http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...ps6dd660b2.jpg
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...psecf85047.jpg

Meanwhile in Ukgeograinia.

http://i.imgur.com/GGwtYhe.jpg?1
Rolling out while Hunter and Raptor prepare for take-off

http://i.imgur.com/8Td16BE.jpg?1
Not sure who this is, probably Arclight or Raptor

http://i.imgur.com/qusaIk1.jpg?1
Meanwhile Zirran grabs an A10C and goes airborne

http://i.imgur.com/8SDSMDI.jpg?1
Then he meets a SAM site and goes groundborne fairly rapidly. Meanwhile I blunder around in the wrong area for a while and have to race to catch up with Arclight, Hunter and Raptor who are busy tearing apart an enemy convoy.

http://i.imgur.com/Rqyb9IF.jpg?2
Arclight tries to move in to deal with the airfields defences but an SA-8 reaches out and touches him.

http://i.imgur.com/ED190EX.jpg?1
Despite my best sneaking attempts I blunder head first into a SAM battery which does bad things to the fly-ability of my helicopter. On the up side, the door still opens!

http://i.imgur.com/Fo3uQGL.jpg?1
So I decide to take the Froggie, despite having never flown the thing before. What could possibly go wrong?

http://i.imgur.com/0eZNjQK.jpg?1
.....

http://i.imgur.com/BilkJmk.jpg?1
So, to recap, everything is red, flashing and beeping at me, all the dials are in Russian and I have no idea what I'm doing....

http://i.imgur.com/SZGblBD.jpg?1
On the upside, not having any idea what I'm doing has never stopped me before, so I kill the starboard engine after failing to find the fire extinguisher, and take a look at the damage. It's not brilliant, but the single engine seems to be keeping me up.

http://i.imgur.com/4R65YHW.jpg?1
Meanwhile Arclight decides that tires are unnecessary and parks up at the end of the runway.

http://i.imgur.com/fDQFjSc.jpg?1
I come in too fast and high on the first approach, so abort and swing (gradually) around to come in for a second attempt from the other direction, over Arclights head in fact. :haha:

http://i.imgur.com/rb5vmTH.jpg?1
Against all expectation the Frogfoot does not explode on contact with the runway and I grind to a halt relatively intact. Arclight gets out of his A10 and comes to give me a beer while Schroeder starts up his Huey again to come over and give me a lift back to the mess.

http://i.imgur.com/Ou7MbNi.jpg?1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgIOsJViUaQ

http://i.imgur.com/5lYknq7.jpg?1
Schroeder cannot find the right controls for opening the side door so I offer to ride on the skids

http://i.imgur.com/9zxd7DM.jpg?1
I wasn't expecting the sim to actually comply!! :har: Unfortunately I fell off a few moments later and my pilot disappeared

http://i.imgur.com/0qdupfs.jpg?1
Schroeder parked up...and then his rotor fell off...probably best to blame Charlie. :yep:

I think the high point of last night is when I managed to flip my Huey upside down on take off. And still survive.

http://i.imgur.com/VSokC47.jpg?1
I arrive too late to be of any use to anyone, so I head off to the target range to take it out on some Urals

http://i.imgur.com/39jeby4.jpg?1
I went Winchester, and then since everyone seemed to be leaving for the night, when I spotted this train crossing my path...I couldn't resist.

http://i.imgur.com/VzORXb6.jpg?1
It went as expected....

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...ps2151bf58.jpg

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...psd0de14c6.jpg
Obe circling in for his landing last night.

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...ps17b09dde.jpg
Stalking unsuspecting prey.

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...psa06b88f0.jpg
Actual completion of the objectives tonight. I hereby qualify everyone fit to crash in other scenarios.

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/j...psdc9ce622.jpg
And the logical result of charging headlong through MANPADS infested territory.

*btw I'll leave the server running. Could hop on to hunt the target ranges a bit, good practice. Though would have to restart to run a mission proper.
** scratch that, not very practical. They really need to get a proper dedicated server solution.

