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Operation Snowfox - Persian Gulf PvE Playground


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The current big question for everyone is this ... who is planning on getting the Supercarrier module, and who is not ... I originally intended to replace the Stennis fleet with a Supercarrier fleet when the time comes ... but I am aware this would not be ideal for some people. Also didn't really want to have to put 2 fleets in the same mission, nor do I want to have 2 seperate versions of Snowfox (and Clear Field) where one version is Supercarrier and the other version is not.

 

 

After witnessing extremely slow completion of F/A-18C and F-16C I vowed NOT to purchase any other DCS uncompleted modules. AND YET I have pre-ordered the Super Carrier.

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Anyone wish to share tips on how to successfully complete these missions in SP?

 

Go to the assigned sector and blow up the target.

 

It can be tough though as you need to dispatch air to air assets to help. It's never enough. It's a hard mission to play if you are a ground pounder, but it's good fun.

 

I usually call for air to air, air to ground and SEAD every mission, even if i don't need it. Purely to fill the sky with allied planes so I can sneak in and do the mission.

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Anyone wish to share tips on how to successfully complete these missions in SP?

 

Assuming that you have persistence up and running, then patience is the key. At the very beginning when all the SAM sites are up, it is very hard to break them down. You need to keep chipping away until you eliminate them. Remember each time you blow up a ground unit, you have made progress. And most importantly, use the support requests!

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Anyone wish to share tips on how to successfully complete these missions in SP?

 

TL/DR:

Assuming that you have persistence up and running, then patience is the key. At the very beginning when all the SAM sites are up, it is very hard to break them down. You need to keep chipping away until you eliminate them. Remember each time you blow up a ground unit, you have made progress. And most importantly, use the support requests!

 

I've played through Snow Fox and Clear Field and currently working through Black Spire. This mission is really best served using a multi-role fighter like the Hornet or Viper. I think the Hornet is probably the best at it right now with its ability to carry so many A/A missiles in addition to GBU-38 and GBU-31 (those are the primary A/G weapons I use when I'm by myself). However, the viper and it's CBU-97's are great to clean up large clusters of ground targets. In single player mode, an A-10 would be very very difficult. F-14 could probably be okay, though taking out SA-10 SAMs will be difficult because the targeting pod is so low res (assuming your using the mod that allows you to use the TPOD from the pilot's seat until Heatblur add TPOD support to Jester).

 

Here are some tips I've learned:

 

Tip #1: Take out the major SAM sites first. Ignore the missions until you've destroyed or crippled all the major SAM sites: SA-10, SA-2, SA-3, SA-15 Tor, SA-8 9K33 Osa etc. For the fixed SAM sites, such as SA-10, SA-2, and SA-3, you only need to destroy the tracking radars to make the entire site a non-threat. They do not regenerate (don't get any ideas Surrexen). I've had great success using an F-18 and carrying no more than 2 GBU-38's to attack SA-10's, SA-15 and SA-8's (I only carry 2 so that I can fly higher). SA-3's won't shoot JSOWs, so use those. SA-2's will fire on JSOW's but a standard site can be defeated by firing 4 JSOW's at once.

 

Tip #2: Now that you've got breathing room, engage nearby fighters prior to your ground attack. The spawn times for the enemy fighters can be a bit fast (it's a range) for single player. Be sure you not only take out any fighters over your objective, but any others in adjacent sectors. General rule of thumb is that if they are within 50nm, they're gonna come for you. Sometimes you can lure these enemy fighters out from the cover a SAM site to make it easier to engage them.

 

Tip #3: If you call in air to air support, join up with them and make sure they are out front. Like solidGad mentioned, call in air to air support and SEAD support. SEAD aircraft are typically F-16's or F-18's so they will carry A/A missiles and will try to defend themselves. That gives you 4 friendly fighters to join you over the objective.

 

Tip #4: Consider sending fighter support to an area adjacent to your objective to act as a fighter screen based what you see on your Hornet SA page or Viper HSD with data link. This means that you will more than likely have to engage and clean out on enemy fighter group in your objective but you will then be screened from other sectors by the friendly AI flight. For example, if your objective is in the Bandar Abbas area, that's covered by 3 overlapping fighter patrol areas, send your fighter support to Havadarya instead of Bandar Abbas. This will cover your West flank and even provide some support over the objective. You can even get creative by sending the fighters to a sector to the West of your objective and have the SEAD flight go East of your objective to give you cover from two sides.

