Fortress mazdok is hard

Hi. So I am playing fortress mazdok. I have 3 wingmen and I come against many enemies. I tell them to go line abreast and turn on radar and ECM. I tell them to engage enemy. But i keep getting shot down and fail the mission. Any ideas??? Many thanks.

Hi. So I am playing fortress mazdok. I have 3 wingmen and I come against many enemies. I tell them to go line abreast and turn on radar and ECM. I tell them to engage enemy. But i keep getting shot down and fail the mission. Any ideas??? Many thanks.

Could you be more specific about what trouble you're facing? Like what mission? What objective?

Dodge missiles so you won't get shot down...

Well to be honest, Fortress Mozdok is a very difficult campaign to a beginner. The force ratios make it unplayable and demands a tactical approach rather than a procedural approach. I am currently playing it so tell me which mission is bothering you. Maybe I passed it, maybe I did not. Would love to help though.

Here are a few things I did to tactically advance in Fortress Mozdok:

1- If you are faced with more than double the number of your flight, edit missions individually to delete the extra units. This can only be done to included campaigns and not payware campaigns like Ultimate Argument.

2- Add additional flights on your side.

3- Leave the mission as is, but move to tactical thinking. For example, have half your flight go on the route, and take the other half opposite to that route. That way when bandits are united, they can be split with your element attacking from flanks as opposed to head on for the whole flight.

4- The campaign is mostly in mountainous regions crossed, so use mountains to mask your approach and get stealth kills by using the EOS instead of radar when close enough.

5- Get bandits to shoot at you then reverse course to drag them in range of your air defences, preferably on top, then deal with the rest of them that remains.

6- Look at other elements and see where they will be during the course of mission. If they are closer in time and location, they could engage the bandits and at least attrite some, leaving some for you to finish off. If they are gone, at least they have absorbed much of missiles carried, leaving only less missiles to be fired on you. If a strike package is to be protected overhead, do not do this. Instead drag bandits away from said strikers and keep them occupied until the primary is achieved, then exit the fight. You dont have to get kills to score, just meet objectives.

7- Use lots of notching and recall wingmen engaged then have them re engage. This works like 5 above, except towards more armed friendlies airborne.

8- Stay low, but never slow.

The mission is called fortress mozdok

The mission is called fortress mozdok

That's the name of the campaign.

Not to threadjack, but is there a "simple" campaign for the Su-27 for beginners ? It is very frustrating to get shot down every single time. A little reward would be motivating :)

I understand the name should not be the same as the campaign name, but it is. I have 3 wingmen and I come against many enemies. In quickly turns in a big battle and too many things happen. What should I do ? Radar on, ECM on ? Dive low in to the mountains . turn 180 And fly away from the battle. Too much is happening. Any advice??? Because it feels that to win the mission requires luck and not skill.

I understand the name should not be the same as the campaign name, but it is. I have 3 wingmen and I come against many enemies. In quickly turns in a big battle and too many things happen. What should I do ? Radar on, ECM on ? Dive low in to the mountains . turn 180 And fly away from the battle. Too much is happening. Any advice??? Because it feels that to win the mission requires luck and not skill.

It requires a lot of skill and no luck involved. As Will Bill says, you need to think tactically and of course, understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Flanker and your opponents as well. The Flanker only has SARH and IR missiles available whereas your enemies have ARH missiles. This is a natural disadvantage for you and as such, don't enter into a furball with a many vs. many situation without sorting on the bandits. It will all be over within a few seconds if you do that.

Many in the DCS community don't use the Flanker the way it was meant to be used, i.e., tactically. The Flanker has great advantages like the datalink, fuel endurance and the R-27ET missiles. The R-27ER can be used to great effect too, if used correctly and under certain specific situations.

I suggest you watch this video to understand the datalink functionality and also go through the datalink chapter in the Flanker manual.

Using the above, here's a sort of a tactical intercept procedure. This is by no means fool-proof or the "right" way. Just sort of an approach or guide.

1. Don't use ECM, its useless against AI ARH opponents. In fact, it serves to increase your chances of getting shot down. Use the 2 extra pylons for R-73 missiles.

2. As soon as you take-off, circle around the airfield and let all your wingmen join up with you. Initially, let them fly close formation with you. Try not to make excessive change of directions, instead be smooth with your stick inputs so as to allow the wingmen to stay in position. As a tip, do not exceed a bank angle of 30 degrees.

3. Climb at 10 degrees to around 8000 meters or so at 90% RPM. Cruise to your waypoints at around 0.9 Mach. Use 87% RPM for optimal fuel endurance.

4. When you arrive at the border or the place you expect action, order your wingmen to go trail formation and make sure they are in trail formation behind you before you start the engagement.

5. When you detect bandits, increase your speed to around Mach 1.1 or greater. This will give you a range advantage for your R-27ER missiles and allows to put your bandit on the defensive early.

6. Scan with your radar on HI PRF setting and assign the closest 3 bandits to your wingmen. For example, assign the (closest) first bandit to Wingman #2, second closest bandit to Wingman #3, and third closest bandit to Wingman #4. Most probably, the first bandit will try to engage you. At around 30km or so from the first bandit, launch an R-27ER, guide it for a few seconds and disengage. Do a Split-S and extend out of the fight for around 10km or 20km. As the first bandit is still focused on you, Wingmen #2 can focus on your bandit and will probably kill him.

