Oh man, I so want to take my Huey to this server! 
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I think I just played seven hours in that server… 
It was so much fun. I got my ass handed to me the last hour though after you left @fearlessfrog … The enemy made same gains. Tell you about it in the morning. 
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Eek. Did we lose the FARP?
Thinking about it last night, I wonder if the reason I didn’t get those LGB and that CAP credit points because of the landing at the neutral base first? I bet that cleared the points as it’s done on landing? 
oops
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So yeah, what a rollercoaster ride! Like I said..I think I played for about 7 hours on the server yesterday..super productive real life for me.. 
After taking out the Fuel Depot the day before, Frog and I set our sights on Al Huti and the FARP there.
Frog loaded up with HARMs and I took a combination of LD-10s (ARMs) and laser rockets (my favorite!)…
Soon we were cleaning up some targets and Al Huti became neutral.
There might have been an incident or so. I think the circled part is my head…
Frog did great with the A2A kills..at the very least getting the fighters to go nose cold helps buy some time to finish objectives. Here you can see Frog zooming past one of his kills..
Frog had to dip out for lunch for food for a bit. I was able to finish the job and neutralize the FARP and prepare it for reinforcement.
I took advantage of the lull to take out the two EWR sites north and southeast of Al Ain…
Al Huti captured and reinforced with the trusty CH-47…I would later regret not making some additional improvements to the FARP…
After capturing Al Huti and being tasked with bombing the runways at Sharjah, I felt the mission amped up in difficulty. I’m not sure if the “bomb runways” missions causes enemy air activity to ramp up..or if it is just the result of expanding northward..but whatever the case..from that point on we were nearly always getting harassed by enemy CAP and intercept flights.
I think we made a mistake in focusing on Al Minhad perhaps instead of going around Al Minhad and softening up Sharjah enough to allow for a runway strike. Perhaps that would have tamped down some of the enemy air activity we were seeing. Regardless, we put a lot of effort into trying to take down Al Minhad and spent hours working on it.
Things get busy..and I think I was getting a bit target fixated and not paying attention to other things that were happening around the map. This enemy Su-25 did some damage attacking the recently seized Al Huti. I think this was a precursor to what came next.
While we were plinking targets at Al Minhad..an alert came across the radio that a convoy was enroute to attack “X”. The reason I say “X” was that I didn’t have time to read the text before it went away as I was in the middle of an attack. Thus began a 45 minute search for a convoy we presumed was leaving Al Minhad for Al Huti. To our great delight, the Ground Moving Target (GMT) mode of the ground radar was able to see the convoy (sometimes). In the JF-17, targeting with the GMT radar then slews the targeting pod onto the locked target..super convenient for laser rockets. Unfortunately, during one of my passes trying to locate the convoy I got too low and a SA-something that was embedded in the convoy shot me down. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
While I floated down in my parachute, I played FAC for Frog and tried to get his eyes and sensors on the convoy. I think he got hit and damaged by the SAM and ended up not being able to drop weapons. This convoy took up a lot of our time.
I got a new plane and some rockets and was able to once again use the GMT radar to find them and once I found them it was easy to use stand-off laser guided rockets against them.
While this is going on..three important things are happening (I believe). Al Minhad was able to get resupplied by cargo planes that were kept safe by aggressive enemy CAP coverage. We really could have used some dedicated CAP on our side..and I could have bought some with my credits (or we need some Mudspike Tomcat drivers!). We spent a lot of time evading and trading largely ineffective missile shots with the CAP flights. Frog definitely more action on that front as he was flying with AMRAAMs and I’m just plain horrible at A2A stuff.
The second important “miss” I feel was not recognizing that the enemy was softening up the FARP behind us. Only a couple Su-25s leaked through..but that was enough. Eventually Frog had to head out as it was getting late, so I continued my plinking against Al Minhad. I believe I was down to only maybe three or four targets left as the light was leaving the sky.
I must say..the next hour of flying was some of the most beautiful and immersive I have spent in a flight simulator. As the sky went from pale blue to orange to red..and the lights started coming on in the cities..it was absolutely gorgeous in VR.
As the light dimmed though..I was struggling with my targeting pod on the JF-17. It does awesome in daylight, but I was having big problems with exposure or gain problems at night. Sometimes the picture would look great..other times I just couldn’t get it right. I flipped back and forth between CCD and IR imagery and managed to kill more targets..but I wasn’t nearly as efficient at it.
