| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Griffin
UNITED KINGDOM
5068 Posts
Status: offline |
 Posted - 07 Jun 2015 : 21:44:34
|
Flight leads in this Sunday's official campaign mission, "Strong DPRK 11" are requested to post a debrief of their flights actions, including any lessons learned or that should be learned by others.
Please put the following information at the top of your post:
Flight Role: (SEAD, ESCORT, STRIKE, Etc..)
Callsign11: "Pilot's name" AA=X AG=X RTB,MIA/KIA,EJT
Callsign12: "Pilot's name" AA=X AG=X RTB,MIA/KIA,EJT
Callsign13: "Pilot's name" AA=X AG=X RTB,MIA/KIA,EJT
Callsign14: "Pilot's name" AA=X AG=X RTB,MIA/KIA,EJT
Mission Outcome: MS/PS/MF
|
|
|
Zipgun
USA
521 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07 Jun 2015 : 21:57:38
|
Flight Role: ESCORT
Falcon21: Zipgun AA=0 AG=0 EJT
Falcon22: Tank AA=1 AG=0 MIA/KIA
Falcon23: Poppy AA=0 AG=0 EJT
Falcon24: Crowbar AA=0 AG=0 EJT
Mission Outcome: MF
INGRESS was disorganized, but the flight got settled before turning inbound. Near the target, we got jumped by a superior force (6+) at point-blank range. All 4 members were dispatched with a few seconds of each other. |
 |
|
|
Griffin
UNITED KINGDOM
5068 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 07 Jun 2015 : 22:04:33
|
OCA Strike : Avenger 1
No scores and MF.
Had little action to speak of apart from and early split S to avoid the AWACs killers.
I should have called an abort earlier than I did, but in my defence I may have done that if I'd known just how large the enemy air numbers were.
More escort aircraft needed next week methinks.
|
|
|
|
Sharpe
UNITED KINGDOM
638 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 08 Jun 2015 : 10:50:07
|
Coyboy2: SEAD
11: "Sharpe" AA=1 AG=0 RTB
12: "Mango" AA=X AG=0 EJT
13: "Skal" AA=4 AG=0 RTB
Mission Outcome: MS/PS?
Take off delayed slightly due to taxi route error (whoops). Early encounter with Mig29’s that had shot down AWACS on the way in other than that it was a routine ingress. Single Mig destroyed by lead, then back on course.
It was clear that the package was extremely dispersed. I think the Escort flight (Falcon 2) was about 40nm ahead of my flight and I think my flight was about 40nm north of the strike flight (Avenger1).
As we turned north Falcon turned to investigate radar contacts presumed to be landing at target Alpha. However, those aircraft (and others near them) turned hot very rapidly and took out all of Falcon in short order. At this point the package commander asked to see if Cowboy2 was in a position to provide A-A support to get the strike flight to target Alpha only. My initial thinking was that we should give it a go, but in the seconds we were considering it things turned south.
3, who had separated to cover Falcon 2 from the possible SA10 had started to extend away from the threat that took out Falcon 2. However, 3 started getting spiked by 29’s and had to turn in to defend himself. Lead turned towards 3 to try and provide support and recommended to the package commander to abort. 2 separate furballs ensured in which 3 got 4 kills (including a guns kill!), 1 friendly Ai F16 was shot down by 2 (there was no Ai buddy spike and having watched the ACMI I am satisfied that 2 did nothing wrong in releasing his weapon), however, 2 lost SA during drama of the blue on blue and got shot down by an R77 launched at 27nm and ultimately got him as a result of 2’s breech of MAR.
After 2 was shot down 1 and 3 RTB’d without incident.
Learning points:
Flight:
1)Comms were very slow or non-existent in flight. At one point this resulted in delayed A-A release that breeched MAR and significantly hampered the leads ability to direct A-A attacks. I would suggest that Green Flight work on the ‘A-A engagement process’ to get a bit slicker at this and also practice offline. And don’t make the flight lead ask more than once/guess!
2)Formation flying was a little erratic which didn’t help with the information loading, especially on the lead.
Package:
1)Package comms was perhaps 'too good' - I don't think there was enough comms traffic between flights and the package commander. Package commander’s decision to abort came at the right time.
@ Griffin - You asked me if we could provide escort after you saw that Falcon was down. After a minute of two when one of my flight got in trouble I said no and you aborted - there was no reason to call the abort sooner and the loss of Falcon not the fault of a late/delayed abort call. We lost 5 AC, only one of which came after the abort call and that was more my fault and that pilots fault than your fault. Falcon flight got mugged over the target and you were not in a position to abort their air engagement, the best you could have done would have been to bring them back closer to Avenger rather than be out there on their own, but hindsight is 20/20.
2) Loss of AWACS early on was a significant disadvantage but I don’t think this should result in an immediate abort call (as discussed in the debrief). At the end of the day, for PvP we are supposed to call raygun on threats (this was done and no human pilots were lost) and the Ai should respond with ‘buddy spike’ automatically. If this does not happen and a friendly is killed blue on blue (as with my flight) the pilot is not to blame and the CPL takes into account that the Ai can be a little dim-witted from time to time. Total reliance on AWACS to get us to/from target is not a place we want to end up, we should be still be able to get the job done, albeit at higher risk.
3) Package separation was (in my opinion) one reason why we struggled to ‘smash the wall’. With something like 60-80nm between the strike flight and the lead package elements not only are we not able to offer mutual support but we expose ourselves to needing to stay over the target area for longer periods of time than necessary. For every 10 miles of lag between the strike and lead element, that’s about 1.5 minutes of flying at 400knts. So an 80 mile lag is about 12 minutes of flying, that’s a lot of time given free to the red side who are already organising a response to our presence.
In the past, we have had the Escort and SEAD literally on top of each other (using vertical separation and limited linear separating) with the strike flight 5 miles in trail (that’s about 45 seconds). This still provides the strike flight room to get out of dodge, but allows SEAD to support the escort flight in a grinder if required.
In the future we should consider flying the package with no more than 10 miles separation from front to back and utilise package holds/re-joins where appropriate. When your 40nm apart having the lead element slow down reduces their available energy, as the leading AC are often Escort/SEAD it is not a good thing for them to be below 350knts in the cruise and 400knts from the IP. Similarly, when the trailers need to catch up, on long missions (such as the ones we have been flying of late) this adds to the fuel burn on flights where fuel is extremely limited. Apart from anything else, it doesn’t really get the package formed up quickly enough – even on a long leg.
General:
1) The fate of blue flight is reminiscent of a flight a few weeks ago where Mango and I got pounced on from AC scrambling from an air base below us. I sympathise massively with blue flight as there is literally nothing you can do in this position – I doubt they even knew there was a threat so close (even with the AWACS available, we had now warning a few weeks ago).
This leads to the logical conclusion that we should consider our escort/CAP/sweep tactics more carefully when flying over/near active enemy air bases. This discussion should be held offline and not discussed for the first time in a mission briefing. I will set up a thread on the forums for people to put up ideas for how to deal with this and then the escort flights in the future will have a list of options that they can try out.
Here; http://www.185th.co.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7164
-Sharpe
 |
|
|
|
Ironman
UNITED KINGDOM
604 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 08 Jun 2015 : 13:41:56
|
I went to a BBQ as a guest it sounds like BLUE flight went to a BBQ and ended us as a menu item !!!!
 |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
| 185th VFS |
© 2000-2018 185th VFS |
|
|
|
Sunday 7th June 2015 - DPRK 11
