03-08-21 ELLAC II Mission

[0405 Andrew]

However it might give the mission some more legs by making them Migs?

It was close and quite exciting watching it on Tacview, sorry to see the casualties, but everyone seemed very restrained on firing. Were there any friendly kills?

[Roon]

41Sqn AAR

Last night certainly went better over all, so it's getting there, thanks to all.

Take off was marred by some lag (one aircraft had a wing explode during some elastic banding) and a daft mistake on taxy route by the last two F18's, who , once again, met with the A10's at the threshold! I had to resist tearing my hair out as I'm running short of the aforesaid commodity.

Airborne and into formation, switch comms and mosy on went well. SEAD and SWEEP were ahead and in place, all looked rosy. Until we got close to Incirlik and the redair began scrambling. F14's and the SWEEP turned towards and engaged, well done chaps, but then turned away leaving one red following the SWEEP boys out, shooting one of them and then turning into us. Our RWR had been covered in F16 spikes and F14 spikes for the whole flight and there's no distinction between red and blue. AWACS is our only clue and if the spike turns to "music", we still don't know who it is - so a call of "buddy spike" has to be made just in case (and in 90% of cases this is the problem). However, music is often swiftly followed by oblivion and the F16 got a free lunch and we lost three in a very short space of time before Jase took it down. Unfortunately our SWEEP and the F14's were flying away from us at this point, the Leaker wasn't called, so I'm assuming they didn't know he'd made it through, but a call of "Leaker" would at least let us pull the trigger on anything coming towards us.

We reformed with the remnants (4 of us) and continued on route. The SEAD called that the SAM 6 was down so we pressed and hit with every bomb. All runways were hit and closed, taxy ways and junctions, plus the dispersals with some F16's. A good result. On the way out we were engaged again but had no 120C left, so couldn't fire back and were taken out by F16 with AMRAAM. I don't know where our CAP was at this time, I'll check the Tacview later, but only one survived and found his way home. Which is amazing as he's the Muppet who couldn't find the runway!! Fate is a cruel Mistress...

Busy, hectic and cut short are the keywords for that one! We thoroughly enjoyed it but we come back to the fact that we can only kill what we positively identify as enemy or die waiting to find out...

[Neil Willis]

892 had a good mission. We couldn't raise the tanker on the return to the boat, and the TACAN was not working until we got quite close. I wonder if that was a reduced range feature that came with a recent update?

Those points aside, we had a seamless launch, some good passes and hits at our targets, and given the low numbers involved, achieved plenty given the switchology issues I encountered. It looked like our CAP kept the baddies at bay and we managed to evade the ground fire this time too.

Everyone recovered safely, so a very satisfying night.

Thanks to Ade and Andrew for the fine work.

[Flyco]

A-10s were under-strength - 3 ac as opposed to planned 6.

There was still some jostling for T/O slots. 97 taxied on time at 0322, but pulled over to let 2 x F-16 past (F-16s seemed to be manned by white rabbits muttering I'm late! I'm late! but I can't be sure because one appeared bald (see above post). Hence, we were 1min 30 secs late on (rolexed) T/O time. Made up time on route and fired first missiles just 30 secs after re-scheduled TOT. We finally finished with 35 kills from 49 assigned targets, with honours pretty much shared between all 3 flt members.

No3 had some technical problems initially, and No 1 got hit by an unexpected Shilka. The Shilka was one accompanying a column of tanks and was scheduled to be out of the area by the time 97 arrived. No 2 took it out!

RTB'd (low on fuel and engines) and landed after a flight time of around 1:30. No1 had one engine out and other damage - without hydraulics for the brakes he let the ac roll to the end of the runway before turning off onto the grass and walking the rest of the way. No 2 and 3 landed OK, but didn't even stop to offer their Lead a lift on their wing!

We got the occasional RWR indication, but the closest that any Red air got (that we noticed) was an F-16, hot at 50 nm - but it eventually disappeared. So thanks F-14s, F-18s, et al; from our assessment you did good!

In retrospect, I should have foreseen the Shilka that did me damage. We knew the tanks with the Shilka were due through our area about 15-20 minutes before our ETA, and No 2 was busy looking for them at their anticipated destination. When he couldn't find them there, the alarm bells should have started to ring. Don't assume - Check!!

All in all, a good mission from the A-10s pov.

[0405 Andrew]

Reading those reports makes me very happy. Thankyou everyone for taking the time in writing them.

I think we're definitely heading along in the right direction for the Tuesday mission.

Did the updated style of FRAG work? Is there anything else that could be added to that?

It sounded like there was an improvement on inter squadron comms calls. Well done all.

[Beanie]

There was still some jostling for T/O slots. 97 taxied on time at 0322, but pulled over to let 2 x F-16 past (F-16s seemed to be manned by white rabbits muttering I'm late! I'm late!

No idea which F-16’s you’re referring to as we were long gone before your flight took off.

It was an enjoyable mission. As always, there’s much to learn. Comms are improving though which is good to see. Now to sort out my SA.

Thank you Andrew and Ade.

Andy

[Flyco]

Correct Beanie. Those F-16s were F-18s!

[Alien]

After Action Report
11 Sqdn F14

The Sqdn was split into 2 flights of 4 , UZI 1 would take the North West having a CAP approx 55 miles from Paphos intercepting any response from Gazipasa, shortly after going feet wet the EW Radar to the East of Gazipasa picked us up and very shortly thereafter F16’s were scrambled out and our first engagement had begun.
While UZI Lead and his Wman took on the threat, UZI 1-3 & 1-4 turned North to destroy the EW Radar which was successful on the first strike, thereafter taking up a CAP position with UZI Lead and his Wing.

UZI 2 would take an initial CAP pos’n East of Famagusta to intercept the threat from Hatay to the North East & Incirlik to the North. UZI 2 Lead split his flight with a pair to go North and meet the threat from Incirlik
Both flights did extremely well and 9 enemy a/c were taken down, we did however take casualties ourselves, our main problem was being able / unable to identify what F16 was a threat and what was friendly, which seemed to be the case for the F18’s to some extent.
Alien took an AIM9X whilst waiting for a buddy spike, which never came of course and ended up going down in flames, but he did get a sparrow off and took the F16 down.
This waiting for a buddy spike had the same effect for individuals in UZI Flight 2.

It was a mission enjoyed by all, with lessons to be learn’t .
Well done to both Flight Leads who suddenly found themselves to be in Command & Control of 4 a/c.

Comms was still something of an Issue in as much that UZI 1 got no response from AWACS, ?

Thanks to Ade & Andrew for putting the time in for us.

[0405 Andrew]

Nice report Alien.

[Father Cool]

I agree with all of Aliens report, I would like to add however that although the red air F16's are a pain when blue F16s are also in theatre I do find the added interest of determining friend or foe and the required tactics thereof to be a rather enjoyable experience rather than straight up "It's a Mig lets get it down".

I feel that this type of mission comes across, at least to me, more of a realistic problem than being out gunned 10 to one by MIGs to increase difficulty. That way generally just leads to lots of respawns and a feeling like we are playing sky COD or something similar rather than trying to fly a realistic sortie with a chance of getting back to base alive at the end of the day.