INTERCEPT AN US RAID OVER NORTH GERMANY

In 1943 the allied air forces in Europe
were becoming more and more powerful. The
horrible losses in the unescorted USAAF
daylight raids on Schweinfurt and Regens-
burg in August and October 1943 finally
convinced the American generals that long-
range escort fighters were needed:
The P-47 Thunderbolt's range was increased
by adding external drop tanks but even this
proved not sufficient enough for bombing
raids deep into Germany. So new P-38
Lightning groups were formed and trans-
fered to England; because of their rela-
tively poor performance against the German
fighters they were less successful. Finally
in November 1943 the first P-51 Mustangs
arrived in England. They had enough range
to fly over the whole of (industrialized)
Germany and the performance to go even
against the latest models of German Bf 109s
and FW 190s and were the decisive factor in
destroying the Luftwaffe in the air battles
of 1944.
The presence of escort fighters posed
serious problems to the German fighter
pilots which now had to brave the deadly
defensive fire of bomber formations AND
the skilled escort fighters.


YOUR MISSION

Your intercepting forces are split into
two flights. The first one has order to
attack B-17s only. The second one, yours,
is on a fighter sweep, that also means
going after the B-17s but in case any
escort fighters arrive, you must deal with
them.

