Rolling Fire Campaign is started.

DBond and Oden getting a "Welcome Line Up" by DPRK SA-5 Batteries:



As usual one doesn't focus on taking picures as it does get pretty intense.
We had a SA-2 ambush which as always, wasn't nice

But, we survived our first mission and here you have two smiling chaps heading for Beer:



Some events from my debrief.txt


Event AIM-120C released at 05:28:47@72hit J-5/Mig-17F - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 05:45:39@72hit IL-28 - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 05:46:01@72hit IL-28 - damaged
Event AIM-120C released at 05:47:07@72hit IL-28 - destroyed

Event AGM-88 released at 05:26:52@72hit Square Pair - destroyed
Event AGM-88 released at 05:44:06@72hit Fire Can - destroyed

I'm sure DBond have some very similar.

Good start!


On a sidenote, no weird AI moves and no blue PAUSE - good times, good times, I think we've gotten the server in order.

Well indeed I do. I will repost what I wrote in the ded server thread

Good flyin' Oden. That mission was flawless

Oden and I flew the opening mission of the campaign. We fragged a zero-time BARCAP with HARMs, which is becoming one of our go-to mission profiles in the early hours of the campaign. Flying the Block 40s we took off and shortly engaged a pair of MiG-17s over Kaesong. Each of us shot one down then looked for HARM targets. I took out a Square Pair and a Fansong and Oden a Square Pair and a Fire Can I believe. We then flew east after Oden got off his second missile and engaged a fourship of Il-28s west of Wonsan, Oden knocked 2 of them down and I got one, plus I added two MiG-17s soon after. We flew back and descended through the solid deck and landed at Osan. A great mission! Thanks Oden.

LOADOUT 1: AIM-120C
Starting Load 4
Fired 4
Missed 0
Hit 4
Event AIM-120C released at 05:28:37@72hit J-5/Mig-17F - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 05:46:48@72hit IL-28 - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 05:53:33@72hit J-5/Mig-17F - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 05:53:54@72hit J-5/Mig-17F - destroyed

LOADOUT 2: AGM-88
Starting Load 2
Fired 2
Missed 0
Hit 2
Event AGM-88 released at 05:30:17@72hit Square Pair - destroyed
Event AGM-88 released at 05:37:11@72hit Fan Song F - destroyed

You guys must've just finished? I hopped on just now and nobody was on.

Any flights again this evening? I'll be lurking on TS3 if anyone's free.

Sure Ice, I'll hop back on in 15 minutes. Let's fly a mission but then I want to watch the final round of the Masters

Thanks for the flight Ice. Good flyin' and shootin'.

Ice and I flew the same sort of mission as Oden and I did. My performance was a bit suspect. We actually spawned inside hardened shelters, so it took me a bit to decipher which way to taxi, but we took of in good order. Ice got his HARMs off quickly but I was having trouble finding a worthwhile target. I finally shot them at Fire Cans, buit missed with both shots, I think I fired outside of gimbal or the missile couldn't turn enough due to how close they were. Bad shots.

Soon after that, the air was alive with contacts and we found ourselves in the middle of it, but acquitted ourselves well and landed back at Osan. I will leave it up to Ice to show what happened during landing

We had a bit of a comms issue as Ice had a delay on his PTT. So communication wasn't very good, but it could be down to the hard drive trouble. Thanks for the flight Ice

LOADOUT 1: AIM-120C
Starting Load 4
Fired 4
Missed 0
Hit 4
Event AIM-120C released at 07:45:34@72hit MiG-23ML - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 07:51:35@72hit MiG-21MF - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 07:59:05@72hit IL-28 - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 07:59:14@72hit IL-28 - damaged

LOADOUT 2: AGM-88
Starting Load 2
Fired 2
Missed 2
Hit 0
Event AGM-88 released at 07:38:20@72miss
Event AGM-88 released at 07:38:56@72miss

I've been "under the hood" of this bastage for most of this week; it's nice to get a flight in where shots are fired in anger. I'm giving up on the NVMe drive now, bringing it back into the shop tomorrow for a refund. Might as well go for a bigger SATA SSD instead.

I ended up with about 250MB of FLT data which translated into 330MB of ACMI file. Took around 20 minutes to compile, for around 30 minutes of ACMI time. And to think I only started this after we fired the HARMs, so unfortunately, I can't tell you what happened with your missiles. Two things to take note for next time: 1) Start up ACMI on the runway and 2) take a TGP. I was missing being able to VID the targets; annoying having to DECLARE each and every one.



Here's the initial view of the theatre, at least from what is known at this point. Lots of air cover.


