FC2 - Campaign Mission #8 AAR

After my failed attempt to strike the clustered fuel and supply trucks, I'm tasked to step it up a notch and strike two different armor positions. The briefing even warns that rearming might be a requirement.

The strike sites are fairly non-descript and I know this is going to be a brutal mission with lots of eyestrain.

The high overcast and lighting add a lot of atmosphere to the mission...

My wingman and I depart and head directly to the east and the first (southern) strike point.

The yellow smoke pops and I quickly get eyes on the first target tank nearby...

And off goes a missile...

Elsewhere in the mission area a pair of Apaches work over enemy positions to our north.

As we break away and set up for multiple runs at the target from stand-off range the enemy fires many short range IR missiles at us, but they are usually decoyed easily by our flares.

On one run in I have the pleasure of seeing one of my missiles strike a ZSU-23 at the same time it opens up on me...

The mountains to the southeast look like a good place to run an insurgency from..

After much straining and close approaches onto the target I finally spot the last tank at the first strike waypoint.

As I transit between the south strike point and the north strike point a couple of rounds from a ZSU hit me and knock out my hydraulics which slows my control response but everything else is working fine.

I peel off to the south and a couple infantry launched IR SAMs arc up toward me but the flares do their job.

Fuel pours from my right wing as I taxi off the runway at my base where I've landed for repairs and rearming.

I laugh when I see the two Apaches enter the traffic pattern at the field, one of them is shot so full of holes he looks like a ragged piece of cheese, the other has a few rounds in the canopy. I can't believe the first one is still flying. They shouldn't have gotten so shot up with those awesome stand-off Hellfires.

After taking off and heading back to the east to the north strike area I pull up my Mavericks and see a vehicle on the road. I assume this is my target because the briefing stated that they north targets would be on the "hardball", so I fire.

It turns out it just a truck moving on the road and I've wasted a missile.

I finally do spot the correct target area and quickly identify two tanks and manage to get off two shots on one pass.

Cont..

One isn't a tank though, but I'll take a kill on a SAM vehicle any day...

Out of missiles and with too many low and high threats to effectively use any of my gravity weapons, I head back to base and pull up on the ramp long enough to grab some weapons.

In my utter stupidity though I am distracted as I leave the ramp and I run my wing into a refueler! Fortunately, I just catch on fire and rip the wing off.

After a few minutes of repair, I'm amazed that the sim lets me taxi the rest of the way THROUGH the refueler and once I'm free I'm good to go!

Up at the target area I find one more tank, but it takes me 10 minutes of looking while dodging AAA fire. After I launch my first Maverick I lock back on it with my second so that I can watch the explosion on my monitor.

With two tanks burning it is a struggle to find the third tank. I refuse to resort to labels, but I do use the zoom and pan liberally to find the last tank.

He's right there next to the power transmission tower.

Once I get an idea of where a target is, I don't have much problem re-finding it. But finding them is darn difficult!

I get the message that I've cleared the north target area and I head for home.

Now - you all are going to think I'm lying, but this is the God's honest truth and how it actually happened. I made a beeline for homebase, which is only about 2 minutes flying time back to the west. A few miles from the base I see my caution light is on, but I didn't get an audible warning, so I can't figure out if I got hit by AAA or something. I glance down at my caution panel and the L/R Fuel Low warning lights are illuminated and the fuel gauge is reading zero. I had just put the speedbrakes out to slow for the landing, so I quickly retracted them, then added throttle to keep the speed up and I realized the engines weren't responding. I really had run out of fuel! Where is the low fuel warning? Do those lights just come on when you are totally OUT of fuel?

I had just enough energy left to make the runway, but I elected to land on the taxiway instead because I suspect (but am not sure) that if you exit a mission while on the runway you might not get credit for the mission (?). I clear the tail of the C-17 parked in a revetment at the end of the taxiway and plunk it down right on the taxiway.

Now, according to the after action report, I flew for about 45 minutes, so unless I didn't have full tanks at the beginning of the mission I have only one explanation for why I ran out of fuel. I didn't refuel during either of my 2 rearming stops, but I did receive that damage and was streaming fuel when I was hit between target areas. Perhaps I lost that much fuel in the short time I was flying back to base and then, not having refueled, the level was very low? No matter what, I can't believe the fuel ran out literally at the last second. Another 30 seconds of flying around away from the airfield and I wouldn't have had enough speed to make it home. One of the coolest things I've ever done in a sim (I once lost both engines in EECH though and managed to autorotate to an airfield where I got repaired, that was pretty cool too..)

And verification that it was the ZSU that hit me..

Looking forward to the next mission!

BeachAV8R

As an Falcon4 pilot I need to get into my head one can rearm/refuel like that. In all honesty flying a mission like this it becomes a sort of miniature campaign, not comparing an F4 campaign but a helluva lot more than I used to read into the lomac series (flew 1.02 last but never like this).

Keep on rocking BeachAV8R, love your texts :) (and hell yeah! never ever use lables haha)

LOL, that was pretty funny about AH64 and your fuel!!. remember you were leaking the fuel before you land for repair, that may explain why you lose alot of fuel!. Great story!!, All of his report deserve a section on main page of lockon.co.uk.

Those AH-64 look like percolator. Good reading BEACH. Thanks.

Thanks!

Are the Maverick in those Apache in the wrong place? if they are perhaps do you use A-10 simmod? try to use Skypat's package. There is another modman package for A-10 that has problems with helicopter rocket pylons disappearing and perhaps you downloaded that one.

Another great read along with some tasty screenshots from BeachAV8R. Rockin stuff. :punk:

I also noticed the dodgy placement of a hellfire on one of the Longbows. I am guessing that is caused by a mod in the sim. Is that the case? :huh:

Your AAR's are both compelling and awesome, especially the screenshots you take :thumbup:

Keep em coming!