Convoy Hunt Mission Tactics

[percivaldanvers]

In the editor I took the mission "Convoy Hunt" for the Ka 50 and switched the Helos out for Hornets to try and practice that kind of mission. Basically there are a bunch of convoys moving through the forests of the caucuses and you have to locate and attack them. They have avengers with them and there are also Strelas and Zu-23s scattered around as well. The weather is scattered clouds at 8000ft, which makes using GBUs awkward since you have to either deal with clouds masking your laser or dip into the engagement range of the strelas.

What is the best way to approach this situation? It seems like every approach I've tried has resulted in me being shot down. So far I've been taking off with GBU-12s, locating the convoys in GMT, but I seldom have enough time to get a decent point track on them before I have to break away to avoid eating a SAM. 

Convoy Hunt.miz

[PawlaczGMD]

On 10/14/2023 at 9:25 PM, percivaldanvers said:

In the editor I took the mission "Convoy Hunt" for the Ka 50 and switched the Helos out for Hornets to try and practice that kind of mission. Basically there are a bunch of convoys moving through the forests of the caucuses and you have to locate and attack them. They have avengers with them and there are also Strelas and Zu-23s scattered around as well. The weather is scattered clouds at 8000ft, which makes using GBUs awkward since you have to either deal with clouds masking your laser or dip into the engagement range of the strelas.

What is the best way to approach this situation? It seems like every approach I've tried has resulted in me being shot down. So far I've been taking off with GBU-12s, locating the convoys in GMT, but I seldom have enough time to get a decent point track on them before I have to break away to avoid eating a SAM. 

Convoy Hunt.miz 1.21 MB · 18 downloads

I don't think you have enough ordnance on an F-18 to make that mission. Maybe one convoy at most. I'd load 2x IRR Maverick for SAMs , 2x rocket pods for the convoy, and 2x laser GBU on central if you don't need fuel, to be used on AAA or other targets of opportunity. If clouds are low, replace with JDAMs, and exploit convoy AI - they will scatter and hold position for a  while when attacked, you might be able to drop on them blind from above the clouds.

Alternatively, if you have very good aim, you could auto drop CBUs from above the clouds,  in a line, to try and kill the whole convoy in one go. This will be very unreliable without smart or corrected clusters, which the F-18 doesn't have AFAIK.