Mission Night 14 Apr 2020

[john (scooby)]

A good mission Alan thank you.
From 3(F) Sqd perspective we had our tasking and were able to complete it ( we had 1 RTB due to battle damage and a numpty leader who found the only tall tree on his run to the IP, my excuse is it was a very tall tree and it was in RealTree Camo )
The Maykop Sam site was not eliminated but it proved to be ineffective to our attack and only launched a single missile at the attacking A/C but it only flew for 6 seconds before self destructing . Despite losing 2 A/C from the package on the ingress Beanie and Dutch both pressed on and were able to destroy the designated targets, again well done both of you,
Were bounced 3 times on our ingress but were able too defend and eliminate these A/C ( well done Dutch, Beanie and Merlin some good close quarter fighting there gents) I will mention we did see too many Aim 54's fired into/towards our furball ( sorry F14's but this is you guys) non of which tracked their intended and passed through our formation, firing into a furball or towards a blue formation will not end well.

Overall the mission went well however Comms does still remain the fly in our ointment. we really need to work on nailing down this aspect of all our ops ( I hold my hand up as a prime suspect for getting this wrong, but I am working on improving my comms SOP's ) AWACS freq was hardly used to pass useful information to the whole package or individual units ( an example buddy spike F14 at my 12 oclock I had to say that a couple of times) Last night during our flight we had a series lat longs from the A10's and a debrief from the harriers, the only person I was aware of using that freq correctly was Mutley he declared his position in relation to mine, we confirmed hdg and alt end of msg . A pat on the back for Mutters and a boneo too ...

il have a look through tacview, personally i fired 2 phoenix, both of which tracked and killed their intended victims.
pretty sure i locked you up maggsy, calling buddy spike was the right thing to do and i unlocked you.
you guys were already engaged by the time we were airborne. we do need to improve interflight comms

[Father Cool]

Were bounced 3 times on our ingress but were able too defend and eliminate these A/C ( well done Dutch, Beanie and Merlin some good close quarter fighting there gents) I will mention we did see too many Aim 54's fired into/towards our furball ( sorry F14's but this is you guys) non of which tracked their intended and passed through our formation, firing into a furball or towards a blue formation will not end well.

Having reviewed the tacview data this morning I think saying 'too many' aim 54's fired into the furball is a little harsh.

The only one that could be described as such was my first shot that was aimed at a red fighter already engaged with the F16's just south of Sochi. The missile missed and ground struck. The only other Phoenix's fired anywhere near to blue aircraft was to the north at a mig 21 which I fired one at close range hitting my target and John who did the same with plenty of breathing room (the F16s were no where near those) and then one more fired by me (which was close to Scooby but I was close enough with a lock on the mig to be confident that he wasn't in danger) and one by Mutley which both missed their targets and obviously flew on north, these ended up reasonably close to your F16 squadron (I suspect these are the ones that you refer to however it wasn't a furball you were in level formation flight) as you had pushed north up the coast and then turned 90 degrees towards land into the path of the missiles which were already in flight.

In all I can't see any issues in the log showing us lobbing Aim 54's carelessly into furballs apart from maybe the first one off the rack at Sochi.

Regards
FC

[john (scooby)]

Were bounced 3 times on our ingress but were able too defend and eliminate these A/C ( well done Dutch, Beanie and Merlin some good close quarter fighting there gents) I will mention we did see too many Aim 54's fired into/towards our furball ( sorry F14's but this is you guys) non of which tracked their intended and passed through our formation, firing into a furball or towards a blue formation will not end well.

Having reviewed the tacview data this morning I think saying 'too many' aim 54's fired into the furball is a little harsh.

The only one that could be described as such was my first shot that was aimed at a red fighter already engaged with the F16's just south of Sochi. The missile missed and ground struck. The only other Phoenix's fired anywhere near to blue aircraft was to the north at a mig 21 which I fired one at close range hitting my target and John who did the same with plenty of breathing room (the F16s were no where near those) and then one more fired by me (which was close to Scooby but I was close enough with a lock on the mig to be confident that he wasn't in danger) and one by Mutley which both missed their targets and obviously flew on north, these ended up reasonably close to your F16 squadron (I suspect these are the ones that you refer to) as you had pushed north up the coast and then turned 90 degrees towards land into the path of the missiles which were already in flight.

In all I can't see any issues in the log showing us lobbing Aim 54's carelessly into furballs apart from maybe the first one off the rack at Sochi.

Regards
FC

i fired 2 phoenix and 2 sidewinders, all 4 hit their intended targets mate (mig21 ate both sidewinders before going down the greedy bugger). none of mine went anywhere near friendlies or into the ground

[Father Cool]

Yes agreed, that's what I said.

[john (scooby)]

Yes agreed, that's what I said.

[Flyco]

Thank you all for your very generous responses. I must have been in a different fight - I had an awful time!

The main problem appeared to be the start up timings of the various red fighters. I had triggered them from F-18, F-14 and A-10 arrivals in the area - I clearly need to include the AV-8Bs and the F-16s.

[Neil Willis]

Running it again next Tuesday?

[maggsy]

Gents can I remind you this is a debrief not a flaming session, we should be free to express our opinion on the mission as we see it and respond in a constructive manner or the whole purpose of the debrief is lost.

I did not use the term reckless .. I did say too many but one would be too many. The Aim 54 will travel in the region of 100nm at mach 5 everything within the frontal arc of the missile is a potential target, my debrief point was not that you deliberately did anything reckless but to highlight the dangers in engaging a target with friendly a/c within that arc and well within the kill range of the weapon being used. On all counts there were several blue A/C well within those parameters ( within 100nm and crucially within the frontal arc of the aim 54 )
To change the direction of this opinion here is my thoughts on a better approach.

The point I made about comms is the key here when we engaged in our furball we tried to keep each other informed with break orders and especially fox calls, this was not evident with other elements last night, I would suggest that a call from uzi to the interdiction element to disengage and break left and extend out to sea could have cleared the way for UZI to deconflict us from the redfor and ensure a clear line of fire The whole point should be not blame but what can we learn ? all of us .

[oz555]

Apologies for the Harrier debrief on 251. We had an SRS PTT/TS conflict.

[Flyco]

I love inquests.

Just remember the old fighter pilot saying about post training-flight debriefs:

"It doesn't matter who won the fight - it's who won the debrief that counts."