Talk about a BLACK arse night for this mission! Hopefully these pictures come out better here than they did originally- I didn't want to lighten them up too much for fear of losing the total sensation of what it was like to fly this mission. So, without further ado...


“All right, I had it, you got it,” I said with a grin and a high five with Juan “Fast” Cruzman as I finished turning over the Ready Room Duty Officer assignment. I had a few errands to run in AIMD associated with the repairs to Talon 153, the bird that Banks had gotten shot up the night before, so Fast had agreed to relieve me as Duty Officer early.

The hangar bay of an aircraft carrier is traditionally the heart of the ship in terms of physical location and purpose. Not only are planes stored and repaired down there, most of the departments and divisions aboard hold their morning quarters within it’s vast open space, not to mention training and staging for drills and other ship-wide exercises. Unofficially, it’s also the center of a carrier’s social life, even more than the main mess decks located one deck below. As I stepped out of a hatch into hangar bay two, I saw that war or no war, a typical Saturday night out to sea was in progress. Hearing music behind me, I looked aft to see a makeshift stage the AO’s had set up from extra bomb carts where a quartet of female ABF’s were singing karaoke to En Vogue’s “What A Man” as a crowd cheered their approval. At the very aft end of hangar bay three I could see the line for the aft smoke pad winding its way halfway across the open door for elevator three. Small groups and couples sat on pallets and crates scattered around the cavernous hangar bay, some talking quietly between themselves, some laughing and arguing loudly enough for everybody to hear.

I turned around to walk towards the AIMD offices and shops located in the tunnel at the very forward end of hangar bay one, looking around at the two on two basketball game going on at the other side of bay two, then noticed another huge line winding across hangar bay one in front of a closed hatch that I was pretty sure led to a locked storeroom. Noticing that the vast majority of the folks in the line were wearing jerseys from the air wing squadrons, I walked over for a closer look. I picked out one of my AZ’s from the squadron and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey, Petty Officer Wright, what’s going on here?” I asked, gesturing at the line of probably over two hundred people all waiting in front of a locked door to an empty storeroom.

“Oh, yeah, Mister Spencer, some guys from another department told Moore and a couple other guys that Supply is going to be opening up the storeroom in a little bit here and giving out free soft drinks and snacks!” the young plane captain said with excited enthusiasm.

“Ah, I see. Did they say anything about giving away free caustic too?” I asked, fighting to keep a straight face.

Wright thought for a moment, then shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think so, sir. Why do you ask?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “Enjoy those snacks and drinks!” I quickly walked away before I started laughing. As soon as I was in the AIMD tunnel I burst out into loud, rolling laughter- forming lines that led to nowhere was an old joke that Reactor and Engineering types had been playing on air wing personnel probably as far back as the U.S.S. Langley. The surface instructors in A-school and Power School had first regaled us with their stories of getting Airedales to stand in pointless lines, and once we got to the ship the older hands had quickly indoctrinated us into the great art of prank-playing. Even though I knew that I should probably tell the folks what was going on, I really couldn’t bring myself to spoil such a good gag. We’d managed lines of over a hundred back in my day, but the one I had just passed must have been on the way to being an epic fleet-wide record. Besides, I had paperwork to finish up.


“You guys had better not have started dealing the cards yet,” I said with a grin as I walked into the JO bunkroom. Saturday nights were typically when all the most junior officers in the air wing gathered in my bunk room for the ongoing poker game that had started the night after we’d left San Diego two months before.

“Ted, you’re just in time!” Tank said as he cut the deck and started dealing the cards. The ship had an UNREP scheduled in the morning, so nobody would be flying before noon- Captain Norton was always extremely nervous about taking on fuel and stores at the same time he had planes launching and recovering- neither activity left much room for error alone.

A couple of hours later I was a hundred dollars up when there was a sudden knock at the door. We cleared away the cash book before the door opened to let LCDR Jeremy “Hung” Lowe, the air wing Ops Officer into our bunkroom.

“As you were,” he reassured us as we all scrambled to stand up. He had a thick stack of papers in his hand, and he quickly glanced around the room at the assembled officers.

“OK good, most of you guys are here. Major strike Monday morning, brief in Ready Room two at 0100, launch at 0400,” he said before he started passing out the flight schedules and air plans to those of us who would be involved in the strike- Tank and I were both on the schedule for the strike, along with two of the Charlie Hornet drivers from the Stingers of VFA-113.

“For those of you scheduled for the Monday morning flight, get some rest and relax tomorrow- you’re off the schedule and watchbills between now and then.” He added before he took his leave of us.

