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.