Decided to make a separate thread to avoid clogging up the screenshots thread
Campaign
I’m running the “Black Sea” campaign, inverted so I fight from Sochi down to Batumi. I’m using custom factions modded from the existing factions with limited units that roughly represent 1968, or as close as I can get to it. One Buff squadron and one Phantom squadron at Maykop, two Marine Scooter squadrons, and Tiger and Huey squadrons at Sochi, with Navy Scooters on the carrier off the coast to the north.
Round 1 AAR here
Round 2: Iron Hand Sukhumi
Two-ship SEAD on SA-2 site “Coyote” north of the airfield. TOT +0:32:48. Successive sorties on surrounding ADA with Phantom escorts, Tiger sweeps, and a Buff OCA strike on the runway between +0:36:46 and +0:40:00.
Busy day on deck
Making the 170nm journey to the target.
We ingressed at 200ft over the water, one mile trail. I popped up to bait the SA-2 into firing. It never did. Unbeknown to me, it had depleted its missiles already. On what I don’t know, because I arrived on time and had no other packages fragged for that area prior to my TOT.
First Shrike launch at +0:32:40. Well within 10nm but still landed short of the target.
I repositioned for a shot from the north while my AI wingman, in his infinite wisdom, beelined 200ft over ADA and unsurprisingly got shot up.
Took another Shrike shot from the north. Another miss.
I made a few passes with Rockeyes, but still couldn’t hit anything. First one landed 100m short, the second one landed about 20m off. So I spiraled down to strafe the track radar from the east, hoping the treeline to the west would protect me from the ADA just on the other side. I came in low.
As I spiraled down, I saw a MiG-21, high two miles southwest of the target area, probably commited on me. I came off the target hard left at tree top level and spotted him on my lift vector, maybe one mile, following the flightpath I just made while strafing. I extended east so I could egress north without getting shot up by ADA. Breaking left towards my egress I find myself being chased by two MiGs. No idea where the second bugger came from.
I did a roll reversal, forcing one MiG to overshoot just enough to go abeam of me. I zig-zagged my way above the trees while popping flares until the two MiGs decided to leave me alone and go after juicier targets. At one point during egress I looked to my right 3 and watched a MiG take down a friendly.
170nm back to the Boat. Got stuck in Marshal puratory for a bit before getting another 1-wire, TMDRAR. The Scooter does not like landing.
Gudauta and Sukhumi airfields have been knocked out at the expense of 9 Skyhawks, 3 Buffs, and a couple Phantoms and Tigers.