Help with capabilities of each Squadron.

[0405 Andrew]

I am looking for a guide to each squadron's capabilities. Writing a mission for squadrons that you are not familiar with is quite a leap, I'd like a little help explaining what a typical mission is for your squadron.

What can be realistically expected from each squadron in a mission, as in range, mission type and quantity. And what type of mission role would your squadron enjoy.

In a normal Tuesday mission would you rearm and refuel mid mission? Can a Harrier provide CAP? Against all Red air? What type of target would a F14 Bomb Cat attack? F18 multi role but what would it do on a Tuesday mission.

Please describe your squadron capabilities below, mine are just an example.

• A10. Ground attack - Large quantity of precision munitions- slow allow 230kts Average long range- no refuel required- no realistic A to A capability.

• Av8. Ground attack - Small quantity of precision munitions - SEAD capability- medium 400kts? - ATA Refuel?- Rearm at base? - Good A to A capability against mig 21's or 29's?

• F14. CAP-ground attack- Small quantity of dumb bombs and laser guided (any TGP?) - SEAD capability? - medium 400kts? - ATA Refuel?- Rearm at base? - Good A to A capability against mig 21's or 29's?

• F18. CAP-ground attack- Small quantity of dumb bombs and laser guided (any TGP?) - SEAD capability? - medium 400kts? - ATA Refuel?- Rearm at base? - Good A to A capability against mig 21's or 29's?

• F16. CAP-ground attack- Small quantity of dumb bombs and laser guided (any TGP?) - SEAD capability? - medium 400kts? - ATA Refuel?- Rearm at base? - Good A to A capability against mig 21's or 29's?

• Uh-1. Troop insertion / pick up, can drop troops that will move and blow up stuff, anti tank, mortar and inf- Area weapons against soft skin vehicles and inf- Slow 80 kts - Will need air supremacy and ground cleared.

This post is asking about general / average capabilities, I'm sure some of you could thread a needle with a snake eye (not sure what that is though??) at 25,000 at Mach 2 but I'm after an average performance, after all we're not all Funky.

[Neil Willis]

Very good question Andrew. I'd go further and ask all Squadrons to have a representative on the mission planning group to give live input during mission design and writing processes.

Chris has asked for some assistants to help with mission writing/design, and if we can handle the team correctly, we can get a lot of expertise in a small group.

I think this is a subject we need to get together and discuss, and perhaps start with a mission to work out the lumps and bumps as we go?

In the meantime, here are my views on F18 capabilities...

SEAD, CAS, CAP are all doable, but the major issue for F18s is endurance. We either go armed well, or carry fuel. One limits the other. AAR is I think an essential discipline for F18 pilots, and we will be practicing this to improve our options in the battles to come. We have excellent stand off weapons, so we can make the first wave count in ways that other airframes struggle with. HARM is deadly, as is JSOW, but I haven't done much work with the latter yet.

Our biggest issue is numbers. We can usually only, at present, field 2 pilots in any given mission.

[0405 Andrew]

That's great Neil, many thanks.
Yes the mission group is a good idea, but a description like you have provided is invaluable for those of us who are just putting our toes in the water.
Mission groups I'd imagine can get bogged down, I was thinking of writing a mission with the new template and then presenting it to a mission group /individuals for a review and then an edit.

[Matt]

Hi Andrew,

For the harrier we carry less munitions then the bigger A10, however we pride ourselves in our ability to make each bomb count to achieve mission success, limited SEAD using the Sidearm requires alot of tactical masking to get in range but perfectly doable. We can employ a great aray of smart weapons from Laser guided to JDAM. Much like the F18 we go through fuel like money at a strip club but we have our fuel calculation down to a fine art thanks to Plexi but we are very AAR capable if a tanker is on station.

With only Aim9 we are not exactly great at A2A but we can defend ourselves if needed (proven by myself and Hendo where during a mission with the OCU where we engaged and destroyed a F16 and M2000C which picked the wrong pair to mess with lol)

We can usually sport a minimum of 4 pilots, but have some newer guys presently getting trained up using our great training programme.

Hope this helps buddy.

[0405 Andrew]

Excellent, thanks Matt.
On a 1.5hr mission, would you both refuel re-arm?
For instance would you do a Sead and then return for cap or a strike?

[Mad dog]

Hi Andrew,

For the Tomcat, we can launch from a carrier carrying a full loadout of 6 AIM54 and 2 AIM9. Couple that with a pair of fuel tanks and we can carry over 20000lbs of fuel. On fuel, she's a frugal sipper of go juice, so we can launch, loiter and slap bandits before returning to the ship without refueling, but if we need to loiter for longer we can brim the tanks on a drogue basket. 1.5hrs is not a drama for us but, it depends on how many times we get into a merge as those burners drink the speed spirit like a good un.

In the bombing role, we can carry a mixture of buckets of instant sunshine ranging from upto 16 dumbs to a mixed loadout of dumb and LGB ordnance and we have a TGP called the LANTIRN.

As for SEAD, well, we have a droppable drone called a TALD, it has no explosives or offensive capability, but it acts as a decoy gliding over the sam site so that the sam is preoccupied with locking it up and tracking it while we hit the deck and go in with rockets. Its not the preferred solution but it can be done.

So in short, our capabilites are precision bombing, CAP/BARCAP and CAS, but I would probably steer clear of SEAD and leave that to the Hornet for example. Our loiter time is purely dependent on pilot endurance and a tanker that doesn't get killed, but a 1.5hr mission is not a drama at all.

[Neil Willis]

Understood Andrew. There are lots of approaches to mission writing of course. My thinking is that with the templates fully formed, you could do a lot in just CombatFlite providing there were enemy units and triggers as part of the templates.

As far as endurance goes, we would have a choice - long mission endurance, not much ordnance, lots of ordnance and short endurance, or as you said, a couple of trips to refuel/rearm and fulfill several roles. Alternately, a lot of ordnance, and a couple of sucks at a tanker would mean mission endurance in hours.

[0405 Andrew]

I'm trying to get to grips with CombatFlite, I'm not sure how well it will work with our Hueys. The Hueys are different with how they are set up as they need to work with CTLD. But I have all Christmas to get my head round it and see what I'm doing wrong. But it looks good for the fixed wing side.

Thanks for all the replies, that's very helpful. I'm sure I'll have some more questions over the next week or two.

I will be reviewing past tacviews of Northern Clout etc to see what I can get from them.

If anyone is able to send me a copy of a mission that you're squadron enjoyed and you think represents the right density of targets, I could then take a look and get some ideas.

Cheers

[Beanie]

I’ll update with F-16 info when I’m sat in front of my pc a bit later on this afternoon.

[0405 Andrew]

Excellent cheers