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F-14B Dynamic Campaign: EastMed Fleet Defense


MBot

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Soviet Black Sea Fleet naval aviation is threatening NATO sea lines of communication in the Mediterranean. To keep vital SLOC open, Sixth Fleet has ordered the Saratoga Carrier Battle Group into the Eastern Mediterranean in an effort to blunt Soviet offensive operations and attrit their naval bomber force.

 

This mini-dynamic campaign servers to explore the Tomcat's fleet defense mission. This is a limited scenario, putting the Saratoga Carrier Battle Group against a Soviet Tu-22M3 Backfire maritime strike division. There is no elaborate story-line or strike operations, just pure fleet defense. You win the campaign by running the Soviets out of bombers, you loose the campaign when your carrier gets hit. Emphasis is on carrier ops, air-air refueling, combat air patrol and interception of multiple supersonic targets.

 

Expected campaign duration is usually 3-5 missions. Enemy strength, attack direction and timing is random for each mission, so if you enjoy the basic mission type this campaign should provide some replayability. The first campaign mission is fixed as a necessity for integration with the DCS campaign interface, it is therefore set up as a light introduction. It can be played fully or quit at any time without any adverse effects on campaign progress.

 

The campaign takes place on the Black Sea map due to lack of better options in DCS currently. You will quickly notice that the Black Sea, legal issues aside (which would be void in wartime anyway), would be too small to operate a carrier battle group in a hostile environment. The carrier's defensive screen would basically overlap with the enemy's own air defenses. You have to apply a little imagination and assume that the campaign takes place in the Eastern Mediterranean instead and that the Soviet Backfire strikes are coming across Turkey from their home bases on the Crimea. Hopefully in the future we will get more appropriate maps for these types of scenarios.

 

I am pretty proud about this campaign. The scenario might seem comparatively simple, but considerable effort was made to make it work. The involved units, tactics and force levels are fairly realistic to the best of my knowledge and inherent limitations of DCS. The Backfires will apply dangerous simultaneous, multi-axis, supersonic attacks with squadron sized groups. Soviet doctrine assigned one maritime strike division per carrier, which is what is being portrayed here. In fact, the 2nd GvMRAD on Crimea had a 3rd Tu-16 Badger strike regiment in addition to two Backfire regiments, which is missing here as we do not have this AI aircraft. Also, each strike regiment (Backfire and Badger) would have had its own support squadron of dedicated Tu-16 escort jammers and electronic warfare aircraft, which are obviously missing here too.

 

 

DOWNLOAD

 

 

If you already have the Dynamic Campaign Engine installed, you need to update it to v20200111.

 

Installation:

1. Download Dynamic Campaign Engine and extract to "...\Saved Games\DCS\Mods\tech".

2. Download EastMed Fleet Defense campaign and extract to "...\Saved Games\DCS\Mods\tech\DCE\Missions\Campaigns".

 

Make sure that your install directory is 'Saved Games\DCS'. If you need to install it under DCS.OpenBeta:

a) Adjust filepath in camp_init.lua from 'Saved Games\DCS to 'Saved Games\DCS.OpenBeta'.

b) Edit FirstMission.bat to point to your DCS installation directory

c) Run FirstMission.bat

 

 

MissionScripting.lua modification:

Dynamic Campaign Engine requires the following modification of your DCS installation to work. Open the file "...\DCS World\Scripts\MissionScripting.lua" with a text editor. Add two minus signs in front of line 16 "sanitizeModule('os')" and line 17 "sanitizeModule('io')". The code block from line 16 to line 20 should then look like this:

 

--sanitizeModule('os')
--sanitizeModule('io')
sanitizeModule('lfs')
require = nil
loadlib = nil

 

NOTE: This modification has to be repeated after every update of DCS World, as each update reverts the file back to its original state.

 

WARNING: This modification will allow the execution of any LUA code included in any downloaded and played custom DCS mission and is potentially harmful to your system. Modification at your own risk.

 

 

Notes:

- S-3B Tanker as placeholder for KA-6D (pending KA-6D AI by Heatblur)

- CVN-74 Stennis as placeholder for CV-60 Saratoga (pending Forrestal-class by Heatblur)

- Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate as placeholder for every USN ship

- Alert 5 fighters are set up to launch and intercept incoming AS-4 missiles with AIM-54. This has been working 6 months ago but is now broken due to a DCS bug, so interceptors will currently do nothing.


Edited by MBot
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  • 3 weeks later...

- Alert 5 fighters are set up to launch and intercept incoming AS-4 missiles with AIM-54. This has been working 6 months ago but is now broken due to a DCS bug, so interceptors will currently do nothing.

