OP Northern Clout

[Eshark]

How did we do chaps ? Shane and I were flying together we made our way to WP 3 and assumed cap , Shane called out mig 29 and we engaged I locked one at 47 miles, Shane shot one down then the sh## hit the fan I got missile warning started defensive manoeuvres , but no good shot down correct me if I am wrong but I believe the culprit was an F18 Neil 05

[Neil Willis]

It seems I got both a MiG29 possibly 2 and an F-18.

I also took out 2 Sa6s.

Unfortunately we had no comms with the AWACS, hence the blue on blue.

Total lack of SA, and you guys flew among the Migs. Inevitable I think.

[Father Cool]

I don't know the outcome overall. You and Shane were lost early doors and myself and Scooby mixed it up with some more migs from the north polished them off and made it back to the Stennis after the other flights had either made it home or died. I think several of the objectives were taken out so not a mission fail.

What did come of this is our need to be more regimented with regard to procedures and tactics in the air. The F14 is a formidable stand off a/c and we need to play to that strength rather than getting into furballs and knife fights.

I would suggest, moving forward, that on training nights we run scenarios using proper formation flying and communicate via SRS only while in the air as coms last night was very sketchy with TS talking over SRS which makes it difficult to get info across. There were several instances where I shouted out info to Scooby which he missed. We were all very battle rusty in the air last night and I think we need to practice the way we fly in order to maintain a standard come mission nights.

I need to check the Tacview for what happened to you guys but my copy of the file is broken.

[maggsy]

My rehab is complete, I can now remove the cloak of shame....and pass it to the boss ... suits you Sir

[Father Cool]

It seems I got both a MiG29 possibly 2 and an F-18.

I also took out 2 Sa6s.

Unfortunately we had no comms with the AWACS, hence the blue on blue.

Total lack of SA, and you guys flew among the Migs. Inevitable I think.

IFF, if there are blues in there, pop the safety on and shout get the hell out of there!!

No one had AWACS comms and SA was a nightmare (always is in the cat though to be fair), we rely solely on AWACs calls, RWR spikes, IFF with the AWG-9 (provided we are looking the right way) and looking out of the window.

[Neil Willis]

Yep, that was the same for everyone last night.

But as the exercise was to test the server, I wouldn’t sweat the tactical issues at this stage. The server remained stable throughout, so it was a success.

AWACS comms etc will be easily sorted I am sure.

[Father Cool]

Yeah no sweat Neil, it all seemed to run pretty well, I was getting a hell of a ping though, never got below 300 while I was in the lobby and mostly higher than that, the highest I saw was around 680. Our other guys were seeing the same, think it was over 1000 for Shane at one point.

[Neil Willis]

That’s probably down to the current heavy load on the internet due to the current lock down.

Traffic is far higher due to the number of people using it right now.

Inevitable, and completely out of anyone’s control I am afraid.

[Father Cool]

Ah fair enough.

[Flyco]

I don't think the (initially) high 'Pings' were genuinely due to internet overload. I used to regularly get 350-380 on first contact, dropping to around 100 on refresh. Last night, pretty much every server was showing in the 800's for me on initial contact, but dropped to ~35 on refresh. When I later re-joined the Ping was again up to 800+, but when I ignored it and selected to join I was accepted.

I suspect we are getting incorrect Ping values, but I wouldn't know how to check that.