SPOILERS BELOW!

Alright - I said I was only going to do one of these, but here is the third. It does compel you to want to see what happens next. Our third mission is to escort a Su-25 flight to take out the Grad launchers that we spotted on our last mission. Nice continuity of mission goals - I like that...



Off we go again..!



As usual, we are given initial climb and heading instructions... As I mentioned in another thread, the Russian voiceover radio work is excellent. At least, excellent in sound, but I have no idea what they are saying of course. But the intonation, static, squelch breaks, and filtering they used for the voices sounds like authentic radio transmissions. This doesn't sound like some guy recording audio for a YouTube commentary or anything.. Nice job on that.



Our package will be accompanied by a pair of Su-24s providing SEAD for threats further to the south...



Did I mention how beautiful this Flanker cockpit is? Igor Tishin must be proud...



One of the reasons AI runs out of fuel. The user burner to catch up, then deploy speedbrakes to slow down. I should just slow down right off the bat and circle the field once or something to make the rejoin faster and more fuel efficient for them I suppose...



As we approach Beslan, the flight we are escort is lifting off the runway... Nice timing of the triggers (I don't underestimate how difficult it is to build these missions..and why I have no reservations about paying $10 for 20 of these nice hand-crafted missions..)





We head south over the mountain divide...





When we get to the target area, I run a blocking circuit to the south on a general east/west axis. Every once in awhile I'll poke my nose north and pick up the jamming from the Su-24s in our flight... I think what I'm looking at here is the pair of Su-24s jamming and the 4-ship Su-25 flight behind them...



The other flight calls out fighter bombers to the east.. I point our nose up there and buster, but can't really spot anything on my radar. My much more proficient wingman does though and I unleash him...







Meanwhile the Su-25s have spotted the Grads and are on their attack run. I have to admit a pang of jealously. I'm not a fighter type - I'm a bomber type, so they are getting in on the type of action I like..







I peer down and can see the bombs exploding on the Grads...





The mission is accomplished. I poke my nose back to the south one more time and see a fleeting contact, but he is well south and I don't want to go further south in case the enemy has long range SAM sites set up. I pick up the Su-25 flight heading back to the north and I decide to join up on them for the flight...



And since I definitely need the practice, I try to figure out some of the A2A modes of my radar. I guess I need to map some target lock commands and use my TrackIR to put this circle on targets that I have visually. It seems to work pretty good..







We arrive near Beslan and I hawk the Su-25s down to their landing pattern...





With them safely in the pattern, I'm released to head back to Mozdok...



OK - quick vote - who wants to see all this clickable. <g> I agree..we need DCS clickable F-15s and Su-27s (and Su-33s & MiG-29s!)..



Turning final...





Mission accomplished..and not a missile fired by me (in great contrast to the last mission where I fired ALL my missiles!)..



A great designed mission with a really nice flow. Again, very well timed and thought out with fairly straight forward instructions and even a rookie Su-27 pilot like myself can muddle their way through. I'm starting to get a bit more familiar with our AO and I like the continuity of the campaign thus far. Very well done.

BeachAV8R

Did your wingman make it this time?

Yes, he did! And he scored the only kill on the mission.. I bought him a beer and refueled his airplane for him. Actually, he was just about to land and taxi in, but then one of the Su-24s landed and pulled off the runway and taxied straight towards me. It was a bit of a standoff and I didn't want to lose my mission results because he was going to run into me.



But here are my wingman's stats for the mission.



BeachAV8R

Another great AAR!

Thanks for the AAR.

I agree that 10 USD is not very much for 20 missions. True, a dynamic campaign has more replay value, but written scripts allow for better storylines and better balancing of the forces. Even more fun of course if there is some randomness - as happened, IIRC, with the Janes F-15 campaigns back when we were young and even more handsome than today.

Good AARs, Beach!

But... is there a refresh course for the Flanker available somewhere?

Thanks for this AAR Beach! It's getting harder and harder for me to resist! I just might pick this up to go along with my time with Elite, and would be a good excuse to 1) print out the manual and 2) learn the Su-27 more in-depth this time.

A couple of questions though: Do you experience a drop of framerates at any time? Any stutter at all? Usually, this happens for me during missile/bomb impacts or explosions. Are countermeasures still released in singles or can you set up countermeasure programs now?

And yeah, I'm all for a fully-clickable Su-27 cockpit!

Despite the "Spoilers Below" I don't think an AAR on a scripted campaign is cool.

Also, I think all of your missions should be consolidated into one thread, rather than a thread for each individual mission.

I don't get any framerate drops, but I haven't been flying any really FPS intensive missions. If I had a test mission that had a few dozen CBUs going off or something, that might be another story..but I can remember the last time I had a stutter-fest going on..

For the Su-27, I think you can only run the default counter-measures. At least, I don't recall seeing any way to vary it like you can in the Shark and A-10C. The only thing extra I see besides release is continuous release (LShift Q)..

Regarding Elite - I still haven't even tried it yet even though it's sitting on my hard drive. Too many choices on what to play. And now I'm really interested in that new MiG-21 campaign that was released.. And of course Arma 3 helos..

Death of sims? Hardly..

BeachAV8R

So you couldn't help but read it? Just put me on ignore and you'll never have to read an AAR again. Problem solved for the 1%.

And people on mobile would probably not want to see ten 50 image AARs have to load on their device in a single thread when they can pick and choose individual ones or more recent ones. I appreciate the suggestion, but it isn't happening that I combine them in one thread.

