Red Flag - Aggressor PVP August

Had great time yesterday. It actually exceeded all my expectations, not that I had much as of no previous experience. Time flew by to be honest, from the moment we took off from kutaisi. I can proudly say that if we don't count a stupid black out crash which I did while not even being engaged or engaging someone, my group was the only one without losses, especially from enemy aircraft. ^.^

This was another great event. Special thanks to IronMike for all your work in putting this on - it was an awesome scenario, very well executed.

Big thanks to Yoda for coordinating everything! Also Moltar for the pro-level ATC - I hope to experience you on GCI in future events as this would be epic.

Things that made me happy:

1. got a juicy 104th kill

2. survived much longer than I expected in an M2K facing 120C's

3. the high point of the event for me was when MattE stepped up and did ad-hoc flight lead for the Batumi M2K flight: this was so much more effective than our mob of 6-7 M2Ks earlier in the event

Other things:

1. bluefor lonewolves lacked coordination early in the event: IMO one of the lessons from the earlier Red Flag Reality is that lonewolves can work effectively together if they are put into flights.

2. I feel we should have had some warning that Senaki was being overrun: the first indication I got here was from myself as I was shot down with a 120C about 5 seconds after take-off at Senaki.

Superb event. I learned a huge amount from you guys, as usual. Thanks!

I really appreciate you guys putting these things on, but I have a couple of things.

1) Why does 104th get 8 pilots in the event while everyone else is limited to 4? I know its your guys even, but it gives a massive advantage. Flying with people that you always fly with gives you a big boost. Move that number from 4 to 8 and it gets worse. It was like this when I was in high school with sports. High school teams were only allowed a certain number of players from the same club teams outside of school because it was unfair for other teams to have to compete people that played together year round.

2) Why was the missile limitation not in the briefing? On top of that, it really seemed like the missile limit on 120C for the red did nothing as they were still using them 4-5 hours into the event and firing a lot of them.

3) You guys can disagree with me all you want on this point, but as I was ATCing I was trying to keep a general tally on what planes were getting kills and with what weapons. Id say 90% of all a2a kills in that event came from Eagles with 120Cs. That in and of itself should show you what an overwhelming advantage having active missiles is with an organized group. It may have been a little different had the flankers had data link or if we had GCI, but for some reason people think that is taboo even though the real plane had it and the Eagle, though a decade newer that is in DCS did not in real life. Also, there is no way that in any modern air engagement that any side that has AWACS capability would not use it.

4) The lack of GCI is baffling. We are playing a modern combat sim. We had GCI for the Saber vs MiG 15 event, but not for modern gen 4 fighters? I understand that JTAC doesn't work with it, but I don't really think JTAC is all that needed. It was really evident how uncoordinated blue was and I think a lot of that has to do with pubs coming together. There is really no way to keep it organized without outside help from a GCI.

5) Though blue won most of the ground war I know a lot of people were very disheartened in the a2a scene. Its really not fun to take off and get slaughtered. At the end before I left, after 4 and a half hours, blue had 4 fighters left and red had 13 still with 120Cs even though there were supposed to be limited. I know its not all about winning, but it is still about having a good time as this is a sim and not real life.

6) People really need to show up when they signup. I know 51st is just as guilty as a lot of others as we had a couple not show, but it does cripple the event. Blue was supposed to have 30 fighters and we ended up, I think, starting with something like 22 (could be wrong on that stat). Red started with 19 or so. That means the air fight was even, even though blue should have had more pilots given how it was laid out in the briefing on the forums.

Thanks to IronMike and 104th doing this and Moltar and Yoda doing the "boring jobs" on blue side. :thumbup:

I agree wit Moltar that GCI is a must on event like this, actually one GCI for each 4 ship a2a flight would be ideal but i guess that is only possible for squadrons who can bring their own GCI.

How about using LotATC for GCI? No more all seeing eye view and much more realistic and immersive than F10 map anyway. Yes it has it's own problems and you need to buy it but still a lot better than what we have now IMO.

