RED FLAG - AGGRESSOR PVP JUNE

Thank you all so much for flying!

It was an amazing event from our perspective and I was really amazed at the level of coordination we got together, too!

Please everyone, post a little note, a little input at the end, if you like it, what you liked, what you didn't like. It would be much appreciated!

Thanks again to everybody for participating.

S!

Was a great event! the best of all red flags! thanks to 104th, ironmike and organizers for their work! I lost my MIG-29 for ... fuel problem? :D

Tonights Red Flag 06 ACMI.

Fast shot from the hip at x4 speed. The x1 ACMI is running atm.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6f9TqKhydu1YUgtRnhXbnRxMlE/view?usp=sharing

But sleep now first. :D

Can you not ignore my applications for next round!? :lol:

I think RED side should of had a commander, The whole ROE were far more better, Than a spamram fight, Nice touch to add the viggens, Comms were hard sometimes, Would not like to have been Ironmike at all last night lol BUT kept it together, Reds could of been more aggressive they were passive and i did find it to easy maybe? Good fun tho.

As discussed in last nights debrief:

A big thank you @IronMike. I haven't played that many MP events in DCS yet, but this has been by far the best event I've participated in.

As stated, the two most important things the event need next is 1: Simple Radio as soon as it can be taken into use in this, and with it 2: A dedicated ATC.

How I would imagine this to work, is that before startup the units are in contact with the Airboss to determine their task (if not pre-defined) and most importantly Time On Target. With this info, the units contact the ATC in due time for startup, taxi (and clearance after take-off) and departure. The ATC would then pass the aircraft to the Airboss frequency when clear of the ATC area of responsibility. I've been starting to familiarize some SF pilots to operating with ATC, since I have some experience on the subject. If you need a hand in the ATC-work, I might be able to provide some help.

All this would free much resources for the Airboss. Ideally there should also be fighter controllers, so that the Airboss wouldn't control (most) units directly. This would of course require good coordination between the Airboss and the fighter controllers. This would require determining push times for example, or by using codewords to initiate certain actions, without the need to have a 10-minute discussion on what should be done next.

All in all. This is an event I really much enjoyed, and it shows very high potential. There's also a lot still to do to make this work as intended.

Regard's,

MikeMikeJuliet

An hour later and I could've had flown. Could future events start a bit later maybe? Most of the times I don't sign up or sign up as a reserve because I can't be sure I'll make it on time. If most players don't bother I'd appreciate that.

An hour later and I could've had flown. Could future events start a bit later maybe? Most of the times I don't sign up or sign up as a reserve because I can't be sure I'll make it on time. If most players don't bother I'd appreciate that.

The events should probably alternate between certain times, since it's always the case that a particular time doesn't fit someone or some squadron. For SF, last night the debrief went on until 02:30 AM local time... and you can see that being a *bit* late for us...

Ty again for hosting this event, the outcome was awesome! My 2nd event here in dcs and I think because of your work ironmike newbies and veterans had no trouble to understand the idea of the event.

Some things from yesterday:

Simple radio will make things more realistic and easier in the future.

A commander for each side at minimum, but ATC + "Magic" would help a lot. red magic and gamemaster can be one person.

With more time more stuff set in the briefing: noflyzone today, ingress egress waypoints in the future + ...

But most important imo will be standards for redflag: brevity, flight paths and altitudes when landing, take off, flight formation, air refueling, ...

And this should be well documented and easy to understand: examples, pictures, checklists, ...

I would help with that if someone makes that an open project. I saw other communities setting standards and in no time the player number jumped up and a new level of realism and quality was achieved although new players were present.

Onyx

Thanks for all your input guys, all points duely noted.

Some we will achieve sooner, some later. Remember, this was the first very small step towards more realism.

