I know Im the new guy, but I wanted to say last nights missions were great. It was awesome to work towards a single goal - Keeping Xpendable alive - so he could move some mud. Even the way we were rotating on and off targets felt right.
We've flown a lot of missions but these ones felt different.....more coordinated.
Cheers!
From Grifter:
Definitely something we should always strive for. We were doing more coordinated work a few years ago, but then I think we've grown more lax again as of late. We can certainly strive for this type of flying moving forward. I know it's really easy to just want to get your hops/kills in, but we will all last a lot longer in the fail and increase our chances of coming home in one piece if we bother to rally up at a designated point, or at least communicate what we're doing to the team so that make decisions more effectively.
Trichome,
Glad you really enjoyed it. I always like when we have a singular objective, and we form a package rather than a bunch of lone wolves.
Grifter,
Agreed. How we used to do it more often as opposed to now is an example of what I was telling you about last year about us becoming complacent. It does the job, but being by not being complacent, we are much more efficient and deadly.
What also really helps is having a JFACC like Hammer was doing. MOSt of us who are in cockpit don't have the time or luxury to be an AWACS and assign targets efficiently, so having one is helpful.
Videos below:
v6,
boNes
"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot
Monday night was a lot of fun, and I super appreciate all of the air support you guys have been providing. That said, I also don't want to be the only one who gets a chance to ground pound. I have no problem letting someone else get in there and get some ground kills first. While I can't really provide an A/A support role with the Harrier and I don't know the weapon systems on any of the other modern jets (I used to know the F-14 but have forgotten most of it), there's some other things I could do. I can help buddy lase some ground targets while somebody else drops laser-guided bombs. I could also provide a CAS (close air support) role and be ready to drop in with munitions when called but - otherwise waiting on station in the air. Let me know what you think. I'm as flexible as I'm Xpendable... lol!
The key is communication. It always has been communication. We did a great job last night calling out and confirming threats. Xpendable, that's very gracious of you, but I wouldn't worry too much. I did mostly air to air last night, but did manage to get in some ground kills once I figured out that settings were conflicting my Litening pod. :-)
The role fits the Harrier and you're certainly good at it. If there isn't a lot of ground targets it makes sense to me for you to take the role (and Panzer in his Su25) and the rest cover. Maybe some mixed A2A and A2G loadouts incase.
Either way we'll figure it out come mission time and hopefully make the enemy pay....
Air coverage would be good in that case, with some air guys carrying ground ordnance for redundancy and backup should the main strike force fail.
v6,
boNes
"Also, I would prefer a back seater over the extra gas any day. I would have 80 pounds of flesh to eat and a pair of glasses to start a fire." --F/A-18 Hornet pilot
