11/11/04
Falcon 4.0/SP3 Campaign Mission Report #68
OPERATION ROLLING FIRE
DAY 6 – 0915 HOURS

Campaign Status:

Enemy air activity continues to be extremely heavy. Conversely, allied air operations have slowed up significantly perhaps indicating that some enemy bombers have been leaking through inflicting damage upon allied airbases.

Objective:

The objective for this mission is to fly an offensive fighter sweep over the Wonsan area. Much like what is occurring on the western end of the front, the eastern end is getting a fair amount of fighter and bomber activity as previously damaged enemy airfields get back on line.

Of particular concern is the fact that enemy fighters and attack aircraft are operating at times with immunity over the battlefield. Prior to our mission we can see a total of 12 enemy aircraft being tracked by AWACS across the theater with no friendly assets airborne other than the E-3 and tankers:



In an attempt to reduce enemy air operations we will re-strike certain key airfields from which enemy aircraft have been observed to be operating from. In conjunction with today’s sweep mission we will also strike the Sondok airbase just north of Wonsan:



Unfortunately a dedicated SEAD flight has not been assigned to take out the SA-2 threat that still exists north of Wonsan so extreme care must be taken to avoid allied losses on this secondary target.

Planning/preflight:

Our 4-ship flight of F-16CGs will depart Choongwon airbase and proceed to the SWEEP waypoints to conduct aggressive offensive air operations. After sterilizing the airspace in the immediate Wonsan area we will conduct a single strike against Sondok airbase specifically targeting only the runway for destruction.

Debrief:

Since the airfield at Choongwon remains damaged it is necessary for us to start from the taxi position on this mission. After being cleared to taxi our 4-ship flight heads to the runway and is soon cleared for takeoff.

Enroute toward the SWEEP area several large targets appear on the 80 mile radar scan indicating a probably enemy bomber formation:



Turning to the right to intercept them I make use of our missiles first (lead and #2), saving the element’s missiles for any later fighter threats:





My wingman springs into action and soon a pair of Tu-16s are tracing flaming arcs across the sky:



Only a few minutes later, a second pair of contacts appear on the scope, identified by AWACS as J-7s. With a definite height and missile range advantage I again choose to use the lead element to engage the targets and soon the two J-7s meet the same fate as the Tu-16s:





Cont…

The DPRK have a busy day scheduled however, and I’m shocked and pleased to see yet another 3-ship, long distance radar contact appear on the radar scope. Like fish in a barrel the unescorted bombers work their way south (or perhaps the J-7s were the advance fighter screen..so much for that tactic!).

I choose one contact for myself and turn the other two contacts over to the element, giving them their first taste of blood on the mission. It only takes 30 seconds for me and the element to wipe the Tu-16s from the skies leaving behind several trails of smoke and a sky full of parachutes. I joke to my wingman that the new Chinese method of inserting paratroopers is effective, but hell on equipment:



Five minutes later we are approaching Wonsan when AWACS gives a “new threats airborne” call inside of 10 miles! I’m hoping that doesn’t mean that Wonsan is back in business again but whatever the case DPRK MiG-21s are airborne and heading right for us. I give the entire flight the weapons free command in order to get the most missiles on the threat in the least amount of time. Inexplicably, wingman #3 crashes 30 seconds later. I’ve seen this occur a few other times when the threat aircraft is at extreme low altitude and the attacking aircraft is at high altitude. In an effort to put their nose down onto the target the AI craft will occasionally enter a dive that is so steep they cannot pull out of it in time. I suspect that is what happened to #3.

Wingman #4 kills one of the MiG-21s:



For some reason I can’t get my radar to find the remaining MiG and later I realize that I had the scan volume set too high. We are now down to 11-thousand feet and closing fast on the MiG who is sending my threat warning receiver into fits. I know we are probably getting very close to his radar missile range so in desperation I use a trick that Deathscythe suggested on a previous mission and I release an AMRAAM “Maddog” without missile lock. The missile goes active right off the rail and acquires whatever it first sees in front of it using this technique:



I hold my breath and hope that a friendly fighter hasn’t somehow snuck out in front of me and watch the missile track in for a kill on the remaining MiG-21:



Wow! A bunch of action there for awhile! The after action report will later show a total of 9 kills for our flight for only 1 loss which wasn’t even a shoot-down. The flight worked really well together.

Climbing back up to around 20-thousand feet I scan the airspace north of Wonsan and see no contacts whatsoever on the radar. Double checking with AWACS confirms the airspace has been “sanitized”. Since the strike portion of the flight will take us at low altitude into a known SAM location I elect to send the element (#3 and #4) back to base since they can only get shot down at this point without contributing anything to the strike.

Turning to my weapons page I set my 6 Durandals to come off the rack at 990 foot intervals which should give me a pretty good dispersal down the length of Sondok’s relatively short runway:



Coming up on Sondok I spy the airfield from altitude and as I enter the SA-2 engagement cone I take us down to the deck with hopes of running under the radar scan altitude:



Approaching the airfield I make a last second line up correction, switch to CCIP mode now that I have a visual on the runway and try to settle my steering:



Running down the runway I hear my Durandals releasing and the “kahrump” of the rocket motors slamming into the runway and exploding. Though not a perfect “down the center-line” pass I think the damage is sufficient:



Cont…

The SA-2 symbol glares accusingly at me on the threat warning receiver but much to my relief I never get a launch warning. Pulling a hard right off the end of the runway I flee at super-low altitude to the east and the safety of the sea:



Safely out of the area I once again check in with AWACS to assure the airspace is still clear then hand off the lead to my wingman for the flight back to Choongwon. With the tension of the strike ebbing I use the time to practice a bit of formation flying on my wingman during the flight home:



Back safely on the ramp I pop the canopy and contemplate taking up smoking:



Conclusions:

That would be what I would consider one of my few “textbook” missions. Flying as part of a self-sufficient flight is a great thrill. Sanitizing the airspace on the way in, hitting the target and successfully returning home is a great feeling. The only two things that could have added to my satisfaction would be if #3 hadn’t crashed (obviously) and if I could have loaded a single HARM on each of the element’s planes to perhaps take-out the SA-2 threat while we were there. If we could have done that we would have had a combined SWEEP / SEAD / STRIKE flight all in one package!

Although I felt the mission was an overwhelming success, I guess I didn’t hit my SWEEP waypoints on time or for the correct duration since I only got a “partial failure” rating, those J-2 officers can be tough on a guy!





The post strike intel shows the Sondok airbase is out of commission at 0% operational after the strike:



BeachAV8R

Hahahaha! You and your wingmen fell for the cardboard decoy bomber and fighter trick! Of course, the men in the parachutes were cardboard too, a necessary loss we will recover from quickly. We got one of your F-16 fighter aircraft to crash into the ground, while giving up practically nothing! We are claim success for all your missions!

You even fell for the cardboard air base with the painted runway on dirt, child's play, would you not agree? We will fill the air with aircraft, and you will not know which are real and which are not.

w00t! Seriously, that is a bad sign this late in the campaign not to have air superiority. What do you think accounts for that, did it change gradually? In mine, I've got so many flights going in and out, the radar is packed with them. I flew in my last mission right behind my high cover flight. They were a good 5,000' overhead, probably more, but I could zoom in quite close, and go to exterior views.

A puzzlement that. Hmmmm, I'd better go check on the mission board myself, I smell burning cardboard somewhere...

Well see 20mm...that is all in our strategic plan. We KNOW you are building stuff out of cardboard. What does it take to make cardboard? Trees. That's right. We are all about deforestation at the USAF. We plan on deforesting all of North Korea. Then you know what we are going to do?? Huh?? We are going to send our B-52s north..but not with bombs..nooooo sirreee..we are sending them packed with DRY ICE! That's right. We are going to seed the clouds coming in off the Yellow Sea and cause rain clouds. It is going to rain cats and dogs (not literally..don't get all excited about eating them). The resulting mud-slides are going to wipe North Korea off the planet.

Yeah..

How bout' them apples you commie cardboard origami..uh..person.

Umm..as for the air superiority thing. We HAD it until about 8 missions ago or so. Then I think all of the airfields that we put out of commision in the early days of the war suddenly got back into business with full complements of airframes that were being re-supplied. Thus..we are back to square one in the air it looks like..

Grr...

I think Sparverius has it right..the re-supply rates are pretty high.. Certainly keeping things interesting!

BeachAV8R

Awesome report! Now go off and kill some J-11s