This is good stuff - thanks for info and coming here @DrZaius, appreciated.
Ah yes, I’ve seen that. We need to knock out the Iranian generals in a helo off to sign a deal I think, something like that? It’s great that has knock on impacts, as up to now (apart from the Carrier strikes by those Su-24’s) we’ve not been worrying about the events. This one definitely sounds like it’s worth doing, as no red Tomcats would be great from where we start from the Carrier 72.
@DrZaius Welcome! I am sometimes on the server with Beach and Fearless, usually in an additional F-18C flaming wreckage somewhere
Love the mission. It has a great set of challenges to overcome in a well thought out, realistic setting (ie: doesn’t feel artificial). Have enjoyed being able to learn the Hornet systems in a live-feeling environment! Thanks!
So it is possible (if ground spawn gets fixed at some point) to have the mission set so that bombing the runway actually does prevent the enemy from taking off? That would be a really cool feature…
Ah…yes…I think I’ve seen that alert. As a matter of fact…I think @fearlessfrog actually spotted some helicopters on his F-14 radar the other day as we were making our F-14/Su-25T attack on that airfield southwest of Alepo (can’t remember the name offhand).
Agreed - and it is nice that is is a short flight to the action…just enough time to strategize a bit, build the picture, and warm up the sensors.
That’s the way the mission was originally crafted, air spawn was a last-resort-workaround-and-surely-this-is-a-bug-that-they-will-fix-quickly-so-it-wont-be-around-for-months-or-years-right?! kind of thing, definitely not the preferred method. With ground spawn, taking out the runway is a nice way to organically disable CAP for an hour or so, adds another bit of mission planning for the player and friends to coordinate too. That’s how it’s done on all of our other maps and, aside from some carcasses that sometimes die in awkward spots, it seems to work pretty well.
Initial offline tests of ground spawn CAP seem positive after today’s patch… I’ve uploaded a new version of the mission (v0.62) where CAP in the hard zone (around Hama) and the moderate zone (around Damascus) spawn on the ground. Air spawn is still a thing for timed or dynamic events as well as the Russian FOB at Palmyra, and if testing goes well, they’ll transition after a week or two.
My proud moment of actually getting penetrators onto Abu al-Duhur…though I’m not sure if that is one of the fields with taxiing implemented… (I don’t read very well)… It was however (sniffle) a one-way mission…
@fearlessfrog and I actually managed a couple sorties without dying…! I think he actually managed four returns to the boat…(I got shot down trying to be creative with an LGB on the cruiser)…
Great time on the server though. I was noticing that post-patch I’m able to lock up targets with the Hornet radar at a longer range. AIM-120C at max range still misses a lot…I think it would be better to way four or five seconds after the shoot cue maybe. We did some nice damage along the coast to the SAM network.
The briefing screen could define a bunch of things better including CAP. Let me clear it up here and make a note to reword the briefing:
CAP Airfields in HARD zone centered around Hama:
Hama (2 normal CAP spawns, 1 Iranian F14 Tomcat Spawn if ‘Iranian Generals’ mission fails)
Al Qusayr (1 normal CAP spawn)
Abu al-Duhur (1 normal CAP spawn)
CAP airfields in the MODERATE zone centered around Damascus:
An Nasiriyah (1 normal CAP spawn)
Wujah Al Hajar (1 normal CAP spawn)
CAP generally stays in their zones, although I haven’t done a good job of defining the boundaries of the zone for players - need to make a briefing image with my 1337 photoshop skillz.
Putting a bomb on the runway disables the airfield for AI for 60 minutes after which another pot hole is needed to keep it out of action. Also if you destroy all red units at the base that hosts CAP and capture it instead of just blowing up the runway, the CAP hosted at that base is removed from the game.
Great gouge @DrZaius! @fearlessfrog and I just got our butts handed to us because we were thinking A2G loadouts due to a light CAP presence early in the evening…and all of the sudden we were getting demolished by the enemy. A couple guys flying F-16s and Hornets out of Incirlik helped divide up the red forces a bit…but they took a beating too. I expended my very light A2A ordnance (1 AMRAAM, 2 9Ms, and most of my gun) and went to the tanker, topped off…and headed back to drop my LGBs and only managed to sneak in to drop one bomb…
If we did it all over again we’d have one of us with the full SPAMRAAM loadout and one of us doing the bombing. @fearlessfrog tried a solo treetop level run into Hama… I think a MiG-29 got him in close…
Supremely fun. My wife is wondering why I’m in VR all afternoon I’m sure.
Yeah, after an early afternoon where I kept in the same jet like it was an old friend, to this session where the boat turned into a Hornet vending machine for me.
Those M-2000C’s can dodge things pretty well, and was great to see that barrage of SM-2’s from the fleet and that pointy bird dance like it was on fire - amazing they escape.
Maybe our original plan of capturing Wujah Al Hajar is the way to go @BeachAV8R - that would knock off 1 CAP? So we sort of work our way from South to North from the boat. It sounds like your bombs on Abu al-Duhur do help as well.
That’s a “thing” isn’t it? It never occurred to me until I noticed that, when I go in “I’m going in” and nothing short of strange odors in the cockpit (pizza, pot roast, etc), can penetrate the veil. Then I land and see a plate next to the throttle. I find I schedule my session for this reason. Interesting.
Here is a sort of planning map…showing the airfields that have CAP activity (the F-14s out of Hama depend on the success/fail of an early intercept mission)…
I think two initial actions would be good - disabling al-Hajar and al-Duhur with runway strikes to shut their CAPs off for an hour or so. Both are pretty easy to hit with a low level strike if we can have a friendly CAP doing just a wee bit of distracting. I’ve managed to hit al-Duhur in two out of three strike attempts. I’ve not tried a low-level on al-Hajar, but I can’t imagine it would be too difficult.
And obviously succeeding at the early mission to take out the General would be helpful since those F-14s are just brutal…(and fast!)…
Palmyra is the Russian base that is meant to be the final challenge if Hama and the hard zone was too easy (especially when large groups focus their efforts well). Palmyra won’t become active until Hama is captured or until someone flies too close to Palmyra.
Awesome - we will try it this afternoon!
