New beta for testing: A Day at Red Flag

[Coiler12]

-Beta scenario featuring a long-held idea of mine. Scoring has not (yet) been added and the briefing is rudimentary. Features a hypothetical early Red Flag mission against a heavily-defended target. Comments and criticism are sought.

Edit: Final version updated. Contains a note on the lack of radars.

[Tomcat84]

Got me worried there for a minute (as I am working on a 2017 Red Flag), but it's early Red Flag so we are not building the same thing haha

Will try to give it a go, maybe I can get some more ideas

[Coiler12]

ORIGINAL: Tomcat84

Got me worried there for a minute (as I am working on a 2017 Red Flag), but it's early Red Flag so we are not building the same thing haha

Will try to give it a go, maybe I can get some more ideas

No worries. Even if they were in the same time period, I wouldn't mind seeing another version of Red Flag at all. Eager to hear what you think.

[Tomcat84]

Gave it a run through, quite fun little scenario. Reminds me of the Fighter Weapons school GAT5-6 scenario, have you played that one?

Air to air was very easy to clean up, I barely even needed my escort flights (I sent 2 x 4 Wild weasels in first, fired their two sparrows per contact, that already killed 5 and left 3 for my escorts). because there were no regenerating contacts? Maybe something to add to keep that part busy.

The SAMs were a whole other matter. They basically massacred me because my Shrikes and Standards had a hell of a time locking on to the HAWK radars. This meant I had to get very deep into the SAM wezes to get any result, and even then the Hawks would start launching at my ARMs as well, plus, it seems the few ARMs that did reach the batteries or radars I targeted really didnt do much damage at all because they tended to airbust miss). I only had one SAM battery show damage (when looking at the enemy side in editor mode).

So those guys were pretty tough haha. Resulting in not many strikers on target and the ones that did mostly missed their bombs, I had one succesfull drop.


I was wondering though why you were using the HAWK sams and not SA-2/SA-3/SA-6 for example? That is what I would expect they trained against. F-5Es makes sense as a MiG-21 replication but even there you might choose to use actual MiGs as thats what the F-5s would be replicating.


Next time what I'd do different is try to take out the surveillance radars as that would maybe keep the HAWKs offline, if they couldnt easily detect me.


Another thing I was wondering: what are the 4 locked RPs on the blue side for? Seemed to give away the max CAP area of the F-5s.



SIDE: USAF
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
5x F-4E Phantom II
7x F-4G Phantom II [Wild Weasel V]


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
7x AGM-45B Shrike [ARM]
8x AGM-78D Standard [ARM]
27x AIM-7F Sparrow III
10x Generic Chaff Salvo [5x Cartridges]
8x Mk82 500lb LDGP



SIDE: Aggressors
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
1x AvGas (75k Liter Tank)
8x F-5E Tiger II
2x Vehicle (AN/MPQ-46 HPI)
1x Vehicle (AN/MPQ-48 CWAR)
1x Vehicle (AN/MPQ-50 PAR)
1x Vehicle (AN/MPQ-51 ROR)


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
132x 20mm/85 Vulcan Burst [100 rnds]
60x MIM-23B I-HAWK

[Coiler12]

Thanks for the commentary.

ORIGINAL: Tomcat84

Gave it a run through, quite fun little scenario. Reminds me of the Fighter Weapons school GAT5-6 scenario, have you played that one?

Air to air was very easy to clean up, I barely even needed my escort flights (I sent 2 x 4 Wild weasels in first, fired their two sparrows per contact, that already killed 5 and left 3 for my escorts). because there were no regenerating contacts? Maybe something to add to keep that part busy.

In my test run I had the same problem. I was thinking of another airfield full of F-5s that would launch a mass intercept from another vector.

The SAMs were a whole other matter. They basically massacred me because my Shrikes and Standards had a hell of a time locking on to the HAWK radars. This meant I had to get very deep into the SAM wezes to get any result, and even then the Hawks would start launching at my ARMs as well, plus, it seems the few ARMs that did reach the batteries or radars I targeted really didnt do much damage at all because they tended to airbust miss). I only had one SAM battery show damage (when looking at the enemy side in editor mode).

So those guys were pretty tough haha. Resulting in not many strikers on target and the ones that did mostly missed their bombs, I had one succesfull drop.

Working exactly as designed, then.

I was wondering though why you were using the HAWK sams and not SA-2/SA-3/SA-6 for example? That is what I would expect they trained against. F-5Es makes sense as a MiG-21 replication but even there you might choose to use actual MiGs as thats what the F-5s would be replicating.

Mostly using them as a stand-in, and for a bit of variety.

Another thing I was wondering: what are the 4 locked RPs on the blue side for? Seemed to give away the max CAP area of the F-5s.

A possible event that I ended up shelving. I'll remove it when I revise.

[Tomcat84]

Two other observations I forgot to post:

- there is no notion of real world airspace restrictions (like groom lake, training area limits etc). Of course I also have no idea what those were like in the 70s so it's not a big deal. And I can understand if you dont want to bother the player with it.
- there aren't any player assets other than fighters. I dont know if they used any kind of AEW assets in that timeframe at Red Flag, but maybe ground based GCI radars? Again not sure what they did in those early days, but something to consider. Now all SA comes only from fighter radars.

[Coiler12]

Final version submitted to the community pack. I added a note saying the lack of friendly radars was deliberate.

[ExNusquam]

I know you've submitted the final version, but I figured I'd throw my feedback in as well...

It's a nice little scenario. The AAW aspect was fairly easy, and I didn't lose a single fighter to the F-5s. They did manage to dodge quite a few of my Sparrows, however. I sent it 8 of the Phantoms as a sweep and eliminated the air threat before I dealt with the Hawks. Once the fighters were dealt with, moved in to kill the hawks. The ridges next to the SAMS make great cover for the weasels to hide behind, and I only lost one of them to SAMS (Automatic evasion was on, couldn't get him to dive back behind the hill[8|]). Had suppressed all of the SAMS and killed the search radar by the time the strike flight arrived. Over the target, I lost one Phantom to AAA, but only 3 of the phantoms managed to hit their targets. I figured that 6 500lbs bombs would kill a fuel tank, so I had 1 phantom set per target. Apparently, it takes more, since I only managed to set 3 tanks on fire. I let the time run out (the strike only took about 40 minutes) hoping they would blow up from fire damage, but no joy. Since I only managed to damage my primary target, ended the scenario with a score of -10 (Major Defeat)

SIDE: USAF
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
1x F-4G Phantom II [Wild Weasel V]
1x F-4E Phantom II


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
48x AIM-7F Sparrow III
10x AIM-9J Sidewinder
1x Generic Flare Salvo [3x Cartridges, Single Spectral]
12x 20mm/85 M61A1 Vulcan Burst [100 rnds]
6x AGM-78D Standard [ARM]
4x Generic Chaff Salvo [5x Cartridges]
12x AGM-45B Shrike [ARM]
36x Mk82 500lb LDGP



SIDE: Aggressors
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
14x F-5E Tiger II
5x Vehicle (AN/MPQ-46 HPI)
3x Vehicle (AN/MPQ-51 ROR)
1x Vehicle (AN/MPQ-48 CWAR)
1x Radar (AN/MPQ-49 FAAR)


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
1x AIM-9N Sidewinder
73x MIM-23B I-HAWK
1x 20mm M39 x 2 Burst [80 rnds]
132x 20mm/85 Vulcan Burst [100 rnds]