Re: Zapad 2021 7th December

[0405 Andrew]

I agree with Chris, but it always goes back to someone wanting to do it. The missions have been spaced out to give enough time for a commander to get it sorted.

I'd be happy to write a mission if someone wants to command it. As long as the squadron miz's are sent back by the Sunday morning before the mission.

Who want's to volunteer?

[Flyco]

Not a good night for the A-10s. Only 2 turned up, and one of those had repeated technical problems that meant he never reached the target area. With a 7/8 cloud base at around 8000 ft, and at least 4 Shilkas roaming around, this was never going to be good spot for a singleton A-10.

Ideally we would have benefitted from cross-cover which was not available. I found one nest, but it was buried well inside a concave hillside, and while finding it I was hit by one of the mobile Shilka units. Took a 10 minute break closing down my bad engine, trimming it up and making sure that I could maintain height and speed and had some serviceable weapons. Set up for a safe run at the Shilka and knocked it out with Mav (DCS said I did 95% damage - but what's 5% between enemies - he never fired again!). With limited manoeuvrability and approach routes it took me about 15 minutes to knock out about 5 trucks and what was left of the Shilka. I was also pestered by an errant Mig-29 - thank you Will (I think) I don't know whether you killed it or just chased it away - or it could have been plain scared of me (No, I don't think so either).

By this time everything was very quiet so I headed for home - it got even more quiet and boring, so I landed at the div, rather than cross the gulf. Final flight time 1:30.

As mentioned, launch time was too late for the A-10s, and the absence of even a second a/c made the task, laborious. A major problem was the iffy TGP that the A-10 has had for some time now, making target location and ID at low level over hills very problematic. Nevertheless, the rugged survivability of the ac itself was proven once again - I know I shouldn't have hung around in that area on my own with one engine out, but having come all that way, I didn't want to go home too early. With 4 serviceable A-10s we should have been able to knock out the 4 or so Shilkas that appeared to be around, so it was a fair ask.

Oh yes BRIEF! BRIEF! BRIEF! please! Written down, so that even if the leader can't make it we know wtfih!

[Neil Willis]

I am sure we can rotate the role of mission commander through the Squadron staffs we have among us. I'd be happy to play the role as long as it wasn't for every mission.

My biggest gripe would be the comms situation. We had a very quiet departure from Incirlic, and had cross talk on the MIDS frequencies too. The mission was quiet for the Hornet CAP, just a couple of Mig-21s appeared after the strike on the SAMs. I am in agreement with Chris, we al had some spare HARMs available, so we could probably have helped out with 11F Squadron's problem - had we been made aware of it.

[Chris]

Oh yes BRIEF! BRIEF! BRIEF! please! Written down, so that even if the leader can't make it we know wtfih!

My view:

That's up to the SQN CO.

1.Mission writer does the intel brief and provides a goal or objective.
2.The CAG or Air Commander 'chairs' a meeting of the SQN CO's or reps. They huddle and decide how to achieve that goal or objective, who does what, who helps who, TOT etc.... if necessary CAG can ask the Mission Writer to change some assets in play say if short of pilots.
3. Keep it simple, use a google Jamboard, the plan is bullet points, arrows and TOT numbers - each take a screenprint when finished.
4. The air commander and mission writer liaise and jointly sends out the FRAG
5. Its up to the SQN CO's to make notes and prepare a briefing for their own people and return template miz to mission writer
6. If a SQN rep can not make the meeting nor asked a proxy to do it for them that SQN does not fly.
7. CAG on the night makes any adjustments needed due to unforeseen circumstances.... pilots arriving drunk that sort of thing...

We tried this once, it failed. It failed at SQN level because the information at COs level did not reach the pilot writing SQN briefing.

It is simple, pretty basic stuff.

[0405 Andrew]

I'm happy to try something along those lines and can get a new mission together, probably along the lines of last night as a trial run.

It can be planned over Christmas by the Squadrons so gives time to try this out.

What I will do is set out a method in the Joint Tuesday SOP.

[0405 Andrew]

It didn't go well at all for Uzi, we came on station near Hama to find that there was an enthusiastic SA10 installation right in the middle of our CAP. We spent most of our flight trying to avoid that guy throwing missiles up at us left right and centre. Our bogies were the other side of it by 50 miles or so and to the south much closer, whereon as we moved ourselves away from the SA10 ended up with Mig 29's coming up below us. Needless to say we were taken down by those with little resistance.

I was surprised that given our CAP location that that particular SA10 wasn't targeted for SEAD in the FRAG. I called in for an assist but all SEAD aircraft reported that they were Winchester on HARMs.

Just a note. The Frag didn't explicitly say that the SA-10 shouldn't be knocked out but it was not targeted for a reason, in fact it would have been considered an escalation which NATO didn't want to do.
My idea of the mission was to keep everyone operating in a cramped space which I hoped it did. Otherwise it would have been too much of a walk in the park.

