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#4181912 - 10/15/15 02:45 PM Attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base - Jane's F/A-18  
Joined: Oct 2009
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Wizard43 Offline
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Wizard43  Offline
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Joined: Oct 2009
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Canada
Date: January 17
Time: 0500
Location: Persian Gulf

While other flights were returning from their first strikes of the air war, follow on strikes were already preparing to launch. VFA-136 aircraft were fuelled and armed for a mission to Umm Qasr Naval Base to re-attack dock facilities and patrol boats. It was feared that the patrol boats armed with anti-ship missiles could pose a threat to the carrier task force operating in the Gulf. Flight leader Chad McDowell recounts the flight.



Above: Target Imaging of the Umm Qasr Naval Base



Chad McDowell.
In the very early hours of the 17th, I led a flight of four Hornets to re-attack the naval base at Umm Qasr. In a previous attack, damage had been done to the dock facilities but BDA showed it was still operational. Originally mission planners had recommended MK82 500 pound bombs. We learned the hard way that more muscle was going to be needed. On this flight our main punch would be MK84 2000 pound bombs. This was in addition to air to air and anti-radiation missiles. Along with a center line fuel tank and targeting pod, our aircraft were pretty heavy. But early intel suggested that we be prepared for a true multi-role fight.


Above: Strike aircraft and escorts launching on the morning of January 17th.

The weather was very overcast in the entire region. But after launching, we quickly climbed above the overcast into clearer skies. That along with the first pre-dawn light made our first task of tanking a bit easier as we had visual contact with the tanker instead of solely relying on sensors. It was a good thing to as the tanker track was quite busy. We could see an earlier flight of two breaking off from the tanker. We assumed these to be Starling flight; AE-6's providing radar jamming for the strike. At the same time we were arriving, a flight of 4 F-14's slowly slid by us at the same altitude. That was Cobra flight, our escorts. So it was good to know we were running on time and looking good to make our time on target. Everyone made an uneventful refuelling and we carried on toward the target area.


Above: F/A-18 strike aircraft of Mercury flight forming up after launch. A heavy overcast extended over the Persian Gulf and much of Iraq on the morning of January 17th.


Above: Cobra Flight, the escorting F-14's slowly overtake the bomb laden F/A-18's in the foreground. All the aircraft are heading for their first aerial tanking cycle.


Above: Mercury flight take their turn refuelling. The clear skies at higher altitudes made it easier for the strike aircraft to join on the tankers.

Before too long, we were fence in. I got our flight of 4 spread out a bit, started our jammers and decoys and flipped on the master arm switch. Almost immediately after that, we started to see enemy radars popping up on our early warning displays. Now I have to decide between the lesser of two evils. Stay above or below the solid overcast. We cruised in at 15,000, only a couple thousand above the clouds. If a SAM popped up out of the overcast, we wouldn’t have enough time to acquire it visually and take defensive action. So I decided to drop us down under the clouds. This put us between 10 and 12 thousand feet. We would have a bit more time to defeat a SAM, but now were highlighted against the clouds for every hot shot AA gunner on the ground. Sure enough, there's some large calibre AAA exploding at our flight level but somewhat off to the north.


Above: Bright flashes of exploding AAA shells can be see just north of the strike aircraft.

Right about now things start to get crazy. SAM launches are being called out. Enemy aircraft are being called out. The radios are a buzz of SAM warning and air to air missile launches being called out. Our flight is beaming to avoid SAMs and pumping out chaff. Although most of the SAM's didn't seem to be tracking, I had one scare with a SAM that did seem to track. #%&*$# Betty kept calling for chaff which I did not hesitate to put out. I slammed the throttles to afterburner and pulled hard into the SAM. I'm still really heavy with bombs and fuel at this point so I'm worried I won’t be maneuverable enough to escape the SAM. But it must have been just enough to break lock.

