Battle for Fulda v.2 Playtest #1 AAR

[toonces]

Freefalcon 5.3
PMC Nevada Theater v.4
Battle for Fulda v.2
Nevada Aggressor skinpack
Aeyes FF5 F-18 cockpit

Campaign settings: Overall- Veteran, Air-Air- Ace, Air Defenses- Ace, Tasking- Set by HQ

Flying OPFOR

Day 1

Mission 1: Beatty AB. 4xF-18C OCA Strike against Overton Muni.
Loadout: 2xAIM-9, 2xAIM-7, 8xMk-83
Escort: 4xF-14A
T/O: 0926

For this first strike, I'm going against the BLUEFOR's primary strike base at Overton, home of the F-111's. This is a varsity flight, right off the bat, going past Nellis into the heart of the BLUEFOR's defenses. The Tomcats with their AIM-54s should buy me some standoff love so I can get in close and drop iron all over the base, but with Sparrows I don't have much of a chance if BLUEFOR scrambles jets with -120's.



The flight takes off on time and proceeds enroute at altitude. The F-14 escort takes station just ahead of us.



The escort is heavily engaged enroute by the F-15C CAP. During the melee a virtual plethora of AIM-120s are launched at me and my flight. I take it down into the mountains and get some terrain between me and the CAP, successfully evading the inbound missiles. However, the launches cause my flight to (sensibly) abort and drop their ords. I turn back to the field and just get swamped with SAMs and more -120s. I try to pickle my bombs into the target, but am hit by a Hawk before I can release.

What a way to start! Gonna take a bit to knock the cobwebs out.

The entire flight is shot down.



Result: Epic Failure

[toonces]

Mission 2: Death Valley. 4xF-18C DCA near Indian Springs AF.
Loadout: 4xAIM-120C4, 4xAIM-9.
T/O: 1131



I decide to try some air-air and get my wings back before tackling hero missions into bad guy country again. This mission is pretty much in OPFOR territory so I'll have some SAM coverage and hopefully, I can call for help if need be.

We get picked up by a flight of F-15C pretty early on. I try to break them out, but the air picture is cluttered and before I can get a good lock, declare, shoot, I get a handful of -120s launched at me. I beam/burner/chaff and evade the first salvo on the deck. After the 120s are off me, I pull up and around, get the nose onto the bad guy vector and give the first guy I get a -120.



By now the Eagles have been joined by a flight of F-16CG. My first -120 hits a CG for a kill while my -3 gets one of the Eagles with a -120. My wingman bags a second CG but is concurrently tagged by a -120 himself (eject-RS).

Apparently, the CGs shot their load of -120s and allowed us to close. My -3 gets a third CG while the fourth evades home. A flight of CF-18 joins in and I get one evading in the clouds.



The second evades numerous -120s from the remainder of my flight.

I bring the 3 remaining Hornets home for a successful RTB at 1154.

Result: Success

[toonces]

Mission 3: Death Valley. 4xF-18C OCA against Vegas Army Base.
Loadout: 4xGBU-31 JDAM, 2xAIM-120, 2xAIM-9.
Escort: 4xF-15A with AIM-7/9.
T/O: 1310

Vegas Army Base is home to Apaches and Cobras. Taking it out should relieve some pressure on the ground offensive, so it's a worthy target and shouldn't be as hard to hit as somewhere like Nellis or Overton.



I am initially assigned JSOWs, but since I don't know how to use them I elect to load JDAMs instead.

Approach is through the mountains, trying to keep terrain between me and the radar on the base.



We get within about 10nm of target before we are engaged hard by an F-15C CAP. I ripple all 4 JDAMs and then take a -120 snapshot at one of the CAP Eagles before split-S'ing away. Meanwhile, my flight jettisons the JDAMs and goes defensive.

I evade one -120B in the terrain and manage to get 2 of my flight to rejoin; -3 is hit by a -120 (eject-RS).

Just prior to homeplate we come across an F-111 strike against our airbase! I engage one with my second -120 and then lose the remainder of the strikers in the clouds. By the time I get oriented on them their 15nm away and doing the speed of heat. With no chance to catch them, I check out the damage to Death Valley.



