The next mission in our campaign will be to support an allied offensive against the units around Kobuleti airfield. Specifically, we will be flying in support of two armored platoons (M1A2 and M3 Bradley) who will be moving north to objective points Montana and Vermont. Our loadout will consist of Maverick D, H, and CBU-97s.





With my wingman in tow, I head off for the short flight to Kobuleti. Immediately after takeoff I give my wingman the “orbit here” command in order to keep a leash on him while I assess the situation at Kobuleti.



I see our F-16 SEAD flight on station above us.



I fly off the coast a bit and at the IP I turn back inbound. This gives me a long run in so I can start scanning for targets with the targeting pod (TGP). The communications menu indicates that the friendly armor units are awaiting my command to advance.



Based on the F10 map I slew my TGP to the known enemy locations and quickly find targets to engage with my Mavericks.



The TGP / Maverick combination is so nice to use. Find the targets with the TGP, then slave the Maverick to the TGP SPI and fire away.







I break off my first attack to the south and set up for another attack. The nice thing with the TGP is that you can still search for targets even when flying away from the attack sight as long as you keep the target area in the TGP field of view.



AWACS calls out enemy air activity. I use the F10 menu to release the CAP flight and they go to work. I’m so absorbed in what I’m doing I don’t even know if they shoot down anything, or what is trying to creep in on our battle.



I also release the SEAD flight since I’m getting some mud spikes from the airfield area.



The F-16 SEAD flight fires off their HARMs and takes out a radar site near the airfield.



Some Navy air joins in the action. These guys are nuts and once they are Winchester on air-to-ground ordnance they start tearing things up with their guns.



I use my Mavericks to start picking off targets in the area west of the airfield since that is the objective of the armor.



Eventually I run out of “H” Mavericks and switch to the “D” model. The FLIR imagery isn’t as good with the D but thankfully the TGP makes finding targets relatively easy. The heat signatures from far away are just small dots on the Maverick seeker image.



A rare miss with the Maverick. This vehicle just avoids getting hit.



Soon all of the targets in the open are burning. It takes some scanning with the TGP, but eventually I find some harder to spot enemy tanks hiding on the edge of the woods.



I miss again with a Maverick. I stupidly lock on to a building near the tank that also had a heat signature. Whoops!

Frustrated, I roll in with the gun and pour some rounds into the tank.



I pull off the gun run after getting some hits, but the tank is still not out of action. As I climb away I struggle to control my jet. I can’t get the nose to come down despite having full down elevator. What the hell!! The airplane starts to stall so I roll off to one side which dumps some of the lift vector. The airplane staggers ahead and picks up speed as the nose falls down. As I regain speed, the nose climbs back up and I can’t figure out why I have no elevator control. I wonder if I’ve been hit during my gun pass, but my panel is clear, the SAS system is on. Then I see the PAC-1 message illuminated on my HUD. The PAC system works in conjunction with the SAS to provide stability when shooting the GAU-8. It basically freezes the stick inputs to provide precision when utilizing the gun. Well, I had hit the sim pause button to take a screen while I still had the trigger halfway pressed. When I unpaused, the sim never released the button! So I was stuck in a certain trim state. A flip of the PAC switch on/off fixed the problem, but I almost crashed.



With that excitement out of the way I elect to do a CCRP drop on the armor using the CBU-97. I’ve not had great results with the CBU-97 in training missions, but when it works, it works good. I designate the target with the TGP then follow the HUD steering to the drop point.





The CBU spins down and breaks open at a set altitude deploying canisters under parachutes.



They float down and at a certain altitude they fire and shoot “skeets” that look like hockey pucks into the air. Each skeet has a sensor that tries to find an armor target and then shoots a copper projectile into the top of it. The weapon is extremely cool and awesome to watch. What a great job ED did modeling the intricate way it works.



The strike works and the tank takes a hit from a skeet and is killed.



The F10 map shows two more platoons of enemy armor sitting on the north side of the river. I need to attrite those forces before committing my armor to the move forward.



As I watch the area below I can see explosions and realize friendly artillery is also doing their job to prep the area for the assault. Nice combined arms use!



I had noted the wind drift on my previous CBU attack so I set up for another and offset the target a bit to get more of the skeet pattern over the tank. The technique works great and I get a great pattern over the target. You can even see the copper skeet firing the kill projectile into the tank.





I repeat the attack on another tank.



I’ve expended all of my ordnance and here is where I start making some mistakes. I roll in on a tank and fire it up with my gun.



He pops smoke when he realizes he is under attack.



I think this low level stuff is a bad idea. After killing the tank I go back off the coast a bit and decide I’d better use my wingman to help out a bit. I designate the tank platoon on the far east side of the river near the airfield and hand the target to my wingman who is still bristling with weapons.







I watch through my TGP as my wingman is embarrassingly efficient. He fires three Mavericks on his first pass and the platoon his history. Wow!

I survey the area and determine the objective points to be free enough of enemy activity that I feel comfortable issue the advance command to my armor units. They start off across the fields.



They get about halfway to the objective when I start to see fountains of dirt and flames erupt around them. I guess I should have killed the artillery up north of the airfield too. The arty doesn’t seem to be doing much to the tanks though.