Commanding both sides wasnt such a problem, btw (although mission command + airboss blue and red is how it should be ideally), but ATC is needed, indeed. Until we will have more section division it will also take a bit, since folks will have to gain a bit experience in these kind events first. but then it will all boil down to someone who steps up and we can start compartmentalising it more. However, we are also limited by numbers. That makes it a small scale event still (although biggest possible in DCS), which often makes it easier for the airboss to not have an intermediate. Basically what you do for GCI is to create a scenario for him, too. Also when airbossing red I usually dont do ATC at all, as I can rely on them organising around the airport self reliantly. I did it for blue this time to prevent an even bigger chaos. But having an ATC will be the first step, and so will be using simple radio. However, once blue gets more acquainted with procedures, an ATC will become also on blue a realism gimmick for immersion - which btw is what this event is about. We want to achieve more immersion through higher levels of realism, even if sometimes it is make believe due to the limitations of the game, but at least we have seen two things yesterday: a) it works and b) the community wants it. :thumbup:

The whisper thing btw almost killed the event yesterday, and I am verry sorry for that: you all had to wait 30min until we finally figured it out. Real sorry about that. I still dont know what happened there, it worked in all previous events without problems, and this time for some reason I couldnt hear anyone. It only worked once I turned that "psst" sound notification back on, which was a lucky guess, and lucky that I made it, lol, everything was turning black infront of my eyes already and I thought I have to cancel the whole thing, or at least it wouldnt work how it was supposed to... Drove me nuts, to say the least. I hate whisper tbh, it is always a mess and simple radio will help with that a lot.

As for red being passive: yes. I ordered them to do so, to facilitate rather scenarios than the typical slug fest. BTW red flew predominantly restricted, with some aircraft carrying a max of two 120bs and two ERs and no ETs, 77s or 120cs. this will continue in the future, although red will fly different scenarios against you with different load outs and difficulties, and also will have more standard "challenges" cut out to facilitate that, for example a gunfight scenario, a heater scenario in certain ares, etc, differing from event to event. This also means to fly realistically, not to chase guys, fight for air superiority rather than for the kill, for area denial etc..

and blue followed the same rules, which btw, again: you all did a great job in that. No one crossed the FEBA, no one flew into the no fly zone, no one chased senseless and no one provoked without orders or broke the rules of engagement. Thus a very interesting mission unfolded, which I believe, was different and certainly more realistic than anything we had so far.

Wouldnt mind giving ATC ago in the next one, Give some other guys a chance to fly.

Wouldnt mind giving ATC ago in the next one, Give some other guys a chance to fly.

Thanks for the offer buddy, will come back to it for sure! The more of you guys get involved, the more things we can make happen! Appreciate it a lot.

Also, I totally forgot to thank =RvE=MicroVax for his great effort to help with Viggens and air to ground scenario, with the training he participated in and the help in the set up for the RECON and air to ground. Much much appreciated.

Also special thank to him for doing the acmi file for us, here it is gents, official tacview done by MicroVax from the server track:

https://drive.google.com/uc?id=0B6f9TqKhydu1SUZna1A5dGc3bXc&export=download

Also much thanks to 104th_Knight to helping with the set up and preparation! Well done, buddy!

And also I forgot to thank all the Agressors for their support, the 51st and all our guys for flying so patiently and elaborately their roles! Apart from that I'd like - finally - again thank you all for participating in such a great and disciplined manner and helping us to make this work!

Aaaand special thanks to 104th_Maverick and 104th_Knight who helped to prevent me from exploding when whisper went to shits, lol, I really almost did just that: explode, hahaha!

Well done all, and thank you again for everything - I hope I didnt forget anybody!

S!

Wouldnt mind giving ATC ago in the next one, Give some other guys a chance to fly.

I might be able to help on that front as well.

I might be able to help on that front as well.

Thanks, and duely noted!

Firstly, a huge thanks to IronMike for the massive amount of work and expertise that went into this. Also thanks to MicroVax, the 104th, and 51st guys. To my noob eyes it was an excellent event. It felt very real and was super intense, not to mention a lot of fun.

I learned a huge amount from the briefings, through making many mistakes, and also from the example of excellent wingmen and RedFor.

Feedback: I would echo Onyx's comments in the debrief - there was room for improvement in comms discipline, with a fair amount of excited calls on (I presume) guard and we also heard some one-sided conversations. I understand fox calls should be on guard, but I believe not much else. Perhaps more structure or guidelines are needed here.

I think the lesson from the TS whisper issue is that we should have done the training event in the same manner we expected for the live event. At least that's what Captain Hindsight says.

