"Red Tailed Tigers," Available to all Patrons!
Excerpt:
Benny applied a bit of pressure to his stick and compensated with the opposite rudder pedal to drop his P-80’s left wing while maintaining course. Several thousand feet below he saw flights of P-47 Thunderbolts diving on the jungle like piston-driven angels of vengeance. Explosions reverberated through the thick jungle air as the verdant tree top canopy was alternately consumed by clouds of fire from bombs then perforated by hailstorms of .50 caliber rounds. At this altitude he couldn’t make out anything of the enemy ground force, but if the Jugs were even remotely accurate, the French were not having a good day.
“Eight Bandits, ten o’clock low,” Hill announced. “Olds, Jakes, you got high flight, we’ll take low. Dive in on them, then lay on the throttle and get some distance before you reengage. If you get into real trouble, climb as soon as you can extend, we got ‘em beat for speed and ceiling.”
Benny saw two flights of four Me 262s staggered in altitude by about two thousand feet, laterally by about five thousand. Rather than the Buck Rogers shape of the P-80s, the Me262s followed much the same pattern as the propeller driven planes of the ‘40s. Their graceful lines were marred only by the massive jet engines slung under each wing. The French pilots were boring in on the P-47s, probably intent on relieving their comrades on the ground.
“Roger, acknowledge all. Tally Bandits,” Olds answered. “Engaging.”
Benny felt his stomach lurch in negative G as he put his P-80’s nose below the horizon and followed Olds’ dive. They didn’t need to talk, automatically sub-dividing their targets as they had a hundred times before in training.
As they came close enough to see roundels on the Messerschmidt’s wings, Benny adjusted his approach to a more lateral vector. It added deflection to the shot, which made it trickier, but would allow him to engage the second target more easily.
Applying fractional adjustments on the stick and rudder pedals, Benny put the gunsight piper right over the 262’s wing joint and squeezed the trigger on his control stick. Metallic clatter filled his ears, the sky before him burned with muzzle flashes and the cockpit rocked with the recoil of six .50 caliber machine guns, each firing twenty rounds per second. Red tracers lanced through the sky and tore into the first French jet’s fuselage. Benny was rewarded with an orange and black explosion followed by the sight of the 262’s right wing falling away and the remainder of the jet spinning off toward the distant ground.
If you'd like to read the rest, I am happy to announce that Red Tailed Tigers, the second story in my American-Indochina War series, is up now on Patreon for all paid subscribers. If alternate history and jet-age combat is your thing, consider supporting me on Patreon. Story #3, "Soldiers of the Republic," will be available in December to all Patrons.
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And that’s about it for now, hope your September is going well!
BC6, out.
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