 

Latest patch has fixed this by the way. I just watched the two Alert 5 birds take out 12 incoming AS-4. The Tomcat at work at what it does best, beautiful :)

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I flew a really nice mission this afternoon, so I figured I would share a little After Action Report. Sorry no screenshots though as I was in VR.

 

Intel reported a Soviet air raid was imminent so the battle group was up in arms. Threat axis was north-east, VF-74 would CAP the eastern sector, VF-103 the northern sector. I was assigned to cover the eastern CAP with a two-ship for 1 hour.

 

Heading out from the carrier, the Hawkeye was reporting a couple individual contacts lurking around far out in the periphery of the fleet. Probably Bear-D maritime patrol aircraft holding contact. As we expected worse to come soon, we would not let these draw out and drain our forces. But shortly before I reached my CAP station, AWACS started to call out a ton of additional contacts to the north-east. A quick mental recap showed that these would fall into the responsibility of the northern sector, even though just barely. Since I was actually some minutes early, the previous flight in my sector was still on station and it seemed as these would head north and help out there. I therefore decided to hold out at my station for a moment, let the situation develop and try to get a better picture. This was for the better, as soon AWACS reported new contacts at bearing 120, deep in my sector. Time to get to work.

 

Dropping tanks, lighting the burners I accelerated to M1.8 and initiated the intercept. Soon tracks started to build up on TWS and between 60 and 30 NM I launched my four AIM-54. Two missiles scored, two missed. At about 10 NM I could make out the Bandits, starting to move left to right quickly. More by luck than by design, the intercept geometry worked out beautiful, resulting in the best supersonic stern conversion I ever had. Pulling 8G, I rolled out about 5 NM behind the leading two Backfires, doing still well above M1.5. But the Backfires were faster still and distance was opening. I locked up the rear Backfire and launched two AIM-7. Both missiles were unable to run down the bomber, but I could observe it jettisoning its AS-4 missile and going defensive. Good enough. I eventually passed the bomber as it turned away but decided to stay with the lead Backfire that was still running in on the the carrier battle group with a 6 ton AS-4 anti-ship missile on board. Now devoid of Phoenix and Sparrows, my Tomcat was accelerating again and I started to gain on the lead bomber. Distance to the carrier was still 240 NM but time was running out quickly. 2 NM behind the bandit and passing M2.1 I launched a Sidewinder which blew the bomber out of the sky. Meanwhile my wingman killed another 3 Backfires behind me. With fuel down to 4000 lbs and a good 200 NM back to the ship, it was time to put the Tomcat into cruise mode and head home.

 

With a little time to spare, it was good opportunity to have a look at how the rest of the fleet defense battle was going. It seemed only a very small group of 6 bombers was coming through our sector, which we completely destroyed. But 20+ Backfires were concentrating in the northern sector, overwhelming the local CAP. VF-103 managed to down 7 bombers but could not prevent 18 Backfires from breaking through and launching their missiles. After delivering their payloads, the bombers accelerated to mach 2 as they departed the area, becoming virtually untouchable.

 

As the strike began to materialize, the carrier launched the Alert 5, two Tomcats armed with 6 Phoenix each. As the big salvo of AS-4 missiles begin to dive towards the battle group, the Tomcats climbed out on full burner and opened up with their AIM-54, destroying 12 AS-4 in the process. The remaining missiles were easily dealt with by SAM from the carrier escorts. The Soviet strike was defeated. While the concentration of bombers achieved a breakthrough in the thinly spread outer outer defenses, the concentration of missiles from a single direction actually benefited their mass destruction by the Tomcat/Phoenix combo of the Alert 5. It turned out to be a good decision that I refrained from diverting my attention to the northern sector. Had I not the checked the group coming from the east, the additional simultaneous missile salvo from this direction would in turn have overwhelmed the Alert 5. Some cool insights into fleet defense tactics right there :)

 

Coming back to my own aircraft, I planned to hit the recovery tanker before landing. But about 20 miles out from the tanker, it shut down its TACAN and left its station (perhaps having been dried up by another receiver). I now turned directly to the carrier and trapped a 3 wire with 1900 lbs fuel remaining.

 

With the battle group remaining save, the mission was a success. One of our Tomcats was lost due to fuel starvation. While the Soviets took considerable losses, the bulk of Backfires managed to retreat successful and both maritime strike regiments remain on sufficient strength for additional heavy follow-up strikes.

 

 

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Edited by MBot
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Yes, coop is possible in principle by changingthe Player (and his wingmen if desired) to Client in the mission editor before hosting. Half a year ago we made a playthrough with 2-3 players which worked well. You need to figure out the right sequence of unpausing-pausing and spawning though (I forgot it) to prevent rubberbanding-collisions. Also stats tracking in the scoreboard is a little bit wonky if two clients occupy the same aircraft.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Awesome campaign!! I do have a few questions about this campaign... I have it installed and running in DCS and have completed a few missions.