One tentative idea related to something I raised in the debrief. With so much time spent on preparation, briefing/debriefing and flying the scenario it seems a waste to not extract all the lessons possible. Would it be worth it to run a TacView analysis debriefing? Perhaps this is too much to ask, but I know I would benefit from something like this hugely. As a dead pilot, I'd love to know what I did wrong (killed by Moskva AI performing a pushed CAP).

In summary: spectacular event, and I see far more room for improvement in myself than in even the current status of Red Flag Realism!

I might be able to help on that front as well.

Yea sure sounds good

I've taken part in a fair few Red Flag events by now and have been one of a few to experience it from both Challenger and Aggressor perspectives; this was far and away the most ambitious and impressive of all the Red Flag efforts to date.

Of course, the added complexity is a double-edged sword and the biggest detractor was the constant struggle to get everyone on the same page and keep them there. SRS would remedy some of the comms problem, but overall cooperation I think may be best addressed by some changes in how command and control (C2) is done. If it is to remain an event open to public participation, which I'm sure it is, it could be a big help to add a second or third guy alongside IronMike (or whoever his replacement may be if he has no wish to risk a repeat of a surely torturous experience) and give each of them different areas of responsibility while they communicate with each other to maintain awareness of the overall situation. But if there were a squadron-only version with people who are familiar with one another and already able to effectively cooperate I could see the "one man show" style of C2 being much more feasible. For the time that I was alive and flying at least, there was a lot of confusion on comms and some packages in particular needed a lot of C2 hand-holding while others understood their function better and were able to operate more autonomously as the "one man show" C2 style rather requires. Basically, if there are more bodies in C2 they can more easily accommodate the necessary hand holding or we can aim for less hand holding to begin with.

I very much liked the inclusion of Rules of Engagement, but in future versions I think it could use some more detail and a greater focus in the pre-mission brief. It would have been helpful if it outlined the appropriate responses for provocations a little better like using STT lock to drive Aggressors back over the FEBA or flying across their nose and dropping flares if the Aggressors ever get some non-fighter component added to their force.

It may also be a little more immersive if the Aggressors don't know the exact details of the Challengers' tasking beforehand, which may end up being a matter of using an "honor system" by virtue of the Challenger side being open to the public, but maybe only general objectives can be laid out and the exact details aren't revealed until the pre-mission brief. Just something to add a bit of the uncertainty factor that we had on the Challenger side. And vice-versa, if the Aggressors get some tasking beyond simple CAP it would be great for the Challengers to have to intercept and establish their intentions before having to decide how to respond given the ROE in effect.

ATC would be a very welcome addition. Perhaps if the extra C2 personnel idea is something you take up, one of them could switch to the role as needed for takeoff/landing ops.

Overall, again this was a tremendous effort and I think it really paid off.. Aside from raising IronMike's blood pressure to dangerous levels, of course. That was much less desirable, but hopefully it won't be a feature of future RFR events with some changes implemented. Thank you 104th and thank you specifically to IronMike! I'm sure no one envied you your task and you did very well to reign in and organize such a massive hodgepodge group.

Can't wait for the next one and I'll definitely be claiming a full 4 slots for my F99th buddies! :thumbup:

I was so bummed that I were not able to fly, Only left person on reserve that couldnt join in. Hopefully next time I get a slot. I suggest having a mission with more air to ground sorties so more strikers may join, as well as ka50s.

Thanks to you Ironmike and the rest of the organizers.

It was a great experience for me. I had never flown with so many people in DCS. I can not wait for the next event. Greetings and we are in touch.

Thanks all for your suggestions, all duely noted.

Thanks pyro for the long review, much appreciated that you take your time. I will take all into account as much as possible.

One big set back in comms was also after the whisper desaster at the beginning, I lost all whisperchannels and only redid guard for blue and red to prevent further delay. thus you all heard sometimes one-sided discussions which shouldnt be the case. One we kicked off I didnt find time anymore to fix it, as it becomes quickly a hands full thing.

Sorry again about that, it almost killed the thing, and I was lucky enough that it worked at all.

As for the rest: most of it will be subject to the continued standardization of red flag reality, as I said before: some things we'll implement earlier, some later, as the community will have to evolve along enough so certain things work.

