Welcome to the next SimHQ BMS campaign. The SimHQ Viper Squadron is a bit like a global firefighter. We respond wherever the flames burn, and that means a return to Korea. KTO Iron Fortress is the campaign. The Reds have pushed Blue to the bottom half of South Korea, and it's time to push back. It should be noted that this BMS campaign is quite different from the classic Iron Fortress campaign. Blue holds all of the southern half of South Korea, not just the southeast corner. That gives Blue a west coast base at Kunsan, which is reserved at the start with the 14th Fighter Squadron (same as our maiden campaign Tiger Spirit) in Block 50s. And as with every campaign we have flown so far, we share it with a bunch of Hog pilots and their devastators. Kunsan is a north-south single runway right on the coast, and just 30 miles from the front line at the start.

Before i get in to more detail, I want to say that I have not flown this campaign past the first 20 hours. So while I can usually give some insight as to what to expect, this time around I really cannot. I am playing it offline at this time though, so depending on when we actually kick it off, maybe I will know a bit more by then. Can China and Russia join? Does South Korea actually deploy any of their own fighters? I also want to say that I had slagged this campaign a bit in the campaign thread in this forum. But having tried again, I want to say that I didn't give it a fair shot before making those comments, and offer an apology for this rush to judgement. Having given it a longer go the second time around, I am finding it a right proper Falcon campaign. One thing I can tell you is that early on the second morning Red got a huge reinforcement of both air and ground units in my offline run (with fresh MiG-29 and -23 squadrons among others), making a second Wall O MiGs occur. Be ready for that, especially if they get it during a consolidation. Defend the skies! MiG-29s are dangerous, but I have more trouble with MiG-23s. They are dangerous, and they are one of the best missile-draggers in the sim. Shots taken before no-escape have a fair chance of burning out against a MiG-23. They just seem to be full-burner full-time.

There are just three Viper squadrons deployed at the outset. The Block 50s at Kunsan, and Block 40s at both Pohang and Pusan. I hesitate to reserve any of them, but it's best for our purposes to be able to hop on and have aircraft readily available. Offsetting this shortage of the world's most versatile combat aircraft is the fact that the only other aircraft that could make that claim, the F/A-18, is deployed in strength, with no fewer than 8 Hornet squadrons in theater at the start. Some are on the carrier in the Sea of Japan, and more are land-based, including an Australian and a Canadian squadron. Hornets carry 10 slammers plus a pair of heaters, and will be the backbone of our ATO-fragged CAP. Players may be hard-pressed to beat the Hornets to the air kills at times. They can get the job done in the air and on the ground.

Our opening inventory is about 300 aircraft in all, and we hold a nice advantage over the Reds both in numbers and tech. Red inventory is the standard KTO stuff. MiG-23, MiG-29A, MiG-19, Il-28, Su-25, MiG-21 and lots of Mi-8s. We hold the initial advantage in the air, ground forces start even, and Red has a huge advantage in air defenses. But theirs are spread all over the theater, while ours are compacted in to the shrunken South Korea. We have a very strong SAM umbrella network, with plenty of overlapped Patriots and Hawks. I cannot say for sure what the Reds have, but in the first 20 hours I noticed no SA-10 or SA-6 at least. They do have SA-2, SA-3 and SA-5 of course, and at the start just taking off from Kunsan will put you close to their range. Flying Block 40s out of Pohang or Pusan will give you more time. Don't neglect these bases, because we need to defend the whole front, but still concentrate more on the west front, toward Suwon and Seoul. The Block 40 is also just a cool jet.

Helicopters are plentiful for both sides, and unlike Balkans, they fly attack missions, not just recon. So they need to be dealt with. In my campaign our Apaches are actually out-killing the A-10s.

Our only victory objective is Seoul. If we take it, we win. So if we can just hold in the center and on the east front, a push north in the west is all that's needed. So interdictions and CAS missions should be heavily weighted in that sector. Clear the roads leading to Seoul for our intrepid pixeltruppen.

I spent more time again with the weather map. I'm still learning, but I am getting closer to getting what I want. I again tried to set a higher stratus floor, to give more room under the deck for target acquisition. I've changed some wind, visibility and cloud parameters, so we will see how it goes. Weather in the theater is volatile and you will see changes flying fairly short distances. And as always, the Falcon Gods will determine how it goes from there. Frankly, the weather has been too nice for the past 2 /12 weeks while we were flying in the Balkans, and it's time for a little bit of the rough stuff.

PAKS are concentrated close to the front at the start. Sliders do not authorize ATO strike missions, leaving all strategic targets for the players. I have fragged an E-3 and a E-8 to be on station one hour from campaign start. They will be flying together south of Taejon, so keep an eye out for them in case they need any help. I expect a strong ATO-fragged CAP in this campaign, except during a consolidation. Consider flying more air missions during consolidations. Each of those CCCI missions are max-endurance of 16 hours, so they will be very useful if we can keep them aloft.

Early mission profiles can be whatever you want, but as always, Red aircraft and SAM radars should be considered priority. HARMCAPs are a great early mission profile to take out a little of each. Keep an eye out for Red strikers approaching Kunsan from the sea and frag an intercept if possible to keep them away.

One thing I have to mention.... I sent the files to Oden but only after did I realize this campaign is Ace challenge level. I don't know how other players feel about it. Personally I think it gives the best combat in F4. That's what I'm flying offline, and when I set up this campaign for SimHQ I didn't think to change it. This campaign is only 5 days long, so if it proves unpopular, we can dial it down for the next one. I think it's definitely a good idea to give it a run and get some feedback from you guys. If you like medals, this is the way to get 'em, and you'll find air medals on your tunic just by doing your job. So hopefully everyone is up for it, and honestly most of the time you can't tell.

That's all I've got at the moment. Oden will start the new campaign in the course of the next week. Any questions or comments fire away.

