1987 Nordkapp

[Lace]

I'm working on a couple of missions/mini campaign for the Viper.  There will need to be a little bit of poetic licencing involved.  Caucusus in winter rather than Norway.  Modern Viper rather than the correct vintage (though I will attempt to limit it's abilities, i.e. no HMCS, TGP, AMRAAMs, DL etc.).

 

If anyone is interested in flying in some horrible weather over inhospitable seas as the RNoAF attempts to hold at bay the Soviets then I can post them up.  The first mission is done and the second is nearly there.  I have Ideas for 3 and 4.  I'm trying to provide a bit of variety in the mission objectives but without straying too far from reality and the context of the back story (and develop my mission building skillset).

 

SP only at the moment, and due to heavy soviet ELINT presence and jamming very little radio chatter

[Lace]

FLASH MSG

===============================

Z 1417h45 FEB 87

   FM   DEFSTNOR
   TO   BASE COMMANDER

===============================

WARNING ORDER

WARPAC MOBILISATION ON ALL FRONTS.  

EXPECT OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES

IMMINENTLY.

ENSURE ALL OFFICERS READ AND

UNDERSTAND THE DIRECTIVE

===============================

END /////

 

Northern Flank.miz

Edited February 5, 2021 by Lace
Mission attached

[JagHond]

Nordkapp, mate?

 

Interesting. I'm sure not the top Viper driver in the neighborhood, but I'll give a glance to your hard work.

 

With best compliments, BTW, and regards.

[Cpt.Ronin]

Nice idea for a campaign. 

Just completed the first mission!
The wingman wasn’t much help, didn’t takeoff until I was at steerpoint 2, and when he finally rejoined he was bingo fuel and went RTB

[Lace]

1 hour ago, Cpt.Ronin said:

Nice idea for a campaign. 

Just completed the first mission!
The wingman wasn’t much help, didn’t takeoff until I was at steerpoint 2, and when he finally rejoined he was bingo fuel and went RTB

I know, bless him, at least he tried!  I think it’s something to do with the parking allocation for the landing Herc. I’ve changed the distance it starts at to get it parked up a bit quicker. Might be best to ditch it altogether given the current wingman AI. He’ll be more use in mission 2. 
 

How many aircraft made it through?  Their skill is set to random and sometimes a couple don’t make it to the rigs. 
 

How did you find the transit time? I wanted to keep it long enough to make the descent through the overcast into the relative darkness more dramatic, after being up in the blue. Appreciate not everyone wants to be sat in the cruise for half a mission. 

[Cpt.Ronin]

There was a formation of 3 fighters that made it. 
 

I enjoy a bit of transit time as it builds the suspense and adds to the realism, So I wouldn’t say this was a long transit, but it wasn’t too short either. 

[Lace]

11 hours ago, Cpt.Ronin said:

There was a formation of 3 fighters that made it. 
 

I enjoy a bit of transit time as it builds the suspense and adds to the realism, So I wouldn’t say this was a long transit, but it wasn’t too short either. 

 

Thanks for the feedback.  I appreciate you taking the time to try it out.

 

I'll upload an updated version today which should fix the reluctant wingman issue.

[Lace]

Second mission attached.  Fairly simple intercept at dawn.j

Northern Flank 2.miz

[Cyberadje]

Hi Lace,

 

Thx for your hard work. I have flown your first mission, two times now. The first time I flew around 5000 feet during the inspection of the oil rigs, when I got warned about the three su-22's. So we had a good fight. As mentiond before my wingie had a bit of a hard time. The second time I flew the mission. I flew at 3000 feet when inspecting the oil rig's. This time I didn't got a warning until I was already on my way back? My wingie was already RTB at that moment. I turned around and got one. The other two were already feet dry by the time I reached the first (or last depend on how you look at it)

 

So question, is made like that? when your low you don't get the warning?

Edited February 9, 2021 by Cyberadje

[Lace]

On 2/8/2021 at 8:21 PM, Cyberadje said:

Hi Lace,

 

Thx for your hard work. I have flown your first mission, two times now. The first time I flew around 5000 feet during the inspection of the oil rigs, when I got warned about the three su-22's. So we had a good fight. As mentiond before my wingie had a bit of a hard time. The second time I flew the mission. I flew at 3000 feet when inspecting the oil rig's. This time I didn't got a warning until I was already on my way back? My wingie was already RTB at that moment. I turned around and got one. The other two were already feet dry by the time I reached the first (or last depend on how you look at it)

 

So question, is made like that? when your low you don't get the warning?

