Mostovskoy goes to war: A BoS campaign AAR

[heinkill]

Mission 1: 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 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.

 

http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u534/bigfattfreddy/BoS/bosaar1017_zpsc9e912b3.jpg

 

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

 

http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u534/bigfattfreddy/BoS/bosaar1020_zpsa0ec8d69.jpg

 

And missed.

 

http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u534/bigfattfreddy/BoS/bosaar1019_zpse4a72b71.jpg

 

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.

 

http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u534/bigfattfreddy/BoS/bosaar1021_zps8a3e260e.jpg

 

http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u534/bigfattfreddy/BoS/bosaar1022_zps8708d6cf.jpg

 

"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.

 

http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u534/bigfattfreddy/BoS/bosaar1024_zps1cd9f8d1.jpg

 

http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u534/bigfattfreddy/BoS/bosaar1023_zps4a8bd00b.jpg

 

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.

 

http://i1320.photobucket.com/albums/u534/bigfattfreddy/BoS/bosaar1026_zpsd209f875.jpg

 

TO BE CONTINUED...

Edited October 14, 2014 by heinkill

[Bando]

Great stuff.

I love stories like this.

 

[LLv24_Zami]

Yeah good one

[-NW-ChiefRedCloud]

Very nice ....

 

Chief

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Wonderful description, I really love your gunner!

[Trooper117]

Entertaining stuff!

[CIA_Yankee_]

Keep 'em coming, Heinkill. I see you continue your tradition of interesting rear gunners (I remember Fat Fritz fondly *grin*).

[heinkill]

Part 2

 

Unfortunately it seems I have reached the limit on the number of images I can post... rules not made for pictorial AARs unfortunately.

 

Hope you don't mind but I continue the story here:

 

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4022463/Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_BoS_#Post4022463

 

Just jump down to part 2.

 

H

Edited October 14, 2014 by heinkill

[Urra]

Very nice. Great stuff.

[Feathered_IV]

Excellent stuff. I want to fly with Aggripina Petrovna

[FlatSpinMan]

Heinkill

You can keep posting pics, just split the post. The number is limited per post, not per thread.

 

Note that there's a waiting period of several minutes in which new text or images will be added to the previous post, as if you were editing it. Adding new pics at this time will cause a warning message about too many pics. I found this out in my thread. Just wait a bit and then try again. If someone else posts in the interim, the new content will be added as a separate post. I hope that makes sense.

[CIA_Yankee_]

Awesome stuff, Heinkill.

 

I do miss Fat Fritz, though. Maybe when you do a Stuka AAR....

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Man, what a landing!

[heinkill]

Next Chapter:

 

Mission 2: Taking lessons

 

 

"So, you are so smart, what is right, and what is wrong?" Petrovna challenged me. "This war is right? Or this war is wrong?"

 

Most gunners want to talk about women. Even the women gunners, want to whine about other women. Or their mothers. Not Petrovna, no, she is a philosopher. Her father was an escaped Menshevik who fled to Paris in '21. I wished she had stayed there with him. What kind of a daughter leaves her elderly father alone in occupied Paris to go and fight a war?

 

We were on our way to the day's target, supporting our front lines against a German push. 

 

 

Our targets were artillery and vehicles, tanks if we spotted them. I was not optimistic about the ability of my little tin rockets to make much of a dent in a Panzer, but I did have my VYa-23mm - that should at least be able to slow them down.

 

It was, unfortunately, a long flight to the target, but at least it was over friendly territory on our side of the Volga.

 

 

CONTINUES HERE...

 

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4022822/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_#Post4022822

 

Cheers

 

H

Edited October 15, 2014 by heinkill

[Nil]

@heinkill Love your war-reports! Your positive attitude and amusing writing is what keeps my hopes up for this to be a hit! Keep spreading the the stories!
We need this one to be successful for 10+ more years of WWII flightsim fun! You should be awarded a free standard copy for each AAR you make, to give out to mates!

[SCG_Neun]

@heinkill Love your war-reports! Your positive attitude and amusing writing is what keeps my hopes up for this to be a hit! Keep spreading the the stories!

We need this one to be successful for 10+ more years of WWII flightsim fun! You should be awarded a free standard copy for each AAR you make, to give out to mates!