 

 

There are waypoints shown in the mission planner but when I have Jester call up a waypoint the HSD is not pointing me to the correct heading.

 

 

Is there a way to command a launch of the alert aircraft?

 

 

I use a valve index vr headset, the campaign crashes steam vr and DCS when I quit out of a mission and the command window and mission result windows are brought up. Does anyone else experience this?

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Regarding the waypoints, there is the F-14 specific issue of deck sliding. This can degrade your INS alignment to the point where it will accumulate massive navigation errors. The effect varies, but I have already seen something like a 100 NM error after one hour. Deck sliding has been reported for along time and we are still waiting for a fix.

 

You cannot manually launch the Alert 5. Interceptors will be launched automatically when a side's early warning network (in this case the Hawkeye) detects and tracks hostile aircraft a defined distance from airbases/carriers. The Alert 5 is set up so that they can catch incoming AS-4 in their final flight phase (when the missiles descend and slow down, becoming easier targets). I assume you would like to launch the Alert 5 earlier so that they can get the bombers, but considering that the Backfires run in at about mach 1.8, deck launched interceptors will never make it in time to the bomber's launch point 200 NM from the carrier.

 

I have been playing with the Reverb recently which also uses Steam VR but I didn't have any crashes.

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Is this the mini campaign with 3 missions that's in DCs already? (may have been added along with the Gulf maps)

Played first mission last night. Launched in VF-11 with 4 AIM-54C, 2 AIM-7M and 2 AIM-9M, and we were pretty successful. All my long and medium range missiles scored hits, and we've been told to RTB. All mission went OK, but I landed too hard after a wave off, resulting in a crash...

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Hi,

 

Got a problem. First mission, I have to intercept 2 bombers.

 

But my wingman doesn't take off, he stays on catapult.

 

After the mission, debriefing opens correctly. I have to alt+tab to see it and then to access to the DOS prompt asking if I accept the result. I say "yes", I generate next mission but DCS is blocked on loading screen (black screen with DCS logo).

 

Tried 2 times, in 2.5.5 and 2.5.6.

 

Any idea?

Talon Karde

Du Talon de qualité, élevé au grain et en plein air, entièrement livré en kit.

Mauvais pilote:joystick: sur DCS: F-14B, DCS: F/A-18C et DCS: Mirage 2000C :wub:

 

-= In Ctrl + E + E + E we trust =-

Blog Takarde Gaming

Envie de tester Shadow de Blade? Tiens, un code de parrainage : ARNJB3VB

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Hi,

 

Got a problem. First mission, I have to intercept 2 bombers.

 

But my wingman doesn't take off, he stays on catapult.

 

After the mission, debriefing opens correctly. I have to alt+tab to see it and then to access to the DOS prompt asking if I accept the result. I say "yes", I generate next mission but DCS is blocked on loading screen (black screen with DCS logo).

 

Tried 2 times, in 2.5.5 and 2.5.6.

 

Any idea?

 

Did you make sure to do the mission script edit?

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Yes, I did the edit, poiting to open beta and all steps indicated.

Talon Karde

Du Talon de qualité, élevé au grain et en plein air, entièrement livré en kit.

Mauvais pilote:joystick: sur DCS: F-14B, DCS: F/A-18C et DCS: Mirage 2000C :wub:

 

-= In Ctrl + E + E + E we trust =-

Blog Takarde Gaming

Envie de tester Shadow de Blade? Tiens, un code de parrainage : ARNJB3VB

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Hi,

 

After the mission, debriefing opens correctly. I have to alt+tab to see it and then to access to the DOS prompt asking if I accept the result. I say "yes", I generate next mission but DCS is blocked on loading screen (black screen with DCS logo).

 

That seems to be a long standing DCS issue. For example I frequently get these freezes in Heatblur's Viggen campaign too.

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That seems to be a long standing DCS issue. For example I frequently get these freezes in Heatblur's Viggen campaign too.

 

Is there a way to solve it? It occured on a fresh unmod install of DCS World.

Talon Karde

Du Talon de qualité, élevé au grain et en plein air, entièrement livré en kit.

Mauvais pilote:joystick: sur DCS: F-14B, DCS: F/A-18C et DCS: Mirage 2000C :wub:

 

-= In Ctrl + E + E + E we trust =-

Blog Takarde Gaming

Envie de tester Shadow de Blade? Tiens, un code de parrainage : ARNJB3VB

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Not that I am aware of, you have to kill DCS in the Task Manager. Fortunately, campaign progress is not affected so it is ultimately just an inconvenience.

