185th VFS - Sunday 26th July 2015

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Sunday 26th July 2015 - Strong DPRK 17

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Griffin

UNITED KINGDOM
5068 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 26 Jul 2015 : 21:55:36

Flight leads in this Sunday's official campaign mission, "Strong DPRK 17" (Elmo, Ironman, Utopic and Sharpe) 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

Sharpe

UNITED KINGDOM
638 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 27 Jul 2015 : 11:01:22

Panther 1 ESCORT
Panther11"Sharpe". AA3 AG0. RTB
Panther12"Scruffy". AA1 AG0. RTB
Panther13"Sabre". AA1 AG0. RTB
MS

Briefed flight plan: Our original flight plan was (in conjunction with Lobo 1), to sweep the airspace from the east of the target area while Lobo swept the airspace west of the target area, then fall into mutually supported CAP’s west and east of the target area (about 20nm apart). This was in order to deal with two separate groups that were identified as a threat to the package.

Outcome: As we turned west towards the sweep area we encountered the first group of Mig-29’s, shot them down and moved forward. We were then confronted by another 2 groups of 2 Mig-29’s. These were also dealt with. As moved towards the northern limit of our CAP area, it was clear the airspace was very hot.

We then engaged two groups of Mig-29’s that appeared on our RWR’s to our front (this would have been about 20nm east of the CAS area and perhaps 10-20nm north of it). ACMI shows these were in fact J-11 active shooters and Mig-29A (semi active) shooters. As luck had it, Panther targeted the lead group (which was the J-11’s) and neutralised them (1 kill and 1 hit that forced the 2nd aircaraft to RTB to Pusan). At this point Falcon was clearing the AO and Panther flew a hot leg to cover their exit while they were being chased down by further Mig 29’s.

At this point Panther was starting to get low on spears, but still attempted to continue the fight in that area until the abort call (RED FLAG) was given by the package commander not long after Falcon cleared the AO. Panther lingered for an extra minute or two to ensure aircraft in the AO were able to get clear and were not being chased, then RTB’d.

Landing was rather eventful as an aircraft from an earlier flight had a rough landing but had not announced the blocked lane on tower freq, this led to a near collision with a member of Panther flight who narrowly evaded the aircraft, but went off the runway as a result of the evasive manoeuvre.

Learning Points:

Package:
Comms seemed really good and cudos to Ironman as PC – a good job well done.

There was some discussion in the debrief about how far away Panther was to the main action. I think it’s fair to say that the plan in theory was a good one, but was let down in execution by the number of aircraft between us and the AO. My bad guys, apologies to the package. However;

- A point was made that perhaps Panther ‘activated’ more aircraft as a result of their presence. I disagree with this completely, the presence of the package alone would have meant those aircraft would have gone towards the AO one way or another. 6 of the groups encountered by Panther (x3 SU25 and x4 Mig 29) were in the area before the package took off and would have diverted towards the package area one way or another (they were within 40nm of the fight).

- A further point was made that Panther was too far away to provide support. This is a fair point and in future planning the lesson learnt is to keep together as a package. While it is possible that Panthers position east of the target area may have drawn off some air assets, it’s still better to fight together than be separated with enemy in (or moving towards) the middle, and its not worth fighting to get into that position when you can take off like it and work it out from there (as a package).

- ACMI shows that Panther did get within effective weapons range of the northernmost limit of the interdiction AO, thus, support to the interdiction element was provided - we were just a bit late - sorry saw a nice pub en-route ;) Also, Panther was in a position to cover Falcon and Lobo’s exit from the AO as they turned for home, Panther flew a hot leg to cover the withdrawal, so buy the end of the night we were roughly in position.

- All flight paths are briefed in detail before flight, anyone can hop in if something looks amiss.

On landing an aircraft blocked the runway and did not notify anyone on tower freq. This points towards two failings: 1, the failing of the pilot in question to warn people in the landing stack behind. 2) Every pilot behind the stranded pilot who did not visually check the runway was clear/safe to land on. There is a clear lesson to all of us here.

Flight:
Good coms in flight, but owing to a number of newer pilots in Green flight, coms flow should be restricted as while the experienced pilots are able to process the information, the new guys are struggling to sort the relevant from the ‘not relevant to them’.

Further training for Green flight was requested (and is required) for all members, particularly in the A-A environment and for SA. This will be arranged by Sharpe in the current absence of Skal, and will be due to start in ASAP, noting that Sharpe currently has a Cadet going through IQT.

Great work from Scruffy who got a kill and a clean RTB on his first flight out with the VFS since being badged – well done mate and welcome to Green flight, hope we didn't scare you off!

- Sharpe

PS: I think fun was had by all during this flight - perhaps its worth continuing with the campaign and doing CAS/Escort and perfecting our skills in that area - even if the campaign is probably not going our way?

Ironman

UNITED KINGDOM
604 Posts
Status: offline

Posted - 27 Jul 2015 : 19:41:13

Mission – Strike
Falcon 11 Ironman 1-0 RTB
Falcon 12 Crowebar 0-0 RTB
Falcon 13 Mango 1-0 RTB’ish
We all got off the ground in good order – no AI’s cocking things up this week, which was nice.
During Ingress the Escort fights were well spread from the strike package – and I know some comments were made about the distances – BUT as PC I was relaxed about the distances as we had 2 good flight leads in charge and to be honest they knew where we were and we knew where they were.
I trusted their judgment and their actions based on what they could see on their scope rather than what I could see on mine. As PC it is not my job to micro manage the other flight leads – it is my job to assess the whole situation and the risk/reward balance of pressing on or turning back (RED FLAG).
Falcon did have to delouse towards Panther 1 that’s no criticism of Panther flight after all we are there for each other. When we came under attack I called CAT1 for Falcon flight as it was obvious we were never going to get into the target area and drop our iron.
That said I did hand off the decision to go in hot to Fury who still had cover, albeit depleted, from Lobo flight.
Summary – I thought this was a MS for all flights, could we have done it differently – YES could we have done it better – we will never know ;0)