Mission 11 Advice

[Gilligan]

Man, I know these missions are supposed to be tough, and while I've cleared most of them well enough, a couple have proven to be challenging, taking a couple attempts. However mission 11, pit of Vipers 1, is taking my lunch money and hanging me out to dry. Is there anything special I should be doing to pass this one? Every time I try something new, a different SAM threat is filling the gap I thought I might try and exploit.

Spoiler

First attempt, I got tunnel vision on the North West SA6 and the North East one smacked me when it popped up - fair enough that's on me.

Next attempt I got schwacked by the SA13 over Khalkhalah AB when I defended a little too low after the East SA6's pop up - OK, lesson learned, avoid Khalkhalah airspace.

Next I thought I'd try to come around from the north a bit to avoid the Air Base and got jumped by an SA15 near Damascus. Alright, I need to stay in my lane North of Khalkhalah but South of Damascus. Fair enough.

Reassessed my plan and on the next attempt I was almost successful. Turned East Cold as soon as the east SA6's came online, had boomer pop the north east one with his HARM, I circled around and knocked the South East one Out with a Mav. SA11 comes online, Boomer takes out the Snow Drift and I get both CBU's dumped over the site, and destroy the last remaining TELAR with my 2nd Mav. I dodged one SA8 volley on my way out, but I was out of Chaff, airspeed, and options and it's second Volley took me out.

Most recent attempt was more or less the same, except I was able to knock out the south east SA6 in unison with Boomer hitting the North East, and stayed high out of the SA 8 engagement area to dump my CBU's over the SA11 site while Boomer Sent his HARM at the Snow drift, however moments before cbu impact the SA11 got one missile out and I had no chance to evade the missile coming in at Mach Jesus. TELAR was minced seconds later. 

 

Too aggressive and the pop up SA6'ed got me. Too Low, SA13'ed. Too North, SA15'ed. Too Low (Reprise), SA8'ed. Get all the rest right, and SA11'ed. 

No threat has gotten me twice, but damn if there isn't a new one covering each potential opening I try and make formyself.

Is there something I am missing that I should be doing for this one?

 

TIA

Edited January 3 by Gilligan

[ChillNG]

10 minutes ago, Gilligan said:

Man, I know these missions are supposed to be tough, and while I've cleared most of them well enough, a couple have proven to be challenging, taking a couple attempts. However mission 11, pit of Vipers 1, is taking my lunch money and hanging me out to dry. Is there anything special I should be doing to pass this one? Every time I try something new, a different SAM threat is filling the gap I thought I might try and exploit.

  Hide contents

First attempt, I got tunnel vision on the North West SA6 and the North East one smacked me when it popped up - fair enough that's on me.

Next attempt I got schwacked by the SA13 over Khalkhalah AB when I defended a little too low after the East SA6's pop up - OK, lesson learned, avoid Khalkhalah airspace.

Next I thought I'd try to come around from the north a bit to avoid the Air Base and got jumped by an SA15 near Damascus. Alright, I need to stay in my lane North of Khalkhalah but South of Damascus. Fair enough.

Reassessed my plan and on the next attempt I was almost successful. Turned East Cold as soon as the east SA6's came online, had boomer pop the north east one with his HARM, I circled around and knocked the South East one Out with a Mav. SA11 comes online, Boomer takes out the Snow Drift and I get both CBU's dumped over the site, and destroy the last remaining TELAR with my 2nd Mav. I dodged one SA8 volley on my way out, but I was out of Chaff, airspeed, and options and it's second Volley took me out.

Most recent attempt was more or less the same, except I was able to knock out the south east SA6 in unison with Boomer hitting the North East, and stayed high out of the SA 8 engagement area to dump my CBU's over the SA11 site while Boomer Sent his HARM at the Snow drift, however moments before cbu impact the SA11 got one missile out and I had no chance to evade the missile coming in at Mach Jesus. TELAR was minced seconds later. 

 

Too aggressive and the pop up SA6'ed got me. Too Low, SA13'ed. Too North, SA15'ed. Too Low (Reprise), SA8'ed. Get all the rest right, and SA11'ed. 

No threat has gotten me twice, but damn if there isn't a new one covering each potential opening I try and make formyself.

Is there something I am missing that I should be doing for this one?

 

TIA

For anyone reading...spoilers .

