I've been meaning to post a Black Shark AAR for a while now, since I finally got to the point where I'm more dangerous to the enemy rather than to myself. It's nice that there is a contest now, though I don't have high hopes of winning anything, since I'm not a very good or creative story teller (Criteria: "Most creative, well-written, best story"). I enjoy creating and reading AARs mostly for stories told through screenshots rather than text. The only story you will find here will be slight elaboration of the details provided in the mission briefing and mission events. The quoted calls come directly from the mission too.

The mission is 'Clear Tkvarcheli,' notorious for its highly dangerous combat area: a town nested in the hills and saturated with all kinds of air defenses.

From the briefing:

After many months of unrest and insurgent attacks on civilians in the region to the south of our border, forces entered the area last March and have established order.

In brazen move designed to destroy the peace, insurgent forces pushed North from Chkhortoli last night and were seen entering the town of Tkvarcheli.

Intelligence operatives in the area report a column of 9 armoured vehicles entered the town and took up defensive positions. Although exact details are sketchy, the column reportedly included a number of IFV, APC, and SHORAD units. Armed troops are patrolling the streets and a 24-hour curfew has been imposed on civilians in the area.

Upwards of 2 dozed civilians were injured during the attack, and they have been evacuated by their comrades to a hamlet to the northwest of Tkvarcheli where a small force of our troops were conducting an exercise. Those troops are preparing to make a dash to the local medical centre at Novaya Akcaskia to the southwest of your current positon.

You are to lead your flight north to the town of Tkvarcheli and eliminate the threat to the convoy carrying injured civilians out of the area.

Fly 6.7 km at 85 degrees to the forward observation waypoint, and then plan your engagement from there.

Many of the injured are gravely ill, haste is of the utmost importance.

OBJECTIVE: Engage and destroy enemy ground forces in and around the town of Tkvarcheli. Ensure safe passage for the evacuation convoy coarrying injured civilians through the town.

Take off time 8:30

Now, flying to the observation point mentioned in the briefing and in the flight plan above the hills east of Tkvarcheli only got me this:



The place is crawling with all kinds of air defenses, including a Hawk battery, Avengers, Vulcans, M2A2 and infantry with Stingers. Vikhrs are not pop-up, fire-and-forget missiles and getting a shot from that position puts you dangerously close to the AA assets.

So, as usual I need to find a spot where I will be able to snipe the enemy from afar without putting myself and my wingman in danger. Since the valley in which Tkvarcheli lies runs northwest-southeast, I decide to fly northwest. As I lift off, Hinds come back from patrol and two unarmed Black Sharks leave the area to the northwest.



Shortly after take-off, I hear from our FARP Command Center: "501, Kapel; We are under attack from enemy helicopter. Abort mission and engage threat. Kapel out."

The Cobra lifted off from a FARP in Tkvarcheli:



I turn right to engage, but only a few seconds later the enemy chopper is dealt with by our SA-13 Strela:



"501, Kapel; Airborne threat eliminated. Return to mission. Kapel out."

On our way to the sniping point we pass above and hear from the Assault Group, which will work with us to secure safe passage through Tkvarcheli for the convoy with casualties: "501, Red Leader, Assault Group rolling. Will proceed at 60 km/h to Tkvarcheli, estimated transit time 9 minutes. Give 'em hell 501. Red Leader out."



We arrive at the point over the hills northwest of Tkvarcheli, over 6 kilometers from the town, and start looking for targets:







Before I can lock anything up, we hear from Kapel again: "501, Kapel; Dranda tower reports 2 bandits on intercept course with your flight. Return to base immediately and hold position 500 m North of homeplate, altitude 50 m until further notice. Air cover will be dispatched from Dranda Air Base. Repeat: return to cover of air defence units at homeplate and take up defensive position immediately. Kapel out."

No choice, but to rush toward the homeplate:



The bandits are a pair of Turkish F-5Es coming from the south:



We arrive at the home plate and hover:





The first F-5E is promptly dispatched by the MiGs from Dranda:



However, the second one manages to get rid of our guardian angels and pushes towards our position. While we hover near the FARP, we see the Hawk battery in Tkvarcheli engaging a couple of Rooks sent on a bombing run coordinated with our attack:



One of the Su's gets shot out of the sky:



Our attack was also supposed to be coordinated with a small group of BMP-2s attacking Tkvarcheli from southwest, but our delay and communication problems mean they enter action too early:



Their Konkurs ATGMs hit a few targets:



but they are quickly silenced.

In the meantime, the second F-5E gets dispatched by our FARP's Strela:





"501, Kapel; Dranda tower confirms bandits eliminated. Return to mission. Kapel out."

We go back to the sniping point northwest of Tkvarcheli and go to work. The Hawk radar unit has to be dealt with first:







Then we take out their escort:









The Assault Group pushes into Tkvarcheli, meeting heavy resistance:





Kapel updates us on the convoy situation:

"501, Kapel; Relaying message from convoy leader. Convoy departed. Esitmated transit time to Tkvarcheli 10 minutes."

The remaining Rook manages to drop his cluster bombs: "501, Gudauta Strike Leader; Commencing attack run. Gudauta Strike leader out."



And gets welcomed with a few Stingers:



But escapes unscathed:



"501, Gudauta Strike Leader; Returning to base. Gudauta Strike Leader out."

We continue to engage targets in the town:



But I soon run out of Vikhrs and there still seem to be too many threats to close in the range. My wingman's been very frugal with his missiles, so I leave him on station and myself go back to the FARP to rearm and refuel.



When I come back, we start a game of cat and mouse with the remaining targets, having to move point to point to get a shot from safe distance. Keep getting LWR warnings, but don't see any launches, so I get too cocky and too close. I'm about to lock this guy, when he launches his ATGM at me! The audacity!



Evade!



To be continued.

Scanning the area through the Shkval, I find this peeping Tom:





so he gets a Vikhr too.

Can't get an angle on any remaining targets from the northwest or west, so we move to the south end of the valley:





I have problems with autotracking for my gun, so to replace precision with brute force, I attack infantry with rockets:





and dispatch my wingman to seek out remaining targets.

That should be it. EKRAN warns me of only 110 kilograms of fuel left in the forward tank, so I turn on the cross-feed valve and turn to base:



On our way out, we fly low over Tkvarcheli to see if there is anybody left willing to take potshots at us but there are no takers:





Our Assault Group took a beating, but its remains now hold the town:



We don't know the fate of the convoy.

On our way back, my wingman calls bingo fuel, so I send him straight in, and touch down soon after:







I didn't get a mission success (Tkvarcheli was cleared of enemy forces, but I guess we didn't provide safe passage for the convoy in time), but I'm still getting comfortable wit the sim and I'm still way too slow in timed scenarios. To give you an idea what you're up against in this mission, here's a shot with labels:



Love this sim. Creating an AAR can be a challenge in itself, since tracks in BS2 don't play exactly the same as the mission they were recorded from. In some replays of this mission both F-5Es are taken out by MiGs, in some they kill MiGs and are then killed or damaged by our Strela. The same with Su-25s. If you fly very close to the ground, your craft may actually crash during replay (happened to me a couple of times), but the good thing is that if you got one part of the mission down, but got messed up later, you can save the track, fire it up, and take control before anything bad happens.

Cheers