See you over Suwon

reserved

I'm in!

Looks intense!
Will set the server up in some 15 hours from now.
Trying to start it late Euro to not have a too big a gap before US pilots shows up.

DBond, I will not be able to turn off the server (campaign first day style) before I go to customer site tomorrow without risking to cut US pilots short so could you spawn a few ai-cap flights for 14th sqn before you leave your first evening flight?
(make it a few hours ahead in time since malibu probably will cover a few hours after you)

Keep pressure up first campaign day gentlemen

Awesome. Looking forward to getting started!

Of course, but I am unclear as to what we are trying to achieve. Is it to provide more protection for Kunsan, or what is your idea?

Quick question.

When IVC is up and running what comms SOP do you follow?

We'd usually use UHF 15 for tower and 13 for Tactical and then VHF 1 for flight 1, VHF 2 for flight 2 and so on in the package.

Obviously this is difficult to organise when you just have people dropping in, but just wondering what those that do fly together on your server use.

Thanks for setting up this campaign and hosting the server. I will try to hop on for a bit this evening (~18:00 CDT / 23:00 UTC) if things are up and running.

Na, I was just thinking if we leave the server for 12 hours after you merikans are done for the evening we could get in trouble having one squadron in idle.
It would not be good for this short and intense campaign?
Maybe I am just a bit too pumped for the new campaign


Server ETA: Soon.
(Dinner first!)

Oh, I see, yes, good idea.

Good hunting. Looking forward to the first AARs. I should be on tonight around 9 PM EDT.

Sorry, I don't know. I have only tested IVC, I have yet to use it. Any pointers or suggestions are welcome. Is it working now? Well, once the new campaign is up I mean.

Server is up.

Awesome!

Go get 'em boys. Knock out those radars so I don't get shot down please. I have 28 more consecutive missions to go. Can't die now.

First Blood!

Learnt my campaign lessons from DBond I could not frag anything other than a HARMCAP.

From the simple reason I haven't flown much southeast coast I went for 80th Sqn (and they fly block 40) from.. a place I forgot the name of
Spawnd into cockpit and had a look around just to see this awesome Phantom using a hooverboard to taxi.



Laid my route straight into center of the warzone I also marked the current frontline as seen in my right MFD (dashed line right side)
Found my first target pretty soon and was almost sad to hear he was friendly.
Determened I shall not kill friendlies this campaign I let him go



As I got closer to the frontline I had my eyes on an SA-5 and directed my wingman to eliminate this SA-2 that would soon put us in a bad situation if not dealt with



HARM part of the mission was soon over with my missiles slapping the shown SA-5 and an SA-2 just a few miles further up my flight plan.
My wingman got the SA-2 and with no sexier targets around for the time being I had him to take out the nearby airbase search radar.

Asking for picture AWACS had nothing for me but with my two bags I could loiter for a while and soon two contacts came southbound halfway to the eastcoast.
MiG-19's
Tried to get a target seperation I called wingman to target whichever I had tagged and tried to get us closer.



Soon enough I could see the second Farmer and had my first of four 120 chasing him.
With the simple kill I could still see the lead 19 and unleashed another slammer.
Tracing the even with a big, huge!, cloud in between me and the target I lost the lock and as I came out of the cloud I almost rammed a parachute - we can only guess who was hanging there.



With another 2 missiles and 3 more with wingman I turned north hoping for more targets.
Had a 2-ship heading south and AWACS declared them MiG-23's!

Toggled jammer on and directed my wingman to engage we went high speed remembering someone said these guys fly full burner and can easily drag our missiles.

Too focused and all heartpumping I totally forgot to bring pictures back home for you guys to see but we got one each.

With a result way better than I expected I chose not to push my luck for the last amraam but turned south heading back home.



Debriefing gave us both Excellent




Event DPRK Square Pair destroyed by theOden at 08:25:30
Event DPRK Fan Song F destroyed by Cowboy22 at 08:25:43
Event DPRK Fan Song F destroyed by theOden at 08:28:48
Event DPRK Radar destroyed by Cowboy22 at 08:31:14
Event DPRK MiG-19SF downed by theOden at 08:39:57
Event DPRK MiG-19SF downed by theOden at 08:40:24
Event DPRK MiG-23ML downed by theOden at 08:44:41
Event DPRK MiG-23ML downed by Cowboy22 at 08:44:50
Event theOden landed at 08:56:19

Great start Oden

Outstanding Oden. Once again, you lead us off with quality

I see the Apaches are already giving them the business.

Poor start for me I'm afraid. I think I broke the server.

Hopped on and fragged a solo interdiction out of Kunsan with four CBU-87 and six slammers. Had just pulled my gear up and blue paused with no escape. Tried to rejoin and failed to connect several times.

Yes, server was all dead in CTD this morning.
Restarted on the auto-save, let's see if that one carries the weather correctly too.

Well got a quick mission in before bed. Sorry no screenshots this time.

The DPRK did not want to play.....at least the sam operators. Came home with both HARMs on board. Wingman plugged 3 IL-28's. I hit 2 of them as well but only damaged.

Hopped on after rolling out of bed to check the situation. It looks good, Blue ground forces have made some gains, though it is currently in consolidation. In the offline IF I am playing concurrently, I am experiencing more of the false starts, where an offensive is announced to begin in a few hours, but then shortly before that time arrives it reverts back to consolidation. That's the same thing we were seeing at the end of BoP. Luckily Seoul is not far away and we can win this one with some hands-on ground war management I believe.

I was also happy to see the target I wanted to hit in my mission last night was still there. I'll hop on in a couple hours after I drop the mini-me at school.

The time now is about 2000 hours. If it mirrors my offline run, the Reds will get a reinforcement in about 6 hours. Suddenly there will be a Wall O MiGs so be ready if you're on.