Enemy CAP flights lightened after Frog left (I believe the mission scales for the number of people in the server) but I was still being hounded by occasional flights of MiG-25s and MiG-29s. Then a troubling message popped up and my mistake was not acting on it immediately. I was sooooo close to neutralizing Al Minhad that I was reluctant to give up attacking it because I knew the enemy might reinforce it by sending more helicopters and transports. Decisions..decisions…
At this point, in retrospect, I should have abandoned Al Minhad and proceeded directly to Al Huti and taken care of business there. I thought I would have time to do that.. Uh..no..that attack did not last long. I received the message at 0109 and the attack ended with the capture of Al Huti at 0116 - six minutes would probably not have mattered unless someone competent had spawned in at the FARP in a hot attack helicopter.
What a devastating loss after having put so much work into capturing it earlier in the afternoon and resupplying it. I was pretty defeated..and the night flying was getting less and less effective..so I decided to pack it in. As I was headed back to base I saw an enemy IL-76 getting ready to land at Al Minhad, so I’m guessing that significantly reinforced the airbase and we might have to start all over again. 
What an awesome 7 hours of flying though. I like that it isn’t easy..and I’m actually pretty amazed at the scripting of the mission that allows it to counter-attack and plan CAP flights and resupply and strike flights working together. We were simply overwhelmed. I’ll be curious to see what the situation looks like when I restart the server. As you can see..the blue side status of each base or FARP is reflected in the ratings (5/5, 3/3, 3/3)..but there is no way to know what the RED bases are currently sitting at. Obviously they will resupply if their capacity gets diminished. I believe I can expend some credits to gather intel (I think it is good for 1 hour) on Al Huti and Al Minhad and see just how much work will have to be (re)done.
Now that I’ve seen a counter attack, I wonder if I can purchase, load, and deploy CTLD assets to further defend bases. I mean..having a platoon of M-1 tanks perhaps could have made a difference there. Even more..I wonder if I did that if I could occupy a ground vehicle using Combined Arms and actually have a tank battle (?). It was very interesting seeing RED air soften up Al Huti prior to the armor attack. Another question I have is whether the tank attack spawned instantaneously at the FARP perimeter or if that RED armor had to drive there. We had been tasked with destroying an enroute convoy..and I did destroy them..but I wonder if it wasn’t the only convoy. Lots of questions..not a lot of answers.
I’ll put the server back up this evening at some point..I need to get some rest being on duty tonight. Can’t wait to get back at it though.
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We need people that can fly helos and do CAP. Oh, and all the other things too! 
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Server will be going up shortly (0100 UTC)..
Server name: KMAS-Mudspike
Password: mudspike71!
Voice comms on Mudspike Discord Flight Ops channel:
I might not be on long tonight..on a short leash and on call. I did change the server setting to pause with no clients..so hopefully that works and doesn’t run. I’ll only keep the server up if I happen to get paged and someone else is also flying.
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I should have sometime Friday and Sunday to hop on as transport jockey, or a mediocre at best attack helo pilot. If someone wants to load up heavy with laser mavericks/APKWs , I can see if remember how to buddy lase in the Kiowa. Or if the air defenses get knocked down enough, spot for LGB’s.
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Awesome - the more the merrier. It’s like being attacked by a bear..you only have to be faster than the slowest person.
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If we manage to schedule a session between 1900z and 2300z I can provide some CAP.
YES! My time to shine! … Except.. IRL stuff. Groan
EDIT: Well maybe I could have an hour or to for me…
EDIT2: Is the server going to be up during the Weekend too?
Man I’d love to go swatting MiG’s with y’all and/or doing a low level bomb run on something on friday night (1900Z to 0100Z)
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Man Friday night starts to look like a plan.
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So when we last left off we were bombing Al Minhad in an attempt to soften it up for our eventual takeover. What we didn’t know was that Al Huti was about to be attacked by enemy armor..so we ended up calling it a night with Al Huti falling to Red and Al Minhad being reinforced by a RED airdrop. I was pretty disappointed after all that work.
I hopped back into the sever yesterday expecting the worse. I’m still not exactly sure how the .miz file saves the state of the persistent mission..so I was expecting a fully operational Al Huti and fully reconstituted Al Minhad. I took off with a pair of SD-10s (AMRRAM-ish) and some laser rockets ready to try to battle for Al Huti while holding off some enemy aircraft. Amazingly, the FARP only had a couple units on it! After just a few shots Al Huti turned back neutral. With a nearly full load of weapons I thought it would be wasteful to return back to Al Dhafra and mount an insertion mission, so I let the AI generate one. It is slower, but it does get done.
