09-11-21 Operation Gauntlet

[Father Cool]

Firstly I would like to thank all for attending the mission it looked fun?!

I didn't actually get to fly last night as Shane had inadvertently when sending the squadron miz through to me, and I not noticed so 50/50 there, set the UZI 2 flight to late activated so our flight never got in pit. It did however allow me and Mad Dog to watch from the stands so to speak.

It was a good turnout and I thought it went pretty well in all, the red air at the beginning looked a little savage though although they tended in the most part not to go rogue across the map which worked well (they are scripted not to go off chasing things down), there was no way that 1F were going to complete their objective though so kudos for those guys sticking at it. Our defence SAMs were not playing either for some reason which made things more difficult for us.

Having a debrief with Chris after the mission he was somewhat negative regarding the tactics available to employ during the mission. He feels the mission should be split it into sections (Air to Air first week, Push through second week etc) I see his point but I am resistant to that approach. I think that would, although probably a more realistic approach in real wartime, for me dilute the mission and make it difficult to keep all squadrons entertained throughout the evening each week. The point of the backstory was that we didn't have time for that kind of approach and had to intercept the dirty bomb before it was detonated, forcing our hand somewhat.

Moving forward my thoughts are to remove Sukhumi as an airbase from the board (maybe turn it into a forward command post with a large SAM and radar facility) and then neuter Gudata and Sochi a little so that fewer aircraft respond to threats and/or put the GCI fighters on cold start so that any that respond to us have to go through a full start procedure which is about 10 mins. That way the 'fight in the bay' is less frantic hopefully.

The SA10 that got unloaded at the station certainly took 97 by surprise as they had destroyed the rail bridge (valid criticism), however I did hear the controller announce over the radio that the SA10 had been unloaded at the station and to intercept the convoy, which none of 97 did, allowing it to be installed and operated at Senaki airbase. I do need to get some way for those bridges to register in the script as dead, the man stood on it usually works fine but obviously he can survive, maybe I need to choose a weaker man in the menu. I will do some further tests with those and see what works 100%. If not it may be worth using road convoys only.

I have just reviewed the tacview this morning and actually it wasn't as bad as I thought last night, a lot of blue 'deaths' occurred due to misjudgements by the pilots and/or incessant 'poking of the nest' so to speak. All fair enough but do you want to 'kill everything' or achieve the mission objective? I think a lot of the former was going on at times. In the end we are all here to have fun flying.

So ultimately it seems that we were unlucky last night and the Dirty bomb was in the convoy (it randomly spawns in one of the 4No 11F targets at mission start but sods law it was in the convoy as the only target not destroyed last night for 11F due to the UZI 2 fiasco) which got through to Vladikavkaz and exploded according to Shane, I didn't see it happen though. Sad times.

Any and all feedback welcome!

[Neil Willis]

I have a few comments.

892 NAVAL air Squadron, operating close to the coastline of the Caucasus, but operating out of a land base? What was the reasoning behind that? Considering we opted to join the NAVAL air squadron, unless there is a purely operational reason for operating away from our boat, we operate ONLY off our boat. It's in the name!

That aside, it was a fun mission, but I'd add that realistically, when stepping off for an operation of this nature, our air bases would be very well protected, and no enemy air would get closer to us than their own borders for many very good reasons. Wouldn't you agree?

[Father Cool]

The basis of the mission was that the Naval group were not in the area due to the urgency of the situation and the fighters had been flown in, however we could put a carrier in as it wouldn't really effect anything.

In the mission our bases are pretty well protected (the SAMs weren't playing for some reason) however the premise is that the Russians front line has pushed to just north of Senaki and Kutaisi (they occupy the whole of Abkhsia and the Koduri Gorge regions at this point) so the red air were operating within their own borders 90% of the time and only entered our territory to engage our aircraft.

Moving on it may be that we put a carrier group in, move 97, 1F and 3F to Kobuletti and make the defence of Senaki and Kutaisi the task of 97 without being on the doorstep so to speak. Would give some breathing room.

[Neil Willis]

That would work.

[Flyco]

Can I advise against trying to mount ground attack missions from within an imminently threatened area. Apart from the obvious danger of loosing the aircraft, the aircrew, the ground red and all the ancillaries, the only way we made the attacks yesterday was by getting airborne with weapons selected and armed. It was quite unrealistic. For your future plans I would mount the A-10s from at least 20-30 nm away, at the very least out of artillery range.

[Father Cool]

Yes Alan, I am planning on launching 97 from Kobuletti on the next run.

[Mad dog]

It looked like a good evenings entertainment to me from the F2 screen.

I particularly enjoyed watching the Harrier chaps giving merry hell to some Mig21 and mig 31s, there was some truly epic flying going on there!

Hopefully next time this is run, I can get into a jet that spawns and join the fun.

For my twopence on what I saw from overwatch position, there was a lot of instances of going off mission to do ones own thing, but I guess that can be excused a bit after the disarray of heavy resistance.

All in all a good mission that I am keen to have a go at in the near future, thanks for writing and presenting it Cav.

[0405 Andrew]

I'd like to thank Father Cool for stepping up and writing a mission for all of the squadrons.
It takes a lot of time and effort to put one on.

FC used the Tuesday mission building SOP and resources and has said they were helpful.
If anyone else would like to run / write a mission for the Tuesday slot, the next mission date will be on the 7th Dec. PM me if you'd like to have a go. I can help get you up and running if needed.

[Danny]

Cav,

Thanks for the great night, your mission was really good. The right amount of reds, both ground and air. Shame about the triggers, but what can you do, its DCS.

We had a good night, although we all died at least once, down to stupidity in my case or over exuberance in many cases. Some of my guys went off piste a little, which we'll debrief.

One thing outside of the mission that made life tricky was comms, or the lack off.

Overlord 251.00 should be the primary channel for all once airborne and ready (not necessarily totally realistic, but again DCS)

Apart from 97 Sqn, I didnt hear any call-outs on Overlord. Could have missed some, obviously, but it was almost non-existent.

After looking at Tacview it was obvious we had multiple Sqn's chasing the same targets and conversely, and more damaging, Sqn's not equipped for A-A fighting alone when cover was nearby.

[Flyco]

Concerning the SA-10 delivery at Kutaisi, in our defence my response is that 97 heard the call, discussed it, I went and re-checked the bridge which was still down, and so we concluded that it was a faulty message which had not been correctly triggered, and so carried on with the main task. Wrong! but I believe reasonable.