2) Why was the missile limitation not in the briefing? On top of that, it really seemed like the missile limit on 120C for the red did nothing as they were still using them 4-5 hours into the event and firing a lot of them.

The even was only 4 hours :D and the AIM-120C ended by the third hour, but by that time there were so little blue fighters that they just kept them as there was not a lot of people to shoot. The last hours was pretty empty when it comes to A2A engagements.

Besides you guys have the number advantage, it is a different story that your kept loosing people, as they were leaving

Thanks to IronMike and 104th doing this and Moltar and Yoda doing the "boring jobs" on blue side. :thumbup:

 

I agree wit Moltar that GCI is a must on event like this, actually one GCI for each 4 ship a2a flight would be ideal but i guess that is only possible for squadrons who can bring their own GCI.

 

How about using LotATC for GCI? No more all seeing eye view and much more realistic and immersive than F10 map anyway. Yes it has it's own problems and you need to buy it but still a lot better than what we have now IMO.

I dont think LotATC is a possibility as I think it bring in lag. Im just regurgitating what I have heard. I have no first hand experience with it.

I dont think LotATC is a possibility as I think it bring in lag. Im just regurgitating what I have heard. I have no first hand experience with it.

I'm not expert neither but my understanding is that it creates less lag than in game fog of war.

we can test it guys, we were actually working together with the developer to improve it, but since we didnt achieve any satisfying results, that collaboration stopped unfortunately. and it would be so so needed, indeed!

Moltar, I agree with some of your points, however mainly this was all due to me being really really short in time (i finished the mission literally 1 min before briefing time, no kidding), so I forgot AWACS and Tankers for example. simply forgot to put them in. blue was supposed to have awacs for example. then many didnt show up and in the rush I made the mistake of overassigning three folks to red, but since they were on the reserve list for red, I didnt think in the rush, I was shaking that all would fall together at least, this time I was really worried stuff wouldnt work, I had no time for testing, no time for preparation, etc... very sorry bout that.

The 104th - as the 51st btw - get more places, because usually we fly 14-16 fighters vs 30-36 fighters and you need squadrons of that level of experience to manage the challenge. apart from that because it is our event, too. we bring inexperienced pilots, though, too, our cadets. but aggressors will always have more places than blue per squadron, us, you guys, SF or any squad that gets invited to red. on blue we limit it only, so that all squads get a chance to fly, not to balance strength.

The 120c arguement is somewhat valid this time, as the balance of the mission tipped so much with no shows, and I gave them too many 120s, also due to lack of time, I thought 150 vs initially at least around 90 opponents (counting multiple lives) would go quicker, but it didnt. also due to the fact that air to air started only like 1 hour into the mission, before it was rather quiet. But in principal the 120 arguement is a non-arguement. It is imo espacially the 51st that shows us time and time again, what a good squad can do against it. That being said, usually the balance is given with actives on both sides, too, and this time it wasn't. but in general the 120 won't go away. we will still continue mixing the events with different restrictions and loadouts, etc... sometimes one side, the other time the other side will have an advantage in that. a total balance was never meant to be achieved.

all that being said, again, thank you all for flying. it was great fun, I just made a highlight video, hope you will enjoy, I will publish it later.

Very much cudos goes to air to ground, who did an amazing job in coordinating the targets. also this was a different step, and for all mourning a bit the downside in blue air to air - consider this: for years and years strikers always came second. air to air had fun hours into the mission, while strikers have been waiting patiently on the ground, till it is their turn, till the air is clear, etc. this time the strikers had a bit more fun and air to air came a bit second. the next step is to bring both back together, because all withstanding, the invasion was a total success and onslought, a maximum performance strike. from my perspective it was beautiful to obersver the collaboration and coordination.

So again folks. thanks a lot to all. and of course: I hear you: next time with GCI! (but please also play close attention, when it says ATC, it means just that :-P )

S!

oh btw folks, who said ATC is boring lol? dont think like that. it is actually great fun, and I think both had their hearts pumping at one time or the other.

as to airboss. boring is the extreme opposite of it. you have literally no second of rest. zip. nada. niente. nil. you dont get to breathe even lol. so yoda, for first time doing it, well done, sir!