Now that I’d be moving north again to once again attempt to take out Al Minhad..the airfield we spent probably three hours on yesterday..I decided to further explore the SUPPORTS menu and spent 500 credits on a Dynamic AI CAP that you can somewhat control via the menu system.
The pair of F-16s took off out of Al Dhafra and I set them to orbit over Al Huti to ensure they stayed south of Al Minhad. Unfortunately I made this decision a bit too late and while I was heads down in the cockpit looking at my targeting pod imagery I ignored the radio calls for a pair of MiG-23s coming down from the north. That ended up in me getting shot down.
But the CAP did turn hot and handled the situation. I was frantic because I also saw an IL-76 had departed Sharjah and was enroute to further reinforce Al Minhad. I figured if a big cargo helicopter could bring a friendly FARP from a “1” status to a “3” status that something as big as an IL-76 would certainly totally reconstitute Al Minhad. This was a problem. I breathed a sigh of relief though when I saw the F-16 CAP engage the IL-76…
I watched and waited as the flaming IL-76..with two engines out..was surely going to crash. The CAP seemed to take no further interest in him. I watched. And watched. And watched. WTF..why is he extending his landing gear??!
Apparently the IL-76 was being flown by the Ali Haynes because he was pulling off a miracle landing… I was enroute after being shot down and was full burner but only had heat seeking missiles. It was a race. As the IL-76 was on very short final I got tone and fired two missiles. Both missed. And I had forgotten to “charge” my gun..so that was useless.
As I screamed across the field…off course an enemy MANPAD targeted me. A little click..barely a pop..and all the sudden I’m a glider. I hit eject. I was feeling so defeated again.
What to do other than get in another aircraft and go keep fighting for the base. As I headed north again I started to feel more despair as I saw Su-25s heading southbound. They were once again headed toward the FARP I had just re-liberated. Fortunately, there was a gap in the enemy CAP because the MiG-23s had been dispatched by the F-16s (they had left the area)..so I was able to use my terrible A2A skills and down both Su-25s with SD-10 shots..and then I loitered and took out another An-26 type support aircraft that was enroute to Al-Minhad. Things were looking up.
I turned my targeting pod back to Al-Minhad, expecting the worst..but to my great relief there were only a small number of units..just infantry..so apparently the IL-76 had not brought in much. After a couple of shots the base turned neutral. I felt good about that…we had spent sooooo much time destroying things there yesterday. What a relief..! I returned to base to claim my credits.
Now it became a waiting game. Who would get to the base first? Would it be BLUE or RED? While I continued to search for targets just north of the field the AI started a resupply mission. I guess due to the CAP being over the area some normally hidden RED ground icons appeared on the F10 map…usually you have no idea where units are. I was very worried that these moving convoys..headed south..were either headed to Al-Minhad or down to one of my zones to the south. Considering enemy armor only took 6 or 7 minutes to take over a base the previous day, I’ve determined to not allow convoys to get very far south.
As I hunted the convoy..I was being hassled by another enemy CAP flight. Every time I turned inbound on the convoy..they would turn and chase me off. It was a very, very effective CAP that was just out of range of the BLUE ships out to the southwest. As the AI UH-60 that was enroute (slowly!) to Al-Minhad approached the base..the nearby enemy convoy must have scored some shots on him…but once again..some amazing AI flying saved the day as he landed his burning UH-60 at the base and turned it from neutral to BLUE. Yes!!!
With the CAP flight preventing me from fighting the convoy..and it’s proximity to Sharjah posing a problem with longer range SAM coverage..I chose to land at the newly liberated Al Minhad so I wouldn’t lose my accumulated credits. I jumped out of the JF-17 and into a CH-47 from Al Huti..loaded up more base supplies (3 crates) and staggered into the air for the 15 minute flight from Al Huti FARP to Al Minhad..all the while hoping the enemy convoys weren’t going to be knocking on the door at Al Minhad when I got there.
Success..! Al-Minhad upgraded to 4/4..! What a great feeling!
With the base somewhat more entrenched..I took off once again in the JF-17 and started using my GMT radar to find and attack the closest convoy to the base. As mentioned before..the GMT radar is fantastic because once you lock on with the radar you can slave the TGP to the lock point and seamlessly transfer SOI to the pod.