 

So for this one the idea is to come up with an attack plan and stick to it, position is everything.  The SA-6s are in a protective ring around the SA-11, but positioned carefully so that you can peel them back and create an opening.  My personal method was to target the north eastern SA-6 with a mav and open a door towards the SA11.  If you need to, take out the south eastern SA-6 as well and you then have most of the East side free of threats.  Just be wary of going too far South towards the Golan or too far north towards Khalkhalah airbase.  And stay east now, consider the line connecting the waypoints on the HSD as your safe zone, go east of here and you are back in safe territory.

Now you have a route to the SA11, this is a sneaky crew, they will only activate the radar when you are in firing range, so one method is to play the bait and have Boomer hit the radar with a Harm, don't attempt this without taking out the east SA6s as you'll have too many threats otherwise.  The jamming also lets you get closer to the SA11, so you can maybe send a mav it's way or lob the cbu.

Don't rush, there is lots of time to do this mission, and only a short hop home so you can push it on fuel.  If you wait long enough then Shade finally arrives, and more HARMS become available to help you.

Hope that helps!

[Gilligan]

Thank you.

 

Sounds like I'm on the right tack and getting closer. Some more patience dealing with the 11 once the 6's are clear and I might just have it.

 

Appreciate the advice. And again, stellar work with this campaign. 

[Valinor17]

Spoiler

 This mission definitely required a lot more patients then the rest. Can't get aggressive on this one.  Have to really pay attention to the powered up/down call outs, plan your ingress/egress on each pass and time your run in. Take your time, you're not flying back to Akrotiri. The landing airport is really close so you have a lot of time to loiter. 

On my first clear, my first 105 missed all three TELs somehow and the second 105 missed one of the TELs. I weaseled the SA8s completely empty, made a gun run on third tel, and still made it to the base with 1600lbs of fuel left. But I didnt get the full clear because i left the command truck intact lol. Tried it again and with better 105 placements, got the full clear.

 

Edited January 5 by Valinor17

[Gilligan]

Got the clear finally, but missed the command center. I had some DCS bugs that really took the difficulty up a few notches. Both the HTS and TGP bugged out on me - HTS stopped locking anything when I was going after the SA11 site, and then the TPOD started jumping off the selected steerpoint/locked SPI and just looking north. reported both with trackfile so I guess I'll see what comes of it.

Still managed to drop the 105's on the three TELs, but mistook a Shilka for the command center with the mav sensor and took it out  instead. Ill probably try for the 100 score again. 

[ChillNG]

1 hour ago, Gilligan said:

Got the clear finally, but missed the command center. I had some DCS bugs that really took the difficulty up a few notches. Both the HTS and TGP bugged out on me - HTS stopped locking anything when I was going after the SA11 site, and then the TPOD started jumping off the selected steerpoint/locked SPI and just looking north. reported both with trackfile so I guess I'll see what comes of it.

Still managed to drop the 105's on the three TELs, but mistook a Shilka for the command center with the mav sensor and took it out  instead. Ill probably try for the 100 score again. 

HTS nothing to do with having the ECM active was it? Seem to recall the ECM can interfere with the HTS but could be wrong.

[Gilligan]

No, I didn't have it on that attempt, but I know what you're talking about.  I was able to lock and find the SA6 sites prior to the HTS going down. so it was working initially, as was the TPOD. I wasn't in markpoint mode, or any other sub-mode that would inhibit it from locking, as far as I am aware. 

[ChillNG]

6 minutes ago, Gilligan said:

No, I didn't have it on that attempt, but I know what you're talking about.  I was able to lock and find the SA6 sites prior to the HTS going down. so it was working initially, as was the TPOD. I wasn't in markpoint mode, or any other sub-mode that would inhibit it from locking, as far as I am aware. 

Ah ok fair enough, sometimes I'm never sure what's an actual bug in the Viper against something we're all doing wrong as there's that many opportunities to make mistakes in these things.

By the way if you want to know where the CP is...

Spoiler

Command vehicle is to the side of the hill with the radar, by some trees in a revetment/camo net position.

 

[Gilligan]

I know what you mean. For now I have submitted the track file on the main viper bug reporting section and its being reviewed. I'm sure if it's something I did they'll tell me, though I have read other threads about the HTS pod suddenly failing mid flight on people. The TPOD issue is new, however I have a feeling it might be tied to the HTS issue. When I turned both off to egress and land it stopped moving my SPI/steerpoint diamond and left it where it was supposed to be, which makes me believe it was definitely something going on with one or both of those sensors.

