s Pink Lady also hit bottom. Thankfully an Allied had shot her so it was not an unseaworthy sink. Dad went in to get the ship and came back out just in time to see Mike’s St Paul go down, also with light damage. Every ship that sank in the first sortie was very lightly damaged. Soon the lightning started to get closer and the CD called an end to the first sortie. Everyone hid out under the tents getting ships ready or telling stories. The rain and cold temps had some people adding layers to keep warm. We spent about an hour waiting for the lightning to die down then reused battle in warmer and dryer weather. The 2^nd sortie saw the Allies chasing the Bismarck around again. The Axis put Chris G on the bottom, and then turned towards the slow Allied ships. Ty’s Warspite & Tom’s We Vee soon found themselves spinning and firing until both were at the bottom of the pond. Lars’ Tiger was next; he took 34 belows but stayed afloat. Peter’s TMGBC was the only Axis to take more then 10 belows in the battle, he had 19. Every one broke for lunch or started patching and preparing for campaign.

Afternoon Campain

Since the Allies were too far behind to catch up and I was already dragging with the addition of site host duties I did not put a lot of thought into this campain. The last couple of days I was trying to get Ty to make a plan and run campain for me. That having failed we went pretty much with the same plan as on Monday. We had Maggie & Eric set up with LST to run back and forth as many times as they could during our hour of fun. They were successful for 9 forward and return runs between them, helping Eric get the Life Line Award. Much like our Monday plan we wanted to get the big ships on the water under heavy escort early. This failed as I found one of my transmitters with no power caused by a blown battery. Another one had no power, possibly due to me forgetting to charge it, but I was sure it was plugged in all day Wednesday. Some quick battery flipping got us Ron’s Freighter (Run by Mike M), John’s Freighter (Run by Lars) and Tim K’s Victory Ship (Run by Tim K) out on the water a few minutes into the battle. We should have had 2 NCs, a Sodak and a POW escorting them. As I was running with my CL over to the Axis base I saw them under attach by 4 Axis ships with no Allies in site. The two freighters sank on the forward run and the Victory was too shot up to make a return run. Both sunken ships reported losing control and being pounded. Lars came back and switched the good batteries into the radio for one of the CVLs and started a run with it. It completed the forward run and also lost control and was sunk on the return run. This killed all of our big ships. Bryan Bray snuck an LST run in-between his warship work to round out our convoy runs. Meanwhile the Axis where launching a freighter or two at a steady clip. Andy T & I found Peter’s Red ship at the Axis forward base with a couple minutes left on his timer. We put enough holes into him, Andy on the pond side myself on the shore side, to get him to sink at the port with seconds left on the timer. I even got to prop wash it when my bbs ran out. Finster’s freighter made a forward run and was sunk on the return trip. Fluegel’s freighter also made the forward run and was hardly damaged on the return trip. DW took the freighter out at the port, the Allied port. The ports had shifted around from Tuesday and Fluegel had pulled his ship out of the wrong one for a declared sink. Leif had the Altmark out for a forward run but did not attempt a return. During this run Shelby was an escort and did a good job keep Ron away from the freighter. Dave made a complete run with the Muso and went out for another run. This run did not turn out as well for him. Andy Terpstra found him with the Baltimore’s triples. Twenty or more salvos went into the starboard bow, the Muso was soon sunk. Dirty & Fluegel also made forward runs but did not make a return run with their freighter. Not a lot of warship battling took place. There were too many convoy ships that needed to be attacked to spend time chasing after warships. Gerald did manage to ram sink Chris Pearce’s Le Marscillaise. About 2/3rds into the battle Peter’s Scharny was caught in the moss and had lost propulsion. He had ducked into the weeds and was hiding behind a stump on the left side of the pond. I took the Washington into the weeds to try and sink him. You could see some coming out of Peter’s ships, one of his motors was burning up. I was also stuck in the weeds out of gun range. Randy came over with The Bike and pushed my bow a little closer so I could get some sidemounts shots at Peter. I drifted away and Randy came back to push me over again. After I emptied that gun Peter turned off his pump and sank. Tim K’s Augusta was also sunk. After Tyler’s good showing with his destroyer on Wednesday he put a waterline on it and had it speed tested so he could take it out in campain. With a few minutes left in the battle he found himself stuck in some weeds and surrounded by Axis. They dumped the sidemounts they had left into him and he sank close to shore. The Allies had pulled out a small victory in this battle, winning by 800 points. After the battle we started looking for sunken ships. John Bruder’s Freighter and my CVL had sunk in the same area. John’s ship went down in one of the 7’ deep holes in the pond. Several captains came to help look for it. As always Marc found it where others had been looking. I had also been swimming around looking for the CVL when Lars pointed out that I was looking in the wrong line. The adjustment worked and I quickly walked to it.