 

Tip #5: Consider carrying less A/G weapons in favor of as many A/A missiles as possible. In single player, especially if you aren't calling in support, you'll need as many missiles as you can carry. Honestly, F-18 does this the best right now. If a mission only calls to destroy 2 tanks, well, put two GBU-28's a single pylon, then load up 8 more AIM-120's and 2 AIM-9X. Also consider making two or more trips to complete an objective. Whether that's because you can't carry enough A/G ordnance or you had to run away in the middle of the attack.

 

Tip #6: Don't be afraid to run away. Pressing a bad situation that gets you shot down can cost you more time compared to breaking off an attack and engaging enemy fighters, or simply running away and re-positioning to get a better attack.

 

Tip #7: If a particular mission is causing a lot of headache, just skip it. There's no penalty for that and it will eventually come up again. Sometimes, with the slight randomness of the spawn times and patrol routes, your luck is just against you for a particular session. I've flown missions that I could not catch a break and other times, missions in the same area were no trouble at all.

 

Tip #8: Don't ignore AWACs calles, especially when they say HOT. Keep an eye on your SA page and consider centering the view on your aircraft so nothing sneaks up behind you.

 

Pseudo Tip: JSOW Spam. I've not tried this just yet. But an F-18 can carry 8 JSOW. I don't think that's enough to take out an SA-10 but every thing else should be overwhelmed. If you're lucky enough to get a mission that calls for destroying a SAM site, you won't need the TPOD to find the target, you could simply enter in the precise coordinates, get up to 40,000 feet and let them all fly then run away. You should be able to 40+ miles of range and that's enough distance to be able to stay away from SAMs and enemy fighters.

 

I've been playing these missions almost nightly since Surrexen first created them. So far they are some of the best times I've had in DCS so far. The replay-ability is very high and there is enough randomness that nothing feels like it's on rails. Simply adding one human wingman goes a long way and opens up a lot more options on how to complete a mission.

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Great advice from Super Wabbit!

 

In all honestly, the F18 is probably the best aircraft to tackle these fine missions. I may have to get back into the Hornet. All I really fly lately is the A10C and Harrier, so my A2A capabilities are limited, which is why I get overwhelmed with enemy CAPs. :D

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Super Wabbit's Tip 6 ... totally this. Only press the attack when the time is right. Timing is everything.

 

I guess that should be tip #1!

 

FYI, Operation Black Spire is set in Nevada and there are a few targets that are pretty close, something that might be excellent for the A-10 with a little bit of help from the Friendly fighter support.

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You can also get creative with your loadouts. The F-16 can't carry as many weapons as the F-18, but it has the option of not carrying sidewinders. So you can carry 4 to 6 AIM-120C's to keep enemies at a distance and still have the ability to carry a decent bomb load.

 

With the F-18, I will sometimes sling 2 JDAMs on one pylon then 120C's on the rest if it looks like I'm going to need the extra missiles. The Hornet can dogfight pretty well in an asymmetric loadout, so get creative!

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I guess that should be tip #1!

 

FYI, Operation Black Spire is set in Nevada and there are a few targets that are pretty close, something that might be excellent for the A-10 with a little bit of help from the Friendly fighter support.

 

Yes! Black Spire is my favorite. Great missions. :thumbup:

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I try to take out the SAM-sites first to get some space. So I go to the Mission Editor and create my own waypoints on the SAM-sites ignoring the Mission objectives.

Problem is, that I can only have a Minimum of 30 meters above ground and not 0 for the bombs (which is Logical because this is the Minimum flight hight)

How can I set a ground attack waypoint in the Mission Editor on the ground so that I can select it in the hornet as ground target with WPDSGT for JDAMs and JSOWs?

Or do I have to edit the hight manually in the DATA-screen of each waypoint?

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I try to take out the SAM-sites first to get some space. So I go to the Mission Editor and create my own waypoints on the SAM-sites ignoring the Mission objectives.

Problem is, that I can only have a Minimum of 30 meters above ground and not 0 for the bombs (which is Logical because this is the Minimum flight hight)

How can I set a ground attack waypoint in the Mission Editor on the ground so that I can select it in the hornet as ground target with WPDSGT for JDAMs and JSOWs?

Or do I have to edit the hight manually in the DATA-screen of each waypoint?

 

You could just do skip mission until you pull one of the SAM sites and then use the radio menu target report to get given the target coordinates and altitude.

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Hi Surrexen,

Sorry to abandon you on this, as it seems that I'm the only one using Harrier in those fantastic missions. I've been out for a while but your updates are really fast.

