Operation Abii 15/03/22

[0405 Andrew]

I'll put some volunteers close to your targets.

[0405 Andrew]

892 had terrible D-sync issues and in the end I gave up. 2 perserverd and hit their targets.
How did everyone else go?
I see 97 hit lots and destroyed a lot.

[Sapper]

3(F) Post Op Report

We took off on time, we flew to our targets, we bombed them on time then we flew back and landed in time for tea and medals! A milk run by any other name. Danny flew ahead of us to tackle any SA6 that was foolish enough to light us up but they kept quiet and didn't bother us at all. He then tried to provoke more of a reaction once the rest of us were enroute to RTB and eventually got off his HARMs and destroyed one SA6. At least he didn't try to take on any helicopters this time out!!

We saw lots of rubber banding / de-sync issues. Could this be a Syria Map thing? Nobody's ping rate was high...

Our data link failed, so we couldn't see our flight members on the HSD (equivalent to the Hornet's SA page). Thankfully it was not an issue as we had little to coordinate between us once we were in the air.

Alistair got booted out of the server twice - though he managed to hit his targets (the fuel tanks) first. Not sure if this was an issue with his hardware or linked to the instability issues referred to above.

Overall this was a simple mission for us and not terribly taxing. To be honest, we prefer having to coordinate more with other squadrons rather than act in apparent isolation. That said, I did ask for a precision strike task so my squadron mates know who to blame!!

Thank you Andrew for another well planned and executed mission night.

[0405 Andrew]

I'd like to run this one again after Duke has run his series, and when the server is running better. I'd be happy to add some stuff for you.

[0405 Andrew]

It's been interesting catching up with Tacview this morning.

I really thought 97 were in trouble, but I see Paul even ended up with a Mig 29 kill!

is this the demise of 97.png (1.6 MiB) Viewed 1187 times

this is not the demise of 97.png (730.86 KiB) Viewed 1186 times

[Paul(Dragon)0043]

Unfortunately it wasn't an air kill, It was on the ramp, took it out with three Laser Guided Rockets. Richard got one on the ramp to.

Paul.

[0405 Andrew]

Yes I saw that, I didn't see Richard's. Superb. Knowing when to hit them is the important bit!
Looks like 97 had a great night.

[Matt]

1(F) Debrief,


Not a great night for us I'm afraid, due to a busy week i had not made it in to check out flights in the miz and therefore we found only one of our flights in the miz (3 harriers instead of six) luckily we only had 4 pilots last night so Chocks took it apon himself to give his seat away as he had other real world commitments to do.


Once on the Hermes we were suffering with dysnc horrendously which lead to myself and Nigel getting piled in to one another with engines off, so start up attempt two and we got our jets off the Hermes and headed for our targets, one jet suffered damage after takeoff so diverted straight for incirlik for repairs prior to meeting us in the AO.


Myself and Nigel conducted a search for the mobile T72's and found them after a little while and they were destroyed eventually, i managed to find the HQ locations by map recce (the waypoints were in my other flight that wasn't in the miz) so managed to destroy that and have an effect on the static BTR group near by, after that i suffered a lag spike while conducting a guns run on the truck convoy which ended up with me hitting the deck.


Hades carried on engaging the T72's until they were destroyed then returned to the Hermes.


Not a great night, however we still had a good effect on targets even with a small flight and less than ideal situations.

Still great work Andrew as always!
Matt.

[309 Geoff]

Help,

Could someone please provide me with a copy of their Track file from last night. I guess you will have to upload it to dropbox, or OneDrive.

Mine is about 114mb, but corrupted. I planned to produce a video of the 97Sqn attack on the airfield. However, my track file shows me lining up for take off on the grass, and exploding after releasing my brakes.

Thanks in anticiation.

[Flyco]

Well, 97 sqn enjoyed the night, but the planning and briefing was a bit thin. No 97 Taxied 6 minutes before our planned brakes off, and entered the runway with 2-3 minutes to go. At this stage the airfield suddenly seemed to be filled with aircraf,t all late for their earlier-than-97 take-off time. We rolled about a minute early to ease the crush and corrected en-route.

Our route was a combination of legs at specified heights (down to 200 ft agl at times) backed up by lakes visible on TGP. Very non-standard but it seemed to work - it's amazing how brave you can be when you can't actually see the disaster waiting 200 ft below your keel. We already knew that of our 4 primary targets, 3 of them were indestructible, and between the IP and Target, we found that 60% of the fourth target (five RWs) had already taken off. We delivered our 48 retarded bombs on time and on target (well 10 seconds late actually).

About 20 nm to our target (we were ~1000 ft agl at this stage - we were illuminated by a pair of Mig -29s, and we called for help on 251.0. We got acknowledgement and continued in. As the lead approached his target with about 2 nm to run, he passed the Migs at the same height and doing around 180 kts - fortunately he didn't see them (target fixation!), and dropped successfully. Nos 2, 3, 4 also dropped on time, on our indestructible targets). Our secondary targets were AFVS parked near the airfield under scattered, but effective tree cover. We killed around 50% of these, with GBUs and LG Rockets, but the foliage made it time consuming and difficult. On the plus side, we found the missing RW scooting around and did them a bit of damage, while Paul and Richard each took out one each of the Migs which had landed a few minutes earlier.

The recovery went according to plan, and all aircraft landed safely, albeit not as elegantly as we would have wished. We also suffered from the 'jumping aircraft' syndrome.

All in all a very enjoyable night was had by all on 97, but there were some very aggravating problems. Firstly, allocating us us indestructible targets was very frustrating - I am not sure that everyone realised that permanent structures on an airfield are just that PERMANENT! Secondly, the lack of oversight and organisation at the departure was very unsettling - this could have been sorted with a 10 minute outline from one of the planners, before starting the sim - I suspect the rush for the runway was not helped by the sim going live before anyone was expecting it. As for our missing RW targets; in real life that will happen, but to plan for the majority of the target to depart before the attackers TOT was a clear no-no. It would also have been nice, if we had known that the airfield we were attacking was the recovery base for the red fighter cover, and to have put some CAP a little closer to us!

In summary, an enjoyable mission for the A-10s but with too many un-necessary frustrations.