+1

[heinkill]

Heinkill

You can keep posting pics, just split the post. The number is limited per post, not per thread.

 

Note that there's a waiting period of several minutes in which new text or images will be added to the previous post, as if you were editing it. Adding new pics at this time will cause a warning message about too many pics. I found this out in my thread. Just wait a bit and then try again. If someone else posts in the interim, the new content will be added as a separate post. I hope that makes sense.

Thx but splitting posts and waiting several minutes between them is unsuited to my temperament. I'm too impatient!

[MarcoRossolini]

I'm surprised Petrovna isn't in the Gulag by now given her suspect heritage...

 

The most amusing story I've seen so far, keep it going, I might have to try my hand at these soon enough.

[heinkill]

Whow!!! Excellent read and motivation to play IL2 BOS Campaign!!!

 

Thank you!

Yeah that last mission was actually quite action packed. Sure, the incidental action is limited to your flight path, but it is there. We could have chosen to attack the German arty on the way out to the target, and on the way back stumbling across those Stukas was a nice surprise. I never saw their escort after we engaged, I assume our Yaks did their job and chased them off. I wouldn't like to take on a 109 or 190 in my IL2, but Stukas and Heinkels are a nice bonus!

 

You have to think yourself into this campaign, the game won't do it for you, but it has good bones.

 

H

[heinkill]

Mission 3; An Awkward Silence



I realise that in my old age, I talk about Agrippina Petrovna more than is strictly healthy. My grandson said to me the other day, "Dedushka, why do you talk so much about this Agrippina Petrovna, who you didn't even like?"

How do you explain that to a young man who was not there? With his iThis and iThat, who never went through a day of suffering in his life with any of his friends, or even better, his enemies?

How even though someone was in your life such a short time, even though they vexed you every day and called you names and made your life a misery, that you can also miss this person and still think about them seventy years later?

I may forget where I put my keys this morning, but I remember those days in 1942 better than anything else.

Like the attack on Pitomnik. We had been hammered all through September as the German forces drove a wedge into Stalingrad. On the day we attacked Pitomnik, the main Luftwaffe airfield on the Stalingrad front, the 228ShAP could raise only three IL2s for the attack.

 

CONTINUED HERE

 

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4023657/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_#Post4023657

 

Cheers

 

H

Edited October 17, 2014 by heinkill

[heinkill]

AAR 4

 

The battle moved into a new phase that November. Our forces began a counterattack at last, and started to choke the neck of the German salient.

 

Petrovna and I found ourselves leading several missions a day deep into the Stalingrad pocket. There was not much time, or energy, for banter and I barely remember each one. Only a couple stand out.

 

 

We were moved to Illarionovskiy airfield, and began flying from there. The first mission from that field was an attack on artillery positions behind German lines. We had to fight through a screen of German fighters to reach the target.

 

 

Our escorts fought bravely.

 

 

 

And we hit the German artillery hard.

 

 

 

I remember it because afterward, we got a little piece of tin to pin to our jackets.

 

 

On our next mission, I said to Petrovna, "So gunner Petrovna, you are now a hero of Kalach! How does that feel?"

 

She did not reply. Instead she said, "Look down there. It is like everything is turned around. The fire runs like a river, and the Volga is burning."

 

 

 

Continued here:

 

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4024365/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_#Post4024365

Edited October 19, 2014 by heinkill

[Bando]

Great stuff.

[FlatSpinMan]

Ooh, I like that line.

"The fire runs like a river, and the Volga is burning."

[heinkill]

The Killing Field

 

Two weeks later the ring closed around the German invaders. The 13th and 14th mechanised punched through German 6th Army lines from the east, while the 5th tank rolled them back in the west. By 22 November we had 300,000 German troops bottled up between Kalach and the Volga.

 

It was killing time.

 

 

I stepped out into the cold morning air at Kachalinskaya airfield above the Don river valley, looking for Petrovna. She was never hard to find, she would be somewhere near our new Ilyushin, unhappy with something.

 

Just then a loudspeaker struck up from beside the officer quarters. An immense voice began to sing.

 

May noble fury boil up like waves!

This is the people's war, a sacred war!