At the same time I'm trying to pay attention to the bandit calls from AWACs. I'm sure they're getting too close but I'm loosing situational awareness as I'm fighting off SAMs. At one point after evading a SAM, I happened to witness a SAM launch right off the nose of my aircraft. The smoke trail betrayed the launcher's location as the smoke went right down to the ground. I had my HARM missile in TOO mode for this very reason. After confirming a good lock on the SAM launcher’s radar, I launched my HARM.


Above: A trail of smoke gives away the location of a SAM launcher.


Above: Mercury 1-1 Magnum.

As soon as the missile was off the rail, I turned hard to put the SAM on my three o'clock and dumped out chaff. I was pretty worried as I was real close to the launcher. Luckily this SAM didn't seem to track. Once it felt safe, I turned the flight away from the SAM launcher I had just fired on, and as a result away from the target itself. But I felt the threat of enemy MIGs was too high. So I started a big orbit and called AWACs for assistance. In the fog of war, I initially thought I heard AWACs was sending fighters. When we finished the first orbit and started heading back to the target area, the MIGs were still there and our fighters weren't. I made a second call and this time AWACs distinctly stated they had no assets available. Now I'm starting to get into a fuel management crisis. If I keep orbiting east of the target area, I'm going to burn up our fuel and have to turn back. So I decide we have to press on to the target. I switch from a ground attack profile to air-to-air combat mode in the cockpit. I have one AIM-120 that I can use for a BVR shot at the closest MIG. I lock up the target and confirm with IFF and AWACs that I have a bandit locked. It turns out the bandits are further away that first thought. But now I have "MIG Killer" running through my brain. I wait for what seems an eternity and finally get a good shoot cue. I fire my AMRAAM and hope for a hit. Then to my shock, I hear the Air Force F-15's are engaging them. At first I was hoping for a MIG kill. Now I'm just praying I don't have a blue on blue. As it turns out, my missile did not hit either and the MIG threat was thwarted by the F-15's.

With the MIG situation under control, I tell the second section to drop on their primary targets with everything they have. My wingman and I will drop a salvo of two bombs, keeping a couple in reserve if needed. We don’t want to come back here a third time so I’m making sure all our targets are attacked. Everyone in the flight gets good hits. Only number 3 reports that his target is only damaged and not destroyed. I had come off target to the west so I had to come around to the east to egress anyway, so I called press, hot on number 3’s target which was a ship alongside the northern pier. I maneuver a little and get the ship lined up for my bomb run. With about 15 seconds to drop, a SAM warning blares out. On my 9 o’clock, so just north of the target, a SAM has just locked onto me and launched. So for a moment I’m paralyzed. Do I immediately go defensive, or do I fly straight and level and drop on the target? I don’t want to die because I’m target fixated. But I realize I’m already beaming the missile as it’s right at 9 o’clock. I have tally on the missile and I have time. So I pump out chaff, pickle the bombs and get ready to break into the SAM. The break turn wasn’t needed in the end as the missile broke lock and went away from me. My bombs hit and finished off the target that number 3 damaged. My wingman still had a pair of MK84’s we had held in reserve, but by now, we just want to get out of here and back to the boat. We all form up again just under the cloud deck and check each other over.


Above: FLIR image of a ship just before bomb impact.


Above: FLIR image after the bomb impacts on the same ship.


Above: MK84 bombs make ships disappear quickly.

Everyone is in good shape with no damage. My towed ALE-50 decoy was gone. I’m guessing I severed it while in burner evading an earlier SAM. So I deployed a send decoy for the egress. I called for a fuel check and we were all between 7.9 and 8.4 thousand pounds so we were in good shape and wouldn’t need to tank on the way back. (Game note: On a previous mission, we were all low on fuel so I decided to hit the tanker on the way home. After successfully fueling, I called for a fuel check. I was the only one in the flight who fueled. I don’t know why this was and it created a bit of concern that all the AI would flame out before trapping. They all made it back in the end but I don’t know why they didn’t fuel. Is some command missing from that waypoint maybe?).