Tank and I walked in to Ready two early to grab seats near the front for the briefing- if we’d learned anything from all the strikes we’d been flying over the past couple of weeks, it was that briefings for multi-element missions could drag long. In due time we were joined by CDR Stone and LT. Barkley from the Air Intelligence department, the CAG again in his flight suit, and the other members assigned to the strike. Half-Squat, Papercut, and Commander Nemeth all took seats in my row before the briefing started.

“Things are going well with our efforts to disrupt and destroy the Saudi capability for refining and moving their oil, and this morning we’re going to finish off their refineries once and for all,” the CAG began as the first slides came up on the screen. “We’re heading to Qatif.”



“Because we’re pretty sure the Saudis are going to have a little bit to say about having their last remaining oil refinery destroyed, we’re going back to the traditional Alpha Strike structure for this mission.

“One fifteen will again be making the strike itself, and because of all the threats we’re expecting in the area, this one will be with JSOW’s and JDAM’s to minimize the risk to any element of this package. Because they did so well last time, we’ve got an encore performance from Mister Abrams and his Prowler crew providing standoff jamming towards the main SAM threat in the target area, and I’ll be leading a flight of four Charlie Hornets from the Stingers in the escort role to cover any air to air threats we might encounter. As for SEAD-“

CAG grinned wickedly, and we could tell something was up, “- we have two F-35’s that will be lobbing HARM’s and Rockeyes onto any radar sites that do light up.”





Hands went up along with murmurs and loudly whispered questions all around the ready room at this news, but Captain Lalor kept his poker face on.

“Yes, I know you all are wondering how this is possible, since the plane isn’t supposed to reach service for another couple of years. Let’s just say this is a classic example of the Navy’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy: don’t bother asking, because I’m not going to tell you anyway.”

The hands went down as CAG continued with the rest of the briefing before those of us headed to the Air Intelligence office to get the fine details about the target area. The refinery was a pretty typical example, with two processing buildings and outlying storage tanks to hold the raw oil and the refined gas; all four of the primary components had been marked with GPS tags at some point- how, I didn’t even want to think about.







It was pitch black in the cold predawn morning as I sat tensioned up on the catapult waiting to launch. Glancing over my shoulder at Papercut, I was able to see the distant lights of the four Hornets for the Stingers as they swept past in an orbit around the ship, waiting for us to take off and join up.

Meanwhile, the mysterious F-35’s were tensioned up on the bow catapults, waiting for their turn to launch as well.





In a few minutes we were airborne and formed up as a package as we started making our way towards the target area. A quick glance up through the top of my canopy confirmed the fact that the moon had set a couple of hours beforehand, so I busied myself in the cockpit, making sure my JSOW’s and JDAM’s were set up for delivery to the proper targets. So far the EW page was showing clear, and because we were flying under EMCON conditions, there was nothing to see on the radar anyway. I glanced to my right and saw reassuring lights of VFA-113’s Hornets about a mile away, keeping a watchful eye out for any enemy aircraft that might come up to play.





We continued the flight in silence, with only the occasional short announcement over the radio calling out EW spikes or radar hits coming in over the datalink. The Saudis were keeping quiet for the most part this morning- either they valued their sleep a lot more than we thought, or they were waiting for us to get closer to the target area before they sprung any trap they’d set; this last oil refinery had to be too important for them to just roll over and let us destroy it. Everybody was keeping a watchful eye on their sensors displays, waiting for the first sign of that trap closing around us.



We were still a little over ninety miles from the target area when our SEAD escorts picked up the first signs of defenders- the early warning radar sites that had been intermittently following our flight suddenly lit up, along with iHawk batteries and long-range search radars from Saudi ships located below us. At the same time, AWACS called to let us know about fast moving hostiles that popped up about forty miles away, closing quickly on our strike package.





“All right, Rattler flight, Hacksaw flight, let’s get it done! Break and engage!” CAG called as the F-35’s broke down and away from the formation while the Hornets lit afterburners and surged ahead of our formation to knock out any fighters the Saudis might send up.









We pressed on towards our launch point, keeping a vigilant eye out for anybody else coming up to meet us, but the radio calls from Rattler flight and Hacksaw flight seemed to indicate that they had the situation well at hand- Fox calls and Magnum calls flooded the airwaves as our escorts took advantage of the aerial shooting gallery that seemed to have developed.

The next thing I knew, the launch counter in my HUD was reading zero, indicating we were in range to launch our JSOW’s.

“Manta flight, this is Manta One,” the skipper called over the radio. “Launch your JSOW’s at your primary targets and orbit here in case we need to re-attack. Manta two, follow me. Let’s get into JDAM range quick so we can set up for our second shots as quickly as possible.”

I quickly pickled my two JSOW’s, then pushed my throttles up to follow Nemeth’s plane quickly disappearing ahead of me. We continued to keep a watchful eye on the EW scopes as we closed the distance to the launch envelope for the shorter ranged JDAM’s. Bright fingers of anti-aircraft tracers reached harmlessly for us; at over twenty thousand feet up, we were well over their effective range.