 

Since there were no human beings around, and since everything around about - the earth, the sky, the dirty river down in the valley - was lit up by flame, it seemed as though the war itself was singing.

 

I found her swaddled in five layers of uniform, thick gloves, fur lined hat, looking for all the world like a grubby potato picker, hammering at the barrel of one of our new Shpitalny ShFK-37mm underwing cannons with a metal pipe. A very concerned group of armourers hovered a short distance from her, looking relieved that I had shown up.

 

I watched her for a moment, as she lifted the heavy pipe up over her shoulder, and then swung it like an American baseball bat into the base of the cannon barrel. Then she stooped to peer into the ammunition loading port on the cannon, before standing again and repeating her brutalisation of the barrel.

 

After watching for a few minutes, I called out, "Did our machine offend you in some way gunner Petrovna?"

 

Whack, stoop, peer, whack.

 

"Perhaps our new anti-tank guns provoke you because your little 12.7mm Berezin is so tiny?"

 

Whack, stoop, peer, whack.

 

Suddenly there was a leaden clang, and a 37mm HE round fell out of the gun pod's ammunition port and onto the icy ground.

 

Exhausted, Petrovna lowered her pipe, panting heavily. The senior armourer, who I recognised as Smirnov, picked up the HE round from the ground, shrugged at me, and walked off to dispose of it.

 

"I test fired the guns, and it jammed," she said.

 

"So you decided the best idea to free a jammed HE round was to belt it with a pipe."

 

She pointed to a smouldering oil pot under the wing which I hadn't noticed, "I heated the barrel. To expand it."

 

"Ah. So you cooked the HE round first, before you belted it with a pipe."

 

She sighed, "Smirnov wanted to take our machine off the line, disassemble the cannon. We would been off operations all day."

 

"You could have been off operations for eternity, gunner," I told her. Such a shame she had cleared the jam. The thought of a day of doing paperwork rather than being shot at was obviously more appealing to me than to the homicidal Agrippina Petrovna.

 

The gun crew had hustled over to the newly cleared NS-37 and were busy feeding a belt of alternating HE and AP rounds into the gun port. I looked dubiously up at the barrel of the other ShFK-37.

 

 

We were one of only nine aircraft in the 688th ShAP of the 228th Attack Air Division to be equipped with the monster cannons and had only been using them for a week or so. We had yet to put them into action against a German panzer. They kicked like a mule, could knock 40km/h off your airspeed when they fired, and if the guns fell out of synchronisation, it was only the first rounds that went anywhere near the target, the alternating kick of the guns would cause the aircraft to yaw left and right - which was fine for spraying troop positions, but useless against armoured vehicles. And god help you if one of the guns jammed and the other kept firing, the yaw could just about rip the wing off and send you cartwheeling in.

 

Plus, if that wasn't enough, if you fired the guns in a dive, as you would against any ground target, they made the nose pitch down even further. The 300kg weight and drag of guns and ammunition pods gave us a top airspeed of just 372kph at treetop height, slowed our rate of climb and lengthened our takeoff.

 

"I don't like them," I told Petrovna.

 

"They can kill German tanks," she said, "Better than rockets. And a single hit will bring down a Heinkel."

 

"They make my Ilyushin fly like a pig."

 

"It already flies like a pig, with you at the stick."

 

"Alright, a drunken pig."

 

"Let me fly it then, I am accustomed to dealing with drunken pigs," she said, without a smile.

 

Continued here: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4039364/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_#Post4039364

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

 

Stuff on the 37 mm gun

 

Now this is how to introduce new hardware!

Edited November 22, 2014 by 79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer

[BlackDevil]

Best forum entry in a long time ! Great stuff Heinkill

Edited November 23, 2014 by BlackDevil

[andyw248]

After reading your diary entries I look at our beloved vehicles in a different way...

[heinkill]

ONE FINE DAY

 

The German high command did not seem too determined to free the troops starving and freezing to death in the Kessel

 

They made a brave attempt to hold out, but there was no one trying to reach them from German lines.

 

 

The only supplies reaching them were those brought in by air, and our fighters were having a field day. Every day they brought down dozens of German Ju52s and He111s. The German airfields at Pitomnik and Gumrak looked more like junk yards than military airfields.

