Operation Northern Plunder

[Neil Willis]

OPERATION NORTHERN PLUNDER

Background:

Military forces in the Russian and Georgian zones are on high alert. Territorial dispute negotiations have broken down. Rights to natural resources along the coastline and mountain passes dividing the two countries are hotly contested, and given the current economic climate, are likely to cause increased tension across the region. At stake are the billions of dollars worth of natural gas, coal, and oil resources. Russia is specifically claiming rights to the natural gas reserves south of the Sochi-Alder Air Base, and coal reserves along the mountain borderline of Georgia.
Small skirmishes have occurred all along the Russo/Georgian border over the last 6 months resulting in an estimated 100 civilian deaths, and a small number of military personnel.

Russia has stated they will annex lands which have a majority Russian population, and it is anticipated that this pretext will be used to invade Georgia. Georgia has asked the United Nations (UN) and appealed to Western powers to help secure their border, and protect their sovereignty from what they perceive as an imminent attack from Russia.

NATO forces have been assembled under a blanket GFOR command structure and have been deployed throughout Georgia. Preparations have been made to counter Russian aggression. Meanwhile intelligence and surveillance of the region has revealed increased military activity both sides of the disputed border, including bolstered Russian anti air defences, and major troop movements – ostensibly a major Russian exercise close to the border.

The United States has committed the 3rd Infantry Division, 23rd Artillery Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, 160th SOAR Regiment, 51st Fighter Wing, Special Forces assets, and other units to the region. The United Kingdom Government has pledged both humanitarian and military support in the form of 74 and 97 Squadrons and the necessary support infrastructure. RAF units have therefore been in theatre, deployed to Tiblisi Lochini airport in recent days.

Sit Rep 1:

Two weeks ago, a Russian artillery strike and aerial bombardment near the border region between Sochi-Alder Airbase (Russian) and the town of Gantiada (Georgia) resulted in the deaths of 19 American, 6 Belgium, 3 Italian, and 14 Georgian military personnel, and 23 civilians. The Russian government have been accused of escalating tensions. This action has been condemned by the United Nations.
Sit Rep 2:

Last week, an emergency session was convened by the UN, and a motion was tabled and passed in which Russian aggression was condemned in the strongest possible terms. A further motion proposing economic sanctions and further troop deployments was vetoed by Russia and China, but the US President and EU leaders have agreed to take all necessary steps to curb Russian aggression.

Current situation:

Yesterday, The President of the United States and the Joint Chiefs of Staff held a meeting to determine the United States response. As a result military units have been tasked to carry out strikes against Russian military assets in the region, and to secure airbases and key positions in the disputed areas.

The British government has pledged to support the United States actions. We have therefore been tasked with destroying key Russian targets under a joint command structure. 74 and 97 Squadrons have been put on immediate alert.

[Teddy]

Hi Neil,

Sounds great, good to have a serious mission! I was just thinking about radio frequenices for tomorrow. If AWACS is on 135VHF wont it be pretty annoying requesting bogey dopes since we will have to leave flight net to change to the correct channel? Is it possible to change AWACS to a FM channel or 251 UHF? If there are no enemy air threats in the mission then it doesn't matter.

Teddy

[Neil Willis]

I have changed the frequencies the support units will operate on, so we can use Victor for Flight comms, and Uniform for support units.

[Neil Willis]

The kneeboard Briefing Sheet for the 31st March mission is attached, and contains all frequencies and instructions. Right click and save the png file to your kneeboard folder, or simply download the PDF version if you wish to print a hard copy.

[Chilts]

I see we depart Tblisi - have we officially moved then?

[Neil Willis]

Negative Chilts, it is just how the original mission was set up.

[David Lindau]

-- debrief --

we ehum should perhaps work on de-conflicting a bit more, especially in limited manoeuvring space. (attack/egress lanes?)
last night we where just lucky nobody smacked into another flight.
illustrating youtube clip linked below.

https://youtu.be/QAUIb7kXn9w

[Teddy]

That video does show what it was like down ther last night, thanks for that David. We did work it out after that run and push down to the SW didn't we? I'm glad we weren't flying as four ships down there!

My thoughts on last night:
-Very enjoyable, do love the proper missions with a good briefing, helps build anticipation.
-I'm glad we went as two ships, four ships would have been busy.
-I think that the flights should perhaps have had different roles. E.g. Big Cat is to scramble for a fast take off, attack the C&C base then RTB for fuel and more muntions before returning to Beslan. Other flights are to take off, hold South of WP1 till cleared in by Big Cat to fly to WP2 and Beslan. This would help with decongestion and make the mission critical and dependant on different people at differnet times.
-Comms worked well, we knew that the comms would get shit in the mountains but we all knew what we had to do so it didn't matter. I loved Neil talking to himself as Tiger Flight AND Lochini Tower!!
-Where did everyone go, we took off with 7 I think then people dropped like flies? Was the issue Aires?
-Tanker needs to be pushed up 1000ft, I got hit by an F-16 while on the boom which knocked out an engine, I landed with 900lbs left.
-Tanker didn't work for David or Nelson (David landed with very little fuel).
-I'm glad David and I put a rough Bingo warning at 2500lbs, I left the area with weapons on the plane (which is uncommon for me) but I wouldn't have made it after tanking failed.

On the whole, I loved it, thanks for organising it!

David have you got any thoughts for me, as flight lead I mean, or just generally? I am always keen to improve.

[David Lindau]

David have you got any thoughts for me, as flight lead I mean, or just generally? I am always keen to improve.

Yo Teddy, no issues on my side.
- good comm's.
- good tactical flying with regards to threat picture. (above mention excluded)

- first ingress route to WP1 was maybe a bit to aggressive.
with facts in hand, it should have probably been aborted further from the actual target zone.

[Paul(Dragon)0043]

Hi guy's,

I dropped off briefly last night when DCS completely froze, and locked my system, the only way out was to shutdown my computer and start again.

Looking forward to next mission though.