Once we were fence out, I pulled us back into a tight formation and got above the clouds again. It was about 0600 and we were flying into the sunrise to the east. It was good to be heading home. Everyone in the flight trapped successfully. It was all pretty uneventful if it weren’t for me catching a one wire. BDA was encouraging as we definitely destroyed all our objectives this time and made it home safely. Unfortunately it sounds like the air force guys didn’t fare so well. I heard two different calls from Shark flight announcing they were punching out. I don’t know who Shark flight was, but I’m guessing they were F-15’s engaging the MIGs to the west of the target area. Hopefully their SAR assets can get them out.


Above: Mercury flight heads east into a rising sun after their successful attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base.


Above: Mercury 1-1 catches a one wire and the wrath of the LSOs.







P.S. Thanks Dragon for another great mission.

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#4182165 - 10/16/15 02:30 AM Re: Attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base - Jane's F/A-18 [Re: Wizard43]  
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 1,291
Major Dragon Offline
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Major Dragon  Offline
Member

Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 1,291
Good job! Why don't you fly multiplayer coop with us? It's a blast! We try to fly realistically, and you seem to know your way around the aircraft. None of us is an ace, we just like to fly together and accomplish the mission.

#4182239 - 10/16/15 10:47 AM Re: Attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base - Jane's F/A-18 [Re: Wizard43]  
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 11,273
531 Ghost Offline
USMC
531 Ghost  Offline
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Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 11,273
Elizabeth City NC
Sure wish I could get this ol' girl to run on my PC.


Originally Posted by Abraham Lincoln
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.


#4182365 - 10/16/15 03:15 PM Re: Attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base - Jane's F/A-18 [Re: Wizard43]  
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 290
Wizard43 Offline
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Wizard43  Offline
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 290
Canada
Hey Dragon. Man, I've thought a bunch of times about trying to fly with you guys. That would be so cool. I'm always poking around over at vfa-41.net to see what you're up to. I think I could learn a ton from you. I just have trouble finding enough time for my hobbies. I can and often literally go weeks at a time between flying JF18. I think I would just be letting you guys down by being absent more often than not.

Wizard

#4196701 - 11/20/15 01:24 PM Re: Attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base - Jane's F/A-18 [Re: Wizard43]  
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 597
Boomer Offline
(v) Viper Driver
Boomer  Offline
(v) Viper Driver
Member

Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 597
Recently got this gem running on my W7 box. Loved it back in the day.

Funny thing about this sim: horrible grafix, outstanding gameplay.


"Learning to fly the Falcon is just your ticket to the dance" - Pete 'Boomer' Bonanni.
#4197980 - 11/23/15 04:18 PM Re: Attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base - Jane's F/A-18 [Re: Wizard43]  
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 290
Wizard43 Offline
Member
Wizard43  Offline
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Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 290
Canada
I wouldn't say horrible. Not up to modern standards for sure. But I'll take game play over graphics any day.

#4210647 - 12/28/15 11:38 AM Re: Attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base - Jane's F/A-18 [Re: Wizard43]  
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 5,555
VF9_Longbow Offline
Hotshot
VF9_Longbow  Offline
Hotshot

Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 5,555
Tokyo, Japan
how do you get around the air to air mode problem that makes the game crawl at 2-4fps?? if i could only fix that issue i'd be playing jf18 all the time.

#4210738 - 12/28/15 05:29 PM Re: Attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base - Jane's F/A-18 [Re: Wizard43]  
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 1,663
mdwa Offline
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mdwa  Offline
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 1,663
Way over in Perth, Western Aus...
If you're using Nvidia you may need to roll back drivers - check this post:
http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/4205620/Re:_Janes_F18_Screenshots_%5Bima#Post4205620

Last edited by mdwa; 12/28/15 05:30 PM.

mdwa
#4210997 - 12/29/15 09:09 AM Re: Attack on Umm Qasr Naval Base - Jane's F/A-18 [Re: Wizard43]  
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 5,555
VF9_Longbow Offline
Hotshot
VF9_Longbow  Offline
Hotshot

Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 5,555
Tokyo, Japan
Hmm, I can't even get it to run missions at all now. A few months ago I was able to play instant actions and stuff, but now it crashes as soon as I hit the "fly" button. Wonder what's changed..?


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