Cold War Warrior mission 4 - need help

Regardless of which target spawns, it always is surrounded with SAM sites with F-5Es flying overhead.

How am I supposed to not die, let alone actually do any damage to the target?

I've tried low altitude ingress, but then I'm taken out by AAA and SAMs. I've tried high altitude ingress, but then Tigers take me out before I can make a 2nd pass.

Am I supposed to just spam countermeasures and hope for the best? Or are there some friendlies that are supposed to clear the skies, but "somehow" the mission got broken and nobody cares about fixing it?

I feel this mission maybe broken! There is supposed to be a flight of MiG-29s or MiG-23s to assist you with regard to the F-5s

IIRC there should be a fighter sweep of MiG-23's that are supposed to clear out the F-5's for you.

That being said, Cold War Warrior is not an easy campaign by any means. One pass, haul ass is definitely the way to approach things. Partial mission success at best is entirely normal for this campaign. The only way I managed it was to do an ultra-low altitude ingress, pop up attack and dump everything on the target in one go then immediately dive back to weeds height & egress at Vmax, while continuously popping countermeasures.

IIRC there should be a fighter sweep of MiG-23's that are supposed to clear out the F-5's for you.

I'll check that, both in mission editor and in an actual playthrough. I do remember some allied fighters attacking some F-5s, but that was some 30km south of the CAS zone.

That being said, Cold War Warrior is not an easy campaign by any means. One pass, haul ass is definitely the way to approach things. Partial mission success at best is entirely normal for this campaign. The only way I managed it was to do an ultra-low altitude ingress, pop up attack and dump everything on the target in one go then immediately dive back to weeds height & egress at Vmax, while continuously popping countermeasures.

That's how I did my previous missions - load up with as many RBK-500s as I can, ripple-drop the entire convoy in one run and hope for the best. In case of this mission, however, I've got two groups of 4 vehicles, each group in a "T" shape. A single ripple bombing run won't strike them all, but I might have some more success with 8 rocket launchers

Side note - I think RBK bombs are unaffected by wind, which is why I chose them over KMGU dispensers. I'll do some more tests but I think this might be a bug.

I'll check that, both in mission editor and in an actual playthrough. I do remember some allied fighters attacking some F-5s, but that was some 30km south of the CAS zone.

 

 

 

That's how I did my previous missions - load up with as many RBK-500s as I can, ripple-drop the entire convoy in one run and hope for the best. In case of this mission, however, I've got two groups of 4 vehicles, each group in a "T" shape. A single ripple bombing run won't strike them all, but I might have some more success with 8 rocket launchers

 

Side note - I think RBK bombs are unaffected by wind, which is why I chose them over KMGU dispensers. I'll do some more tests but I think this might be a bug.

In fairness I could be wrong about the MiG-23's. Thinking about it I remember the enemy CAP being F-4's so I could be thinking about a different mission.

I agree about the KGMU's. I've never found them to be effective for attacking anything except a column on a road. Outside of that one rare target type I've always found RBK's or rockets to be much more effective. Might also be worth trying FAB-500's - they tend to do reasonably well against light to medium armour if they impact close enough. They won't really touch MBT's but should be effective against other vehicles.