Not sure why but photobucket pix are showing again! Links to the full story below:

CHAPTER ONE: MOSTOVSKOY GOES TO WAR

AN UNORTHODOX APPROACH: http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4022463/Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_BoS_ca#Post4022463

TAKING LESSONS: http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4022822/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4022822

AN AWKWARD SILENCE: http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4023657/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_#Post4023657

VOLGA ON FIRE: http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4024365/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_#Post4024365

KILLING FIELD: http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4039364/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_#Post4039364

ONE FINE DAY: http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4043486/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_#Post4043486

BARSAGINO: http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4047178/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4047178

THE BRIDGES OF ZHIRNOKLEEVKA: http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4049921/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4049921

Ch.1 FINALE - AGRIPPINA PETROVNA: http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4049921/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4049921

CHAPTER TWO: FAT FRITZ GOES TO WAR

FAT FRITZ GOES TO WAR
http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4053398/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4053398

A WING AND A PRAYER
http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4062267/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4062267

IN THE CAULDRON
http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4065441/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4065441

FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE
http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4068476/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4068476

FLIGHT TO FREEDOM
http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4074326/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4074326

NO REST FOR THE WICKED
http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4074883/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4074883

WEAPONS UNLOCKED
http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4075911/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4075911

CHAPTER 3: YEKATERINA 'KATYA' BUDANOVA GOES TO WAR

PRELUDE:

http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4077963/BoS_campaign_Ch._3_AAR_#1_Feb_#Post4077963

KATYA'S FIRST KILL

http://SimHQ.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4079060/BoS_campaign_Ch._3_AAR_#2_Feb_#Post4079060

**************



Mission 1 teaser: An unorthodox approach

PART 1

"Oh no, not you." These were the first words of the ugliest gunner in the VVS, Agrippina Petrovna, when she walked into the briefing room and saw who she was going to be paired up with, "My feet still hurt, and you still owe me for the cost of cleaning my uniform."

It was a long story involving a dark dance hall, some sad music, a lot of vodka and the things we regret doing when we think we could die any day. That was Petrovna's version anyway.

"You think I would go up with you if I had the choice?" I said to her.

She sat down heavily beside me, "You are lucky my gun cannot point forward, Mikhael Mostovskoy," she grumbled.

The briefing hut of the VVS 228ShAP was like every other briefing hut on every VVS airfield on the Don Front. Which was to say, it was unlike any other. Every Russian hut was unique, with its own life story. This one was particularly utilitarian, looked like it had been put together by a blind bricklayer, and was colder on the inside than on the outside.

A lot like Agrippina Petrovna.

I turned my attention to the briefing. We were going to attack a train, deep inside German lines.



"Right on top of the Luftwaffe field at Pitomnik. I am going to die," Petrovna moaned.

"If I'm lucky," I said, and she hit me with her lunch pail. She was the only gunner who took her lunch with her on a sortie, in a large tin wedged between her feet. It always took her longer to get out of the cockpit than it did to get into it, she ate so much during the mission.

Our route would take us west of Stalingrad, skirting our own lines before we swung in toward the train station at Voroponovo.



We were not told why this station, this train, at this time, but it was as good, or bad, a mission as any. It was only my fifth mission with the 228ShAP, and I had yet to score a victory. If you don't count my last gunner, who shot himself in his bunk two days ago. The joke in the unit is that he was afraid to go up with me again. They said I should paint a skull on my tailplane, my first kill.

But they don't joke too loudly because I am their flight leader. For this mission I had chosen to load both rockets and bombs. The rockets should be enough to take care of the train, and the bombs would be useful if we ran into any juicy targets along the way. It was about 5 pm as the three of us lined up on the runway, and already getting dark.



We had been given an escort of four LaGG-3s, and they hovered overhead, impatient to get underway.



As we lifted away from the field, I saw a lone soldier, run out of his hut and stand watching.



"Hey Petrovna," I said, "I think your boyfriend is waving goodbye."

"It's not my boyfriend, it's yours," she returned. "Just fly the stupid plane."

About five minutes into the flight, I spotted artillery below, "There are our brave troops, dropping heavy artillery on the heads of the poor Germans in Barrikady from the safety of their gun pits miles behind the lines." I remarked.



"Those are German guns," Petrovna said, "Firing at our troops. We still hold Barrikady, you fool."

"You fool, Sir," I told her. "Show respect for a higher ranking officer please gunner Petrovna." Having put her in her place, I reasserted my authority, "And mark that position on your map please, we may return to it after we have dealt with that train, if we have any ammunition."

"If we are still alive, more like it," she muttered. The German guns fell away behind us.



She stayed quiet after that. All I could hear was the drone of the engine, the whistle of air past the cockpit, and the crunch of her munching on a beet. As we approached the target though she called out, "German fighter! Six o'clock, five thousand feet! Go get him boys!"



The LaGGs rolled into action, a little reluctantly I thought, but they kept the German busy.

"Stay sharp," I told her, "We're approaching the target."



Spotting the train station was easy - a web of tracks led into and away from it and there, right on schedule (thank goodness for German efficiency!) was our target, a nice fat, juicy steam locomotive, pulling half a dozen wagons.



