I decided to write a debrief on the group sortie of ours today, as I have to say I quite enjoyed it for a reason or two.
I'll summarize the session how I see it went from my perspective and I'll try to provide some points why I liked it.
I started in a group of 3 - Nelson, Keith, me. Our task was to clean out the threats on enemy airfield. We weren't sure which airfield it is, we had a guess Mineralnye Vody, but our IP was at Nalchik and as we were flying there the airfield (Nalchik) was taken over by enemies so we decided to clear the threats there. Our loadout was mainly to kill anti-air threats and armored vehicles with the remainder of our weaponry. Our loadout was 6x Maverick D versions, as when we looked out of the hangar we could see thick clouds up there. We were flying light to be able to dodge Tor missile threat.
Before we took off, Keith had some issues and had to get out. So it was just me and Nelson. I am sort of used that half of my flight gets killed or disconnects mid-flight, so this was still within the boundary limit (just 33% loss, right?). We took off and headed slightly off course, since we needed to climb quite high (we were expecting a Tor threat) and there were also quite high mountains below. The clouds were -thick-. They were from about 17500-22000 feet. TGP even on IR mode was blind and it was clear we'll have to go lower if we want to see anything. Somewhere still on the way to our first waypoint we got a spike of SA8 and descended in spiral to get into shooting position (this maneuver was quite interesting, but it worked!). It was impossible to find it only based on RWR signal. Keith got back and he was playing around with Lotac. He also warned us about the threat. Afterwards he provided us with the position and the target got cleared (Nelson went in while I was 'observing' from distance. Shots were fired on both sides and Nelson stood victorious).
As I was returning towards Nelson I heard him start screaming something and it was unclear what's going on for a while. Keith was reporting something he didn't know what it was and as it turned out it was enemy SU25T attempting to kill Nelson. From what I understood, it originally got on his tail but shot from some distance (the SU25T was Ant that was listening to us on TS and was on Red team). While I was rushing in with sidewinders warmed up, Nelson managed to get on the tail of SU25 and one sidewinder and some gun fire made it go down. We then proceeded to assess the threats on Nalchik. First, Nelson cleared a big part of infantry with guns and mavericks, then we continued cleaning tanks and BMPs. We knew the SU25 will be coming back sooner or later. We were communicating our runs on the targets and I guess that might have helped the SU to find us. I was down to 2 mavericks and turning away to make some distance between me and target area again when I saw Nelson flying below me with lots of gun trails behind him. I knew ground was shooting at him, but then it turned out there was also the SU25. Aagain I turned in to catch his assailant but I was late (and far/slow) to the party. Nelson reported the enemy was high and I was getting worried as I dropped quite a bit and still didn't see him. Nelson seemed to be safe for the moment and was flying away from the zone (diverting to Beslan, with his tail and wing quite damaged, if I remember right). I decided to climb up in the clouds to hide from the SU25. I flew around for a while when I realized my TGP can still see the targets. After a while of silence I decided to fire my 2 mavericks from the clouds. The radio also went quite silent. Personally, I wanted to make the SU25 think I was still searching for it, then fire the mavericks in one run and keep searching/fly away. We relayed the information that enemy SU25 is in the area to the other flight and after going winchester I briefly descended below clouds. I quickly came to conclusion this 'hide and seek' is more dangerous for me than for the SU25, I climbed back in clouds and followed Nelson who diverted to Beslan ~55 miles out. We both landed safe.
It was a lot of fun.
Now why I think it was fun.
1) The small flight/package size. It was feeling more.. what to call it. Intimate. It was just me and Nelson, covering each other. Clear comms, a bit of fun here and there. 1st goes in 2nd covers. Etc.
2) The Lotac influence. That was really nice. While I don't want to have someone giving me the coordinates all the time, this really helped. We cleared the one anti-air threat, were warned about the manpads on the way towards the threat (we had none of this in our waypoints, they were in middle of nowhere) and left the rest of column (artillery) intact. Later when chasing the Su25 I was also warned about me approaching the enemy airfield which was holding air threats. I was provided with approximate location and it was easy to dodge it then.
3) The threat of Su25. Now it's not like I want constant threat, F15 or Su27 would be way too much, but here I had to look out for it, and at the same time I knew it's not an easy task for him to find me either. I knew I can hide in the clouds and I knew he can be defeated. I saw him going in su25 at the mission start so I took sidewinders. I knew he has no radar and can only eavesdrop on us (actually I forgot about that one for a while). It kept me on my toes and the encounters made the whole thing interesting.
4) The weather. That put me out of my comfort zone. We were expecting to go hunt Tors, then we found out we can't take H mavericks and can't see anything unless we descend below the clouds. Had to work around that.
5) My flight lead didn't die (yay).
6) The combination of above in the right amount. The challenges were in the place but they were manage-able and only pressed 'just enough' to make it interesting/challenging yet doable and satisfying. I came out with a feeling that we took care of each other with Nelson together, we fought Su25 (well, mostly Nelson, but the thrill and quick reactions of rushing in to help was there), it didn't stop us from doing our task (even though had to change it a bit mid-flight) and managed to get out alive, while doing all this in wind and the highest column of clouds I've ever seen. I guess the diversity of it all helped, too.
7) (bonus) Now that I am thinking about it.. I actually liked the fact we went in with the idea - we take 6 Mavericks and our task is to clear anti-air threats, then kill what we see. Afterwards we can go back to re-arm and come back with 'big' weapons. We might have needed some cluster bombs to clear the infantry more efficiently, but this made us think how to approach this in a different manner.
In any case. The whole flight 'only' took 2:10 hrs, but I found it very satisfying and fun. I am not sure, how it went for the other flights and how they perceived it, so I am happy to hear that side of the story as well.
Have a good night
o7
Stalker
