We took off to the east, turning west and climbing to FL280. Mango went out to one mile spread on my left and we headed to the target area.
We did not encounter any air threats during the ingress and Mango went in to take out the SA-2 radar. The first confusion arose when he could still see the "2" in the HAD even after he expended both of his HARMs. I was about to engage when I got a MiG 29 RWR alert so we went A-A.
The group was a two ship. We warned Cyborg but they were close to weapon release on their target so we pushed on to clear the area.
Mango launched at both aircraft but both his missiles tracked the eastern most MiG and took it down. The other ran to the north with one of my slammers chasing him.
Meanwhile Cyborg held off to the east ready to assist and their strike attack had been completed.
I pushed on at the returning MiG-29 only to be jumped by scrambled MiG-21's from nearby Kimpo who took me down, but not before Mango was killed.
On review of the ACMI it showed that Mango had gone for the wrong SA-2 and taken out it's Spoon Rest radar.
Ingress was uneventful. Mudhen informed us they were engaging SA-2s. We pressed on target. Within a few seconds of our LGB attack we got a call about MiG-29s. Given how close we were decided to press on target. Dropped two GBU-10 as a pair each on targets. For both aircraft first LGB away just dropped vertically, must be a bug when dropping LGB in pairs. Both remaining LGBs hit targets although chemical complex wasn’t shown as hit for some reason on debrief. Processor was destroyed. Hence MF.
As we turned from target we got Spiked by MiG-29 to our front. Turned cold to gain separation and support Mudhen1. As they engaged MiG-29 they were bounced by 2x MiG-21 scrambling under them. Cyborg1 went to Delouse but Mudhen11 was hit before we got there. Cyborg11 engaged remaining MiG-29 with Slammer C and splashed it while instructing #2 to engaged MiG-21s. Unfortunately he didn't pick them up and they got close to #1. #1 fired a Slammer at under 3nm and splashed one of the MiG-21 before turning cold and requesting a delouse from #2. Unfortunately #2 mistakenly fired at #1, who was low on energy defensive from the MiG and splashed him, friendly fire.
#2 ran from the remaining MiG-21, which was splashed by Patriots closer to base before landing.
Learning points from this mission were better comms within Cyborg to confirm engaged targets. It was also clear that several weeks of campaign mission milk runs had added some rustiness in A2A engagements. Will shake this off over the next few weeks and campaign should be more challenging going forward.
Here We Go - Part 1 (27th October)
Posted - 23 Oct 2019 : 12:30:09