In my case I am stuck at mission 1. I accept the debriefing, generate the second mission but killing the app seems to prevent the campaign from progressing to next mission. :cry:

Talon Karde

Du Talon de qualité, élevé au grain et en plein air, entièrement livré en kit.

Mauvais pilote:joystick: sur DCS: F-14B, DCS: F/A-18C et DCS: Mirage 2000C :wub:

 

-= In Ctrl + E + E + E we trust =-

Blog Takarde Gaming

Envie de tester Shadow de Blade? Tiens, un code de parrainage : ARNJB3VB

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Ok that is unfortunate. In that case you can still play the campaign by just playing each mission individually (outside the DCS campaign interface). Just open the next mission (always XYZ_ongoing.miz) like a Single Mission.

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Ok that is unfortunate. In that case you can still play the campaign by just playing each mission individually (outside the DCS campaign interface). Just open the next mission (always XYZ_ongoing.miz) like a Single Mission.

 

But doing so, there is no more dynamic environment, is it correct?

Talon Karde

Du Talon de qualité, élevé au grain et en plein air, entièrement livré en kit.

Mauvais pilote:joystick: sur DCS: F-14B, DCS: F/A-18C et DCS: Mirage 2000C :wub:

 

-= In Ctrl + E + E + E we trust =-

Blog Takarde Gaming

Envie de tester Shadow de Blade? Tiens, un code de parrainage : ARNJB3VB

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@Mbot - I dont know what Im doing wrong. I got your mig21 campaign to work 2x in the past then never again. I got another campaign to work for a joyous couple days and it stopped.

I dont know what Im doing but considering I seem to mess up basic mods or mission installs I think its mt lack of experience.

Can u or some pls help me figure this out? Id be more than happy to play the campaign as single missions old school style. I love the idea of how this works. Im gonna post a smaller similar post on your other thread. Basically I get an error whenthe mission ends and it doesnt save antything.

For example I just started battlegroup delta to try it. It loads. I quit and I ge5

"

Mission script erri[string"c:users/J/appdata/local/temp/dcsV~?mis00007628.lua"]179:attempt t9nindrz localn"?'loggile' (a nil value)

Stack tracevac[c]: ?

[string

"C:/users/j/appdata/local/temp/DCS~MIS00007628.LUA"]:179: IN FUNCTION 'ON EVENT'

[string "scripts/world/eventhandlers.lua"]:13:in

Function <[string "scripts/world/eventhandlers.lua"]:11>

(In regular whitenwindows error box. Ill add the Vs are actually notnVs butba weird V symbol ive never seen before. Pls help guys!!

 

PS yes I have tried r3installs. Yes I update the lua files after game updates. I followed the instructions. Perhaps detailed instructions and some help Id be eternally grateful

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  • 4 weeks later...
@Mbot - I dont know what Im doing wrong. I got your mig21 campaign to work 2x in the past then never again. I got another campaign to work for a joyous couple days and it stopped.

I dont know what Im doing but considering I seem to mess up basic mods or mission installs I think its mt lack of experience.

Can u or some pls help me figure this out? Id be more than happy to play the campaign as single missions old school style. I love the idea of how this works. Im gonna post a smaller similar post on your other thread. Basically I get an error whenthe mission ends and it doesnt save antything.

For example I just started battlegroup delta to try it. It loads. I quit and I ge5

"

Mission script erri[string"c:users/J/appdata/local/temp/dcsV~?mis00007628.lua"]179:attempt t9nindrz localn"?'loggile' (a nil value)

Stack tracevac[c]: ?

[string

"C:/users/j/appdata/local/temp/DCS~MIS00007628.LUA"]:179: IN FUNCTION 'ON EVENT'

[string "scripts/world/eventhandlers.lua"]:13:in

Function <[string "scripts/world/eventhandlers.lua"]:11>

(In regular whitenwindows error box. Ill add the Vs are actually notnVs butba weird V symbol ive never seen before. Pls help guys!!

 

PS yes I have tried r3installs. Yes I update the lua files after game updates. I followed the instructions. Perhaps detailed instructions and some help Id be eternally grateful

 

 

Yes, I just got this too. I completed the intercept on the first mission, was just commencing a Case III descent when the error message popped up. I'm running latest openbeta.

 

 

@Mbot,

 

 

Attached is the log just after the crash. Can you make anything of it?

Cheers!

dcs.txt

W10 Home 64Bit, Intel Skylake I5 6600K 3.50GHz, ASUS ROG Stryx Z270F MoBo, 32GB G.Skill RipJaws V DDR4 3200 RAM, Samsung 960 Pro 512GB M.2 SSD (OS), Samsung 850 Pro 512GB SSD, 2TB Seagate SDHD, 2TB WD Green HDD, GALAX GTX GeForce 1070 EXOC Sniper White 8GB VRAM

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