My Grandfather was one of those that volunteered for a second tour of duty. Started out in flight school but washed out at the very end. Being as he was 5’4 and 130lbs soaking wet, he got stuck in the belly turret. He flew B24 Liberator out of N Africa. Flew missions over Italy and N Africa. Then after 25 missions he volunteered for more. He got sent back to the USA to finish his flight school (by the end of the war we needed pilots due to attrition). He finished school this time and got sent to the UK to fly B17s. He flew two missions and the war ended. In the end he got a distinguished flying cross, 2 bronze stars, and 2 Purple Hearts. He then passed his love of aviation to me. Before he died we went to an air show where a B24 was sitting. I believe it was the Nine o Nine. He looked at me and said “how bout we take it up?”. I looked at him and said “sure pop pop”. Then a guy came over in a flight suit and asked “you guys ready?” My pop pop actually paid for a flight for us. I’ll never forget the smile on his face as the pilots applied power to take off….the radials grumbling. I looked at my pop pop and he was grinning from ear to ear. He said “Good to see you toots ( short footprints tootsie). Always got me home” Brave man and I miss him. He passed away 1990. But we will join formation again soon pop pop!
The 909 was the Collings foundation B-17 which crashed a few years ago. The B-24 has changed names. A dragon and his tail? I have flown in both. Amazing experience to understand in a slight way what they went through. Glad your Granddad got to fly in the plane again.
Great job, Taff - Always admire how skilled you are when you're at the helm of a venerable old B-17! Perhaps now we could see what it's like to be a squadron commander in this new Redux version of the game? Maybe you could roleplay as our good Lt. Beazley from 'Misbehavin', assigned to lead a new squadron of fresh recruits through the trying days leading up to D-Day and beyond? 😃
@@colindouglas7769 : Not only that - RAF night bombers suffered considerably heavier losses than the US daylight bombers. They were practically defenceless against German radar equipped night fighters.
Glad that you were able to bring the boys home! That fly by over the field was sure way to raise the pucker factor for the last time as if the mission wasn't hairy enough
Well after their 25th mission sent them stateside; the pilot and bombardier of The Memphis Belle joined the first B29 mission flown from newly captured airfields on the Marianas Islands over Japan in the pathfinder aircraft. The target was an aircraft factory in the outskirts of Tokyo.
Glad to say they changed the tail gunners positing. I will say that was one of the first things I brought up on Discord to the devs. I did actually tour the inside of a B-17, and just had to share some insight into the gunners visibility compared to what the game currently had. And for all the folks that were saying that I t was just me, see how great the view is being right. Glad to see the crew of Misbehaving got to finish out their tour. As always great series mate, and look forward to future videos you have in store.
Congratulations to you, Taff, for getting to the completion of your tour of duty on the B-17. I was expecting they would be sending Miss Behavin' all the way to bomb Berlin for your 25th mission, but still, any mission to the Ruhr was not exactly a "milk run", and Brad Cubitt did a real job on that oil installation! I can see the gradual improvements being made by the developers, especially to the tail-gunner's gunsight, but surely the airspeed of those enemy fighters is not right yet. As it stands, they really are far too slow to be a realistic representation of attacking enemy aircraft. No wonder your flight managed to get 26 "kills" in the mission. Perhaps there is a sobering thought here that, if you were flying with the RAF Bomber Command, you would still have another five missions to go, since the RAF crews had to fly 30 missions before they completed their tour. As for the lap of honour of the airfield, I had visions of Christopher Plummer calling you into his office and tearing a strip off you for doing victory rolls over his airfield. 🤣
Well done I think I held my breath through that video expecting a 109 to shoot you or a flak blast to get your engine but it didn't. The Mission isn't over until you turn the engines off on the hard stand so I'm glad you didn't jinks it when you commented about the Mission when you was patching up that chap on the way home. I've enjoyed all of your Missions Congratulations once again keep up the good work
Outstanding mission and career! The final little cherry was the congratulatory letter from "Major Battles." 🤣 Something that is not a joke, and is in fact rather fascinating, is an actual WWII instructional film for B-17 gunner crews that your fans can view on RU-vid. I will not attach the direct link ((because NEVER click on a link from some rando in a comment section, right?)), but please do your own RU-vid search of: Hitting a Moving Target for World War 2 Bomber Gunners (1944 - Restored). Again, congrats!
Everything done right. Congratulations, you finally made it to the end. The stern tower graphics are really phenomenal. Thank God there is no Col. Cathcart and no Maj. Danby in this game. I would have liked to have seen a flak hit in the open bomb bay. Well, you can't have everything. Loved the Boeing door hint. What's next? Another few rounds of IL2?
30 missions was the standard number for a tour of duty for crews in RAF Bomber Command throughout the war, so it was only fair that the Yanks increased it for their crews.
Well done taff, fantastic conclusion to a truly fantastic series, so the crew are going home now.. great.. just great, that means the families of those crews have their loved ones back, fame follows them around for a period of time and the US air force has a reason to celebrate. Great end to a really incredible series, great devastation inflicted on that enemy oil target, the crew leaves after hitting the enemy's life blood and hammering the enemy's war efforts.. couldn't have been a better end to the series. Well done taff, congratulations on seeing a crew return home and the series ending in victory, it's been great.. utterly fantastic, if you plan to do another series of B17, I'm looking forward to seeing it.. keep up these epic series and content, well done mate.. well done. Happy gaming and thanks so much mate 👍
Great going Taff! Was thinking of getting Redux, since I have the original. Was wondering if the download includes all the updates, or do I need to install all the updates as well. Thamks.
Its kind of crazy, I found out my grandfather helped train the guys for the Doolittle operation after reading this biography I wrote about him in 2nd grade. We video taped the interview, but its pretty embarrasing because im like 7 years old and asking dumb questions. It was like in 95. My mom wrote the questions out beforehand at least.
Apart from some initial head on passes, the enemy fighters now only seem to attacks slowly from the rear. No more slashing attacks from the side at high speed? Any reasons for this?
They dont tell me these details unfortunatly, they are updating the version 2-3 times a day and they have updated the change log so cant be too far away
@@TaffinExile Haha you had me fooled! While I could tell when it was real bad it was a bug, these smaller ones seemed like it could be a gunnery skill or ground crew skill mechanic.
Congratulations. You are now hereby ordered to report to the Marianas Islands for an additional 25 missions in a B-29. The 25 mission limit only applies to one theater of war sucker. Suit up and brush up on your Japanese.
Its sad that people in 2024 have to play games from 2000 cause the new gaming era sucks, providing you with either shi**y war thunder or easy money making platform called DCS...