 

 

There are no altitude restrictions.  The WP Strike group should be triggered shortly after your departure (as long as you are within a mile or so of the planned track.

 

By warning do you mean by AWACS or the wingman?  I guess if you are really quick in the inspection you could be RTB before they get noticed.

 

I know the wingman's fuel management is terrible, especially if he has to play catch up the whole way.  Normally (for all missions, not just this one)  I throttle back to about 300kts once established in the climb to allow 2 to catch up without sitting in burner for too long.  

 

[Cyberadje]

Hi Lace,

 

Thx for your answer, I tend to take off, circle the airfield until my wingie hooks up and continue from there. I'll fly it again to see what the su-22's are up this time. The warning call came from Awacs. 

[Lace]

Mission 3 for anyone still interested.  Much shorter duration, Daytime, low overcast and snake-eyes!

 

Northern Flank 3.miz

Edited February 16, 2021 by Lace

[Lobinjaevel]

I enjoy them very much, thanks for creating and sharing!

It's appreciated!

 

Cheers

[Cyberadje]

Hi Lace,

 

Thx a lot. I think the are great fun.

 

 

[Vitor_Hugo]

OMG the colors of the 2nd mission makes dogfight so poetic

Thanks for your work

 

[Lace]

Thanks for the feedback.  Number 4 is almost done (and looking very dark and dramatic!).

[Lace]

Mission 4 ready to go.  Things not looking good for AFNORTH at the moment.  WP Forces closing on Bodø.

Northern Flank 4.miz

[Col. Kernel]

Well done, I really like these missions. Thanks for creating and sharing them. My favorite era and a great choice of setting!

So far I've flown mission 1 and 2 and I'm looking forward to flying the next ones. The dawn/dusk makes both missions very atmospheric and the first mission was a great chance to practice my (not so great) crosswind landing skills. I liked the transit time on the first mission - a good balance between realism/suspense and not having to fly across the entire map.

A few suggestions that you may find helpful:

• In mission 1, it would be great with a small audio cue when the messages for visual inspection are being sent. Could be a simple radio squawk or even synthesized voice. When flying in VR those text boxes can be easy to miss if they just pop up silently.
• I love the short-form style of the briefings, but it would be helpful to mention that your flight/wingman operates on the preset VHF channel (same as Kobuleti). Perhaps also preload the AWACS frequency on the UHF band or mention in the briefing that it is preset at Comm 1 channel 2.
• In mission 2 there's no mention of the radio channels in the briefing. I figured that the AWACS was still on 251MHz, but it would be helpful to include that.

[Lace]

21 hours ago, Col. Kernel said:

Well done, I really like these missions. Thanks for creating and sharing them. My favorite era and a great choice of setting!

So far I've flown mission 1 and 2 and I'm looking forward to flying the next ones. The dawn/dusk makes both missions very atmospheric and the first mission was a great chance to practice my (not so great) crosswind landing skills. I liked the transit time on the first mission - a good balance between realism/suspense and not having to fly across the entire map.

A few suggestions that you may find helpful:

• In mission 1, it would be great with a small audio cue when the messages for visual inspection are being sent. Could be a simple radio squawk or even synthesized voice. When flying in VR those text boxes can be easy to miss if they just pop up silently.
• I love the short-form style of the briefings, but it would be helpful to mention that your flight/wingman operates on the preset VHF channel (same as Kobuleti). Perhaps also preload the AWACS frequency on the UHF band or mention in the briefing that it is preset at Comm 1 channel 2.
• In mission 2 there's no mention of the radio channels in the briefing. I figured that the AWACS was still on 251MHz, but it would be helpful to include that.

 

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated.  In the other missions I'm pretty sure the AWACS freq is listed, but maybe I missed it in #2.  To be honest though, I personally don't think the RT in it's current state adds much to the realism of the missions.  Usually the wingman spends the mission listing every single contact and quickly becomes muted when I am flying, Never mind the premature RTBs and repetitive "Rejoin".

 

Good shout about the text message alerts though, I'll add them in (though they don't feature in #3 & #4), and in future I'll populate the UHF/VHF channels.

