Multiplayer Snowfox Missions from 12.27.21
Posted: 28 Dec 2021, 08:01
Several sorties last night, each one was a success:
Sortie 1: Strike SAMs. Trichome and I worked the island striking the SAM sites. I was using HARMs in PB mode for the first time in combat. Unfortunately, they did not find a target since the SAMs went cold. I also ended up nearly going into a flat spin while being shot at because I was too busy looking at my HARMs. I turned on the Hornet's spin recovery mode and let go of the controls. The FCS took care of the rest! That was the first time I ever used it, and the FCS brought back into controllable flight! I finished off the SAMs with my Mavericks; mission success.
Sortie 2: Strike Artillery. First started out messing with Xpen on the Tarawa by giving them an airshow, haha. After Xpen took off, I used the FLIR to lock and track him to form up with him in formation. WE arrived as a strike package and worked the island for artillery. My Maverick killed the last one for mission success. We headed back together to Khasab to meet Trichome there for the next sortie.
Sortie 3: Strike more Arty. It's not fun until you tease Trichome into showing off he's Navy by having him land ashore with his tailhook down! Then a quick refuel and rearm and we are off. Formed up as a strike package with Xpen in the lead and me and Tri on the wing. Tuning in Trichome's laser, I found the target he was looking for with my FLIR. Trichome was first to strike with JSOW, then Xpen with GBU, then myself with GBUs. WE continued to work the target area, each one of us taking turns to attack in order to deconflict with each other. At one point (19:55) all of our weapons hit targets at pretty much the same time! My last Maverick took out the last artillery potion -- mission success. Xpen got hit by AAA on the egress, but had a good ejection and I marked his coordinates with the Hornet's nav system. Trichome and I returned to Stennis. On final, my headset battery went dead and I had to bolter. I struggled to reboot and plug in my cord for my headset while keeping flying, so I was NORDO for quite a while. Got everything back fine and trapped a 4 wire.
Sortie 4: Strike Warehouse and Power Plant. Trichome and I loaded up with GPS weapons. I brought GBU-31 2000 lb penetrators that I ahd set to delay fuse to make sure they punch into the structure then detonate. Trichome did they same. En route we noticed a bandit that seemed uninterested in us but then suddenly turned hot on us. I was able to lock him up in my FLIR and ID him as an Su-24. Shot him down with an AMRAAM, then we continued on to the target area in true strike fighter form. Trichome dropped on the warehouse and destroyed it beautifully--mission success. We were then tasked with destroying the power plant. I locked it with the FLIR, passed the info to the JDAMs, and salvoed them. The JDAMs hit the powerplant, penetrated, then exploded. Beautiful, mission success!
There were some great firsts on these sorties. The first being spin recovery--I'm still wowed by that. NExt was the use of the TPOD to find friendlies for form up or for VIDing potential bandits. Forming up as a coherent package is something we haven't done in a long time, but for the fist time, we were actually systematically working the targets as a package and that was great. Salvoing JDAMs in delayed fuse mode was a first for me as well, and that was great. And a personal first: 4 out of 5 missions complete with the same airframe and without a single loss of my aircraft. This is the first time I can think of where I completed a mission and came back to rearm and refuel in the same airframe this many times. The maintenance guys are going to have this bird down for maintenance for quite awhile!
Everyone did great in these missions. The only thing I think we need to work on is sorting targets. We worked the target area systematically but we didn't really know who was hitting what target very well. That could lead to wasted ordnance dropping on a target the gets hit 2 seconds before your ordnance hits. Any thoughts how to improve that? I tried to call my shots but don't think there's was enough detail in doing so.
Looking forward to Wed night!
v6,
boNes
Sortie 1: Strike SAMs. Trichome and I worked the island striking the SAM sites. I was using HARMs in PB mode for the first time in combat. Unfortunately, they did not find a target since the SAMs went cold. I also ended up nearly going into a flat spin while being shot at because I was too busy looking at my HARMs. I turned on the Hornet's spin recovery mode and let go of the controls. The FCS took care of the rest! That was the first time I ever used it, and the FCS brought back into controllable flight! I finished off the SAMs with my Mavericks; mission success.
Sortie 2: Strike Artillery. First started out messing with Xpen on the Tarawa by giving them an airshow, haha. After Xpen took off, I used the FLIR to lock and track him to form up with him in formation. WE arrived as a strike package and worked the island for artillery. My Maverick killed the last one for mission success. We headed back together to Khasab to meet Trichome there for the next sortie.
Sortie 3: Strike more Arty. It's not fun until you tease Trichome into showing off he's Navy by having him land ashore with his tailhook down! Then a quick refuel and rearm and we are off. Formed up as a strike package with Xpen in the lead and me and Tri on the wing. Tuning in Trichome's laser, I found the target he was looking for with my FLIR. Trichome was first to strike with JSOW, then Xpen with GBU, then myself with GBUs. WE continued to work the target area, each one of us taking turns to attack in order to deconflict with each other. At one point (19:55) all of our weapons hit targets at pretty much the same time! My last Maverick took out the last artillery potion -- mission success. Xpen got hit by AAA on the egress, but had a good ejection and I marked his coordinates with the Hornet's nav system. Trichome and I returned to Stennis. On final, my headset battery went dead and I had to bolter. I struggled to reboot and plug in my cord for my headset while keeping flying, so I was NORDO for quite a while. Got everything back fine and trapped a 4 wire.
Sortie 4: Strike Warehouse and Power Plant. Trichome and I loaded up with GPS weapons. I brought GBU-31 2000 lb penetrators that I ahd set to delay fuse to make sure they punch into the structure then detonate. Trichome did they same. En route we noticed a bandit that seemed uninterested in us but then suddenly turned hot on us. I was able to lock him up in my FLIR and ID him as an Su-24. Shot him down with an AMRAAM, then we continued on to the target area in true strike fighter form. Trichome dropped on the warehouse and destroyed it beautifully--mission success. We were then tasked with destroying the power plant. I locked it with the FLIR, passed the info to the JDAMs, and salvoed them. The JDAMs hit the powerplant, penetrated, then exploded. Beautiful, mission success!
There were some great firsts on these sorties. The first being spin recovery--I'm still wowed by that. NExt was the use of the TPOD to find friendlies for form up or for VIDing potential bandits. Forming up as a coherent package is something we haven't done in a long time, but for the fist time, we were actually systematically working the targets as a package and that was great. Salvoing JDAMs in delayed fuse mode was a first for me as well, and that was great. And a personal first: 4 out of 5 missions complete with the same airframe and without a single loss of my aircraft. This is the first time I can think of where I completed a mission and came back to rearm and refuel in the same airframe this many times. The maintenance guys are going to have this bird down for maintenance for quite awhile!
Everyone did great in these missions. The only thing I think we need to work on is sorting targets. We worked the target area systematically but we didn't really know who was hitting what target very well. That could lead to wasted ordnance dropping on a target the gets hit 2 seconds before your ordnance hits. Any thoughts how to improve that? I tried to call my shots but don't think there's was enough detail in doing so.
Looking forward to Wed night!
v6,
boNes