The second attempt at a first hop went much better. I fragged essentially the same mission, an interdiction just west of the Nuclear Plant just to the north of Kunsan. Target area about 35 miles from base. There were a number of rocket artillery battalions deployed there. Set a precision steerpoint and got my strike heading. Loaded the jet with four CBU-87, four AIM-120C and two AIM-9X, plus the obligatory sniper pod and jammer. Nothing was up on AWACS view, but I knew that with the target so close I'd have time to loiter after coming off target.

Got aligned coming in and locked a vehicle at the precision steerpoint #99 and from 15,000 feet executed a 25 degree loft release, and then pulled off target to the left. Leveled out above 20,000 and watched the bombs. They looked good, and closer inspection with zoom showed a number of fires.






Did I mention I love lofting CBU? Turned back toward the front line and flew east along it, waiting to see if any gomers would make an appearance. Sure enough, I started hearing enemy aircraft launch activity calls and before long we had our first contact. This proved to be a pair of MiG-23s. They didn't seem to notice me for a while as they werre quartering in to me. But inside 15 miles they picked me up and it was on. I flipped on the jammer and pulled into the leader. Fired the first missile, and beamed for 15 seconds, then pulled in to the wingman and Fox-Three'd him. One of them got a shot at me, but I didn't see it. Only knew about it in the debrief. Based on the timestamp it must have been the lead MiG-23? It was an AA-7 Apex. It's SARH, so when the MiG blew up the missile had nothing to guide it. Or perhaps the beam maneuver defeated it?

The first MiG locked up



I turned around and flew back toward base again and got another contact, this time a pair of MiG-21s. They seemed to pick me up early, and they were spiking form 18 miles. Shot the leader with a slammer from 12 miles. He was really hauling, and that missile took him out quick. The wingman dove and I lost him on the radar. I guessed right about which way he turned though and as I swept the antenna lower I found him at 6,000 feet and cooled my 9X's. With a big altitude advantage my Sidewinders had good range and I shot one when I got a good tone from over 12 miles. I turned to drag him and didn't see the results of this missile shot. No 21 spikes anymore anyway.

Turned for the front again, and picked up some Il-28s that had just crossed the FLOT and were heading in to our territory. From 41 miles I chased to 13 miles and I got a missile off which blew up one of the bombers. The other was knocked down by a SAM Hanging around the FLOT for a bit longer a pair of MiG-29s and a four-ship of MiG-23s appeared. A nearby Hornet section engaged the MiG-23s, while I looked to engage the 29s. A good angle didn't present itself, and I wasn't wading in to this one, so turned cold once again. North of Kunsan the Hornets were still messing with the 23s, and I think had shot down two, leaving two still up. With a single Sidewinder remaining I had to be cool about it. I waited on the edge of their engagement and finally the 23s turned tail and ran. I started to chase in burner, but with just +30 knots of overtake I couldn't afford the fuel nor the flight over Seoul

The Il-28 chase



The MiG-23 fourship is jamming and the 29's are tucked in behind them.



So I turned back with one 9X hanging and squeezed in to a very busy traffic pattern at Kunsan. The 14th was set to HQ control so there was a lot of activity between the Vipers and the Hogs arriving and departing. Good mission and good start.

Bombs were good, missiles performed flawlessly.




Event Crossfire joined as Shark11 at 22:19:32
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK KrAz T 255B destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:47
Event DPRK BM21 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:48
Event DPRK BM21 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:48
Event DPRK BM21 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:48
Event DPRK BM21 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:48
Event DPRK BM21 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:49
Event DPRK BM21 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:49
Event DPRK BM21 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:49
Event DPRK BM21 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:49
Event DPRK ZU-23 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:50
Event DPRK ZU-23 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:50
Event DPRK ZU-23 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:50
Event DPRK ZU-23 destroyed by Crossfire at 22:28:50
Event AA-7 launched at Crossfire 22:35:15
Event DPRK MiG-23ML downed by Crossfire at 22:35:31
Event DPRK MiG-23ML downed by Crossfire at 22:35:42
Event DPRK MiG-21MF downed by Crossfire at 22:39:50
Event DPRK MiG-21MF downed by Crossfire at 22:42:37
Event DPRK IL-28 downed by Crossfire at 22:49:11
Event Crossfire landed at 23:08:40
Event Crossfire exited from Shark11 at 23:09:20

Great mission DBond.

I'm hoping to get on tonight with some SDBs to take out multiple SAM radars (that's the plan anyway).

Thanks Wildcat. yes, about your post the other day regarding the SBDs... that sounds awesome. I'd love to read your AAR if you detail what you do. No obligation of course, but I would be interested in the nuts-and-bolts aspect of how you go about it.

Will try to get some screenshots and write a debrief.

But essentially, I'll change the flight plan to overfly a few SAM sites, load 8 SDBs. Use the recon map to recon the SAM sites and assign each tracking/acquisition radar to a steerpoint (81-88 to keep separate from the flight STPT).

Then it's just a case of flying at altitude until STPT 81 is in range, pickle. Switch to STPT82, when in range, pickle. Then onto STPT83 and so on. It's a really simple way to do significant damage to the air defenses.

I imagine the biggest problem will be red air.

Alternatively, I could target a single SAM site and take out 8 targets at that site - completely wiping it out - but I think just hitting the radars for now will do as it renders the site useless anyway. Could go back in with CBU to clean up later on.

Just messed with the SDB's in the last week, they are great at taking out targets standoff style.

DBond, you're a one-man airforce.

At what range will you typically release them? And from what altitude is that? Sounds like it's the next thing to add to the bag of tricks. I love dropping eight-fours CCIP, but that's not using our tech advantage much is it

Lately I've been trying to expand my arsenal, and flying more survivable profiles, especially on the server. So I need to learn these. Have a good mission Wildcat to inspire me more quickly lol.