[Alien]

AAR for XI Sqdn
Where do I start ? Lets start with the Intel Miz file I received,

Most of the likely SAM Tgts , Redair threats were clearly marked, however not paying attention to detail as in zooming into the map to see what lies behind the red Square ( Said Zippy ) it became apparent during the flight that I had placed a CAP Location within the detection and launch zone of an SA10, I'm not going to waffle on here as we all know what a pain these can be, and this one was no different, nuff said about that.

So in effect CAP 2 was ineffective, Father and his F14 then flew south and joined up with Alien / Boos, it was at this point that UZI 1-1 made a decision that was to come back and bite us both very hard on the arse, having orbited our CAP shy of Tiyas ( Mig 29's ) for a good length of of time with no response I decided to head North which we could hear from Overlord a fair amount of Redair action was taking place, x 2 Mig 21's were taken down on our route North, shortly thereafter we were a little surprised to see Mig 29's on our RWR's which very quickly had us bang to rights, Aim 54's were let loose at 36 miles with TTI's at 10secs, all missed. this left us Winchester 54's and thereafter it was all over bar UZI 1-3 FC who had managed to break contact and make a run for it albeit having suffered some damage in his AIM 9 encounter, as he had no radar he was unable to know that as he headed West he would fly over an SA 3 which promptly took him down.

My apologies to all concerned who had to endure my ramblings whilst transmitting on the AWACS channel.

[Alien]

I am sure we can rotate the role of mission commander through the Squadron staffs we have among us. I'd be happy to play the role as long as it wasn't for every mission.

My biggest gripe would be the comms situation. We had a very quiet departure from Incirlic, and had cross talk on the MIDS frequencies too. The mission was quiet for the Hornet CAP, just a couple of Mig-21s appeared after the strike on the SAMs. I am in agreement with Chris, we al had some spare HARMs available, so we could probably have helped out with 11F Squadron's problem - had we been made aware of it.

Father did make a call but was told ' go away and change your armour '

[Danny]

3 Sqn AAR.

We had a great night on the whole, thanks Andrew for putting it together once more.

Our primary role was SEAD for 41 Sqn and 1 Sqn, the most northerly 2 SA-6 sites. We also had a secondary plan in case 1 Sqn were unavailable.

During the all Sqn briefing Beanie got the nod that 1 Sqn were not attending so it was a quick re-role for Grillman and Beanie, Beanie was tasked with 1 Sqn's targets.

Never the less we still managed to hit our take-off time and were airborne at 0445Z. I had trouble with my INS and despite several re-sets it was still U/S when I got airborne. Alistair took over the lead of the package whilst I trundled off straight and level for a in-flight align.

Grillman and Sapper were tasked with the southern SA-6 and ZSU's at Kuweires. The SA-6 didn't appear to be tracking, which required Grillman to play bait to confirm it was offline as Sapper had GBU-38's and would be inside the SA-6's lethal range. He did this successfully and Sapper destroyed both ZSU's passing the destruction code word to 41 Sqn. I may have missed it but nothing was heard to acknowledge that call, although they did continue their run, so I assume it was heard.

After reviewing Tacview it transpires that 892 destroyed the SA-6. It would appear helpful at first glance but caused a delay in Sapper achieving his strike.

Alistair destroyed the northern SA-6 without issue and by this time I was back on task, I destroyed 2 SA-15's and disabled the other, as Alistair had an avionics issue at this point. Beanie was then cleared in.

Beanie unfortunately couldn't find the convoy assigned to 1 Sqn and after giving up the search discovered a armoured infantry unit, which he set about destroying.

Again after a review of Tacview, it appeared that the 1 Sqn convoy turned up after Beanie had stopped searching, apologies but that target got through.

Sapper and Grillman continued SW to egress, planning to re-arm at Hatay. En-route Sapper was engaged and destroyed by a blue A/C. Grillman continued SW and destroyed one of the Southern most SA-6's. Whilst Sapper and Alistair (still having avionics issues) re-joined from Incirlik, myself and Grillman re-armed at Gaziantep to help Beanie out with the armoured vehicles.

I heard the call for help with the SA-10 site and prior to re-arming we asked if we could help. We had no response so continued with loading for A-G. Grillman and myself returned to aid Beanie, by this time Alistair had joined us, and we destroyed the majority of one armoured infantry regt. (Tacview revealed another)

Thanks to XI Sqn, I know you had issues from your posts, but you kept red air from interrupting us.

Comms at Incirlik were good, I heard all Sqn's except 892, I think someone from 892 mentioned you heard nothing at Incirlik, perhaps you had wrong freq's 360.10?

[Danny]

I agree with Chris, but it always goes back to someone wanting to do it. The missions have been spaced out to give enough time for a commander to get it sorted.

I'd be happy to write a mission if someone wants to command it. As long as the squadron miz's are sent back by the Sunday morning before the mission.

Who want's to volunteer?

Are we talking about a commander on the night of the mission or just someone who heads up the mission planning?