I might also do airboss next time with subbosses, so ppl can learn a bit and we have a division between air to air and air to ground.

command structure is great fun, once you learn it, so dont shy away, if you are interested, we will teach you.

S!

we can test it guys, we were actually working together with the developer to improve it, but since we didnt achieve any satisfying results, that collaboration stopped unfortunately. and it would be so so needed, indeed!

 

Moltar, I agree with some of your points, however mainly this was all due to me being really really short in time (i finished the mission literally 1 min before briefing time, no kidding), so I forgot AWACS and Tankers for example. simply forgot to put them in. blue was supposed to have awacs for example. then many didnt show up and in the rush I made the mistake of overassigning three folks to red, but since they were on the reserve list for red, I didnt think in the rush, I was shaking that all would fall together at least, this time I was really worried stuff wouldnt work, I had no time for testing, no time for preparation, etc... very sorry bout that.

 

The 104th - as the 51st btw - get more places, because usually we fly 14-16 fighters vs 30-36 fighters and you need squadrons of that level of experience to manage the challenge. apart from that because it is our event, too. we bring inexperienced pilots, though, too, our cadets. but aggressors will always have more places than blue per squadron, us, you guys, SF or any squad that gets invited to red. on blue we limit it only, so that all squads get a chance to fly, not to balance strength.

 

The 120c arguement is somewhat valid this time, as the balance of the mission tipped so much with no shows, and I gave them too many 120s, also due to lack of time, I thought 150 vs initially at least around 90 opponents (counting multiple lives) would go quicker, but it didnt. also due to the fact that air to air started only like 1 hour into the mission, before it was rather quiet. But in principal the 120 arguement is a non-arguement. It is imo espacially the 51st that shows us time and time again, what a good squad can do against it. That being said, usually the balance is given with actives on both sides, too, and this time it wasn't. but in general the 120 won't go away. we will still continue mixing the events with different restrictions and loadouts, etc... sometimes one side, the other time the other side will have an advantage in that. a total balance was never meant to be achieved.

 

all that being said, again, thank you all for flying. it was great fun, I just made a highlight video, hope you will enjoy, I will publish it later.

 

Very much cudos goes to air to ground, who did an amazing job in coordinating the targets. also this was a different step, and for all mourning a bit the downside in blue air to air - consider this: for years and years strikers always came second. air to air had fun hours into the mission, while strikers have been waiting patiently on the ground, till it is their turn, till the air is clear, etc. this time the strikers had a bit more fun and air to air came a bit second. the next step is to bring both back together, because all withstanding, the invasion was a total success and onslought, a maximum performance strike. from my perspective it was beautiful to obersver the collaboration and coordination.

 

So again folks. thanks a lot to all. and of course: I hear you: next time with GCI! (but please also play close attention, when it says ATC, it means just that :-P )

 

S!

oh btw folks, who said ATC is boring lol? dont think like that. it is actually great fun, and I think both had their hearts pumping at one time or the other.

 

as to airboss. boring is the extreme opposite of it. you have literally no second of rest. zip. nada. niente. nil. you dont get to breathe even lol. so yoda, for first time doing it, well done, sir!

 

I might also do airboss next time with subbosses, so ppl can learn a bit and we have a division between air to air and air to ground.

 

command structure is great fun, once you learn it, so dont shy away, if you are interested, we will teach you.

 

S!

I really appreciate your openness to my points whether we agree or not! Regardless, the event was fun. I don't mind doing ATC or consider it boring. I was just butt hurt I couldn't do GCI. In the future though, I really think we should try to get all of the aircraft out of a single airfield as it would improve ATC and make airfield traffic more realistic for missions.

ATC should be made by ED like this:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=167060&highlight=atc

Here is the video, some nice shots in there, all captured during the event, by coincidence really. espacially that runway bombing surprised me when I saw it, I had no idea it was happening at that moment. that said forgive the randomness, I was more paying attention to the mission unfolding correctly, rather than hunting good footage.

enjoy!