Had time to hop on for one more. A quick note about the weather which I forgot to in the last AAR. I was surprised to see Kunsan with sunny weather when I joined last night. That wasn't how it was supposed to be! But of course the weather is always changing in our setup, so ya never know. However, I saw it change on my previous sortie, growing more overcast between Kunsan and Osan. In this second hop of the campaign, Kunsan was fair and the target was poor. I was happy to see that my efforts to set a higher stratus floor seemed to work, and you can now use the pod up to 18,000.

For this mission I flew exactly the same sort of thing as the first. The only differences being the target and the distance to it. I had mistakenly given the wrong target type in my previous AAR. That's been corrected to rocket artillery. This time I did indeed target the self-propelled artillery located about another 20 miles to the NNW from the rockets. Same loadout, same lofting delivery, better results. The cloud cover made it difficult to judge from the air, but the debrief was good. Some of these kills totals are a bit absurd, and there is no special talent needed. I mean, I am lofting four CBU from high altitude for cryin' out loud. The trick is finding the most profitable targets and doing sufficient recon to get the strike heading correct. Then just fly over and fly your cues.

In both of these missions I am exploiting the campaign engine really. I like a lot of kills of course, but I believe I do it because it's a good way to help win the campaign. I'm just as happy with a well-executed surgical strike knocking out two buildings with JDAMS. But that doesn't help win the campaign so much. In each of these missions I found Red battalions that were 'stacked'. The program places them directly on top of each other, so that bombs being rippled down their deployment axis are quite effective indeed, with each hit taking out units of three to five battalions at the same time. Not realistic is it? But it's effective, if perhaps a bit on the shady side



It was still morning where I live, and it was bright, and the Track IR was going bananas. I couldn't spot the rogue reflection so I had to fly this mission without it. Talk about a fish out of water suddenly. A few years ago, no problem. I could nudge the hat just so to get the view I wanted. Now? Drunk.

Took off from Kunsan and hit the target. My loft took me up through the cloud deck so I got no visual on the bombs hitting. As before, I flew off in search of air targets. Not much up, but I think there are a lot of An-2 prop spotter/recon planes flying around, down low where AWACS cannot spot them. I chased one to heater range when if blew up in my face. Found a second later that I did knock down. Tough to spot on radar, and they aren't any danger to Blue I don't think, aside from some intel perhaps. I had mixed it up before with some MiG-29s, knocking one down with a slammer.

The target battalions all bunched up



Got out from over the cloud and had a look through the pod and good fires





Running very low on fuel I headed for home, but some MiG-29s took off almost below me and burner'd out to the north. I couldn't keep on in case they suddenly turned around. So I engaged. And at the same time they did too. Everything went from calmly flying home, to full-on missile fight at 20 paces. I shot both of my remaining slammers at each MiG, without waiting for them to go autonomous. I didn't wait for the first one before I shot the second, and I was in full burner drag before the second one went pitbull. Missile launch was lit up (debrief showed AA-10A Alamo). But I couldn't afford the fuel for long. A 29 was still spiking behind me and I altered course toward an 18 spike. Soon, those Hornets shot the 29 off my tail and I started for home, 117 miles with 900 pounds. So I had to manage it a bit, but that's enough. Good mission especially since it was flown without the Track IR. The air fights with the MiGs I sort of felt naked without it.

On the way home the DED is rather pessimistic

Had a less good flight just now.

Fragged my 2-ship AI but for whatever reason the flight was airborne since 2 minutes when I got it in my hands.
No chance to set the loadout I had to try do something worthwhile with 2 huge JDAM's.

No success with those I turned my eyes to the sky and with a pretty recent picture clear from AWACS there was a 2-ship Floggers inbound.

Wingman lost in a blue-pause I managed to wrestle them down but with another two blue pause I opted to just exit.


Event theOden joined as Python11 at 02:33:54
Event Python12 crashed at 02:45:27
Event DPRK MiG-23ML downed by theOden at 02:50:40
Event DPRK MiG-23ML downed by theOden at 02:51:45
Event theOden exited from Python11 at 02:55:04

Will restart server in a minute or two.

Too bad Oden< I wonder what happened with the takeoff time? Why was it airborne?

FWIW, I had two blue pauses in the second mission that I escaped from. Hopefully it's just due a reset, but this KTO IF seems to be giving us some trouble.

I tend to aim for 25000+, and release shortly after 'JIZ' appears on the hud for that stpt. I also go full burner and nose up to get a little extra range out of them but not sure what the number is.

I think max range is 60 miles, so a little under that.

I don't think IVC is used enough for us to have SOPs... but then again, I did ask for us to at least have SOPs in place for when people fly together. I'm guessing (based on the number of screenshots) that not very many MP flights are happening for this to be an issue though...
In any case, if we do have SOPs, I vote as Wildcat has mentioned....

Thanks. Damn, that's a long way. You could just about hit Seoul without flying over the FLOT. I gotta try these.

Interesting weapon. Just read up on it a bit. They want to fit these things to MLRS evidently

Just tried it out in the campaign and at 25,000ft, at 320kts range is little over 40 miles.

I loaded up with SDBs and took out 4 AAA radars (fire cans) and a couple of guns. 5 hits, 3 misses - not the best.

Also took out an Il-76, a MiG 21 and a MiG 23, unfortunately I made a mistake and took out my wingman... Oops. (Though to be fair, the way my wingmen have been crashing online in the last few missions he didn't stand much chance anyway).

Wingman had 8 A-G kills.

Still a bit rusty, only got back into flying BMS after 5 months off last week.

----------------------------------------------------------

An A10 taxis by during startup




And another comes in to land on 36 at Kunsan.




Nosing up for altitude, AG mode selected, SDB powered on and steerpoint 81 selected. Note the carat in the top right of the hud - just waiting for this to come down into the bracket and the display to read out JIZ, once you see that it's time to pickle.



SDB in range, time to pickle then move to the next stpt and repeat the process.