Once again..enemy CAP came down to hassle me. Al-Minhad only has SHORAD type base defenses which kept the Su-27s kind of busy but they were a constant hassle. I’m pretty sure the AI assigns CAP flights to these convoys.
Oh God..it never stops. As I’m searching for the convoy..which is now dangerously close to Al Minhad..another flight of Su-25Ts comes in and starts counter-attacking Al-Minhad with air-to-ground missiles. The close-in anti-air at the base actually manages to shoot them down after taking just a little damage.
Meanwhile..my back-and-forth engagement with convoy has been going frustratingly bad and I’m finally down to just once vehicle left..a T-80. I’m out of weapons and he is approaching the airfield. I don’t really have time to land and rearm and reinitialize the JF-17 systems..so I make a decision to go old, old school. I land the JF-17, release the slot, collect my credits, and hop in to the FC3 A-10A..! Of course..no controls were mapped..my rudder pedals are making the stick move..etc.. So a quick minute of mapping controls and I’m into the air in this strange yet familiar beast… I only need the one important weapon on the A-10.. BRRRRRRTTTT..and it’s done.
Finally. A minute to breathe. No immediate threats. To wrap up the session I land the A-10, get into a Kiowa, and retrieve my pilot that I had gotten shot down hours earlier when I ate the Igla when I was trying to shoot down the IL-76…he (me) is just outside the airport perimeter…
Done. Mission goals accomplished for the session. Exhausting. Next order is to figure out how to place some enhanced defenses at Al Minhad and perhaps some enhanced armor at Al Huti just in case some enemy convoys leak through. I now know that you need to occasionally scan the area with the GMT to find out if the enemy is on the way..otherwise I guess you only find out when they show up on your doorstep.
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I’m hopeful that I can have it up..just not quite sure of times yet. I’m on the night-shift call right now through Friday night..then the youngest has a soccer tournament Saturday/Sunday (dreadfully cold..ugh..)..so it might be late in the evening which isn’t ideal for the European crowd. I’ll let you know. I could let the server run I suppose..that might be an option. Leka recommends restarting it every four hours or so..though I ran for seven hours the other night with no issues that I or @fearlessfrog could see.
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I had plans of jumping on last night, but in a quick refresher flight in the Chinook, had some low (<10) fps issues from who knows where? Spent a couple of hours troubleshooting, VR mostly, then ran out of time. The weekend is looking good should the server be up.
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For logistics purposes, those CDS crates will work for upgrading a base? Because I can fit 9 two ton ammo crates in the C-130 and make weight. Where as those 882lb CDS crates…
22 of them. And air drop them depending on exactly how the unloading part of the scripting for this works.
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I will refer you to the Foothold manual in the Foothold Discord.
In the manual section there are detailed instructions on how to use the C-130 for Foothold supply (air drop) missions. I haven’t tried it yet. I think it would be a much more efficient technique..!
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Link to the Foothold PDF - pertinent part about the C-130 starts on Page 24…
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Quick mission report as I was solo.
Went up against Sharjah and the bomb runway (2 of them) mission. Went ok, but it didn’t like the weapons I used.
Good news:
- I set up the data link properly so I can actually see what is going on. There was a nice pair of Hornets (Squid 1) from the Carrier group that did CAP near Al Minhad for me. It’s a good job I had the data link working now (tip: you have to turn it on, lol) as I would have shot at them otherwise.
- A couple of Fulcrums popped up in the area and my new squid friends turned them cold
- I worked out how to use some stand-off JDAM 2000lb penetration bombs (so masculine!) and the new F10 ‘alt + click’ window (it stays in the cockpit when you leave the F10 map, it’s amazing!) for pre-planned coordinates and set some points up over the two runways.
Bad news:
- I lobbed them from about Al Minhad at FL400 and a good speed (in LAR according to the pane), and I saw lots of ‘Tor A9 damaged 1%’ meaning that they must have hit the airport but the mission did not count this as ‘bombing the runway’. Bah?! Maybe something specialized like Durandal have to be used in this mission?
Average news:
- With my new found ‘silent mode’ and using the Awacs for data link the Fulcrums seemed confused and ignored me, and I didn’t really get tagged by Sharjah radars - I even had the EWR turned on this time as well. I had HARMs but didn’t use them as busy running away once JDAMs in flight.
So yeah, a good experiment but not a lot of points. Onwards!
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Got a few minutes, going to hop on and take a gander at the logistics stuff. Maybe get a chance to do some flying.
Almost made it to our downed pilot, but some power lines got me, and I decided to call it for the night.
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