The second A-10 campaign mission has us pushing the lines a bit further north. In the last mission we successfully struck a tank platoon that was positioned on the southern approaches to Kobuleti. In this mission we'll hit another tank platoon that has taken positions on the abandoned airfield just north of Kobuleti.
Another flight of A-10s works the area to the east of Kobuleti...they are using the low ingress, in your face approach.
Approaching the target area the instructions come over the radio...
Followed by a confirmation with yellow smoke marking the target area...(If I were the enemy, I'd start avoiding areas with yellow smoke. Bad things seem to happen around yellow smoke.)
Feeling my oats, and still not having learned the lesson that "stand-off weaponry is your friend", I roll in on the airfield.
With the boards out to control my speed in the dive I hit the pickle button and two Mk-82s come off the pylons..
Oh..this is sweet!
Boom! He has GOT to be dead right? Right??
Negatory! Like I said - I don't know if you can kill MBTs with dumb bombs.. The later debrief will show I hit him, but didn't kill him.
On my first pass I noticed a few tracers whiz by and I track them back to the source: a "Zeus" located square in the center of the field. Well, that makes aiming easy!
Meanwhile, I release my wingman to start some carnage, but he wanders a bit further north of the field and sets off a battery of SAMs (don't know what type?) and he comes within a hair's width of being shot down as the missiles bracket him but just miss.
That will put some fudge in your drawers!
Meanwhile, me being the SMART guy that I am (snicker), I stay north of the field (thanks for the heads up wingie!) and lob Mavericks at the targets.
Soon I have a few vehicles burning, but my math isn't adding up. I thought there were supposed to be 3 T-72s but I can't find the 3rd one...
Stupidly, I had noted the presence of a truck down there, and on one of my passes I ignorantly launched a Maverick at it when I could have easily killed it with something else. Waste of a missile...
Later, when I looked at my screenshots, I realized the other T-72 was off to the west of the field just slightly, well camouflaged apparently!
I figured the mission was complete so I headed back north taking in the scenery which included much of downtown Kobuleti on fire.
I spied some armor in a field just east of the city and almost rolled in on it, but realized the gun tubes were pointed north. Friendlies! I could see how things could get confused during close-air support!!
Back safely at base. I was having trouble keeping my wingman out of that SAM range, so I sent him home early and he survived. I don't know if there is an "orbit here" command, but I could have used it to pin him to a location until needed.
Post strike debriefing showed I killed 2 of the 3 tanks, a ZSU and a truck. I consider it a success because I didn't get shot down.
According to Wags, these two were cakewalk "warm-up" missions. I'm sure I'm going to get my tail waxed as the campaign progresses! But have I mentioned I'm
LOVING FC2?? Man, it is so much fun..
BeachAV8R