Cyrus

Second try. Following the intercept procedures of the kneeboard (South to North, 4000 ft AGL over the runway), I got the radio traffic that the F-16 understood that the message. After having circled Lincoln County for a while, the F-16 decided to make a landing attempt... when it suddenly broke off as it was approaching the runway! I did not understand it at first, my fuel dwindling further in the meantime, but then I saw this: The tanker, KC-135 'Shell', had decided to land at Lincoln County and reserved the runway for itself. Given the length of this airstrip it ran off the runway at the other end and disappeared (having landed, according to the mission results.) The F-16 next to the KC-135 is one of the Polish or Dutch planes attempting to get some fuel off the tanker. Then, at last, the F-16 made another attempt and landed. Pfew... 1700 kgs fuel left and back to Nellis. Metal 01 asked me to dial the radio to 'Package', but there was no debriefing. Radio traffic with approach, tower and ground worked correctly. I also got a 'Mission complete' message and a 90% result.

I did not do that! Well, when I landed I lowered the gear, but the F-16 was quite far away then. So, let's try the mission again.

I encountered an issue with mission 14. The mission initially progressed well and I intercepted the defecting F-16, admittedly a tad late. After wiggling my wings the F-16 started following me and mission command directed me to escort the aircraft to Lincoln County airport, which I duly did. (I sent my wingman to the tanker.) However, when I flew over Lincoln Country airport nothing happened, no new radio messages etc. So I descended lower and circled the airport and its surroundings, finally I landed on the airport in the hope the F-16 would follow. It did not and kept circling. Neither did I have new F-10 radio options. So I refueled, took off and headed to Nellis. The F-16 followed me for a while, then broke off, turned and landed at Lincoln! (Out of fuel?) However, there were no radio messages, nor a debriefing. The radio messaging at approach (WP7 Apex), Tower and ground worked, plus I got a 'Mission Complete' notice. Though, the results were only 50. I assume something is supposed to happen when you arrive at Lincoln County airport. Otherwise, nice mission.

Yeah, hunting Gazelles is great! All Mirages except mine were shot down. My plane was hit by 2 mistral missiles, but the cannon still worked and I managed to get back to Nellis.

Yesterday I did the mission for the third time and decided not to hunt the Mirages 2000-5F to avoid all wingmen crashing on the return trip due to lack of fuel. (They refuse to 'hit the tanker'.) After shooting down the F-5Es and a few circles I turned back to WP6 and then RTB, together with the Tornado IDS. The Mirages simply landed at Tonopah soon after spawning. The curious thing is that then the radio traffic ceases. You are probably meant to shoot the Mirages down and thereby trigger new messages. Though I was able to get the ground traffic messages at Nellis, I did not receive a 'Mission complete' message.

Finally arrived at mission 10. The following issue was encountered. After the German Tornado IDS aircraft have started bombing the Roland SAM systems and your Chevy 01 flight has defeated the F-5Es, AWACS informs you of a pop-up group near Tonopah airport at 25-30 nm. When you fly towards this group, you find that the two Mirage 2000-5F are busy landing on the airport instead of trying to intercept the Tornado's or your flight. In fact, one is generally already on the ground driving down the runway. I have played the mission twice so far and this always happens. I assume the intent was for the Mirage 2000-5Fs to try to engage you. Perhaps another thing is that the F-15C flight that is tasked with removing the enemy CAP-flight is always shot at by the SA-11. Otherwise, a nice atmospheric mission.