I love the Tarawa addition...you are my mandrinks_drunk.gif Thank you very much!

 

 

Question for those of you that fly Harrier's ... what would be the preferred air to ground loadout when launching from the Tarawa?

 

Edit: Nevermind. Tarawa will be in the next Snowfox update along with 2x Harrier's launching from it. To get around some limitations/bugs with the Tarawa that people have mentioned, the 2 Harrier's will have to be runway starts from position 3 and 4. This will mean if there are 2 Harrier pilots planning on launching from the Tarawa at the same time you will need to coordinate between yourselves or potentially have a collision. Doing a rolling start from the Tarawa from runway position 3 and 4 appears to be perfectly do-able with a full load (something I learnt today in discord, thanks @mcflyjr!). Anyway, that's what is coming. I will see if I can jiggy it up so that the Tarawa has it's own missile defence zone similar to the Stennis.

 

 

 

About the loadout, in my humble opinion the one you have (2xaim9+ 2x122 + 2x65G) it's ok for the most missions the harrier will do at the begining as the first thing you have to do is wipe out the enemy air defense. Also a good loadout is 2xaim9+ 2x122+ 2x38 or 2xaim9+ 2x38+ 2x65g. The aim9 are there just to give you pace of mind...nothing else. The enemy appears, you runs like hell at least they are Sopwith Camel biggrin.gif

Another one for SEAD preplaned targets and pro pilots would be 2xaim9+ 4x38 or 2xaim9+ 2x122+ 4x38.

 

 

The Tarawa defense is a "must have" thing for me but no worries, it's something I can solve easily placing missile systems on shore. The reason is I move it a little to the south to be more confortable and to have a bit longer and challenging missions and quite often enemies chase me till the carrier long away from allied flights...so I need air defense.

 

 

Again, I'm very pleased with this recent update. Thanks!!

Win 7 64bits Sp1; Panda Dome; i7 2600k 3,4gh OC 4,5; 16gb 4x1333 DDR3; Gigabyte GTX1080ti stock clocks; ASUS P8Z68V; OS and DCS on SDD 240gb 2,5"; 500gb HDD; cooler master silent pro 1000w; Track IR 5; Saitek X52; Saitek pro Combat rudder; 2560 x 1440

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Hi Surrexen,

Sorry to abandon you on this, as it seems that I'm the only one using Harrier in those fantastic missions. I've been out for a while but your updates are really fast.

I love the Tarawa addition...you are my mandrinks_drunk.gif Thank you very much!

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the loadout, in my humble opinion the one you have (2xaim9+ 2x122 + 2x65G) it's ok for the most missions the harrier will do at the begining as the first thing you have to do is wipe out the enemy air defense. Also a good loadout is 2xaim9+ 2x122+ 2x38 or 2xaim9+ 2x38+ 2x65g. The aim9 are there just to give you pace of mind...nothing else. The enemy appears, you runs like hell at least they are Sopwith Camel biggrin.gif

Another one for SEAD preplaned targets and pro pilots would be 2xaim9+ 4x38 or 2xaim9+ 2x122+ 4x38.

 

 

The Tarawa defense is a "must have" thing for me but no worries, it's something I can solve easily placing missile systems on shore. The reason is I move it a little to the south to be more confortable and to have a bit longer and challenging missions and quite often enemies chase me till the carrier long away from allied flights...so I need air defense.

 

 

Again, I'm very pleased with this recent update. Thanks!!

 

The Tarawa fleet has it's own missile defence zone already. The zone is pretty tight though :smilewink:

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Great advice from Super Wabbit!

 

In all honestly, the F18 is probably the best aircraft to tackle these fine missions. I may have to get back into the Hornet. All I really fly lately is the A10C and Harrier, so my A2A capabilities are limited, which is why I get overwhelmed with enemy CAPs. :D

 

I tried escorting my friend while he was in an A-10 and I in an F-16. I was able to destroy 4 flights, 3 with AIM-120's and 2 with guns only :/

The fifth enemy patrol popped up before the A-10 could finish his target mission and was shot down while I ran home to reload.

 

Tried the same thing with a Hornet and had better success, though 2 F-14's spawned and well, those Phoenix missiles are hard to avoid...

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The Tarawa fleet has it's own missile defence zone already. The zone is pretty tight though :smilewink:

 

Hi again,

I didn't notice mostly because I got shot down twice on landing at Tarawa being too much confident about the defense. So I put a Hawk site on Fujayrah.