Youtube function works, just add everything after the = mark ("jvEAlX18dVU" in this case) and not the whole link. :smilewink:

 

Youtube function works, just add everything after the = mark ("jvEAlX18dVU" in this case) and not the whole link. :smilewink:

ah cheers mate, tx!:thumbup:

After I cooled down from being slightly triggered by the red ATC breaking the rules in the endgame and on top of that calling BRAs which were just available due to godseye view in gamemaster and wouldn't even have been provided by radar or other means, I got to say it was a very nice event.

I enjoyed the complexer a2g objectives which actually required some decent flying around the map. I liked especially that it wasnt just straight point A to point B and just truck enough ordnance over to win but it was actually a lot of spread, diverse objectives.

Also the different kind of taskings at each location made making choices about which ship in the viggen flight was going to load what kind of ordnance an interesting process.

I also enjoyed the 4hour mission time over the usual 2 or 3. While with a 2 hour limitation the event is over very fast and there is barely enough time to make strategy in the large scale work, in the 4 hour event we were able to do 5 sorties with various approaches.

In the end it was a little meh, that even after Dackster and me pushed for the runway cratering run and succeeded with it despite no fighter cover on station and one Viggen lost after bomb release, it was open to redfor again later on.

I am pretty sure it just got lost in the heat of the battle and since Eagle and Flanker do not interact with runway craters. For the future it would be nice if bombed runways actually are inspected and a decision to close the runway entirely or in parts is made. Emergency landing aircrafts might be considered unfit for further service during the mission or the pilot has to respawn at the remote homebase.

This would for once make runway bombing a viable tool tactically, despite the extreme limitations within DCS in that regard atm, and at the same time would put emphasis on road-operable and or VTOL platforms.

Illustration of how close to loosing the frames we went with that runway strike on kutaisi as a last ditch before our CAP collapsed pretty much:

For the short noticed briefing I actually enjoyed it a lot. It made for very interesting flights since there was no time to do extensive evaluation of possible target location terrain beforehand, conduct heavy testing in terms of stores effectiveness.

We got the briefing, we decided who did go with which loadout and from then on we had to make due with what the avionics and stores made possible and then work with the situation we found to be in place.

I personally enjoyed this a lot.

On the same page 2 lives especially for strike missions were a welcome addition to the setup since strike missions in a war scenario are always pretty high risk operations.

Overall it was a very nice event and a very promising step for a2g operations. On the fun scale I would probably rate it the highest for any redflag this year yet. 17-3 was for me personally a hell of a ride but didn't reach the depth of immersion in the scenario. 17-6 was high ranking overall as well but again was very prepared and the target site was apart from bugs interfering relatively straight forward.

For a2g this event really set a benchmark in richness and even for a2a I would say the dynamics of changing airfields on the fly is something new I would have probably enjoyed.

S!

Moltar for blue MVP. I would have been screaming obscenities at people by the end of that.

yeah, the runway at kutaisi should have been closed. yoda didnt relay the info to me that it has been bombed, otherwise I would have denied red to land there for sure, no matter what is possible ingame.

another thing was the non-working hawk, that spawned alright, but just didnt do anything. we found that out too late, I send red air into it to test it on purpose, but by then others had already swarmed senakhi.

As for coxy - to be fair he did that only in the end, so blue does not need to worry they had been crossed during the entire event. but, that is a major infraction of rules. We will be soft on him this time, but in future this will kill anyone off the gci/atc/airboss list. those positions only work, if everyone abides by the rules 100%.

So yes Coxy, consider this your public spanking for it. We won't tolerate that in the future at all.

S!

To add to all the above sentiments...thanks again for another wonderful event. Certainly something I am looking forward to every month. Special thanks to IronMike, the 104th, Yoda, Moltar, and the brave group of F-15s that flew boxes with me the first hour of the event.

I can only imagine the work the goes into hosting an event like this - and it is truly appreciated as this is exactly the type of experience I want from flight sim'ing. My heart was pumping adrenaline and I was immersed - all because everyone involved was giving their all for what they want from DCS.

