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not enough fighter cover for mission 6?


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My wingman and I were shot down by 23s just before we could bomb the targets. I looked at the replay in Tacview and found that there were eight Migs roaming the sky west of FEBA and really did a number on us. The F15s hanged way back in the useless CAP orbits all that time. Are we supposed to take on those Migs all by ourselves? I know the briefing said flanking but two Migs came straight at us.

 

I used time compression on my way in up to Irish, not sure if the sequence could have been disrupted. I was also a bit late due to an extra orbit in the marshalling area. but the key point is the F15s appeared to have done nothing.

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Thanks for asking but that sounds like everything worked exactly as intended. There is only a small chance of encountering Red Air if you are on time but you will definitely be in trouble if you are more than a couple minutes late, and are not in position to receive support from the rest of the package. In this case, the F-16s would have helped cover you. It is all as described in the briefing.

 

The Chevy F-15 CAPs are there to cover the ingress and egress and should only engage if you choose to drag the Red Air east. I have found that they are far from useless. You can outrun almost any threat and get them to help out if you need to.

 

 

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I'm sure you read the briefing closely but here are the parts that apply for anybody else who wondered about the fighter cover on mission 6:

 

"Having degraded the Red Air forces as much as we can this week, the Lakenheath Eagle drivers are now switching to escort duties elsewhere in the theater. And, once again, I am being tested. Having just started to get confident running practically unopposed across the FEBA, it’s time to take on a fresh challenge. We will have to fight our way in without dedicated fighter cover should Red Air decide to put up a fight."

 

"In a recent development, we have identified that Red Air assets are also operating out of Tonopah Airfield, located at BE 353/15 (46 miles to the north-west of The Farms). Keep this in mind when ingressing – the threat from here might just come in from low altitude, attempting to hide in the clutter of the various ridgelines that lie between Tonopah and the Blue Air CAPers in Coyote Charlie."

 

"The entire package will make a feint in the direction of the ground forces at the FEBA in hopes of drawing any response from Red Air to that location. Colt flight with their AIM-120 armed Vipers will join the Warthogs in attriting ground forces and are best armed to deal with any air threat should we have to fight our way in."

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Thanks for asking but that sounds like everything worked exactly as intended. There is only a small chance of encountering Red Air if you are on time but you will definitely be in trouble if you are more than a couple minutes late, and are not in position to receive support from the rest of the package. In this case, the F-16s would have helped cover you. It is all as described in the briefing.

 

The Chevy F-15 CAPs are there to cover the ingress and egress and should only engage if you choose to drag the Red Air east. I have found that they are far from useless. You can outrun almost any threat and get them to help out if you need to.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I'm sure you read the briefing closely but here are the parts that apply for anybody else who wondered about the fighter cover on mission 6:

 

"Having degraded the Red Air forces as much as we can this week, the Lakenheath Eagle drivers are now switching to escort duties elsewhere in the theater. And, once again, I am being tested. Having just started to get confident running practically unopposed across the FEBA, it’s time to take on a fresh challenge. We will have to fight our way in without dedicated fighter cover should Red Air decide to put up a fight."

 

"In a recent development, we have identified that Red Air assets are also operating out of Tonopah Airfield, located at BE 353/15 (46 miles to the north-west of The Farms). Keep this in mind when ingressing – the threat from here might just come in from low altitude, attempting to hide in the clutter of the various ridgelines that lie between Tonopah and the Blue Air CAPers in Coyote Charlie."

 

"The entire package will make a feint in the direction of the ground forces at the FEBA in hopes of drawing any response from Red Air to that location. Colt flight with their AIM-120 armed Vipers will join the Warthogs in attriting ground forces and are best armed to deal with any air threat should we have to fight our way in."

Thanks man I think my late arrival must have been the problem. Next time I'll watch the clock closely and push on time.

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  • 1 year later...

I played this mission today and, while a minute early on target, had a similar experience to the previous poster. Going low and fast I managed to slip away, but most of the other blue strike flights were severely mauled. After the smoke cleared 1 AJS-37 survived (me), as well as 1 F-16C and 1 A-10. The red forces still had 4 MiG-25s in the air. The multiple flights of F-15Cs remained gloriously aloof. :-|

 

On the way back I managed to down 1 MiG-23 with an AIM-9B, which was fun.

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  • 5 months later...
  • 2 years later...

I just replayed this mission three times and finally survivied. Interesting thing is the cloud cover is now almost completely overcast and you'll be IMC on your way to B4. Was it like this back in 2018? Irish peak is around in the middle of the cloud layer.....First time I tried this I wanted to improvise an instrument let-down using the terrain avoidance mode....only to CFIT before reaching the farm because the radar beam apparently was tilted to the horizon rather than along the flight path. I thought the next hill is 10km away but ended up descending into a hill top. The next two attempts I found a large hole in the cloud and rolled to below the deck and scud-ran all the way to the target. The deck was about 5 or 600meters off the flat terrain, and some of the ridge lines are above the ceiling. After some NOE scud running I made it to the target area and had to roll onto the target right at the cloud deck rather than a bit higher and closer. 

As to the fighter cover the observation is the same. the F-15s are basically an eagle wall protecting our side of the field. The Migs did a number on us...second attempt I was locked by a Mig25 while clearing the last ridgeline before crossing FBEA. My KB was already dry and after some futile turns I got blown away at a few meters AGL by a R40. All other Viggens either flew into terrain or got killed by the Migs. The third time I arrived more or less on time and saved all my KB on my way out and delibrately flew south of B7 to shield myself under other allied aircraft....this worked....While NOE, I could see aircraft on both sides just getting shot out of the sky left right and center....and no way to know who those were....scope finally cleared after leaving the FBEA....

Lesson is try to arrive on time (difficult) and acknowledge that the aircraft simply isn't very survivable under those conditions.

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