 

 

For us, those days were a blur of anti tank, anti troop, anti artillery missions. 

 

One mission stands out, from start to finish.

 

A ground attack mission, inside the Kessel, where our troops and artillery were trying to root out entrenched German positions.

 

 

Petrovna arrived with a bruise on her cheek and I noticed she winced as she climbed into her gunner's position. Last I had seen her she was drinking a quiet beer with some of the other women.

 

I plugged in my radio cable and asked her over my shoulder..."So, romance or politics?"

 

 

She didn't reply. "Not romance then," I guessed. "So don't tell me, you insulted some general, or commissar, or someone's uncle who serves on the high command..."

 

"That damn Krymov," she finally said as we lifted off the icy runway, "She's a dubious character, I remember her when she arrived from Kiev, all full of herself and her time with the Trotskyists and Bukharinites..."

 

 

"There is not enough war for you down there...you have to also make war in your own barracks?"

 

 

"The new Russia," she grunted, "Has enemies everywhere. Now shut up and drive will you, it is too cold back here for chit chat."

 

 

But that is not why I remember the mission. We flew 40 minutes under a low grey sky toward the attack point, but when we arrived over where the front lines should be, I could see nothing.

 

 

No trenches, no dug in troops, no smoke or wrecked vehicles, the whole landscape below was snowy, white and undisturbed.

 

I ordered the flight to follow me in a racetrack course over the target area.

 

"Lost again," Petrovna muttered.

 

"Well, use your own eyes," I told her as we made another circuit, "Instead of just complaining."

 

 

"We're sitting ducks up here," she pointed out. "Why don't you just land and ask the Germans for directions?"

 

Then there was a mighty CRACK and a black cloud erupted behind us.

 

 

"Flak!" Petrovna yelled.

 

Continued here:

 

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4043486/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_a_#Post4043486

[Bando]

[heinkill]

Barsagino

 

"Seriously," Agrippina Petrovna complained, "Just look at it."

 

It was a fair comment. I tried to imagine seeing it again for the first time.

 

It was larger. About a metre longer and three metres wider than our IL2. It had a nose made largely of glass, where the engine on our IL2 was. Instead of one AM38 engine, it had two M105Ks cranking 1200 horsepower each. There was a 7.62 mm ShKAS machine gun in the nose, together with a 12.7 mm Berezin UB, the equivalent of the powerful .50 calibre gun on the American lend-lease P39s. Two rearward firing 7.62 mm ShKAS in the dorsal, one Berezin UB in the gunner's ventral hatch and 1 ShKAS you could stick out the side ports, both mostly for strafing.

 

"It's a Peshka," I told her. "Frontovoe Trebovanie - Request from the Front."

 

"I request," she said, "To be transferred back to our old unit."

 

 

"And I know it's a Peshka," she added. "I've been redoing my bombadier training all week. What I want to know, is...is it a bomber, or a dive bomber, or a heavy fighter or...just an uglier way to die. It looks like half of everything and none of anything."

 

"Two engines," I pointed out, "Twice the chance of getting home."

 

"Twice the noise," she replied.

 

"1600kg of bombs - twice what we could carry in the IL2."

 

"No rockets."

 

"Get in."

 

CONTINUED HERE: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4047178/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4047178

 

IF YOU HAVE JUST JOINED: AAR 1 STARTS HERE - http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4047178/1

 

 

[79_vRAF_Friendly_flyer]

Another splendid story!

 

One thing though, wouldn't the Russian speak of the planes as feminines?

[heinkill]

Another splendid story!

 

One thing though, wouldn't the Russian speak of the planes as feminines?

Fair question, plenty of Russians here to ask! I though because samolet/aircraft ends in a consonant it is a "he" but I guess because its a Peshka, it could be a "she"?

 

H

[heinkill]

Pravda?

[guidom]

fantastic serial, thankyou sir. you are a truly talented writer, the humour is spot on.

[Zak]

Pravda?

Da, Peshka should be "she". And Lavka (La-5) as well. All the rest of the VVS are boys:)

[vonLazan]

Mission 1: PART 1

 

"Oh no, not you." These were the first words of the ugliest gunner in the VVS, Agrippina Petrovna,

 

Sounds like my ex.

