Boctok 18th Jan

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Grillman
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by Grillman »

We have done this extensively In the past Duke and it generally worked. Problem is some squadrons might not have the numbers in any given mission night, to provide SEAD, strike and own CAP

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Duke
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by Duke »

The mission designer could factor that in relatively easily. Have radio triggered AI air that you squadron or a commander /live awacs spawns in for you. So if you can't cover cap you just don't spawn it in in your sector.

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Father Cool
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by Father Cool »

The issue with the mission on tuesday for me was that we were given CAP duty but no real chance to engage the enemy. Our F-14 CAP has the benefit of great stand off ability however by the time red air showed up we had a lot of blue inside the shooting barrel so to speak and that requires us to then go in very close to minimise blue on blue and thus play with the SAM's.

I would question the tactic employed where we were given CAP duty at all, it would have made more sense to have had 11F going in first (we were just circling for half an hour before anyone else was up) and providing a fighter sweep, getting the red air up and swatting them down long range with no blue ac to worry about, clearing the way for the strike teams. The SAMs that basically kept us busy would also have been out of the picture in that conflict and then SEAD can come in and mop those up for the ground guys to get in after.

CAP works best as a shield from threat rather than a back line lobbing fox 3's into a furball.

Just my thoughts.
Cavan Millward callsign: 'FC' - RAF Air UK
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0405 Andrew
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by 0405 Andrew »

Hi FC,

There were 3 mig29's up when you got airborne at a distance of about 150 miles from the border. Their ROE was set to weapons hold until we crossed the border. For some reason these were not tracked by the CAP, when we entered Russian airspace at 05:10 they should have been taken out by 11F. Unfortunately they weren't and went on to attack 41F Sead package. There was ample separation there. I am unsure if I was at fault in the planning and forewarning with an intel brief being very specific to the enemy patrol. So no you should have not been going round in circles, you should have tracked the enemy patrol and launched on them at 05:10 to neutralise the threat. They would not have had a chance.
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by 0405 Andrew »

The Frag stated that Nalchik migs had the highest readiness.
I don't fly CAP so I don't understand the technicalities of trying to track a low level fighter taking off and whether AWACS would give a call on them. But I thought the Nalchik migs flew a sensible direction, using their own Sam's for cover so you had a very difficult task in neutralising them. But does having stand off capability mean that you could have stayed out of the Sams range? They were not in furball for a good 10 Mins.

We definitely missed human AWACS.

I don't fly CAP so have no understanding of it and would welcome any input to make the missions better.
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by Roon »

I have been following the discussion with interest and thought I would throw my two penneth-worth in.

For these multi-Sqn nights it is necessary to blur the lines between real world and what is enjoyable for all involved, and that's a difficult line to tread - therefore it's hard to say how something should best be done.

Real war campaigns run to a sequence of phases, the first of which is "Counter Air". This is the systematic dismantling of Air Defences (aircraft/SAM/EWR etc) and only after virtually complete air superiority is won, do the low-level ground attack guys go in.

So, what we do is outside any established doctrine. To best adapt to this, I would suggest that a BARCAP (Barrier CAP) tactic was used and split into 2 or 3 regions of responsibility, for example West, Centre and East of the AO, whereby anything approaching the "Barrier" between enemy airspace and our controlled space is engaged before it can be a real threat.

However, running all the phases of battle simultaneously, the way we do, is always going to present huge challenges. Maybe we should pick a battle-phase and write a mission within it, that could certainly be done and would create a much less confused scenario. I'd be happy to meet up on TS to discuss it further if you're interested.

