12-11-2015, 09:45 PM
School is out
Short, simple no-frills mission. I liked location/milieu and scope of the mission. Infantry action, simple CAS. Pilots even survived the crash and took part to action as infantry. Thanks to fighters of Bravo team, solid job guys, especially when eliminating reinforcements. More missions like this!
Wild Weasels
I liked this one as it was, even if the mission would be real treat with minor changes (I comment technical details in mission release thread). This is good example of a mission where you have lot of fun even if you don't fire a single round. Sometimes laser designator is mightier than a rifle.
Using IR strobes to mark position of friendlies sounded like a good idea at a time, until Evans took danger close LG which was accidentally locked to our Strobe! I had no idea you can lock LG stuff to strobes. Now that I think of it it does make sense but it was nasty surprise. Fortunately there was no casualties but it likely messed up things. I counted at least 2 LGBs hitting our strobes instead of lased targets.
Overall much improvement this time. We split FACs to 2 teams, and each had their own sector. Thanks to Variable for coordinating air team, transport, and pilots for their hard work. It sure wasn't the easiest job and I was glad I wasn't flying. Ground team did great (special thanks to Swedish section for co-operation) and we managed to destroy twice the number of targets this time.
Mission like this really stresses LR and comms discipline. 5-6 pilots and multiple FACs all operating on same channel! Good habit is to formulate message in your head before pressing transmit. My own messages aren't best in this regard as my tongue trips over when I have to talk. Ground team has to pay attention to LR traffic and let one FAC speak at a time unless it is real emergency like active SAM/AAA situation. Overall we did better job with comms this time.
If we want to improve..couple of things. Even more clear comms. Now I was unsure in couple of cases if my 'ordered pizza' aka gun run had made their attack and missed or if they were still maneuvering. When you have many pilots and many FACs, I strongly encourage use names as call signs. It removes ambiguity.
Like:
One attack going on at a time to preserve sanity!
- Air Lead. Stag. Target, marker Victor-4, static truck, on road. Rcmn approach from WEST. Target painted. Over?
- Air Lead copies. Victor-4. X, you're up.
- Stag, X. Going in HOT. (Now fac knows aircraft is really allocated and is lining up)
- Copy, in hot.
- Guns guns guns / bomb away (Announce release. FOV is really narrow in designator on max zoom. FAC knows ordnance is inbound, and if no visual in next few secs he knows to declare miss right away)
- X, Good hit on target / near miss / No visual&clue.
- X copies. RTB/Loitering/bugging out (Important message: THAT attack run is now COMPLETE and Air lead/FAC can work on next one!)
- Air Lead. McGregor. Target I-2...blablabla rinse and repeat.
I don't want to sound like nitpicking, it doesn't have to be that formal, but even small messages clears confusion. I stress that comms discipline was at least OK from my point of view. I have no idea how confusing/fucked up our calls were to guys in air : )
When marking targets to map:
Now both teams marked targets with different colours which was better but we still used general names like tanks, etc. We had several markers with name 'shilka' or 'tank'. Better use unique markers. Example: like A-1. For example A means AAA/Sam threat. V means vehicle. I means infantry. If you want to nitpick, every fac team has own allocated numbers. One team uses numbers > 20 and other < 20.
Examples:
A-1Â
I-31 (sqd, mob)
V-2 (stat)
First means some kind of AAA. Second example means infantry. Info in parentheses means further info, in this case mobile squad. Third example means static vehicle of some type or German ballistic missile from Peenemunde, depending on map / mod : PÂ
Definetely want to try this again, especially if small adjustments are made : )
Short, simple no-frills mission. I liked location/milieu and scope of the mission. Infantry action, simple CAS. Pilots even survived the crash and took part to action as infantry. Thanks to fighters of Bravo team, solid job guys, especially when eliminating reinforcements. More missions like this!
Wild Weasels
I liked this one as it was, even if the mission would be real treat with minor changes (I comment technical details in mission release thread). This is good example of a mission where you have lot of fun even if you don't fire a single round. Sometimes laser designator is mightier than a rifle.
Using IR strobes to mark position of friendlies sounded like a good idea at a time, until Evans took danger close LG which was accidentally locked to our Strobe! I had no idea you can lock LG stuff to strobes. Now that I think of it it does make sense but it was nasty surprise. Fortunately there was no casualties but it likely messed up things. I counted at least 2 LGBs hitting our strobes instead of lased targets.
Overall much improvement this time. We split FACs to 2 teams, and each had their own sector. Thanks to Variable for coordinating air team, transport, and pilots for their hard work. It sure wasn't the easiest job and I was glad I wasn't flying. Ground team did great (special thanks to Swedish section for co-operation) and we managed to destroy twice the number of targets this time.
Mission like this really stresses LR and comms discipline. 5-6 pilots and multiple FACs all operating on same channel! Good habit is to formulate message in your head before pressing transmit. My own messages aren't best in this regard as my tongue trips over when I have to talk. Ground team has to pay attention to LR traffic and let one FAC speak at a time unless it is real emergency like active SAM/AAA situation. Overall we did better job with comms this time.
If we want to improve..couple of things. Even more clear comms. Now I was unsure in couple of cases if my 'ordered pizza' aka gun run had made their attack and missed or if they were still maneuvering. When you have many pilots and many FACs, I strongly encourage use names as call signs. It removes ambiguity.
Like:
One attack going on at a time to preserve sanity!
- Air Lead. Stag. Target, marker Victor-4, static truck, on road. Rcmn approach from WEST. Target painted. Over?
- Air Lead copies. Victor-4. X, you're up.
- Stag, X. Going in HOT. (Now fac knows aircraft is really allocated and is lining up)
- Copy, in hot.
- Guns guns guns / bomb away (Announce release. FOV is really narrow in designator on max zoom. FAC knows ordnance is inbound, and if no visual in next few secs he knows to declare miss right away)
- X, Good hit on target / near miss / No visual&clue.
- X copies. RTB/Loitering/bugging out (Important message: THAT attack run is now COMPLETE and Air lead/FAC can work on next one!)
- Air Lead. McGregor. Target I-2...blablabla rinse and repeat.
I don't want to sound like nitpicking, it doesn't have to be that formal, but even small messages clears confusion. I stress that comms discipline was at least OK from my point of view. I have no idea how confusing/fucked up our calls were to guys in air : )
When marking targets to map:
Now both teams marked targets with different colours which was better but we still used general names like tanks, etc. We had several markers with name 'shilka' or 'tank'. Better use unique markers. Example: like A-1. For example A means AAA/Sam threat. V means vehicle. I means infantry. If you want to nitpick, every fac team has own allocated numbers. One team uses numbers > 20 and other < 20.
Examples:
A-1Â
I-31 (sqd, mob)
V-2 (stat)
First means some kind of AAA. Second example means infantry. Info in parentheses means further info, in this case mobile squad. Third example means static vehicle of some type or German ballistic missile from Peenemunde, depending on map / mod : PÂ
Definetely want to try this again, especially if small adjustments are made : )