[heinkill]

The Bridges of Zhirnokleevka

 

"It is bad luck."

 

Seratov was refusing to get into the Peshka. It was very early on the morning of December 13, which for him was already a test of fate. Unlucky 13. We had just been advised that our own machine had been damaged in the last raid, and was being taken out of service. We had been given a factory fresh new machine.

 

"Get in the damn plane," Petrovna said, and gave him a shove.

 

He shoved her back, "New planes are bad luck. Full of gremlins."

 

"You are a gremlin," Petrovna said. She pulled a flare gun from her pocket and pointed it at Seratov, "Get in the damn plane or I will set your moron head on fire."

 

We all climbed in. The new machine still smelled of machine oil and rubber, not the usual smell of tobacco smoke and fear. It was so early we still needed to have the runway lit so that we could see it in the darkness.

 

 

The mission today was a bridge inside the Kessel. But not just any bridge.

 

 

When I saw during the briefing where we were headed, I had groaned. "Zhirnokleevka? Oh come on, that is pointless!"

 

The intelligence officer, Vladimirovna, had looked up from where she was holding her finger on the map, "What is the problem comrade pilot?"

 

"There are four bridges at Zhirnokleevka," I pointed out to her, "You know the problem. Every time we blow one of them up, they just move traffic to the other three, and then fix the one we blew up. Next time you go back, there are still four bridges. There are always four bridges!"

 

 

"It is a pointless mission!" I told her.

 

"That is why we are only sending one aircraft," Vladimirovna smiled at me, "Yours."

 

CONTINUED HERE:

 

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4049921/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4049921

 

If you have just joined, the AAR starts here:

 

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4049921/1

Edited December 13, 2014 by heinkill

[heinkill]

Agrippina Petrovna

 

Dedushka, why have we never met this Agrippina Petrovna? Whenever you have too much to drink, you talk about her. Every Christmas, you talk about her. You see a young woman, you say, 'She looks like that witch Petrovna'. But where is she now?

 

My grandchildren ask me this. 

 

Natalya, my beautiful daughter, even suggested when my dear Lyudmila passed away, Papka, you are so lonely...why don't you go and find that woman you always talk about from the war. Agrippina Petrovna? Go look her up. She'd be happy to see you!

 

She would be 92 by now, I told them. No one lives that long, except me.

 

No one lives that long.

 

Which brings us to December 16 1942.

 

It was another mission to attack a German airfield behind their northern front lines. We were slowly pushing them further and further away from Stalingrad, leaving their troops there at the mercy of our artillery and rockets.

 

 

I was in the mood to celebrate. It was only three weeks until Christmas. My mother had made me some small Matryoshka dolls from cloth, as ornaments, to hang in the window of my barracks. I was too embarrassed to do this, but as we walked out to our newly repainted Peshka, I fished them out of the pocket of my coat and handed them to Petrovna.

 

She looked at them suspiciously, "What are these?"

 

"Matryoshka ornaments," I told her. "My mother made them for me, but I thought of you."

 

"Why?"

 

"Well, I am sure that if someone could peel away all that dirt on your face, and your filthy overalls, and comb your hair, there would actually be a fine Russian woman in there somewhere."

 

She grunted, "You'll never know, that's for sure." She held them out to me.

 

"No, they're for you," I said.

 

She looked at me again, then shrugged and put them in the pocket of her jacket, and climbed into the aircraft. I took the shrug for a thankyou.

 

Seratov was standing there too. "What do I get?"

 

I patted him on the shoulder, "You get a free ride in this nice aeroplane son, now get in."

 

 

The target was Tarmosin Luftwaffe airfield. It was a distant target compared to what we were used to, nearly 160km return, but at least most of the flight was over territory we had won back. If our own flak left us alone, it should be a nice clean run.

 

 

CONTINUED HERE: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4051736/Re:_Mostovskoy_goes_to_war:_Bo#Post4051736

 

If you just joined, AAR starts here: http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4051736/1

Edited December 16, 2014 by heinkill

[MarcoRossolini]

Noooooooo!

 

 

What have you done Heinkill!!!

[mort]

Noooooooo!

 

 

What have you done Heinkill!!!

Spoiler alert. Kind of?