Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Details Of Online Flight Nights
Dutch

Re: Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Post by Dutch »

Best to fire the Harpoon missle at the front or stern of the ship. Having the missles come from the side reduces the chance of succes

Flyco
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Re: Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Post by Flyco »

You are correct Dutch. Unfortunately, you've got to go with what you've got, and these routes and targets are already set. The carriers are head on but the Cruisers are stationery and athwartships. From the Forums, it would seem not to make much difference in DCS. The Harpoon is still "work in progress".
Wing Commander Alan Johnson - RAFAir UK
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Dutch

Re: Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Post by Dutch »

If thats the case, have one missle go Skim and the other in pop-up to increase hit chance. Also fire them with seperation.

Flyco
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Re: Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Post by Flyco »

I have put together a suggested flight plan for the Springfield element. I will leave it to our nominated fallguy - sorry I meant Leader, to adjust or simply discard as he sees fit

Harpoons should be programmed before take-off. I would suggest:
FLT - LOW
TERM - SKIM
SRCH - 25 - 40 nm depending on launch range - they need to start searching around 5-15 nm before the targets
DSTR - 120 nm or more - who cares, there's nothing out there but fish and seagulls.
BRG - 275 This should put the Harpoons in the middle of the juicy targets (Carriers and Cruisers)
(Not that they will reach them - Those "GRUMBLEs" are deadly out to 40 nm, and they come in 3s and 4s per missile.
Probable best fired from 1 nm abeam each other, by all ac simultaneously, in quick succession. Then turn hard Left and GTHOOT!

We will probably have time to refuel/rearm and go and play with the F-14s.
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The Final Push 2 - FA-18C Brief.pdf
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Wing Commander Alan Johnson - RAFAir UK
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john (scooby)
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Joined: 31 May 2018, 15:40

Re: Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Post by john (scooby) »

whats the f18s callsign tommorow?
Sqn Ldr (Scooby) Burton RAF Air UK
XI(F) Sqn 2ic
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maggsy
Posts: 198
Joined: 01 Jul 2018, 19:20

Re: Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Post by maggsy »

john (scooby) wrote: 01 Jun 2020, 19:43 whats the f18s callsign tommorow?
there are a possible two flights
Springfield
and
Enfield
Flight Lieutenant Steve "maggsy" Maggs - RAFAir UK
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Mutley

Re: Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Post by Mutley »

no breif ?or have i just not seen it ? :D

Flyco
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Re: Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Post by Flyco »

My initial thoughts from a very restricted overall view. Because of the scope of the sortie (some very impressive work put into it), I will limit myself to Springfield. So those that were in other flights might want to skip over this.

Lots to learn but I thought it was quite a sound first outing. For all (not just Springfield) we still lack time discipline, and I don't like starting with a hot machine - it doesn't save me time since I still need to go through the star-up drill to make sure that all the switches are made etc. We also need to sort out catapult discipline - who goes where and how we time the launches etc - however early learning days. Join up was a little long, due to time between launches, my probably being a bit gung-ho with power and climb rate, and the insistence of one of us on doing a tour of the fleet. Nevertheless once we got together it seemed to be quite steady (as a general rule the No 2 flies on lead's right wing and No 3 on his left - but nobody noticed so I think we got away with it). Jack was particularly steady - I though it was us Brits who had the sang-froid.

The route was flown steadily, albeit some of the turns were a little too sharp - it was probably just as well that we didn't have Enfield joining us during the 160 degree turn. The low level at 100-200 ft was sound, with good station keeping - although we probably need to look at more 'tactical' formations - I will contact Ade and see if we can borrow their Tactics manual. The launches went well, albeit I was little late. I applaud the initiative of one of our number who decided that the landing fleet to the north also deserved some attention. Still it meant that only 8 out of our 12 missiles were shot down - the other 4 ran out of fuel somewhere in northern Russia. Again the turn out after the launch was a bit sharp, and probably a bit early. I did have eyes-on Neil, and eased up in the turn to be more visible against the sky, but it all looked sound.

The recovery was a bit protracted, since I wanted to make sure we triggered all the right activities. Hence the detour to the south to come in from more than 10 nm, so as to allow the "see you at 10" to trigger it all. The procedure went well right up to the time when I hit my F3 key to trigger the "Kiss Off" call just half a second after the R/T menu timed-out. I got an interesting external view at just the wrong time - (I really must change those commands). As a result we went too far past the ship before I finally broke. which screwed Neil up. Amazingly both I and Neil took a wire first time - Jack's amazement at such an unexpected event, meant that he had a bolter. By the time he was down-wind the carrier had decide to try and spoil his fun even further by doing a left-hand hand-brake turn - but with true US pioneer grit Jack turned even faster than they did and made a successful landing.