I call tower to land and am told to divert. I gather up the Hornets and proceed to our alternate.

Land time is 1337.

Debrief shows the F-15A escort flight got two F-15C, and lost one A model in return.

Result: Success

[toonces]

Mission 4: Barstow Daggett AB. 4xKfir OCA Strike against Needles.
Loadout: 2xPython-3, 2xAGM-45, 7xMk-82
T/O: 1450

**** Barstow Daggett shut down at 1404; flight canceled.

Mission 4: Big Bear Lake AB. Same loadout. OCA against Overton Muni.
T/O: 1450



Well, I'm skeptical about flying unescorted against Overton. I pull the waypoint altitudes down to 500ft enroute an over target. Also, I put the Shrikes on the wings in case we need to SEAD our way into the base to drop the iron bombs.

I bring the flight in through the mountains right on the deck. However, it is clear fairly quickly that a) we're not going to have the gas and b) we're totally unprotected.



I abort about 60nm from target and decide to put the Shrikes into some targets of opportunity on the way home.



Unfortunately, I'm a bit complecent and not checking with AWACS enough. Or maybe AWACS was dead. Dunno. But a CAP of F-15Cs closes within 10-15nm before turning on their radars and just savages me and the flight!



A vertiable flood of -120s comes inbound and I and 2 wingmen are whacked down. -4 successfully evades.

Result: Another epic fail!

[tedjohn09]

Originally Posted by toonces

Mission 4: Barstow Daggett AB. 4xKfir OCA Strike against Needles.
Loadout: 2xPython-3, 2xAGM-45, 7xMk-82
T/O: 1450

**** Barstow Daggett shut down at 1404; flight canceled.

Mission 4: Big Bear Lake AB. Same loadout. OCA against Overton Muni.
T/O: 1450



Well, I'm skeptical about flying unescorted against Overton. I pull the waypoint altitudes down to 500ft enroute an over target. Also, I put the Shrikes on the wings in case we need to SEAD our way into the base to drop the iron bombs.

I bring the flight in through the mountains right on the deck. However, it is clear fairly quickly that a) we're not going to have the gas and b) we're totally unprotected.



I abort about 60nm from target and decide to put the Shrikes into some targets of opportunity on the way home.



Unfortunately, I'm a bit complecent and not checking with AWACS enough. Or maybe AWACS was dead. Dunno. But a CAP of F-15Cs closes within 10-15nm before turning on their radars and just savages me and the flight!



A vertiable flood of -120s comes inbound and I and 2 wingmen are whacked down. -4 successfully evades.

Result: Another epic fail!

Great share. Thanks for show them to us.
__________________
spacequadrat

[toonces]

Mission 5: Gorilla Strike

I decided to try something I've been talking about for a while now, but haven't ever actually tried to execute- build a Gorilla package.

In short, building a Gorilla is taking a number of flights in the ATO and altering their waypoints and tasking to create a super-large strike group. I have a very old document from 1999 that I printed out from the old Combatsim.com and have had stuck in my Falcon 4.0 binder forever. It's a bit dated, but the ideas are still relevant.

A detailed discussion of how to do this is beyond the scope of the AAR, and most of you probably know how to do it anyway. Very quickly, the basic process is:

1. Identify the target/goal of the Strike
2. Determine the Time on Top (ToT) for the Strike group on the target. Lock this time; everything revolves around the ToT.
3. Identify an rendezvous point; a geographical reference (road intersection, bend in a river, ridge end) will help keep you consistent.
4. Select various flights from the ATO and set their ToT to coincide with your main Strike group, altering the ToT as required.
5. Move all flights to the appropriate rendezvous point.
6. Alter time backwards from the ToT to their Takeoff time so the flight speeds "work".
7. Work waypoint times forward from the ToT to their Land time so the flight speeds "work".
8. Save often!

So, here's the worksheet I used. Notice that the first flight- Hawk2 -is the main Strike force I used to create the Gorilla. My escorts do not overfly the Air Defences. The SEAD flights should reach their targets just prior to the Strike group. And so on...

The F-16B flight should read "Cowboy1" not "Elvis3".