Have you thought about moving the fight to the west of the map too? On the persian Gulf, not just the strait of hormuz...music_whistling.gif Could be another mission, Operation Venom. That would be a "just carriers" allied war against Iran/Russia.....with long pinpoint strikes over targets in populatetd áreas, mountains to cover, very cool.

Win 7 64bits Sp1; Panda Dome; i7 2600k 3,4gh OC 4,5; 16gb 4x1333 DDR3; Gigabyte GTX1080ti stock clocks; ASUS P8Z68V; OS and DCS on SDD 240gb 2,5"; 500gb HDD; cooler master silent pro 1000w; Track IR 5; Saitek X52; Saitek pro Combat rudder; 2560 x 1440

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Hi again,

I didn't notice mostly because I got shot down twice on landing at Tarawa being too much confident about the defense. So I put a Hawk site on Fujayrah.

Have you thought about moving the fight to the west of the map too? On the persian Gulf, not just the strait of hormuz...music_whistling.gif Could be another mission, Operation Venom. That would be a "just carriers" allied war against Iran/Russia.....with long pinpoint strikes over targets in populatetd áreas, mountains to cover, very cool.

 

Not really as the most Western part of the map is low detail and there are no airfields. Otherwise I would have made the whole thing over Kuwait. I have been considering doing a "Phase 2" type operation in the Northern part of the map though. I won't be doing anything for a while though. Most likely the next thing will be working on Operation Jupiter more when more WWII assets get released.

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A verry interesting addition could be for non naval planes to be able to take off from captured runways.

just cleaning around the base and make a C130 land on the base then we can takeoff from there!

Specially from Abu musa, Tumb islands, and so on...

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Great Mission! Will my progress of destruction of the SAM sites be kept also after Installation of a new version of operation snowfox?

 

Yes :thumbup:

 

And you definitely would want the newest version available as it has all the major script fixes in place.


Edited by Surrexen
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Anybody has a tactic to beat these SA- 10 in singleplayer with a hornet?

 

Call in fighter and SEAD support to the area of the SA-10. I would use JDAMs from as high an altitude as you can manage. Don't load your Hornet down too much, maybe just two JDAMs, one on each of the internal wing pylons. Use the TPOD in conjunction with your SA page to locate the tracking radar of the SA-10 site. Thats the tall mast with the flat panel at the top.

SA10-CS.jpg

 

Your TPOD will render at about 42 miles. This should be enough distance to keep you away from the SA-10. It may launch on you but it'll be so far away you can just turn cold to evade the missile. Once located, get the JDAM the coordinates using TOO. If you like, you can then go cold on the site get as high and fast as you can and make a run into the target. Once the JDAM says you're in range, launch the JDAMs and go cold as the SA-10 will probably have fired on you.

 

A single Hornet just can't carry enough JSOWs to saturate an SA-10 site. You might be able to get it to fire almost all its missiles then go in with guns to hit the track radar. Once the track radar is dead, the site is useless. Hope that helps.

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Still enjoying your Mission!

One enhancement I would kindly suggest, maybe you can add this as an optional Feature:

when my Pilot is killed in a Mission, there should be no update regarding destroyed Targets.

Often I get into a dogfight after I attacked a target successfully. This way one has to repeat the Mission if you are not cautious.

What do think?

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Still enjoying your Mission!

One enhancement I would kindly suggest, maybe you can add this as an optional Feature:

when my Pilot is killed in a Mission, there should be no update regarding destroyed Targets.

Often I get into a dogfight after I attacked a target successfully. This way one has to repeat the Mission if you are not cautious.

What do think?

 

This isn't really possible as there could be multiple players attacking the same mission targets. Also would require extensive re-writes of how to deal with targets and the way they are handled with persistence. The mission is challenging enough as it is without punishing players by not counting the ground kills if they don't return to base successfully after a sortie.

 

This is further complicated when being done in single player, where a single mission may take multiple sorties to complete. In that case, it would be even more complicated to deal with.

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Thanks, I see.

Thanks SuperWabbit, I managed to take out most Long range SAM-Sites.

Tipp:

I set waypoints (height 0 MSL will atomatically render 0 AGL) in the Mission-Editor directly on the SAM Radar and attacked with JDAM.

Also as single Player I add 2 wingmen loaded with A-A Missiles in the Mission Editor and order them to attack bandits. This works fine.

Now I will go for the designated Target, wish me luckpilotfly.gif

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