7. Once wingmen #2 splashes your bandit, order him to rejoin formation while you turn back into the fight and engage the bandits closest to you. Rinse and repeat till all bandits are splashed.

Note: Don't expect your wingmen to act intelligently. You have to be on your toes to keep them alive. Once the wingmen have splashed their bandits, order them to immediately rejoin formation or go to a specific waypoint or something.

It is your duty to keep your wingmen alive.

By flying high, you force your bandits to use afterburners to come up to you, thereby exposing them to an R-27ET shot. Fire under 15km for optimum tracking and use a Split-S and extend.

Many thanks. That was most helpful. I looked at the su27 manual and all the very important information in the you tube video is no where in the manual. No detailed instructions on how to use the HDD.

Hmm, its not mentioned in the manual as you say. I swore I read it up somewhere, though I can't remember where! Anyways, Ironhand's tutorial is a good base for you to work on.

Hmm, its not mentioned in the manual as you say. I swore I read it up somewhere, though I can't remember where! Anyways, Ironhand's tutorial is a good base for you to work on.

The info's been added to the new Su-33 manual. That's where you might have seen it.

Where can I see the su33 manual ?

Where can I see the su33 manual ?

Mine is in my (DCS 1.5 Beta Installation)/Mods/Aircraft/Flaming Cliffs/Docs folder. I think that's the folder path, anyway. I'm not at home to double check. I have the Su-33 as part of Flaming Cliffs. If you have it as a stand-alone installation, it's be slightly different. If you have neither installed, you'll need to google it. I'm sure it's available somewhere as a download. Probably on the DCS website.

In addition to Ironhand tutorials, I also suggest you google Su-27 BVR combat guide which is a tactical reading than a procedural one.

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The you tube video is awesome. I have tried to repeat the tactics shown in the video. But when I tell my wingmen to attack target I do not see their number shown next to the enemy plane icon in the HDD. I am flying the su27. Maybe the ability to see such things is reserved for the su 33. Maybe there is an option in the options settings to enable to see wingmen's contact info in the HDD? Any idea's ?

The you tube video is awesome. I have tried to repeat the tactics shown in the video. But when I tell my wingmen to attack target I do not see their number shown next to the enemy plane icon in the HDD. I am flying the su27. Maybe the ability to see such things is reserved for the su 33. Maybe there is an option in the options settings to enable to see wingmen's contact info in the HDD? Any idea's ?

Try telling him to turn his radar on, first.

When my wingman locks on to an enemy I should see his number on the bottom left of the enemy's icon on the HDD. But I do not ? Plus I do not see a closed triangle?

Don't try and micro manage the AI just tell the flight to 'engage bandits'.

In this mission there is a second flight of Su27s that take off from Mozdok also, don't start taxiing until these guys get on the runway that way you can follow them and create an 8 ship of Flankers. Stay behind the 2nd flight at about 5-10km then when any bandits get within 80km hit the burners and take your flight marginally offset to the left or right and attack the flank supporting the 2nd flight, tell your guys to engage bandits and let them get ahead of you then you look for close trailers that the AI may not shoot at, if bandits turn cold don't give chase, switch to another. Prioritise your life over the AI so don't try and get deep in the fight, if you end up in the furball periodically drop flares. I came home with a 3 ship and the other flight a 2 ship so we nailed those suckers. :D

You said to drop flares. Flares are for heat seakers missiles. What about chaff? What should I drop?

man if you literally have to have your hand held for every single decision here you need to go back and do some reading and figure out air combat in a simpler environment like a 1v1 or 2v2

download tacview and have it running when flying your missions for analysis afterwards too

right now you're asking for canned answers which just doesnt work when youre in a dynamic fight, you have to understand whats happening and be able to just come up with your own responses on the fly

Fortress mazdok is hard

Read more about notching

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To the OP:

I finally got around to flying this mission for the first time yesterday. I have some obsevations that may or may not be useful. But take them for what you think they're worth.

1) It is not your mission to win the war single handedly. More often than not, we make a mission more difficult than it really is because we feel we have to do everything to win the day.

2) Always take the time to study the mission map. The mission designer will let you see what he feels you need to know. Often the briefing tells you very little beyond "win the day". Study who is going to be where and when. This particular map tells you that shortly after one critical WP, you will be in position to either 1) roll up the Blue fighter sweep's flank as they focus on the AI Su-27 defender flight attacking them (that fight is 8 Blue against 4 Red) or head directly toward the F-15E's that must be stopped.

IF there is AWACs support, use it. Support in this mission is excellent. Your eyes should be on the HDD frequently making sure that everything is laying out as planned and to keep your timings intact.

So, in the end, this is a fairly easy mission. I opted to slam into their flank with 2 of my wingman, while the 3rd headed in the direction of those F15Es. My goal was to disrupt, not necessarily kill. As soon as Blue was disrupted, I left them to the AI su-27's and headed for the F-15Es as well.

The end result was a won mission. The only required commands were to turn on radar and attack the enemy.