3. the high point of the event for me was when MattE stepped up and did ad-hoc flight lead for the Batumi M2K flight: this was so much more effective than our mob of 6-7 M2Ks earlier in the event

Lol I know I had a hand in nudging MattE that way only cause he pushed me out front from the beginning. And I want to say thanks to MattE for doing so - it pushed me outside my comfort zone, and I think I grew as a player.

Thanks all :thumbup:

IronMike, microvax, Yes i agree with you both i did apologise on TS and here to (So much for playing fair) So ill step away from the next one, As i feel thats more fair, And not playing the rules, People were asking for BRAA calls early on and through the event, I did ignore them upto the end, I was also given a 30nm for ATC radius no excuse i know and again i apologise.

Moltar you did a superb job as ATC, it was not easy to be the ATC of all the blue aircraft in several airports at the same time! hat off mate!.

I really appreciate you guys putting these things on, but I have a couple of things.

 

1) Why does 104th get 8 pilots in the event while everyone else is limited to 4? I know its your guys even, but it gives a massive advantage. Flying with people that you always fly with gives you a big boost. Move that number from 4 to 8 and it gets worse. It was like this when I was in high school with sports. High school teams were only allowed a certain number of players from the same club teams outside of school because it was unfair for other teams to have to compete people that played together year round.

 

2) Why was the missile limitation not in the briefing? On top of that, it really seemed like the missile limit on 120C for the red did nothing as they were still using them 4-5 hours into the event and firing a lot of them.

 

3) You guys can disagree with me all you want on this point, but as I was ATCing I was trying to keep a general tally on what planes were getting kills and with what weapons. Id say 90% of all a2a kills in that event came from Eagles with 120Cs. That in and of itself should show you what an overwhelming advantage having active missiles is with an organized group. It may have been a little different had the flankers had data link or if we had GCI, but for some reason people think that is taboo even though the real plane had it and the Eagle, though a decade newer that is in DCS did not in real life. Also, there is no way that in any modern air engagement that any side that has AWACS capability would not use it.

 

4) The lack of GCI is baffling. We are playing a modern combat sim. We had GCI for the Saber vs MiG 15 event, but not for modern gen 4 fighters? I understand that JTAC doesn't work with it, but I don't really think JTAC is all that needed. It was really evident how uncoordinated blue was and I think a lot of that has to do with pubs coming together. There is really no way to keep it organized without outside help from a GCI.

 

5) Though blue won most of the ground war I know a lot of people were very disheartened in the a2a scene. Its really not fun to take off and get slaughtered. At the end before I left, after 4 and a half hours, blue had 4 fighters left and red had 13 still with 120Cs even though there were supposed to be limited. I know its not all about winning, but it is still about having a good time as this is a sim and not real life.

 

6) People really need to show up when they signup. I know 51st is just as guilty as a lot of others as we had a couple not show, but it does cripple the event. Blue was supposed to have 30 fighters and we ended up, I think, starting with something like 22 (could be wrong on that stat). Red started with 19 or so. That means the air fight was even, even though blue should have had more pilots given how it was laid out in the briefing on the forums.

Was a great event!, thanks to Ironmike, the organizers and the 104th squad for make it possible.

By the way, I was shot down by a ground unit and I completely forgot that I had another life available! :D

First off, Thanks to the 104th and IronMike for putting on a great event, and to Yoda and Moltar for being the Air Boss and ATC. These events are a lot of fun and I look forward to attending another one in the future.

Next I want to apologize for leaving early (especially to my Blue teammates), I knew with the schedule I would be cutting it close with my ability to stay for the duration, the delay in the start made it more difficult to stay the entire time and then RL made it impossible. I do have a suggestion along these lines, something my Squadron does for a campaign we have run for years. Instead of starting the server at 18:00 Zulu, start it at 17:40 Zulu with implicit instructions that no one is allowed to start engines, Taxi, or take off until 18:00 Zulu when the mission officially starts; this way if the server has to be restarted it will be possible to maintain the 18:00 Zulu mission start time. It also gives everyone time to discuss final tactics while sitting in their cockpits, something I have always felt adds to the anticipation.