As I watch through my TGP I suddenly realize the tanks have their turrets turned and are actually engaging something! Crap..what did I miss??



Oh shi*! I see a platoon of T-72s just north of the objective point that I somehow hadn’t seen before. I’ve made a huge mistake. I should have contacted the JTAC to find out if any more targets existed before I cleared the armor to advance. I hurriedly try to give my wingman attack instructions but the battle is fully involved as the armor units trade shots.



I watch in horror as my tanks inaccurately return fire. The T-72s also seem to be missing with their main tank rounds, but eventually the Abrams get in range for the T-72s to engage with their main gun missile rounds. What a deadly weapon the 9M119! To be fair, I find it hard to believe that the Abrams wasn’t able to get rounds on target. Instead, the enemy wipes out my advancing armor over the span of sixty seconds. After all my hard work I see it disappear in seconds.





The IFV Bradleys fall to the same fate and the mission is lost. My wingman is quick to respond, but not quick enough. He drops some ineffectual CBUs on the tanks but they are CBU-87 and not the more effective CBU-97. I should have manually armed him prior to the mission.



I make a couple gun passes in sheer frustration and stupidly pick up some hits from return fire. My left engine cowling is peppered and a few minutes later my engine slowly starts to lose power. Cool damage modeling because my first indication isn’t for about two minutes and my MASTER CAUTION illuminates. I glance down, not realizing I’d been hit and see my left engine gauges are a lot lower than my right side but still developing power. A minute after that I see the start relay trying to engage and realize the left engine output is so low that the aircraft is seeing the throttle position and trying to engage a start (to no avail obviously).



I shut down the left engine and I’m already almost back at base after my bitter disappointment.



The single engine landing is uneventful until I reach the end of the runway. When I try to turn off the nosewheel won’t turn. I don’t know why since I still have the right side hydraulics working. Reaching into my Cessna Citation systems knowledge I wonder if an old Citation trick will work. I pull the left engine over the gate and it starts to try to spool up. That provides just enough pressure to get the nosewheel steering to work and I’m able to get the wheel turned and taxi to the ramp. <g>



The mission is a failure due to my incompetence. I should have used the JTAC, and I should have unleashed another flight of A-10s that was on standby to further sanitize the area. I was starting to get low on gas and thought I had done enough to secure the objective site. I do think that the Abrams should have been able to engage the T-72s effectively with their main guns. Oh well, live and learn. I’ll be much more thorough next time.







BeachAV8R

One thing I'd be curious of - that I didn't check because I forgot in this mission - was whether the bridge I destroyed on mission #1 remains destroyed throughout the campaign (?). I'll have to check when I fly the next sortie.. Would be cool if it does..

BeachAV8R

I just had a thought...those T-72s didn't "spawn in" when I gave the order to move the armor did they..? Or did they..? I hope not..because that would suck that units that weren't there just suddenly appear. Or we're they there all along and I just plain didn't see them (very possible). Also...why wouldn't they have appeared on the F10 map once they were spotted..?

To answer your questions,

1. The Bridge isn't destroyed.

2. Not exactly. Some of the units do spawn in on triggers, but the triggers are not related to the orders you give your ground forces.

Very nicely documented again, Mr. Beach.

Six mavs and four cans is quite a load, but I guess that's what the mission calls for. If you changed to all Ds or Hs you can have all six selected at once. You might find GBU-12s pretty handy for solitary parked tanks instead of the SFWs. And the GAU-8 is most effective from the rear, especially on hard targets like the 72.

Using the wagon wheel out the HUD is a surprisingly expedient way to fire Mavs from moderate ranges.

Does your TGP image of the 4 tanks abreast show the EPLRS green X? Aren't those friendlies?

Great write-up's Beach - enjoying them.

So far I've just done that Easy Georgia Spring mission about 200 times now. Guns, Rockets, GBU38, MAVs and then that nice JTAC at the end (man, that 9-line guy likes to talk ). Will get on to the campaigns one year though..

Nice AAR. Unfortunately the ground combat is very simple and as a result the M1's are a bit nerfed. As far as I know, no fire control/stabilization (I don't have combined arms, so I can't say for sure), so they're pretty vulnerable, especially on the move. As a result, the T-72's with their ATGMs get a sizable advantage in first round hits it seems.

At least for me, I tend to overlook targets when I'm zoomed in and swinging the TGP around somewhat randomly. I usually find it's handy to sweep very methodically across the area with the TGP when you think things are clear, in a "mowing the lawn" patten to avoid missing things. Frequently swapping between FLIR and day modes while doing this is also handy for catching things you might otherwise miss.



I think he was just watching them move out and then get shot at. Not ideal, but to be fair I do the same and get caught up watching things unfold.

Yes, I had focused on the friendly platoon (you can see the green X) when I gave them the order because I was interested in watching them move out. Seems I should have been scanning ahead of them. Oops..

Thanks for the comments..good suggestions on being methodical with the TGP sweeps. It is actually pretty easy to overlook the enemy in urban and forested areas.

BeachAV8R