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0405 Andrew
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by 0405 Andrew »

I agree that Tuesday missions are a cobbled together affair and welcome any ideas for missions.
I like the idea of battle phased missions and I'll book a chat with you.
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by Father Cool »

0405 Andrew wrote: 20 Jan 2022, 17:06 Hi FC,

There were 3 mig29's up when you got airborne at a distance of about 150 miles from the border. Their ROE was set to weapons hold until we crossed the border. For some reason these were not tracked by the CAP, when we entered Russian airspace at 05:10 they should have been taken out by 11F. Unfortunately they weren't and went on to attack 41F Sead package. There was ample separation there. I am unsure if I was at fault in the planning and forewarning with an intel brief being very specific to the enemy patrol. So no you should have not been going round in circles, you should have tracked the enemy patrol and launched on them at 05:10 to neutralise the threat. They would not have had a chance.
0405 Andrew wrote: 20 Jan 2022, 17:28 The Frag stated that Nalchik migs had the highest readiness.
I don't fly CAP so I don't understand the technicalities of trying to track a low level fighter taking off and whether AWACS would give a call on them. But I thought the Nalchik migs flew a sensible direction, using their own Sam's for cover so you had a very difficult task in neutralising them. But does having stand off capability mean that you could have stayed out of the Sams range? They were not in furball for a good 10 Mins.

We definitely missed human AWACS.

I don't fly CAP so have no understanding of it and would welcome any input to make the missions better.
Andrew, we were on station 10 miles south of our CAP point (to avoid accidently going over the border) a good 25 mins before 05:10. During that time I got an AWACs call stating contacts 150 miles away however nothing ever showed up on my radar, so nothing to track. AWACs never gave another call on their location and wouldn't give any response when asked to give the position of those contacts. As 05:10 came we had a barrage of blue air pass below us and head over the border, we followed to provide cover, still no red contacts and no AWACs calls telling us of such. The first contact for me at least was as the migs near Nalchik engaged the F18's going in there. At that point I was constantly being pinged by an SA10 and 19 and the red air were some 40 to 50 miles away mixed in with blue aircraft.

For us as CAP to be effective in that scenario is very difficult as ideally we don't want to be dodging SAM missiles as that takes A: Our attention away from the job in hand B: Makes it almost impossible to keep our radar and focus on red air and C: Puts our aircraft both in danger and potentially low on fuel as we avoid incoming missiles. In addition to that if blue are engaged we don't really want to be lobbing Phoenix missiles in there as well.

To answer your second set of questions, tracking low level fighters can be a challenge due to ground masking as we doing CAP are generally high (circa 25 to 30k ft). Getting a contact with a bogie below say 10k is going to be sketchy. It's doable but better if we are also low. I also wonder if our AWACs couldn't see over the mountains as well making the chance of datalink contacts difficult as well (we cannot lock a bogie with datalink though, we need a positive AWG 9 contact so even if a bogie shows up on the radar with datalink, jester still has to pick it up and hook it, however we can keep an eye on it and make decisions based on that). Needless to say those bandits never showed up to us until the last minute and even then I kept losing the radar track, probably due to altitude difference and ac aspect. The SAM's made it difficult to get in close and ideally it would have been better to have been able to stay out of SAM range using the AWG 9 to track the fighters and possibly draw them out to engage them, we didn't have time for that though once the border was breached at 05:10. As for the Migs not being engaged for 10 mins, I never once had a radar track of any of them until they had merged with the 18's. At that point I took a couple of fox 3's that I was confident were not going to hit blue ac before being hounded out completely by the SA10/19 combo, and burning through my fuel forcing me to RTB.

I think Roon is correct in that we need to assume CAP on mission night as BARCAP and plan missions accordingly. In mission situations such as Tuesday night we need to either send in SEAD and fighter sweep ac ahead of everyone else to take down SAMs and Redair threats before setting up a CAP and getting the ground pounders in or go in with escorts and expect WVR tactics and SAM evasion.
Cavan Millward callsign: 'FC' - RAF Air UK
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by Roon »

I passed some time this evening knocking this up to clarify what I said earlier. I hope it's of use in setting the scenario in a way that's both realistic and contains something for everyone.
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Explanation
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Sometimes stuff is supposed to fall off....sometimes not.
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0405 Andrew
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Re: Boctok 18th Jan

Post by 0405 Andrew »

I agree with all points.

FC, you had the scales tipped against you from the beginning, I understand that now. I think I over egged the pudding!

Agree that the red air should be done differently. I'll have a read and maybe a chat before the next one.
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