On Egress we meet up with some MiG 21 and MiG 23. Fox 3 on a 21.



I then cranked left and had my wingman go shooter while I reset and came back in.

I saw he was on the tail of the 21, and had a couple of MiG 23 popup 30 miles away, so I quickly locked them up and got a shot of in TWS mode on the trail 23,




TMS'd right to move to the next target, expecting lock to shift to the lead, but it didn't it went to my wingman who was on the tail of the 21 and I didn't realise, until he told me I could kiss my career goodbye.

In the heat of the moment I misreadmy FCR, I thought I was locked onto the lead 21 due to the cursor being over him, but obviously not




Now out of missiles and with a 23 on my tail on the RWR I decided to dive and burn home, which made the lonely, missing a wingman trip a little more enjoyable.

Running away...



Followed a couple of A10s in on finals and landed without any drama in a bit of a crosswind.

That's cool Wildcat. The range of those bombs is awesome. To glide that far and hit the target is great. So many uses for a weapon like that. I knew of them of course, but had yet to try them, and didn't understand their capability. If one jet could take out 8 SAM radars what an impact that makes. eh? And without even coming within their range. Thanks for wising me up to these things.

I was thinking of fragging a mission and trying to take out 8 control towers. Ha. It wouldn't affect Red in the least, but it's plinking control towers lol.


As for the campaign... in my offline campaign it's all consolidation. Over and over it announces an offensive but reverts to consolidation before the set time to start. If the same happens on the server that wouldn't be good. Not so much on the ground, because I think we can overcome that with some manual control. I've already started a few armor battalions north. But the ATO falls asleep during a consolidation, that thing I call the siesta. Having little to no aircraft flying is not good and leaves everything open for any Red strikers that come our way. A consolidation here and there can be managed, but if it's that way all the time it's a problem.

Got two late missions in, strikes against nuclear plants. Blue has launched another offensive so hopefully it will last a long time. Oden, I pushed a few units forward, and they are out of HQ, so if you spot any maybe give them new orders if they need it. Red got that big reinforcement that I had mentioned, but for whatever reason I have yet to see the air activity I expected from it. If all of a sudden the Red ATO goes bonkers, there could be a big wave of Red aircraft at some stage. It's been pretty quiet for most of day two in the air. Just a little over 3 days left in this one. I worked some A-10 interdictions along the road to Seoul, but there is more there, including some full strength battalions on the south side of Seoul. More could be as yet undetected. I put up another set of CCCI mission for 16 hours, but they've already used half of that.

Sweet AAR Wildcat.
Sad about your wingman, I'm pretty sure I am the one who have heard "kiss your career" most of us all

I did try SDB's in Tiger Spirit (or was it RollFire?) but I got very few kills and the few hits I got resulted in damage only most of the time.
Avoided them since.

DBond, wilco on those noHQ units.
(and I can see we in team84 are losing you to high-tech hahaha)

They only work on non moving targets.

Do you remember how you assigned the targets? Recon screen and assign to STPT?

You can also use the TGP or a Markpoint in the air.

And remember to CZ and not have anything locked up in FCR or TGP if using STPT.

Sometimes it's just down to bad/old intel, if the SAM site moves after it was last seen to be placed on the 2D map you'll end up firing at nothing

I actually wanted to go after SAM sites last night but around Seoul it looked as if they'd all been hit, which is why I went after radar guided AAA instead.

Can't get rid of me that easily. It's true I am attracted to the shiny techno bits and bobs. I'm trying to survive another 20 missions lol. But both of the nuclear plant strikes were done with Mark Eight Fours. The first was a loft of two bombs which hit for limited damage. The second was the standard Vipers in the Storm CCIP attack with four. So I am still part of Team84

Here are the bomb shots from each of those attacks.


The lofted pair




The 30 degree CCIP drop with four




The difference is clear. In the first, I am at 22,000 when they hit. The second is 13,000, which actually is pretty good for me, I'm usually another 4 or 5 thousand feet lower. Altitude is life in this sim, and that's a big difference.

Always wise to stay above 12,000 ft unless you have to go lower to stay out of range of nasties on the ground. Easier said than done!

Yes, that is wise indeed! However, wisdom is not my strength

I have some sort of issue with CCRP deliveries and I don't know what it is. I can come cruising over at 18,000 feet and all looks good but the release cue reaches the FPM then begins to climb and the bombs fail to release. It happens alot. I don't know what I am missing, what I am doing wrong. So suddenly I am in the middle of the attack and I either come off dry, or more likely I change to something else. I can roll over to steepen the dive and switch to CCIP, or sometimes this dive puts me back under the release cue and now the CCRP drop works. But now I'm and 12,000 or whatever, and in a screaming dive. By the time I pull out I'm at 8,000 or there abouts. That puts me in the heart of the IR envelope. This has led to most of the shoot-downs I've suffered over the past couple of months.

I watch videos of guys doing level CCRP drops and I don't see anything I am doing differently, except they release bombs and I don't. I've done hundreds of CCRP drops over the years, but something about what I am doing in BMS inhibits release.

For whatever reason level CCRP drops seem to work for me with JDAMs, but if I have slicks loaded I have trouble. Is it possible to consent to release too early?

Are you holding through the second release cue? The first one is for lofting.

How long are you holding pickle?

There used to be a bug (it may still exist) that if you starting holding release too early the bombs don't release. I tend to wait until the release countdown gets to 2 or 3 seconds and then hold pickle.

I guess it works for JDAMs as you only need to pickle when within the weapons delivery zone for them to release, whereas a dumb bomb needs to be released at a specific point in time in order to hit it's target.


This page (88) from the Training manual may be useful

Speaking of the 'Vipers in the Storm' CCIP attack.... when I wrote about this a week or two back I wasn't quite accurate. So a little more about it, with some corrected info.

The main error I wrote was that as the loft cue appeared he would roll inverted. That's incorrect. I both re-read the book and tried it myself. Depending on speed and altitude, that will occur around 8-9 miles. Too far. DME 5 miles will be much better, to put your jet in a steeper dive closer to the target. So either use DME as the cue, or the CCRP level release cue, which will be much closer to the correct distance from the target.

Speed and altitude, as well as the angle you desire on the dive, will all play a part. I tend to use 30 degrees. The steeper the dive, the more slowly the CCIP pipper tracks and the easier it is to be accurate. That's dive-bombing 101, no different in a Viper than it is in a Stuka.

What I try to do is set my parameters the same each time, or as close as I can at least. So the profile I have been flying (and was used in the second nuclear plant strike shown above) is to fly at 20,000 around mach .90 to mach .94. At 4.5 DME I roll inverted and pull to 30 degrees. At this point I can see the target diamond in the HUD and I roll back canopy-up, transition to CCIP and center the BFL over the diamond. Then just wait for the pipper to track to the diamond and pickle.

Thanks Wildcat, I bet your smiley bits are the thing. I am probably on it 5 to 6 seconds, and I might change my pitch attitude a bit, or correct my steering, which inhibits the release according to what you posted. I guess I assumed the CC part is continuously calculated and that the FCR would compensate for flight path adjustments made post-consent.

That 'disrupted by any other factor' is probably the root of my issue. I will try again with a shorter pickle-hold and no flight correction and see what happens. Good stuff, thanks.

No problem, hopefully it works!

Yes, and it makes alot of sense. I just misunderstood what I could get away with post-consent I think. It fits and I'll go drop something on the server tonight after work, and after I mow my lawn, walk and feed the dog and go to the kid's soccer practice lol. But then! I'll give a go

Anyone flying? The Reds could be running loose in our rear!

Here's something for those SDBs.... set a precision steerpoint on eight different HART sites.

Last time I attacked a HART site I got 83 kills in one sortie. Using JSOW

Had to run a classic four-eight-four just to keep the old-man-war going

Fragged a 2-ship pre-plan-CAS on a HART up north.
Wingman lined up on runway:



Still climbing I had a 2..3..4-ship? on our left out off the westcoast.
AWACS declared them MiG-19's and despite a little too early to engage red air risking to abort mission later on I still sent my wingman at one of them and then I picked a nearby myself.



I could see one fireball and to not drag my luck to far I returned to my primary mission.

As I tried to line up with my flightplan another pair popped up on the right side inland korea.
Starting to feel under pressure, and to be honest the flight felt very long suddenly, I only got a bogey from AWACS.
I did the old cheat asking wingman to engage and heard myself call ".. that MiG-21", oh! ok?
Tagged then second in flight and asked AWACS again (you know I have most friendly kills in our campaigns so I wanted to be sure this time).
AWACS said OK Oden, go get them (yeah, sort of anyhow).



Never had a confirmed kill on both but turned north again trying to press our way forward for our main task.
I kept thinking we put us in disadvantage now maybe having a Fishbed on our tail.

Got to target still not attacked by any air and started to do pair-Mk84 drops after guiding wingman to a nearby concentration.
First a ripple x2 at 333ft sep. but only one bomb came off - why is this happening to me!

Tried to get around and find another solution but just couldn't get my act together - maybe I was too time pressed knowing all red air was there even if I had no contact with them.
Improvised by dropping #2 on a hardened bunker.

After my 3rd loop something said "poff" and all my MFD's went black along with HUD and RWR and, well everything!
Jettison had to be the end of my last 84's and I looked down at the magnetic compass trying to find my way south.

Then I tried the Helmet tracker and tadaaa, it gave me my needed info - not the usual usage of that system, right?



Since I always set the TACAN before taking off I flipped NAV mode to TCN and could already see I had contact with that radiomast.

After some nervous minutes I was down to 32 miles from home and started decending.



So sweet to see Kunsan even if I had no radio to announce my situation and as such the runway was pitch black.



Made it back in one piece (had a few pics of landing but skipped those to not spam this thread more than I do)






Would you believe this?



It seems my first half-assed drop got 23 kills.



Debrief also showed I missed that initial MiG-19 but I did sink the following MiG-21.
It also seems I was hit by an SA-15 when my pit went dark.
(wingman missed both his slammers and later got downed by an SA-15).

Fantastic! Your missions are always so interesting Oden :

Congrats on the cabbage. I gotta ask, when you first heard the voice announcing your meritorious achievement, did you instantly think you were getting a court martial? Or did you realize straight away?

That HART line is a little further north than I've been willing to go thus far. Your bravery and ambition paid off big time with that kill total and the shiny new medal. Congrats mate

Hopped on tonight, no one on, again. I thought this campaign would see more players. I've flown all three nights and only saw cane on, but then he had to go.

Tonight I flew several air defense missions. The Red surge that I had wondered where it was occurred tonight. The skies were active. I actually cancelled one interdiction that I had fragged just before step because my target area was being invaded by all sorts of Red aircraft, and all sorts of MiGs.

Unfortunately my network performance was poor, with blue pauses and aborted commits. Twice I had to exit from a pause. Norrmally that would see the mission not count in my totals on the server, but for whatever reason tonight it seems to have stuck. I only seemed to have got one result screen

Good mission with a pair of pairs of MiG-29s. I had a bunch of missiles fired at me in this one. It was between AWACS patrols and I was getting no heads up until I locked something. Fun mission.



And I suppose if you're going to pause out, may as well do it in style. Gunzo on a Beagle




The final mission I was going to fly was that SDB attack on eight HART sites. Got it all set with the precision steerpoints but was kicked out of the pie screen at '2 bars'. That's what I meant by aborted commits. I commit, it gets to 2/5 loaded and then hangs, eventually putting me in the debrief screen. Oden said he has seen this too. So I didn't get to try that mission on the server. But I did try it at home

What's a guy gotta do to get an Air Force Cross in this game? Or even a Silver Star would have been nice. If that last Su-25 would have just gone down... stubborn bastages they are. Anyway, that went well for my first time loading this weapon and having only read Wildcat's post. I take back what I said in an earlier AAR about JDAMs being as easy as it gets in Falcon. This means those HART sites are still sitting there all pristine-like on the server if anyone joins and wants to kills them.

Yes


Sweet shot on that IL-28, well besides the dreaded blur pause.

Heads up on server, I am off on a business trip and will be back home late friday Swedenland time (9pm style) but hopefully I will be in time to reset the server before you US timezoners go active.

I think you are on the east coast. I am on the west coast and I think a couple others that gave been posting are as well. I know during the week, if I get on to there server you are probably in bed. Lol

And that is why we spam this thread with AAR's, with or without Pictures


But it would be fun to have atleast 3 pilots at once to fly a package with one human in each flight along with an ai wingman or 3.
Like one strike and two SEAD or two strikers with one SEAD, depending on air superiority situation.

Got in a couple quick missions tonight. Hit a nuclear reactor and a bridge near the reactor.



Two hits with a Mk84 using a CCIP delivery which knocked out a good portion of the complex that was not already damaged. Destroyed another cooling tower with a JDAM. Hit the main bridge span next with a JDAM and knocked it out of commission.





Second mission was a TARCAP. Of course no one bothered to take out the SA-3 site right under the patrol area. Wingman and myself each bagged a Mig-23. I managed to evade a couple SAM's, but pushed my luck and got hit with a third SA--3 and had to eject. I should have known better and given a bit more space.

You put in some serious work there Wolverine!

That SA-3 mishap is a direct copy of my deep strike adventure in the previous Tiger Spirit we flew.
Guess I had the same conclusion as you had.


You also get +3 Oden for going 84
(and I am sure DBond smiles too)

Nice work everyone!

I got one sortie in last night.

Either read about it below, or just watch the video





I flew from Kunsan up the coast to hit a HQ battalion West of Seoul at Yeocha-Ri (on the bit of land that juts out) with 4 JSOW.

Picture clear all the way to the target.

Identifying the target - that looks like the column to me, and deciding how to setup my JSOW.



I decided to go for a pair release in tandem with 1200ft spacing, with an attack azimuth of 45 degrees.



I locked the target and then created a markpoint and used that for my attack run, probably could've just kept the target locked, but thought it might be easier to set up a Wagon wheel without losing track if I had a markpoint to fall back to each time.


Launch conditions met, time to pickle.



I then set up a counter clockwise wagon wheel and had my wingman attack while I reset to come in for another run.

There was no AWACS for the first half of the mission and we were bounced by at least 1 MiG 29 A. I dind't know he was there until my wingman called out he was attacking him.

Turns out the 29 was only 10 miles away and we were flying nose to nose - I quickly locked him and Fox 2'd him before cranking and pumping away from him while 2 went as



I then continued with the ground attack but after 3 attempts I just couldn't get a shot off - I either couldn't find targets, or had problems moving the cursor on the FCR - not sure what was happening there.

While doing this we had a few more contacts, two Su25 - one of which I killed, the other was damaged, and also a MiG 19 which I killed.


Egress was uneventful, apart form a couple of pauses and time compression (resulting in a bit of 4x approach).

I touched down with 90 lbs of fuel


Results were, mission success, pilot rating excellent.

3 AA kills (Su25, MiG 29A, MiG 19), 1 damaged (Su25)
6 AG kills.

Wingman is MIA, with 1 AA and 19 AG kills. Not sure what happened to him, will review Tacview when I get the chance.

Good job guys. Wolverine, yes, I didn't realize guys were flying after I signed off for the evening. I've been on until about 12 PM EDT, so 9 PM your time.

About the AWACS, I have been fragging them, but on a 24/7 server I cannot keep them up constantly unfortunately. I give them 16 hour station times, but with the lack of Blue ATO fragging due to endless consolidations (and no defensive air) they may even be getting shot down.

Isn't there anyone on the east coast that wants to fly with me? So lonely

The AARs you guys post show why I am flying with no AI. Which is the last AAR here that has a AI wingman actually making it back

The campaign is going in to day 4. It ends on day 5, so keep the pressure on. We may actually win this one.

I ended up flying at about 21:15 uk time last night.

I kept the AI for 2 reasons, the AWACS cheat, ask him to attack a target to check if it's friendly or not - and in case of AA engagement so I can crank, pump and reset while he pushes the attack when I'm cold.

Good reasons. This server is running with the 'no AWACS required' setting (I think). I'm not perfectly clear on how it is supposed to work, but here's what I think based on 2+ campaigns using it now.

If no AWACS is up (or within range) you will get responses to declare calls. But not picture calls (it will say clear) and little to no 'other' AWACS features, such as enemy aircraft launch activity.

A funny thing I saw last night, speaking of AWACS. I was flying my first BARCAP of the evening. Some gomers had penetrated in to Blue airspace quite a ways. I chased for at least 10 minutes over the solid cloud deck that covers southern South Korea. Eventually these aircraft were shot down I think by Hornets, so I turned back for the front. I didn't know where I was (solid deck and no knee map) but I noted my bullseye position which was 75 miles due south. As I flew north I made a picture call and got a response about 10 miles away and 1000 feet. That's helicopters usually. So I started sweeping low level and picked up a couple of contacts, going a little faster than a helo can. First declare was friendly. Maybe they are trying to get the helos, and the AI has a hell of a time doing that.

Finally I switched to externals to see what was going on and I saw an E-8, down in the weeds, with both motors smoking, with a MiG-29 on him. The MiG was actually doing barrel rolls around the JSTARS, within feet. I don't know how they didn't collide. It was insane. I couldn't shoot the MiG for fear I'd take out the E-8 instead, and I want to no fratricides. So I left them. The MiG still had missiles, but I think had gotten himself in so tight he could not use them? Eventually some Hornets locked the MiG and he 'burnered off to the north and that's the last I saw of him. The E-8, I presume, survived.

Everything in the AWACS menu was greyed out for me, so I didn't even try to declare - will test that out next time.

Good work Wolverine, and yours is the last mission to see an AI wingman survive. Bonus points for that. Just a word of caution.... I cannot see which bridge you hit, but please be careful if the bridge you are targeting is needed to reach our objectives. Perhaps you took this in to account already. If so no worries.

An unsuccessful sortie last night.

I fragged a runway attack on Haeju airbase out of Kunsan. I loaded up with BLU107 and set my wingman up with SDB.

I reconned a couple of SA2 Fansong F radars near the target and set them as precision STPTs and had planned to use them to tell nmy wingman to 'Attack my target'. This would've allowed me to proceed with my low level runway attack without the threat from the known SA2 sites.

In 3d I received a message from Lorik who was about to fly so we decided to fly together, as I was already airborne Lorik joined me as number 2.

I sent over the waypoint for the main threat SA2 so that he had it available for the SDB attack.

We then flew to the target in a wedge formation at FL23 (ish), Lorik released an SDB at the Fansong when in range and then I dove down to fly NOE into the target.

And that is when things went wrong...

Lorik called out nails 29 at 12 o clock and went in for the kill and I tried to gain some altitude to try to help out, I got off a Fox 2 at what turned out to be a MiG19, I then had nails 29 myself but got far too close and did nothing when he had me hard locked - and this is what killed me, I should've gone defensive and reset.

I was hit by the 29 which knocked the majority of my systems out and left me trailing thick black smoke, but I still had an engine, so I performed a split S and tried to run away, but he was right on my tail. I managed to defend for a while with tracers flying past my head but eventually he got me.

Debrief showed me KIA, with 1 AA kill to my name.

Lorik had 3AA kills when I left the server - hopefully he can add his version up too

I called out that he had a 23 on his 5 o clock (acting as AWACS from 2d for a few minutes) but then called it a night.


Things for me to improve on:

Don't ignore a hard spike on the RWR.
Reset in to a better position before engaging if possible.
Respect MAR.
Frag an escort!!!

Well, that makes two of us that got shot down last night

I hopped on after work and fragged that HART/SDB mission again, since I still had all of the steerpoints on my DTC. Pohang had been knocked out since I was last on, so I flew a Block 40 out of Pusan, which made the mission quite a bit longer, about 220 miles to the target. Not too bad, and I set Taegu as the alternate to save 55 miles on the return flight if needed. Made it to the target area unmolested and plinked the HART sites (111 kills). I orbited twice while waiting for the bombs in case I would otherwise fly out of the bubble. Then turned for home. Picked up a pair of MiG-29s to the west and attacked. As I ran in I heard some Hornets (4-ship sweep) on the radio and just before I fired I heard them all Fox-Three long. Well, I Fox-Three medium and my missiles took out both MiGs. I turned back toward the front and suddenly i hear 'chirp, chirp, chirp' in my headset and see the M on the RWR. are you kidding me?

I plugged full burner and pumped the rest of my chaff plus jammer but no chance. I was shot down by a Hornet. Managed to eject to save my consecutive mission streak at least.


I gave some attention to the ground troops approaching Seoul and decided that being shot down by a friendly was enough fun for one evening

Here you see nothing fired at me, but the missile picked me up when I destroyed it's target. It's happened to me before but first time in BMS. I've also killed friendlies in the same exact way. Target destroyed before pitbull and it locks the next thing it sees.

Curious as to what's going on in the campaign while I am at work. Has anyone flown today? I don't know how much time will be left when I check in later, but I will get troops rolling for the objective. I cannot recall ever actually being on when an online campaign is won. I'll see about that tonight.

If anyone jumps on please give me a sitrep of the campaign status. Curious especially as to the status of the Blue troops approaching Seoul.

Seoul was captured by U.S. forces. Clock stopped. I think the campaign is over.

To complete Wildcat's debrief, not much to add and I agree with his conclusion. I brought the airframe back with these mentioned kills. I had the AG kills too, the Fan Song, and the AAA I had also marked prior to jumping in flight with Wildcat.

Ah, victory is ours!!

That, despite the fact that the entire campaign was spent in consolidation mode really. If there is a one campaign that is tailor-made for manual ground troop movement, it's this one.

Thanks for the report. And I still haven't been on at the time of victory. Dammit. Good work men.

Got back from a horrible trip by train (80 mins delay) rushing to restart the server just to find the blue victory





Congratulations to all participants!
(worst timing ever this business trip and fekking last time I go by train despite the tiny seats on the Boeing 737's - the 10 years to retirement feels like an eternity)

Hi Oden, welcome back. Last night after the Hornet driver shot me down I spent some time clearing Seoul and getting the pixeltruppen on the objective. It looks like they actually listened!

How many medals did server dude get this time?

Haha that lazy b'stard only collects campaign medals.
Forgot to check but I think he's still a Captain - if he goes Major before me I will uninstall him and have him replaced by a new 2nd Lt.

Well, I think you get around 20 points for campaign victory, so his 14 (for Tiger Spirit was it?) was 280 easy points lol.

Do you have a new campaign up and running?

Not at this time, Oden switched the server over to ARMA for a bit. Not sure of the status of the next one. We'll see what Oden says when he pops back in.

No problem

BTW Wildcat, I've been dropping CCRP with no issues. I now wait until the countdown is 3 seconds then consent and bombs come off as expected.

Let's talk server closer to next weekend
(not getting my arma server through this sub-par router they handed me, I really need to find an alternative ISP)

Awesome! Glad you've got it working!

Yeah, me too, so much safer than CCIP. Thanks for your help.