Thanks..

BeachAV8R

Nice Beach...Thanks for the input.
Does look good.

Nice AAR, Beach. You're moving me towards purchase, curse you! :-P

Much as I like online play, offline has advantages as well, for one thing I can hit "pause" where need be.

BTW, I also enjoy your PC Pilot write ups.

Cheers.

Outstanding Beach.....Making me tinkling about buying it too!!! Need to get me a nice HOTAS firs.

I always enjoy (and learn something) reading them even if I don't have the product myself. Thanks for this and all the AARs you have done in the past (and any other you o in the future). I still have your F4 AARs on my tablet and read them form time to time.

Keep up the great job! I believe lot of people appreciate it like me!

Thanks for your AARs, makes me want to study up on the 27, as I haven't flown it since the revision. Bought the campaign to support DCS and was even allowed to use some of my bonus bucks. Once the playoffs are finished I think I am going to have to fire up the 27 and this Campaign. You have done an awesome job of presenting these AARs in an interesting and tempting/teasing way.

S!Blade<><

Glad (most) of you like them. I wish I could showcase a little more of what the Su-27 can do, but I'm honestly just not that up on the systems. I'm sure a much more experienced player could probably school me a bit on the better radar scan modes to use and other advanced targeting tools. In my blind dance through the keys, I've seen things like HI MED LO I think on the HUD - I haven't studied to see what those mean (I'm assuming they are the bar scan elevations or perhaps some speed reject threshold?).. I can't remember if the Su-27 has IRST either (I think the MiG-29 does)..so that is another area where I could stand to do some reading. I also seem to recall there is an AWACS data-link. I think I was seeing my wingman on my radar display at all times, but I don't know if that requires an AWACS to be airborne or not.

Lots of questions - very few answers from me unfortunately. All I can offer are some pictures..

Hope to fly mission #4 today. For those that are interested in buying the campaign, perhaps you'd better stop reading them if you want to preserve the freshness of the story for yourselves. I know there are a lot of people that might read these that will never fly the campaign though. I regularly read AARs about sims I know I'll never fly...



Yeah - I just wish ED would invent a mid-game save feature. I could really use that for when I get interrupted (I have a 4-year old, which means that is ALWAYS happening!)..

Again, thanks for the kind words, it does make the effort to make them worth it.

BeachAV8R

As long as there's AWACS (maybe works with EWR too, not sure) up I think all detected bandits will turn up automatically on the screen, though you might have to zoom out to see them. One new thing (I think) is that at least in NAV mode, airfields also turn up as rectangles angled in the direction of the runways, which is massively helpful for an FC3 plane. I think it ought to have IRST (reference the big "bulge" with some kind of optic in it in front of the canopy to the right) but if it's working is beyond me.

How much success have you had with IR missiles BTW? I'm having issues getting them to scan, they only seem to look through an extremely narrow FoV, can't get a tone unless I'm pointing the HUD reticle dead center on a target. What the high/medium/low, numbers at the bottom of the HUD (going from 10-150 IIRC) and the bar going up and down on the right side of the HUD in BVR means I don't really know, lemme know if you find out.

Holy Crap. I just went through the radar and IRST tutorial narrated by Matt for the Su-27 - there are a LOT of features of the Su-27 radar that I didn't really know about. Yeah, there is an optical mode "O" for IRST. You can also adjust the azimuth and elevation of the IRST scan. For the radar, the HI MED and PRF has to do with the closing velocity of the target. One thing I learned that was very useful was the the HUD blips are double horizontal lines for friendly targets. I did not know that and it should make sorting bandits from friendlies easier!

I'm going to take some notes and try to integrate some of the stuff in the tutorial in my future AARs.

I've only been using the IR missiles with that mode where I think they are just uncaged or boresighted or something. Now that I know about the EO targeting I'll be interested to see how far off axis I can lock and fire... I'll report back..

Damn, mapping my HOTAS just got a lot more complicated..







BeachAV8R

So I flew the Close Air Combat tutorial and indeed the EO + Helmet Mounted Sight is awesome. I don't know exactly how many degrees off-axis it can shoot, but in my quick run at it I managed an estimated better than 25 to 30 degrees...





Really cool. Reminds me of the AIM-9X videos I've seen (although I know the R-whatever isn't thrust vectoring..)

BeachAV8R

Ha! I was talking about my "training mission" with a single A10C flying out of Bantumi to practice bombing/guns runs on the abandoned airfield just a few miles north. In that mission, aside from myself and the targets, there is absolutely nothing else and the weather is clear.... and I would get stutters when the bombs hit and/or when the tanks explode. That's hardly what I would call a FPS-intensive mission! But if you're not getting that now, then I guess ED has fixed that problem. That makes me look forward to getting back to DCS (when I find the time! Curse you, Elite!!) and flying the Su-27.

As for the countermeasures, I was referring more to the programs similar in BMS, with programs 1-6 being set up differently and you can just start one program and it'll release the pre-set number/type of countermeasures at pre-set intervals. I guess that's still not in FC3? Surely, the Eagle should have a similar setup as the Viper (not sure about Russian birds or doctrine)??

I'll probably check out E:D at some point but I'm engrossed in TIE Fighter again. This time using the FSSB R3 and th Cougar throttle.

As for the Su-27, I've never been big on flying the Russian jets, but as long as this doesn't have you flying against US forces, I might be willing to check it out. (that's right, it may be weird since its a sim, but I won't fly against Americans, period)