Initial engagement with MiG-23s


My first shot finds the target


DBond's missile on the way



As we turn south, you can see the IL-28 and MiG-21s inbound. For most of the mission, everyone was way down low. Must've been trying to stay UNDER the cloud cover. Interesting.


Coming back in, we engage 2 separate targets


Good hit on my 2nd target and you can see DBond's target on it's way back to terra firma


Again we turn south and I notice on the ACMI that this F-16 is being harassed by a MiG-23. He ends up evading 4 or 5 R-23s from that MiG. The MiG ends up being shot down by a -120 from an AI F-16. It went up to 700+knots TAS or 620+knots CAS trying to run away, but it still went kaboom!


As we point our noses back north, a spectacle plays out down below. Another MiG-23 is being harrassed by 2 F-16s, but is downed by one of the AIM-120s seen going towards it. I doubt if any pilot would take this shot IRL seeing as there are two friendlies in the area?


I figured out how to disable those pesky "bowls" that denoted air threat range. Here's my #3 kill


And here's DBond firing his last two missiles. Both went into the same IL-28 so I wonder if he was targeting the same thing? Or did the missiles go active on the same target? Did DBond break lock too early? I intially thought the second one would go to the other IL-28 to the left of the first one but it didn't.


Here is kill #4. For some reason, I can't remember going for #3... so for a few minutes after this, I loitered around trying to find another target. When I locked on to a MiG-19, I wondered why I wasn't getting the launch/range info. A visual check confirmed I was winchester.




On RTB, I struggled to catch up to DBond and wanted to go for a formation landing. Here I am breaking high to try to bleed of more airspeed.


Managed to touch down a little early but a rather good formation landing especially since I was the only one who knew about what was going on


But then Mr. Lead decides to make for the taxiway at over 40knots groundspeed (ACMI says 59knots!!) and totally caught me off guard. I was aerobraking and was at 86 knots when I stood on the foot brakes!! I thought he'd be going for the next taxiway. High pucker factor indeed!



Here was the Heavy we found in the pattern... sweet stuff!




My crew chief was asking me about the scorch marks on the right side of my aircraft's nose. I just told him it was probably som flak that exploded nearby

Great flight!!

Good stuff Ice. I had no idea you were attempting a formation landing. Anyway I was just trying to clear quickly in case you were right behind me. I just didn't know how close you were!

I joined the server again a bit later and found Mac and Osiris already on a mission. There were Red aircraft behind our lines, and all over the place really. So I fragged a BARCAP with six -120Cs and bags. Wingman didn't take off or something. Mac and Osiris told me later they saw him KIA when they landed from their mission. I forsee a good deal of solo missions since the AI wingmen clearly have issues. anyway I made a mistake and changed my callsign in the logbook to Bond to make it match, but that reset the whole shebang. Don't try this at home. I ended up shooting down five aircraft but that one is lost to time as I had to switch callsigns back.

I then fragged out two AIs for Strike Eagles loaded with CBU to hit some Red armor that had come too far down a central-front road. I then flew a solo BARCAP again with six -120Cs and bags to cover their interdiction. Caught an Il-28 near our base and very low just after I took off and hit him with a slammer causing him to smoke. Came round to try guns on him and as I was lining up a SAM rocketed in to view and blew him up in my funnel. I then flew on toward the target area, with the weather shifting several times. This looks fantastic and it makes the campaign better.



The Strike Eagles just shredded two battalions with CEM and I fended off several flights of fighters who tried to get in on them and flew back to base. That was a very effective mission in limiting the depth of the Red advance. But there is still plenty more behind them. For whatever reason the A-10s have not been nearly as effective as I would expect and I don't know the reason yet. We could use them to pick up the pace! Debrief text from the second mission. The one with the new callsign didn't record in the file for whatever reason.\

LOADOUT 1: AIM-120C
Starting Load 6
Fired 6
Missed 0
Hit 6
Event AIM-120C released at 12:25:31@72hit IL-28 - damaged
Event AIM-120C released at 12:33:22@72hit MiG-21MF - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 12:51:43@72hit MiG-19SF - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 12:52:02@72hit MiG-19SF - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 12:55:40@72hit MiG-21MF - destroyed
Event AIM-120C released at 12:56:12@72hit MiG-21MF - destroyed

Great Work everyone!

I have put the server on sleep for the next 12 hours c:a since I expect no one to fly these hours.

No kids at home so I'll be fighting red hordes for a few hours from now

I can fly around 2030 or 2100hrs local (BST)... around 2-2.5 hours from now.

Good, I could use some help

Not doing too well at the moment.
Fragged two Interdictions, first I got hit before finding any target.
I did fly in low, some 8000ft, due to weather and I had a bad feeling that is not healthy - sadly I was right and when diverting to a random airfield I smacked into the ground exploding.
36th is one Viper short now.