All in all a very enjoyable sortie - Thank you.
Wing Commander Alan Johnson - RAFAir UK
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maggsy
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Re: Tuesday 2nd June 2020

Post by maggsy »

I would first like to thank Phil for all the hard work in producing a complex, interesting and importantly fun series of missions combined in a mini campaign.
Yes there were a few teething issues, but as any of our mission builders will testify most missions take several runs before they become the finished article.

Overall the Campaign was well put together, with attention given to each of the Aircraft in our inventory, again nobody is an expert on the capabilities and needs of each of the squadrons, in fact most of the squadrons have not yet explored the full extent of what their given A/C can do. Having said that Phil put in a fantastic amount of thought and consideration to try and encompass each squadrons needs or desires, for this we all should give him our heartfelt appreciation.

From a 3(F) Squadron perspective, I felt we did not meet the challenge set by the campaign, for many factors both real life and other reasons we did not manage to put a full compliment of A/C into the air. Having said that we did enjoy the challenge and had great fun whilst also getting chance to introduce our new SOP's into a "Real" senario.

How can we help Phil improve on the whole campaign, as a whole it works well, from the chaos of the initial attack on senaki and the rush to save as many A/C as we can with little or no warning. to the fightback using what we had, spread thin across multiple enemy incursions, to the finale where we strive to regain superiority over the theatre.

The best way I feel we can assist Phil is to break down each segment and without breaking the links between each part of the campaign offer suggestions that might improve each and thus the overall.
This is only my objective opinion and might not fit with any other points of view as to how to improve.

Firstly a serious complaint to those of us who cannot or will not follow specific instructions to only join the server/ mission when told and not before, each time you do so you screw up the mission for the rest, we have tried to impliment various ways to pause the missions to cater for the lack of discipline exhibited by the few but is is difficult to get this to work as we get the lemming effect, once one person sees a name on the server even if its an admin specifically there to prevent the cascade of joins they feel compelled to join also despite not being told to do so.. I personally would be looking at the the server logs and those that we can prove joined before being asked would be invited not to participate in any further RAF Air Missions until they can control themselves, harsh I know but after months of design, planning, and testing if all gets thrown out of the window by these selfish people. It is happening all too frequently not just in Phils campaign but in others too, it has to stop and stop now.
You want immersive missions where a sequence of events happen on time and in response to our actions, but those who join at the right time find triggers already activated and the mission is 8 minutes old ( as last night proved) and poor UZI faced a wall of enemy A/C already actively engaging them as they joined the server.

Initial outbreak of hostilities:
This works well, the chaos is all part of the drama, the lack of preparation or planning is key to the feel of the mission, I would not make any changes to this, as it is not numbers dependant it really does not matter if those that do not appreciate the chaos as the key component of the mission, but the more we have rushing to save their A/C the better it only adds to the desparate feel, I appeal to all to embrace Phil's intention to create a chaotic mess from which we can build order later in the campaign.
( suggestion, to consider each Squadron has #number of A/C at the onset of the attack, the number of A/C recovered safely following the evac will be the number of A/C avail for the next mission. called attrition)

Part 2:
This should have been a more structured planned response to the previous mission, but early mission activation caused enemy activity to be triggered out of sequence, so this mission became rather confused, I suggest that enemy A/C can be set to only attack specific groups and ignore all others this will ensure that A/C tasked with 1 task will not be chased/enaged by enemy A/C they have been told to ignore by the Mission planner as part of the design/planning, this does not prevent them from responding to the threat if appropriate but it will prevent the out of sequence events from disrupting the flow of the mission (I am not taling about the fog of war or the spontanious nature of a combat senario, but the disruption of a staged sequence of events the mission planner catered for in the design)
From a 3(F) Sqd perspective a lack of numbers caused us to fail both in our primary and secondary tasking. I would suggest the second GA event only be triggered once the primary objective is accomplished.

Part 3
A simple CAP mission for 3(F) Sqd which we did okish I failed to brief the Threat over the coast from the enemy Destroyers as i ficussed on ther significant threat out to sea from the cruisers, which resulted in the loss of 2 F-16 to sams. Again without beating the subject to death, People joining the server/mission too early triggered events to happen before the rest of the pilots were instructed to join.
I suggest that given the lack of Antiship capabilitiy ( or the ineffective weapons currently available ) a reduction in the number of enemy ships and the reduction in their "Condition" ( reducing their hit points so less damage is required to destroy them) would make this portion at least possible. Maybe having Blue AI surface ships attacking the red surface ships as part of as a coordinated response would offer a way to "Overwhelm" their defences in a "Realistic" manner

I think the overall balance is about right as long as we have sufficient numbers required for each individual task, I would not wish to "Dumb" down the missions as they are supposed to be a challenge as well as fun.

I cannot wait until we run this again
Flight Lieutenant Steve "maggsy" Maggs - RAFAir UK
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