Also I think we will make arrival/training day obligatory in the future, so that the pre-briefing can be much more in depth and mishaps can be avoided in the future.

Thanks again a lot for all your input guys!

S!

PS: Briggers: you violated the bullseye nofly waypoint rule, to not fly closer than 25nm, probably this came from at least a partial loss of SA, as I remember you pushing too far and calling you back way before already, as I called you and Rabb to patrol closer over the ships. That drifting from station, iirc, got you encircled by enemy air in the end so you pushed even further into the ship's reach. that is all from memory now, mate, but maybe we can offer a tacview review event before the next one. mistakes wont be emotional anymore and lessons will be applicable to the next mission. PPS: you did very well, mate, you survived quite long and you've been overall reliable with the exception of the flight falling apart which btw was the case in most lone wolf flights. I'll find a way to adress that too, maybe some extra training for lone wolf flights.

S!

Hi IronMike one thing, if it is possible, next time place only one AWACS in each side, for example in NM and feet in blue side, and KM and meters in the Red, for me was a mess receiving both systems in voice and text messages. I lost the combat SA precisely, due the height given sometimes in meters and other in feet. I received a message from AWACS telling me that the enemy was 12 far and angels 23000, and I quick turned noticing that the guy was about 20km away and almost at my same height! for me in the MIG-29 was really a mess, I prefer to calculate mentally the distances from NM to KM and feet to meters or viceversa.

Hello!

I enjoyed flying at this event. Nice Job!

The only thing to point is that some pilots use the Guard "Channel" to ask you (Commander) for instructions instead of using a direct whisper to your Command channel. So in my case, those conversations where overlapping whit my flight comms interrupting not just the internal comms but the focus you need to have while inputting coordinates into the Viggen INS!

Other than that... awesome event!

PS: Briggers: you violated the bullseye nofly waypoint rule, to not fly closer than 25nm, probably this came from at least a partial loss of SA, as I remember you pushing too far and calling you back way before already, as I called you and Rabb to patrol closer over the ships. That drifting from station, iirc, got you encircled by enemy air in the end so you pushed even further into the ship's reach. that is all from memory now, mate, but maybe we can offer a tacview review event before the next one. mistakes wont be emotional anymore and lessons will be applicable to the next mission. PPS: you did very well, mate, you survived quite long and you've been overall reliable with the exception of the flight falling apart which btw was the case in most lone wolf flights. I'll find a way to adress that too, maybe some extra training for lone wolf flights.

 

S!

Great feedback, much appreciated IronMike.

Definitely lost some SA with the pushed CAP, and being killed by Moskva definitely supports your memory. Sadly I could not review in TacView as I was missing from the ACMI (I had a client crash before takeoff and I suspect rejoining the server is the cause). I should have made waypoint 2 visible in my radar.

Also yes, our flight fell apart right after take-off due to me not coordinating properly. We then rejoined and got to a fairly solid racetrack CAP over 5/6, and then when we were engaged by red we lost 3 Mirages in about a minute or two (Onyx and Terence both took one red with them) leaving me the only survivor by luck alone.

Many many great lessons for me.

Hi IronMike one thing, if it is possible, next time place only one AWACS in each side, for example in NM and feet in blue side, and KM and meters in the Red, for me was a mess receiving both systems in voice and text messages. I lost the combat SA precisely, due the height given sometimes in meters and other in feet. I received a message from AWACS telling me that the enemy was 12 far and angels 23000, and I quick turned noticing that the guy was about 20km away and almost at my same height! for me in the MIG-29 was really a mess, I prefer to calculate mentally the distances from NM to KM and feet to meters or viceversa.

I think that is precisely what you were getting there, 12nm and 23000 feet, we only had one awacs, the e-3, thus he reported in feet and miles.

I think that is precisely what you were getting there, 12nm and 23000 feet, we only had one awacs, the e-3, thus he reported in feet and miles.

Watch the video below minute 27:20, you will notice both AWACS messages in russian and english, AWACS (Darkstar) reporting in feet and NM and AWACS(1) reporting in russian in meters and KM. I can tell you was a real mess in the middle of the combat!

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