Next attempt, solo flight, also with 12x Mk20 CBU's I managed to get 8 clusters on ground but despite trying to keep +12kft to avoid the MANPADS they got me in the end.
Limping home like this:



Managed to land, but it sure wasn't pretty:




Event theOden joined as Weasel41 at 17:13:56
Event SA14 launched at theOden 17:24:54
Event SA7 launched at theOden 17:25:00
Event SA7 launched at theOden 17:32:16
Event SA14 launched at theOden 17:32:16
Event DPRK M-1975 destroyed by theOden at 17:32:21
Event DPRK AK47 destroyed by theOden at 17:32:21
Event SA14 launched at theOden 17:36:19
Event SA14 launched at theOden 17:36:26
Event DPRK D-30 destroyed by theOden at 17:36:33
Event theOden exited from Weasel41 at 17:47:23


Event Mk-20D released at 17:24:50@72miss
Event Mk-20D released at 17:24:52@72miss
Event Mk-20D released at 17:24:54@72miss
Event Mk-20D released at 17:27:12@72miss
Event Mk-20D released at 17:32:11@72miss
Event Mk-20D released at 17:32:12@72hit M-1975 - destroyed
Event @72hit AK47 - destroyed
Event Mk-20D released at 17:32:14@72miss
Event Mk-20D released at 17:32:15@72miss
Event Mk-20D released at 17:36:22@72hit D-30 - destroyed

It is very hard to target moving units, I remember one could see their dust but not now - had to find them on GMT but as seen in above events most of my attempts missed.

I am not helping the campign stopping the red armor, that's for sure.
Better let the A-10's do that job.

Think I will keep doing the HARM/Sweep over FEBA and wait with AG missions until we can start target infrastructure and war production.

This really isn't going well for me.



4x MiG-23's.

First off I spotted them on radar mixed with F-16's

Kept on calling "Declare", no frigging response, at all, all mission.

Locked on up waiting for "Buddy Spike" as workaround.

Waited.

Waited.

Pickle.

"Buddy Spike"

OH REALLY, NOW YOU TELL ME?

Court M. total -1 in logbook.

Low Fuel and only 4 slammers I tried to get around these MiG's.

They just kept getting closer to my tail no matter what I did, keep 350 kts, going vertical, Singing Tom Jones Classic Hits.

Nothing.

MiG-23's with fully swept wings just keep on out-manouvering me.

How the hell?

I know I never been good at dogfighting but this is just insane.

Got something that killed my engine and I had to bail out.

I think I need to pause this for a day.



Edit:
Maybe I should add that I didn't just fire straight into a dogfight with friendlies
I kept eyes on a pack going from 3k to 12k and since there is an airbase in that vincinity I was dead sure those were baddies climbing.
Especially when no "Buddy Spike" sounded off, until a split sec after my pickle.
Lesson Learned: F-16C's also fly at 400ft above enemy airbases

One bit of equipment that could've saved the day -- TARGETING POD!!

Hey Oden, don't sweat it. You're out there giving it a go and that's what counts. And I like how you post whether the mission was excellent or less so.

How's the campaign look? Have Red ground troops gotten far south of the HART line?

They had two distinct "columns" spiking south, that's what I was trying to counter.
Not very far but it didn't look good in my eyes at the moment.
I am hoping for you US TimeZoner's to smack them

Thanks for the report. Is this the view you usually fly with, this FOV? I've been looking at screens you post and I thought you might fly with much more 'zoom'.

My FOV is just as you see here. I want the top of the HUD along the top edge of the monitor and the bottom of the MFDs along the bottom edge.

And by the way, that shot showing those four -23s above you is fantastic.

Any flights tonight gents?

I might be on late, like 9-10 PM EDT. Got some stuff to do unfortunately. Mac might be on though. Even if no one else is on you can still help us by blowing up Red stuff

Sorry, out tonight..

Too bad Mac, catch ya next time.

I just hopped on to the server to see how it was going while I was at work all day. And I was happy to see we got to the first consolidation phase! Falcon gods be praised.

Our air campaign has gone exceptionally well and we've stopped the Red attack. The A-10s are finally killing stuff. After a while Blue should go on the offensive. If I see anything I am not happy with it is that even though the attack has been stopped, we haven't destroyed enough Red ground. I am concerned that when Blue does start rolling north they will run in to too much resistance. I'll hop in later and get A-10s and Strike Eagles on 'em. Red is defensive, and therefore stationary so we might be able to give them a pasting.

Good work gents. To the attack!