A Dingo in Echidna's Clothing

Call it fortunate timing, but I have the house all to myself.

With the family gone for the whole weekend (starting with today), I decided to pull a marathon in World of Warplanes in an attempt to finish the first phase of the Operation Dynamo event. After running through the selection of British aircraft in my hangar (and another deciding factor of network reliability), the tier III Wirraway proved to be the most effective at collecting most of the 50 kills required.

It wasn't so much a matter of skill as it was a matter of numbers.

Let me explain here. At the mid to higher tiers, aircraft hitpoints (depending on class) increase exponentially. Some would be quick to point out that potential damage output does as well. I would agree with them. However, when with these two factors came into play, an unforeseen obstacle reared it's head....

LAG!!!

There were sporadic connection issues with the main server tonight that made firing large caliber cannons and landing successful shots an effort in frustration, target tracking was like watching ballet that started and stopped whenever it wanted and my aircraft were concrete blocks that were somehow flying, but not very well. Mid to high tier dogfighting wasn't going to cut it for me, I just couldn't make it work under those conditions.

Remembering the last time I suffered through this, I had fired up the German Me 329 and "mowed the lawn." But, there were two things I had to consider. One, I had restricted myself to completing Operation Dynamo using nothing but British (Commonwealth) aircraft. Two, I had to shoot down planes, not attack ground targets, for this to count. I needed a low tiered plane that could shoot fast, remove enemies from the sky quickly, take a few hits and be comfortable/familiar enough should the dreaded lag strike that I could actually increase my own chances for survival.

Since there was only one plane for the job, I stripped it down and went off....

The lag was tolerable enough to complete the task and I rolled the dice, one last time, the final hurdle of collecting a win to seal the deal.

Who can guess what I used to pull that one off? The article and video of that, tomorrow.