Sorry guys no picutures. I was using Shadowplay and Tackview regularly, but got annoyed when I had a really exciting mission and my shodowplay footage was corrupted.
The bizzare thing is it’s corrupted for the best part of the mission! I can see my ingress and egress after the inesity was over, but during the two minutes of terror, you can hear the audio and see the top 1/16 of the screen, but the rest is just video noise in vertical bands. Must be because I turned on my ECM.
Anyway, I wrote the following, as a way to go over what I did in hopes of imporving. I’ve really been working on situation awareness, and think I’m improving, but still have much to learn.
RECORD BEGIN TIMESTAMP 12/30/2015 12:49:46.
Game is Campaign type Local
Mission Type: AI STRIKE
Flight Unique Id: Fury2
2 Ship Flight
Ac type: F-16CM-50
Contry: U.S.
FLIGHT EVENTS
Event Goblin joined as Fury21 at 08:46:00
Event DPRK J-7E downed by Goblin at 09:13:29
Event SA10 launched at Goblin 09:15:20
Event DPRK Bridge Ramp destroyed by Goblin at 09:15:59
Event DPRK Bridge Ramp destroyed by Goblin at 09:16:04
Event PRC SU-30MKK downed by Goblin at 09:18:58
Event AA-12 launched at Goblin 09:28:58
Event DPRK Q-5 downed by Fury22 at 09:28:59
Event AA-12 launched at Goblin 09:29:02
Event DPRK Q-5 downed by Fury22 at 09:29:08
Event Goblin ejected at 09:29:30
Event Goblin exited from Fury21 at 09:29:52
PILOT SLOT 1:
Human Player: Lt. Goblin
Callsign: Goblin
Pilot status - RESCUED
Aircraft status - DESTROYED
AA Kills 2
AG Kills 0
AS Kills 2
AN Kills 0
Shoot At 3
Other Player Kills 0
WEAPON DATA
LOADOUT 0: 20mm M61
Starting Load 510
Fired 0
Missed 0
Hit 0
LOADOUT 1: AIM-120B
Starting Load 2
Fired 2
Missed 0
Hit 2
Event AIM-120B released at 09:13:02@72hit J-7E - destroyed
Event AIM-120B released at 09:18:17@72hit SU-30MKK - destroyed
LOADOUT 2: AIM-9M
Starting Load 2
Fired 1
Missed 0
Hit 1
Event AIM-9M released at 09:28:30@72hit Q-5 - damaged
LOADOUT 3: GBU-31(v)1/B
Starting Load 2
Fired 2
Missed 0
Hit 2
Event GBU-31(v)1/B released at 09:15:05@72hit Bridge Ramp - destroyed
Event @72hit Bridge Span - damaged
LOADOUT 4: 370 Gal Tank
Starting Load 2
Fired 0
Missed 0
Hit 0
LOADOUT 5: AN/ALQ-184
Starting Load 1
Fired 0
Missed 0
Hit 0
:
First mission of the Tiger Spirit campaign on Veteran difficulty (single player in this case)
08:46:00 – Goblin joined as Fury21 – Started this flight on the Taxiway. I originally started this flight with a ramp start, but somehow failed to save my weapon selections in the loadout screen. The AI wanted me to us GBU-38s, but I hought GBU-31 (1)/B were a better choice due to heavilly defended air space. During mission planning, I marked 6 SA-2 sites that had good coverage over the target. In this mission the target were bridge ramps.
So, I wanted the power of the '84s on the primary targets. I left my AI wingman with the GBU-38s (4 of them), hoping that he’d go after the spans – I also know that for some reason the AI does not target my AI wingmen nearly as ggresivly as they target me.
09:13:29 – DPRK J-7E downed by Goblin – It’s funny, I have only a vague memory of this. I know I was working on
targeting the bridge ramps with the FCR. I had, during mission planning, set steerpoints 15 and 16 as the east and west ramp, respectivley, but when I pulled them up in the pit they were WAY off to the east somewhere. Probably didn’t hit save in the data cartridge or something. I could hear the escort flight bumbling around and when I was warned that
the bandit was within 15 miles switched to A-A and quickly took him out. I think the escort flight managed to get his buddies.
-09:15:05 – GBU released, though not in the debrief, the second one was probably released no more than 10 seconds later. Once the weapons were off, I rolled inverted dropping chaff and burned down 60 or 70* nose low heading south – no time to switch waypoints or any of that. By the way, I’ve been spending a little more time during mission planning to know my egress heading and working to know which direction I’m flying at all times. That last part is not easy so I’ve also learned to use the compass - not the hud - to get my bearings. For me, seeing the N-S-E-W on the compass
works almost instantly, where as, using the hud I have to spend half a second remembering that 305 is somewhere between 270 and 360.
09:15:20 – SA10 launched at Goblin – Approaching the target I saw three ‘10’ on my RWR. This made me very concerned. SA-10’s in 4.33 are not to be taken lightly. For a while I considered going NOE, but during mission planning, I recalled some OSA IIs and AAA in the area. Then I wondered why I didn’t set up that Growler flight to jam the area, which was the reason I started this mission in the first place! I don’t know – just having an off day I guess. So, I kicked in the AB and pressed on hoping to get in and out as fast as possible. I was occasionally dropping chaff and had the music playing. I wish I would have turned on the ACMI, because I’d like to have seen this. I think the timing for the GBU release was quite fortunate and almost certainly resulted in my unknowingly evading the SA-10.
09:15:59 – DPRK Bridge Ramp destroyed by Goblin
09:16:04 – DPRK Bridge Ramp destroyed by Goblin
09:18:58 – PRC SU-30MKK downed by Goblin – I had a lot of fuel for this mission. I had figured I was probably going to want to burn to get out of the target area and I was right. I tried to keep running and didn’t want to go after the two ship that was high and west of me, but the threat became to much to ignore. I fired my last '120 and killed this guy. At this time, his wingman turned away and I took the opportunity to disengage. My wingman rejoined at somepoint after this.
– ~09:26 ?? – AWACS is telling me that the other SU-30 is chasing me down and I’m feeling no choice but to turn into him because I’ve also got bandits 15* left off my nose at 20 miles. So, we turn in and I tell my wingman to fire and he sits on his '120s. Tell him to fire again and he does nothing. Now, the bandit has turned away and I think he’s dragging us so I turn back into the bandits to the south. These guys are getting close now and I hear my wingman call out two Fox 3’s close. Next thing I know is I’ve got a launch warning from the SU-30 and he was just too close. I was diving and evading in an ‘S’ pattern, was able to defeat one, but the second one got me.
At least I ejected over friendly ground and was rescued. But, I’ve already lost an aircraft.
A lot if “what if’s” here, but the ones that I have controll over are:
I need better planning discipline. What good does it do me if I don’t save the entries I’ve made for threat planning and weapon planning? I why I didn’t frag an ECM flight, I don’t know. Lazy I guess. Time for a beer.