 

Hopefully mission 5 should be done by the weekend - another longer one after the short previous two, I am thinking a long range armed recce.

 

Oh, and reinforcements should be on the way soon.  NATO planned to reinforce NON within 2-7 days.  Again, I am making some substitutions given the limited selection of units in DCS, but I will be trying to keep within the spirit of the time period at least.

[Lace]

Mission 5 attached.  This is a low-level recce mission targeted at the deployed HQ elements of the 6th Rocket Brigade from Pinozero.

 

Northern Flank 5.miz

 

I appreciate some players may like a more active role, so here is an alternative #5, where you instead lead a 2-ship with CBU on essentially the same mission, but with the option to engage any ground forces located.

 

 

Northern Flank 5 ALTERNATE.miz

Edited March 1, 2021 by Lace

[Col. Kernel]

Flew mission 3 to 5 and enjoyed them as well. My favorite was probably mission 3, where the narrow valley and the low cloud cover made it a good challenge to get some hits.

Mission 5 offered some great views of the scenery down in the valley and I could also see the glare of the afterburners of the fighters high up in the clouds. Beautiful! The mission itself felt a little like a parade, since you basically just have to fly the route and don't really have to search for anything. Perhaps some added MANPADS or more aggressive Shilkas could spice things up. Alternatively, the WARPAC locations could be randomized, but that would probably not make much difference in a valley and would make more sense in a maritime reconnaissance mission.

Thanks again for sharing these missions!

[Col. Kernel]

By the way, I'm getting the strangest bug in the alternate version of mission 5. The CBU's aren't loading on the plane. I can see them in the mission planner, I can see them listed in the briefing, but they don't show up on the plane (and not on my wingman's plane either) and don't show up in the SMS/INV. When I open the mission in the editor, I can't load any other ordnance to 3/7, so it seems like it is the pylons that are bugged for me. I can create a new mission with the same loadout where everything works fine, so it's only in this specific mission.

[Lace]

16 hours ago, Col. Kernel said:

By the way, I'm getting the strangest bug in the alternate version of mission 5. The CBU's aren't loading on the plane. I can see them in the mission planner, I can see them listed in the briefing, but they don't show up on the plane (and not on my wingman's plane either) and don't show up in the SMS/INV. When I open the mission in the editor, I can't load any other ordnance to 3/7, so it seems like it is the pylons that are bugged for me. I can create a new mission with the same loadout where everything works fine, so it's only in this specific mission.

 

Fixed and uploaded the new version - I had forgotten to increase the airfield warehouse quantity for CBU-87s.  It was set to zero so the crew were unable to fit the requested loadout.

[Lace]

18 hours ago, Col. Kernel said:

Flew mission 3 to 5 and enjoyed them as well. My favorite was probably mission 3, where the narrow valley and the low cloud cover made it a good challenge to get some hits.

Mission 5 offered some great views of the scenery down in the valley and I could also see the glare of the afterburners of the fighters high up in the clouds. Beautiful! The mission itself felt a little like a parade, since you basically just have to fly the route and don't really have to search for anything. Perhaps some added MANPADS or more aggressive Shilkas could spice things up. Alternatively, the WARPAC locations could be randomized, but that would probably not make much difference in a valley and would make more sense in a maritime reconnaissance mission.

Thanks again for sharing these missions!

 

Thanks  for the feedback.  I get it about the procession feeling of the mission - it was a difficult one for the timings.  The SCUD launch sequence takes 7min40, so to have them launch as you approach down the valley meant sticking to the planned leg speeds.  Also, I always set unit proficiency to 'random'  I feel this offers a little bit of re-playability as the AI reaction is never quite the same each time.  Sometimes the F-16A CAP beat the MiG-23s, sometimes not.  Sometimes the SHORAD are on the ball, sometimes they are still napping.  The SHORAD will certainly get you if you loiter too long. 

 

Also, there is a fuel management element - if you get bounced by the MiG on egress, then you should be at or close to bingo - do you engage, or try to drag them towards the Norwegian HAWK coverage?.

 

Anyway, that was kind of my thinking for 5, it may not have quite worked out as planned.

 

Mission 6 is going to be more of a scrap, and the USS Guadalcanal is on it's way!

[Lace]

Mission 6 now ready.  A bit more action this time, providing CAP for the 4th (US) Marine Amphibious Brigade.

Northern Flank 6.miz