Second attempt at the mission. First, a change of tactics. Previously, the main problem was the F-4Es disrupting Chevy and Metal flights by raining AIM-7s on them so I gave different orders. 1) Metal (F-16) was to attack the F-4Es (and thus disrupt their flight and prevent them from realizing their BVR advantage vs the M-2000C that had ruined my first attempt at this mission) 2) Max' Chevy 04 was to attack the F-14s. 3) Me and my wingman were positioned North of Chevy 4 and attacked in a ESE direction against the F-4s and F-5s. [4) I turned on labels] 5) Monster (GR4) flight was ordered to join into the fray later on when two F-5s popped up. I left the engagement distances to the AI. Totally different results! The F-16s' AIM-120Cs wrecked havoc on the F-4Es and nearly totally prevented the F-4s from conducting a good BVR fight. Hence, the M-2000Cs (Chevy 4) survived the initial stage and, together with Metal 01, ended up in a furball with the F-4s and F-5s. This did not end well for the Iranian aircraft. With this new approach the F-14s were not engaged immediately and were able to fire all their AIM-154s and AIM-7s at leisure from a distance before ending up in WVR with only their AIM-9s still on board. This resulted in two F-16s going down following AIM-154 hits. With the Super 530Ds I managed to destroy one F-5E, damage one F-4 which then attempted to run from the fight, shoot down one F-14 using cannon (!) and damage the second F-14 with a Magic II (left engine and left vertical stabilizer gone, but still flying and trying to run for home). Survivors: - All six Mirages! - One F-16A MLU - All GR4s (one of which shot down a F-5E) All Iranian planes were downed. 100% success! So, different tactics and the randomness of the DCS universe produced an entirely different outcome. :)

I just got to mission 6 and played it once. My DCS experience is limited to your default Mirage 2000C campaign in Georgia, which went really well. My plan of action was to send off the F-16A MLUs (Metal 01) to fight the 2 F-14s, the Mirage flight to combat the F-4Es and my wingman to fight 'bandits' in general. I let the decision on the enagagement distances to the AI. The results were quite appalling :noexpression: The initial salvo of AIM-54s and AIM-7Ms (Ms in Iranian service?) threw Metal and Chevy flights in disarray and allowed the Iranians, including the F-5Es, to close in fast. My own plane seemed to have been the primary focus of the F-14s' AIM-54 missiles and I spent most of the time evading these. My flight was annihilated quickly and my plane received a surprise AIM-9 hit from a F-5E that the missile warning system had not detected. The survivors were 1 Mirage 2000C that had strayed from the battlefield, 3 F-4Es with some missiles left on their rails and 1 F-5E. Overall, the amount of enemy aircraft was quite overwhelming given that: 1) I am still a beginner and cannot compensate for my side's deficiencies through sheer skill. I was mostly busy dodging missiles and retrieving some sense of situational awareness in between. I play with labels off. 2) The Mirage 2000C is a poor BVR platform and carries few missiles. The Mirage flight was simply swamped by the F-4Es raining a steady amount of AIM-7Ms on them and then their numerical inferiority in the ensuing furball with the F-4Es and F-5Es. Looking through the results afterwards showed that the main killers were actually the F-5Es that had managed to sneak in under the hailstorm of AIM-7s and AIM-54s! My suggestion would be to eliminate the F-5Es and downgrade the AIM-7M to the AIM-7F (or worse) on the Iranian F-4Es. I am going to retry the mission tomorrow with the F-16s attacking the F-4Es, probably joined by the Max' Chevy flight and me and my wingman going for the F-14s. I may turn on labels (dots) to aid me. EDIT: Monster flight did nothing and remained on station.

Teeter indeed does not respond to orders to 'engage bandits' or 'my target', but he does respond to 'cover me' (or something like that). After the latter command, Teeter proceeded to engage the enemy MiGs, albeit unsuccessfully.

Thanks for the updated mission! I was now able to finish it. There is still one issue remaining: flightlead does not leave the HAS until my Mirage is near the runway. The consequence is that I took off first and had to to holding pattern until flightlead was in the air. I restarted the mission and tried waiting for flightlead to come out at a point that I could just peak into his HAS, but he remained there until I had taxied almost onto the runway. Meanwhile I have finished the campaign. Great job Baltic Dragon, I really enjoyed it. The Mirage 2000C is my first DCS aircraft and this was my first campaign. Really accessible for a beginner.