The overall goal of the mission is to shut down Nellis AFB. I have the two F-14A flights with 6xAIM-54 for long reach, and 4xF-16C+ with AIM-120 for medium reach. The Kfir SEAD has AGM-45 and the F-16C+ SEAD has AGM-88. The Kfir Strike flight has Mk-82; the F-16B Strike flight has Durandals.

This is my first try, so I'm curious to see how it all works. Real-life planning time was about an hour to an hour and a half. It took some work to deconflict the takeoff times.

I haven't decided which flight to fly. I will probably try the F-16B flight since that's the flight that is going to put holes in the runway.

More later.

[toonces]

Mission 5: OCA Strike against Nellis AFB.
"Cowboy1"
4xF-16B with Gorilla package. Loadout: 6xDurandals, 4xAIM-9, 2xDroptanks
T/O: 1532



Well, this didn't turn out like I had hoped. What I didn't consider is that the takeoff times that I edit have to deconflict with takeoff times for other flights that I'm not editing. Doh! Well, that's the point of Red Flag- to train and learn.

We get offdeck ontime and the flight forms up at SP2. We proceed enroute at 22.5k. Weather is scattered clouds, bases at about 8k.



I start going through the friendly flights to see if everyone is up. A few minutes after my flight takes off I see one of the F-14 escort flights on the runway. Looking good so far!



But then I see this traffic jam. This is gonna affect things I'm guessing.

[toonces]

Mission 5 (continued)...



Despite the traffic jam, I decide to proceed "just to see how things go". Approaching SP3 (rendezvous SP) we are engaged by a flight of F-15s. I'm not sure what my escort is doing, if anything. Probably a bit realistic...I'm not hearing them on the radios, but that might be because I don't have my radios set up properly.

I get a missile launch, so I take the flight down into the terrain. Some burner and jinking among the mountains evades the missiles. I pull back onto course, still getting bugged by the F-15s, but without missile launch. I'm thinking they've shot all their BVR weapons and are going Heaters.

My wingman calls engaged with an F-15. I pull him up on radar, but the plot is merged so I can't break out who is who. I close with AIM-9 selected and break out the F-15 visually.





A Sidewinder shot quickly dispatches him.

[toonces]

Mission 5 continued...

The F-15 CAP appears to be killed. My AWACS is no longer giving me advisories (why?) and my wingman comms are grayed out despite the fact that he is both alive and formed up on my wing. Hmmm.

I'm starting to consider whether to abort or not. We have the CAP down, we're within 40 miles of target, and we still have a full load of bombs and the gas to get there, hit Nellis, and RTB with some burner to spare.

I cycle through friendly view to see if anyone is still around. I'm happy to see both an F-14 escort and my F-16 SEAD escort in the vicinity. I decide to press.





Unfortunately, this is where the mission ends. The sim locks up requiring a Ctrl-alt-del to exit out. Bummer. This is my first crash in this theater...

Lessons learned: Must look at takeoff times again for the Gorilla. Also, I might want to look at F4Patch and shorten the spawn times down to minimum to reduce congestion on the airfields.

Looks like I'll be flying this one again...

[toonces]

Mission 5 Replay 1

"Cowboy1"

F-16B OCA, part of Gorilla as depicted above. Everything the same.

T/O: 1532

I found a fairly simple problem with my Gorilla; two flights had the same takeoff time. A quick edit fixed it. I was very gratified shortly after takeoff to see one of my F-14A Escort flights taking off with the SEAD flight awaiting taxi.





The flight enroute was interesting. I heard a few intermittent contact calls by the Escort, and a "Fox-2", but I was largely out of the picture with respect to what the escorts were doing. Cycling through the friendly views showed one of the flights engaging with AIM-54s followed by AIM-9s. Something died...



Later on, closer to target, I saw something impact right into the side of the mountain near me...not sure if it was a jet, a missile, what. But, anyway, the ingress went much smoother this time. Approaching SP3 (rendezvous) we got bugged by the F-15 CAP again, but only quickly, and it wasn't steady. I elected to take the flight down into the terrain early, anticipating I'd have to bring the flight back up to altitude close to target. The F-15s couldn't stay with us, though, and I'm pretty sure they were busy evading Phoenix shots by the escorts.