"I'll take the train," I told my flight, "You stay up here and deal with anyone trying to bother me."

I lined up behind the slow moving train and put my Ilyushin into a shallow dive. It was a beast of an airplane - heavy in the ass, wallowed like a pig if you pulled hard on the stick, but it had teeth like a shark.



"Rockets away," I yelled, as my 8 ROS-82s streaked off their rails toward the train.



And missed.



The train continued blithely on its way. Or not, actually, because we had at least woken up the gunners on the flak trucks and they began to fill the sky around us with HE. Something whanged against my starboard wing.





"Chyort, voz'mi!" Petrovna yelled, "I knew it! We're hit!"

I looked out at the wing, and she was right. I could see daylight through the skin of the wing.





I tried the controls. He still seemed to respond to the stick and the pedals. He's a tough bird, the IL2. "I'm going around for another run." I told her.

"What? No! Let the others!" Petrovna yelled, "You couldn't hit it with rockets, what makes you think you can hit it with bombs?!"

"Rockets tiny," I re-assured her, "Bombs big."

I hauled the Ilyushin around for a second run.

PART 2

I closed on the train again, tracer winked past the wings and exploded around us.





"Did you maybe...ever think..." Petrovna said through gritted teeth.

"Think what?" I said, my finger poised over the bomb release.

"No, that's all...did you ever THINK?" she yelled.

I ignored her, and pickled the bombs in a salvo.





They fell beautifully...



And missed completely



"What a surprise," Petrovna said. "Now can we go home?"

"That's...not certain," I told her. My stick was jammed back against my stomach. There was nothing I could do. The plane pitched into a rapid climb.



I had lateral movement, but the control wires to the elevators must have been jammed, and as hard as I pushed, the stick would not budge. The trim control was also kaput.

I tried rolling him onto his side, and he responded to that at least. I rolled first one way, and then the other.



"What the Ѡ&#1146 are you doing?" Petrovna yelled, "I nearly lost my lunch!"

I threw the machine back onto the opposite wing again, "I've lost vertical control," I told her, "But I think, if I alternately roll left and right, I can more or less keep us on the right...heading."



"More or less? Can you more or less keep us from crashing?" she gurgled. "Let's bail out!"

"Good idea dear Agrippina. And then you can use your feminine charms to ask the Germans to let us borrow an airplane and fly home."

That shut her up.

Unfortunately our zig zag path took us right over the German airfield at Gumrak. "Look," I said, our brave comrades are trying to attract their groundfire."



"Yes," she agreed, "They can't wait to see how this ends either."

A sickening fifteen minutes later, we miraculously neared our airfield. "The tail piece has a big gash all the way around!" Petrovna yelled, "It looks like it will fall off any minute!"



"Then I had better put it down," I told her.

"What? No! You have to pull up so we can bail out!"

"And trust your life to a few kilos of silk sewn together by a German sympathiser? Nyet dear Petrovna, I am going to land this beast!" I lowered the wheels, out of optimism more than anything else.



If she could have crawled out of her cockpit, over the canopy and shot me with her sidearm, she would have, I know it. But she couldn't and I had a cunning plan. I would roll right to put us at the end of the airfield, then I would sideslip left, lining up perfectly with the direction of the airstrip and touch down with my left wheel first, using my RPM and pitch to keep the nose from rising, The right wheel would come down, perhaps a touch hard, but it was built like a tractor, so that would be no concern, and then I would coast to a gentle stop right outside the mess hall to the cheers of the ground crew and disappointment of the ambulance drivers.



Petrovna began praying...

I didn't stop her. But apparently her deity was not listening.

We touched down beautifully on our left wheel, exactly as planned. Then on our left wing. Which sheared off.



Causing the right wing to lift suddenly and flip us on our back. The engine screamed in protest and died.



And then we skidded across the field like a loosely tied skate, canopy and tailplane crunching, and Petrovna screaming. Or perhaps it was me. Actually yes, I think it was. Petrovna was no doubt holding tightly to her lunch pail.



We came to a sudden stop. It was wonderfully quiet...no sudden WHOOMP as our fuel and ammunition exploded, which was good.

"When I get out of here..." Petrovna began. She was hanging upside down by her straps, the tough metal canopy of the Ilyushin had saved her from having her face scraped off - mind you that could have been an improvement.

"Are you dead?" I asked her.

"What?"

"If you are screaming at me, may I assume you are still alive then? And not a prisoner in a German love camp?"

"Why, you..."

I unbuckled my harness and landed unceremoniously in a heap against the top of my cockpit. "And tonight, you will be eating beet soup with the rest of us, and sleeping in your own cot, alone, all thanks to me and my magnificent flying skills," I told her.

"...kill you!!"

"And when I... ask you... for a dance next time," I told her, kicking out the side panel so I could crawl out, "I expect you to show some gratitude!"



(Note: this AAR will borrow liberally in thought and feeling from the classic Russian Stalingrad novel, 'Life and Fate' by Vasily Grossman, which was banned in 1962 before it was even published. It is a must read for anyone interested in Stalingrad.)