 

Thanks, I have no doubt I'll be able to find it so long as the TPOD is working correctly. it was just tough to make out details when the tpod was jumping around like it was. Unfortunately we only get so much resolution on the MAV screen, but it was at least holding a lock for me at the time. 

Edited January 6 by Gilligan

[Gilligan]

Finally cleared this one with the 100 score. Man, that was a tough one.

[ChillNG]

2 minutes ago, Gilligan said:

Finally cleared this one with the 100 score. Man, that was a tough one.

Well done!

[Gilligan]

Finished the campaign earlier today, and I gotta say, incredible work. Groundpounder Sims continues their streak of highly polished, high quality, immersive campaigns with incredible depth & world building. 

[ChillNG]

4 hours ago, Gilligan said:

Finished the campaign earlier today, and I gotta say, incredible work. Groundpounder Sims continues their streak of highly polished, high quality, immersive campaigns with incredible depth & world building. 

Thanks, appreciate the kind words!

[yumemi5k]

On 1/4/2025 at 3:52 AM, ChillNG said:

target the north eastern SA-6 with a mav

Sorry for sidetracking, but how do you engage SA-6s with TV Mavs effectively? Max range is like 8 nm and I usually only manage to reliably target the radar within 3~4 nm, which always felt like bringing a knife to a gunfight. I could cover my approach with a HARM so the SA-6 eats either a HARM or a Mav, but that's undesirable if there aren't enough shots to go around.

[ChillNG]

14 hours ago, yumemi5k said:

Sorry for sidetracking, but how do you engage SA-6s with TV Mavs effectively? Max range is like 8 nm and I usually only manage to reliably target the radar within 3~4 nm, which always felt like bringing a knife to a gunfight. I could cover my approach with a HARM so the SA-6 eats either a HARM or a Mav, but that's undesirable if there aren't enough shots to go around.

What are you struggling with, identifying which target is which?  Or getting the mav to lock on?

[yumemi5k]

On 2/20/2025 at 1:56 AM, ChillNG said:

What are you struggling with, identifying which target is which?  Or getting the mav to lock on?

Mostly identifying which is which. At long range everything is just a faint dot and I often get the wrong one like a TEL or even a truck. By the time I can see a distinctive silhouette I'm usually already at 3~4 nm. 

[ChillNG]

2 hours ago, yumemi5k said:

Mostly identifying which is which. At long range everything is just a faint dot and I often get the wrong one like a TEL or even a truck. By the time I can see a distinctive silhouette I'm usually already at 3~4 nm. 

My technique is to find the target with the target pod then zoom the pod out to get a wider view, you can then figure out where the target is in relation to the wider environment.  For example if you know the target is the second dot left of the road it makes it much simpler to target with the mav seeker.

[ZACHI]

This mission was tough! I just completed it successfully after 4 long attempts. 
I enjoy this campaign so much

[Gilligan]

On 2/18/2025 at 9:25 PM, yumemi5k said:

Sorry for sidetracking, but how do you engage SA-6s with TV Mavs effectively? Max range is like 8 nm and I usually only manage to reliably target the radar within 3~4 nm, which always felt like bringing a knife to a gunfight. I could cover my approach with a HARM so the SA-6 eats either a HARM or a Mav, but that's undesirable if there aren't enough shots to go around.

 

Start with a good boresight on the mavs. IIRC there's a building on the hill at the west end of Akortiri that is pretty close to 7 or 8 nm out that you can use to boresight. 

 

I put the HAD on the left MFD, the TGP also on the left MFD with a different OSB button, and the WPN page for the MAVs on the right MFD (PRE Mode).

 

Get the emitter on the HAD MFD and lock it from >10nm out, ideally between 10 and 20. Then find it on the TGP, save it's position as a markpoint, and set that markpoint as your current steerpoint. 

 

Zoom out with the TGP until you have a sight picture similar in size/appearance to what the MAV is seeing and try to collate the images (IE - okay so it's the centermost dot in the middle of the circle of dots, OR, okay it's 3rd from the left in this line of dots, etc.) Finally lock that dot that you've picked out on the TGP as your target with the MAV when you're nose hot and in range. Don't forget you can zoom the mav in a little bit with the FOV EXP button if you have it mapped.