Thanks for the kind words Briggers and Jinx about being flight lead. It is something I do often in my squadron, but I am never sure how folks I don’t know will put up with me taking charge.

Lastly I have a quick question for Iron Mike, how much tactical leeway do you give in your tournament format? My impression is we flew the mission very much like the sequence in the mission briefing, if we had gone straight for Kutaisi and the S300’s from the start would that have messed up the mission as you wanted it played?

JD

AKA_MattE

IronMike, microvax, Yes i agree with you both i did apologise on TS and here to (So much for playing fair) So ill step away from the next one, As i feel thats more fair, And not playing the rules, People were asking for BRAA calls early on and through the event, I did ignore them upto the end, I was also given a 30nm for ATC radius no excuse i know and again i apologise.

It is all good Coxy, your appology has been accepted right on the spot after the briefing, and there is no need to step down for you. What I wrote I wrote more to have a clear line on that for future events. All I can say for now, Coxy, is thank you for being ATC 4 hrs straight. You are very much welcome back to it, if you enjoyed it!

As for the BRAA requests, that is also something I will deal with internally. Ma' boys usually dont behave like that, if it was members from the 104th. It goes without saying that not only ATC and GCI have to follow these rules, but also the pilots MUST support him by not constantly requesting stuff that isnt allowed.

To all the rest, glad you enjoyed it. Watch the impressions video, some of you (by coincidence and luck) made it in prominantly! (like your crash when you tried to land at Kutaisi, Rush, thinking it was Senakhi lolol)

S!

Lastly I have a quick question for Iron Mike, how much tactical leeway do you give in your tournament format? My impression is we flew the mission very much like the sequence in the mission briefing, if we had gone straight for Kutaisi and the S300’s from the start would that have messed up the mission as you wanted it played?

 

 

JD

 

 

AKA_MattE

Hey bud, glad that we had you along and you enjoyed it!

As to your question: actually that was intended so, but I did not want to interfere with the airboss from the get go. I pushed for cetrain objective during the event, to a) put pressure on him (and give him problems to solve) and b) help the mission develop along the line. But the right call would have been: Viggens start first and fly in low ahead of the main force. eliminate s300 and - if possible - bomb the runway at Kutaisi. red players still on ground would have lost 1 life, but I didnt say that to leave some things open to the community. So I didnt say anything when Yoda sent in Fighters, then A10s and then Viggens, and didnt have the A10s support with the Kutaisi Tunguskas to clear the runway bombing. while the striker force hit, the cap should have arrived close enough to provide fall back and strike abilities. next bridges and kobuleti, next poti. also the choppers went in too early. so they had to wait at the border until cover arrived.

but that is all ok. yoda did a fantastic job and tried out his strategy which partially worked really well. in hindsight though, we will probably split the devision between air to air and air to ground, because air to ground was so complex this time, that yoda had his hands full with that alone.

airboss wont be GCI either. also, an addendum to what has been discussed before: we wont always have GCI. Tbh, I think it was always rather rare to offer GCI and airbosses should be able to command just with a map and no updates, no GCI, no godview, no nothing. I've been doing it like that for the past years, and what it does it forces a clear communication. to facilitate that we dealt in green, orange and red zone states that got reported by friendly air, which in return facilitated an update of the battlefield on the map that you superimpose in your head. we will head for that, too in the future and folks interested in commanding will be helped along the way to manage both with and without GCI.

That being said, as you all like it so much, of course we will think of including GCI more often. These remarks just popped in my mind, btw, and have nothing to do with your question or yoda's decision in particular. just an addendum.

S!

(like your crash when you tried to land at Kutaisi, Rush, thinking it was Senakhi lolol)

 

S!

Yeah, it was hilarious for me too, in those details one can see the realism of being in the air for 3 or 4 hours, with all the stress it entails. Just waiting for the ATC clearance to land in Sukhumi, I had to wait for more than 30 minutes hovering!. :pilotfly: