New SP/MP Mission: "Full Frontal"

[Bahger]

In this mission you will lead a flight of A-10s ("SPRINGFIELD") to support a set-piece company-scale ground assault on a well-defended town. You will coordinate your strike/CAS operations with the commander of the ground force, "TF THUNDER".

 

Here are some features of this mission:

 

- Randomization is implemented by script so that there are FIVE different enemy schemes for defending the town. One scheme of the five is randomly selected on mission start. Each presents a unique placement and disposition of enemy defenses within certain boundaries. This makes the mission very replayable and targeting the SA-19s freshly challenging. Sometimes there is AAA, sometimes not. There is always at least one Tunguska, sometimes two.

 

- Customised voice comms

 

- Separate, adapted versions for SP Ramp start, SP Runway start and MP Ramp start

 

- Fully executed ground battle: I'm proud of this. The outcome is influenced by the player's effectiveness in thinning out the defenses, but regardless of that, the ground units go at it in a very businesslike way, a tribute to the AI. It's fun to see the tanks at work and the Strykers hosing down the enemy infantry before dismounting their own infantry at the objective. When you have done your work from the air, unleash the ground forces from the custom radio menu, engage AP if you see no more targets and sit back and watch the ground battle using F10/F7, it's well worth it.

 

Unlike my previous mission ("Midnight Run"), this is seat-of-the-pants low-level flying that requires the intermediate-to-advanced player to be quick on the draw with TGP/Mavericks to deal with SA-19 launchers, and effective with CBUs. It is a very good cooperative strike/CAS mission which rewards good communication and situational awareness. It can be accomplished in SP with the AI wingman -- the results are often very impressive -- but I recommend downloading Tiger's mod to address an acknowledged problem in the current build (1.1.0.7 ) with AI "Attack with..." orders when the mission launches from the ground (see enclosed readme file). Try it in both SP (2-ship) and MP (4-ship).

 

The MP version is an experiment, really. I know squads like "sandbox" missions with plenty of player slots, but this is a tight, tactical mission that offers good coop play for a 2 or 4 ship flight with effective voice comms and competence in both attacking and defensive flying.

 

Thanks to Druid's advice on object placement randomization, the .miz is very replayable. Thanks, Druid.

 

Also, thank you Dunadan for authentic ground commander comms voice files and JeffyD for playtesting the MP version with me.

 

Please take a look at both the briefing and the readme, which supplies detailed tactical comments and advice, if needed.

 

As always, your comments are very welcome.

 

 

 

Full Frontal Upload Pack_All.rar

Edited April 25, 2011 by Bahger

[jeffyd123]

good stuff ya old "Bahg" LOL

 

thanks for the session.

[=Panther=]

Will be flying this one shortly. Great work!

[BBQ]

Awesome--another Bahger special!

[Crescendo]

Thanks, Bahger. I really appreciate the hard work and time you obviously invest in making these missions for us to enjoy.

 

I thought you might like to know that at least some of us out there prefer the smaller, non-'sandboxy' missions. I personally only play with one other player (our preference), so missions like this are a real treat for us.

[dne48]

Great mission, Bahger. On my first try i found out there were two Tunguskas unfortunately. It took out my wingman and i crashed into the ground trying to evade. Lots of fun will be at this one until I am succesful. THanks

[Bahger]

Thanks guys. Glad there is some demand for smaller-scaled MP. Personally, I can never, ever see myself being able to hook up with more than one competent, voiced-up player at a time and there seem to be no squadrons operating in PST.

 

The mission performed flawlessly in the MP test yesterday, I'm happy to say. It takes a while longer than usual to download to clients because of the embedded voice files, but not too long. There are 4 available aircraft on the ramp. Springfield 3 and 4 have CBU 105s instead of 97s, which will enable you to run in level at the armor using CCRP with inertial guidance instead of "dumb" CCIP dive-bombing with 97s (although I have found that technique very effective).

 

DNE 48, if your wingman is AI, I advise having him anchor 12nm miles from the Tunguska as you run in, at 5k, with a Maverick locked via TGP. Then you should offset, extend and find/hit the next one, if there is one... If you are using Tiger's mod, the AI #2 will find and prosecute an SA-19 launcher at your SPI if you order him to using "Attack with...", but as impressive as it is to task one Tunguska to your wingman while you go for the other (and it is impressive) the problem is that he gets a tad too close, fires his Maverick, provokes a launch and then jettisons the rest of his ordinance before (i) his missile actually takes out the SAM launcher and (ii) he successfully evades the 19. This means that he can only use his gun against the remaining targets. In MP, obviously, you have more to work with!

[dotChuckles]

Hi Bahger,

 

Great mission! Played it as an SP mission, solidly good fun.

 

The only thing I noticed is that the drone on 130.00 didn't start reporting targets until after TF THUNDER was in the town.

 

But otherwise... perfect, just right length for a quick afternoon mission. Really liked the voice coms, especially the UK pilot :-)

 

Bravo!

[Bahger]

Thanks dotChuckles. I'm the UK pilot; 25-year expat in America, accent intact.

 

Yeah, the drone does not report targets until the infantry is in the town. Not sure why but it was a bit of an afterthought that I left in because it does no harm. Not mission-critical.

[andysim]

great stuff, I love missions that are a little bit random. I will be getting my teeth into this one soon.:megalol:

[Bahger]

Great! The randomization here works beautifully, thanks to Druid. What I can take credit for is not the code (which is Druid's) but the tactical implementation, which is not to go crazy with it but to rearrange both the placement and disposition of essentially the same group of enemy units so that Springfield flight will have to concentrate on their TGPs every time and figure out the best way to go at them.

[Toothcake]

Both of your missions have been very immersive. Nice job.

[BBQ]

My hog apparently took on a full frontal attack. Barely managed to make it back in one mangled piece. :pilotfly:

 

[Avatar72]

Again, +1 rep for the mission. I gave this one a try and for the first time, I finished one of your missions, even on the first try. I enjoyed it. Run time was just over one hour. Cant wait to try it again.

 

Forgot to mention, I lost my wingman on approach. I SPI broadcast to him the first SA launcher and told him to attach my SPI while 14 miles out. He flew into it and got shot down. I had to do everything myself.

Edited April 30, 2011 by Avatar72

[Bahger]

Hey Avatar, glad you enjoyed the .miz, thanks for the encouragement.

 

It's an acknowledged bug that in ground started missions the AI won't obey "Attack with...Maverick" orders; hopefully this will be addressed in 1.0.0.8. Regardless of this, even the devs recommend you order your wingman to anchor out of range rather than let him dice with the SA-19s. However, Tiger's mod (see notes above and enclosed in mission file) corrects most of this behavior and improves AI prosecution and evasion of SAMs. The mod enables them to attack effectively on "Attack with..." orders but they will still jettison all bombs on launch.

[miguelaco]

Good mission. Completed successfull, only 4 US soldiers down. Will try the mission again to not let any friendly loss.

Edited April 30, 2011 by miguelaco

[dunadan]

I finally got to fly this one with Bahger last night, first time online with A-10, and we had a blast. I did find listening to my own voice a bit odd though. I was also a bit rusty on some of the procedures but Bahger walked me through them and I found even bringing the beast alive was enjoyable!

 

Things went a bit downhill once I moved away from the ramp though. First I blew a tire during taxi, although I still made it into the air. Then, while Bahger expertly disposed of his SA-19, I somehow blundered straight into the one I was looking for. The first shot took out my CICU, RWR and left MFD. While I turned away from that and as I was surveying the pretty blinkenlights another SAM went off at about 2 O'clock, the first time I saw one do that. Needless to say, even though it was just out of danger range I found it quite immersive.

 

Shortly after that, another salvo of missiles came up. The first one took off my right wing, which I found a bit of a nuisance, being as how even with full rudder and opposite aileron I couldn't quite keep my Hog from wanting to roll over into the mud. Fortunately a few seconds later another SAM took off my left wing and both elevators, which had the positive effect of fixing the unwanted roll. I did find the mass of flames as well as the irresistible nose down attitude a bit of a drag, and since I was now relieved of any burden of responsibility to try and control the thing and also since it was kind of late to start a BBQ, I caught a ride on the silk elevator to safety.

 

I spent the rest of the mission as a spectator, watching as Bahger disposed of 'my' SA-19 as well as CBU'd the tanks.

 

Overall a splendid time!

[Mustang]

Flew this mission this afternoon with =STP=Schnarre, was very immersive and fun, thanks :thumbup:

[Bahger]

Glad someone is flying it in MP. Springfield 3 and 4 have CCRP-only CBU-105s so that you can hit the armor from altitude if you prefer not to deliver 97s in the traditional manner.

[Fishbot]

Hi Bahger, I've downloaded and extracted the .rar 3 times but each time I seem to be missing the .miz. Trying to extract using 7-Zip which gives an archive size of 5.2Mb but 14 extracted files totalling 1.2Mb and no read me either?

 

Very much a noob so shout out if I'm doing something stupid!

[Bahger]

Fishbot, that's odd. However, I don't know anything about 7-Zip (I use WinRAR) and I know that zipped files can get mangled and corrupted by certain processes or programs. It cannot be a problem with the d/l itself ot I would have heard more about it. Try downloading it from the d/l page on the ED site here.

 

Let me know how it goes.

[Fishbot]

Cheers Bahger, downloaded from your link above (3.4Mb download) and downloaded WinRAR too. Looks to have worked fine but 5mth sprog insists I leave the actual flying until later..

 

Presumably the 5.2Mb download in your original post includes an MP version?

 

Thanks again, looking forward to trying the .miz!

[Bahger]

Yup, the MP version is included in that d/l.

[derelor]

Bahger, thank you very much for this great mission! Played it a few times on the weekend. Feels a bit like cheating when flying at > 20.000ft and taking out bad buys with Mavericks ;-)

[Bahger]

Glad you enjoyed the .miz, Derelor, and thank you for posting. Funny you mention the "cheating" at Angels 20 because Ice on SimHQ posted there yesterday that he found the mission too easy, as you are able to plink the SA-19s from altitude. Perhaps it is easy (for the competent to advanced virtual A-10 pilot) but the truth is that I like realistic scenarios, therefore in any scenario of mine except Allies vs China or Russia, Blue will either have air supremacy or a high CAP. This means that it's always possible to hit SA-19s from 20k and longer-range SAM systems in missions will always be countered by SEAD.