As we continued to close the distance to JDAM range, the night sky lit up ahead and below us as the JSOW’s started finding their targets.





“Two, we’re in range! Launch your JDAM’s and head back for the rest of the flight!” Nemeth called as the countdown timer in my HUD once again reached zero and the ‘in range’ cue started flashing at the bottom of the display. I double checked the target settings for my last two bombs and pressed the pickle button twice in rapid succession before I rolled to my right and yanked back hard on the stick to head back towards Papercut and Half-squat.

Just as I cleared the coast, I heard a sudden, frantic call from our escort.

“Manta three, manta four, this is Badman! Two of the bandits got through and are heading your way at your one o’clock. I repeat, two enemy Tigers heading your way fast!”

“Copy Badman,” Papercut called back. “We’ve got them on radar, engaging!” The two Superhornets turned hard left towards the incoming fighters.

“Manta one three, fox two!” Papercut called, followed two heartbeats later by his wingman Half-squat.

“This is Manta one four, I have a tally on the trailer, fox two!”

Both of the Sidewinders found their marks as the two fighters exploded in balls of flame and smoke. I looked out the right side of my canopy in time to see the streak of the ejection seat firing from one of the stricken bandits.

“Three, four, this is two. Confirmed two good kills, and I see one ejection seat.” I radioed in as I continued my rendezvous with my two compatriots.





“Manta flight, rejoin on me,” Nemeth called as he reappeared ahead of me. “Badman, this is Manta lead. Target area is on fire, we’re ready to head for home."

“Copy Manta lead,” CAG responded. “I’ve got it in sight too- good work. We’re forming up on your nine o’clock for the egress.”





I closed up on Nemeth’s wing as we made our egress to the safety of the Persian Gulf. As soon as we’d received the ‘fence out’ call I flicked on my formation lights. Tank called in a few minutes later that he was feet wet, and joined up below and slightly behind us.





As soon as we were back within range of the CAP fighters screening the Reagan and her battlegroup, CAG broke off with the rest of Hacksaw flight to head for the tanker- the older, smaller Charlie Hornets have much shorter legs than our large birds, and they’d burned a lot more gas chasing and prosecuting the enemy fighters over the target area.

“Ninety nine Badman, this is Badman one. I’m breaking off with Hacksaw flight to head for the tanker before we return to the ship. Good job, everybody, and we’ll see you in the debrief.”





“Temple Strike, this is Manta one one flight,” the skipper called to the ship with our inbound report. We were directed to the marshall stack and given the frequency for the Marshal and Approach controllers as we were given our push times. We broke off to head for our individual positions in the stack and our chances to land back on deck.



Ten minutes later, the clock indicated my assigned push time, and I pulled the throttles back to idle and activated my speed brake function as I called the ship’s approach controller.

“Talon one one one, commencing at time zero four, state seven point two.”



I noted with pride that I was right on time, on speed, and on heading for a flawless landing back on deck in time for breakfast. I lowered my gear, tailhook, and flaps, jockeying the throttles and stick to maintain on centerline and glideslope as I headed down the chute.

Meanwhile, on the platform beside the landing area, the LSO’s were able to make out the lights of my plane as I started down towards the deck. With a little bit of coaxing and a few gentle corrections, I brought her down on deck and was taxied clear of the landing area just as Papercut’s plane touched down behind me.





In another few minutes I was tied down and given the signal to shut down the engines. I finished securing the jet and popped the canopy as I started to unstrap my harness and safed my ejection seat. A blast of warm air rushed in as I started to climb out of the plane- it was going to be another scorcher today, I could tell.

I finished the air intelligence debrief and was finalizing the details of my after action report when Lt. Barkley tapped me on the shoulder and informed me that CAG wanted to see all of us in Ready two. I finished up and headed down the passageway to VFA-113’s ready room and took a seat near the front next to Papercut.

“Some flight, huh?” I asked, punching him in the arm. “That month-long vacation you spent at Fallon for Top Gun finally paid off after all!”

“Attention on deck!” A loud voice boomed out and we all immediately jumped to our feet. The CAG entered the ready room with Captain Norton, the Reagan’s Commanding Officer, with him.

“Take your seats,” Captain Norton said as he strode to the front of the ready room. “I just wanted to stop by and pass on my congratulations on a great strike flown this morning, and for doing so well with the air campaign overall. We’re all really proud of the job you’re doing, and that’s coming from the top- your performance, and that of the rest of the air wing, is taking care of business ahead of schedule while everybody else gets in to position to keep the offensive campaign going.”

A round of cheers and applause started from one of the Stinger guys, and quickly swept around the ready room before Captain Norton motioned for us to quiet down.

“Now, we have an all officer’s call scheduled this afternoon in the Fo’c’sle, but to give you a heads up as to what’s coming, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are meeting at the White House later this week.”

That set off ripples of whispers around the room- I know I was surprised to hear that the French were talking to us about this, but who knew what it would mean.

“All right,” Captain Norton started again. “I just wanted to stop by and say thank you from all of us here on the ship, but let me turn it over to Captain Lalor and Commander Stone for the final analysis from this latest strike.”

We again jumped to attention as he left the ready room as CAG and the Air Intelligence Officer took the podium.



“Good job once again!” Commander Stone started as the first slide came up on the screen behind him. “Satellite imagery and another high altitude recon flight were able to confirm that the two tank farms and one of the processing buildings were destroyed outright, while the second processing building is being partially propped up by the rubble of the first one, but is continuing to burn. All in all, the refinery is a write off, and to boot, between the Stingers and the Eagles, we’ve counted seven enemy fighters downed this mission. In addition, a BIG Bravo Zulu to our friends in the shiny new toys and our friendly Prowler crew- they managed to take out three stationary SAM sites and three mobile launchers between them- for the time being Qatif is totally subdued.”

He stepped down from the podium as loud cheers and applause again filled the ready room- it felt good to be able to celebrate such a successful strike, and most importantly none of our package had been damaged or shot down. In the back of my mind I couldn’t help but think about Slim Jim, wondering where he was, and if he was even still alive or not. We hadn’t heard a peep from the Intelligence folks, and nothing had been mentioned about him on Al Jazeera or CNN- if the Saudis had caught him, wouldn’t they be parading him around on international news like they were with our two boys kidnapped in Bahrain? I asked myself before the CAG’s voice jerked me back to matters at hand.

“So like Captain Norton said, we have an all officer’s call at fifteen hundred in the fo’c’ sle. This is mandatory for everybody not on watch, so get some sleep, and we’ll see you a bit later.”

As we walked out the door of the ready room, Papercut caught up to me.

"To answer your earlier question yes, that Top Gun training did pay off." A grin lit his tanned, lined face. "But from what the Skipper just told me, all of y'all get to find that out for yourselves- apparently we're starting intensive air combat training for the entire air wing this week- I'm going to have a blast waxing all you guys!"

With that he pat me on the back and continued walking down the passageway with a loud belly laugh.

V/R,
NN99

Just wondering, in the game are the F-35s any different than the F/A-18C Hornets other than the new aircraft model? As in has the flight model, stealth or number of engines been changed?

I always assumed this campaign is set in the near future when the JSF has started entering service (perhaps speeded up by the confict) but before the normal Hornets and Prowlers were retired.

I have NO clue about flight model, but I've got some other shots that pretty clearly show only one engine. As for stealth, I'm not sure- I've got a few other flights under my belt with F-35's in the area, and I think I've been able to lock them up on radar- I'll double check that this weekend and get back to you on that one. As for the other questions, you'd have to ask Elf, M@verick, or Ripcord; I just fly the missions and try to tell an entertaining, informative story from my results.

If the F-35 was something in the original data (it sounds familiar but I'm not 100%) then it should be different than the F/A-18C. Sorry for the delay but I was hoping to have some time to try and decipher the data but that hasn't happened yet. Anyway, somethings like top speed and number of engines have enough granularity that it's not hard to have different values. Other things, like I think radar signature, don't so various things could have the same value. Actually, even with that I think the F-35 would have a signature more along the lines of the Super Hornet since both were considering stealth advancements when they were being designed.

Regarding the engines we weren't just worried about how many there were but there's also data on where the exit point for the exhaust is. This is so that we know where heat seeking missiles are tracking towards for a rear aspect shot. Someone actually got a really good shot from JF-15 where a heat seeker is just entering the engine of a Backfire. I think the growl also works off the same data so if you uncage an AIM-9 and look at something with really spread out engines like a B-52 I believe you'll get growls for each engine pair. Too keep the data from getting to crazy I don't think we went more than 4 engine positions in the data so you'd only get each a growl for engine pair. I think for anything with 4 engines or less though we'd have data for each one.

If I'm able to get anything useful from the Airdb.dat file I'll post again. Someone had figured out some of the data format soon after the game came out though I remember there was some stuff they were off on.

Elf

Loadout is same as the F-22 if memory serves.... is that correct? So maybe flight model is also the same? But then what is the flight model of the F-22 modeled like?

EDIT: Belay my last, it looks to be the same loadout as the F/A-18C. No idea about the flight model.

Ripcord

Well, I just found out for sure that the EF-2000's are undetectable to the AN/APG-73 modeled in-game. But, AWACS was able to lock two of them up and transmit the information to us via datalink before we flew out of range So, given that information I'd be willing to bet the F-35 and F-22 are the same way.