Day 2 brought about a 0730 mission, which would not end well for me. Why do we have intelligence if they aren't going to brief us on threats in the TGT area?

Anyway on with the Debrief!

Pilot: Jason "Darth" Bader
Aircraft: A-10C
Mission: HQ Interdiction
Objective: Destroy Comand and Control unit 5 KM south of given Coordinates



Debrief........

Brief look at the map to see if any threats were on our route. Everything looked good. The only thing we decided on was to move Waypoint 4 to the bridge which was close to the TGT area. We figured if the TGT attempted to move it would be over the bridge. So we would take the bridge out if need be.

For the load out we decided on a simply load of 2x65 2x12 1x 105 1xHERKT and 1xGBU-31. The 31 was for the bridge if need be.



With all take off checks complete we throttled up and headed into the morning sky.




On the way to the TGT I decided to input wind conditons as briefed into the CDU via the LASTE pg. For info follow link CDU Wind Input


At our IP point I found the command section and locked on and selected up the 105.



About this time my wingman went defensive from a SAM launch. Intel never said anything about SAM activity and all my SEAD flights were calling out AAA kills.



I decided to push on Since one of the SEAD flights was engaging Air defenses in my area. Lots of AAA fire thankfully nothing hit me.



Over the TGT area and PICKLE one CBU!



Man these 97/105s are deadly! Great overhead shots of the devastation one of these rains down! Got 4 out of 5 TGTs with one!


Before


During




After




Good stuff I selected MAVs and turned for my next pass and then it happened......

SAM Launch!! and what would prove a fatal blow to my mission.



It was a direct hit which killed my entire jet





Once the engine fires were out I ran the Emergency Jettisoned my Muns and ran the APU up to get some power and try to glide to a road. Little did I know my wheels were gone and I had no chance at all. I crashed on the side of a road and that was it. Mission Failure and a Death!

The Jettison





Coasting to what would ultimately be a futile attempt to land.



The mission was deemed a failure. 1 A-10C and pilot lost.

Nice write-up and commiserations on your early death

One of the things I struggle with is situation awareness in terms of SAM threats. It would nice if the TAD could be annotated to help keep me 'in corridor' a bit more, but mainly it's just me sucking and being overloaded with info..

Edit: What do you think brought you down. With no RWR was it a MANPAD, and were you below 10k?

It was a SA9 if i remember right. Yeah I was at about 8000 I enter the area for my CBU run above 10000 and got no indications so figured I was good below 10000. In the pic with the explosion right behind my jet you can see the SAM smoke trail. I flew right at it Head on. All I got was a launch indication followed by #%&*$# Betty screaming about a fire!

Lessons learned for the next mission.

I could write a book on the stuff I don't know, as I still haven't become competent in the countermeasure programs.

SA-9 - so that's IR, so no RWR symbol (other than a launch?) and a ceiling of 11k I think.

I tend just to leave CMS on 'Program E' (fast party mix, 5 seconds) but I'm not sure what I'm doing. On a launch I tend to scan in the direction to see if I can see it, invert and drop and mash the CMS start button..

If you're unsure on threats, or things seem a little quiet, pop the countermeasures on auto. It burns through them, but in this case you knew you'd be in and out so you would never have used them all.

Love the CBU pics, and great use of the weapon too!

Good write up

Nice Man! Tuff luck abt the mission.

Keep em coming.

kaRadi