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/d1/d15d...95ed309fbb.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/uz3Dg4N.jpg?1
I'm one of the first to start up in my Froggie, but Raptor pulls out in front of me and then blunders around the runway, forgetting to put his target pod on.

http://i.imgur.com/SgFy57O.jpg?1
Then he rolls off the taxi-way into the quicksand and gets stuck

http://i.imgur.com/5bnsBYw.jpg?1
Arclight and Hunter take off and head towards the enemy convoy

http://i.imgur.com/HeYa2fg.jpg?1
Raptor takes off at last, but then his A10 gets a bit drafty

http://i.imgur.com/1rugkiX.jpg?1
I attempt to figure out how to get the SEAD equipment up on the Froggie, I find it just in time to receive a SAM in the face

http://i.imgur.com/mDCUNl4.jpg?2
I reload and rearm, then set off down the runway to take off...part way down I notice something on my camera...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e66F6j_pdV...5200748-21.gif

http://i.imgur.com/wLEfZGu.jpg?2
In a Russio-American joint recreation of the Tenerife air disaster, my attempt to take off over Raptor fails miserably...

http://i.imgur.com/JjW2Cuw.jpg?1
As does Raptors next attempt to take off after the ground crew manage to patch up his A10, he vows to sue Elbit systems for supplying defective equipment.

http://i.imgur.com/JLmLjx9.jpg?1
Meanwhile Hunter and Arclight commence tearing the enemy convoy apart

http://i.imgur.com/7EIznKg.jpg?1
Hunter goes Winchester and RTBs, I manage to ingress to the main enemy base and take out two or three SAM sites, then I go Winchester and RTB, finding Hunter on the way back and giving him a friendly hello...you can just see his rotor blades on the right of my HUD.

http://i.imgur.com/XMefOUz.jpg?1
Raptor, meanwhile, finally gets airborne and heads off to deal with the rest of the SAMs. I RTB, come in far too shallow and slow and smash into the ground short of the runway...

http://i.imgur.com/7yfhp15.jpg?1
One of Raptors mavericks about to knock on the door of an Osa.

http://i.imgur.com/YeRgzqk.jpg?2
Arclight and Schroeder wait patiently for the SAMs to be disposed of.

http://i.imgur.com/Eujwqnf.jpg?1
Raptor kills the main SAM sites, but then runs into the Strela MANPADs

http://i.imgur.com/CfCHR2v.jpg?1
It doesn't end well...

http://i.imgur.com/N2XUZfG.jpg?1
While Arclight starts plinking the enemy tanks, Schroeder attempts to run in to retrieve Raptor.

http://i.imgur.com/qqvjjZo.jpg?1
He takes a hit from one SAM, dodges two more...

http://i.imgur.com/N0qVc8p.jpg?1
And then takes an anti-tank guided missile to the side from a T-90

http://i.imgur.com/D9PzNcx.jpg?1
Schroeder then respawns in time to meet Hunter who lands in a fireball. :yep: Arclight RTBs, and I discover that the Kh-58 is very loathe to actually launch and attack the enemy...the enemy MANPADs on the other hand have no such qualms and I end up in another fireball...

That explains something... Raptor, you're carrying the wrong bloody missiles. The IR seekers don't do force correlate tracking. CCD or forget about it. :P

Thought Schroeder was just being targeted by ATGM, my laser warning lit up at the same time. Switched to GTFO tactics, heard an explosion behind and figured it was him, but aparently he was much further from me. :hmmm:


On the SEAD thing: may have been the target. There's a large early warning radar placed there, which I seem to recall not playing nice with the Kh-58. Either it's not modeled properly because it's not technically air defence, or the missile really can't target a radar on that bandwith. The latter is not as unlikely as it sounds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-58

I know. I probably loaded the IR ones by accident, since I keep confusing the AGM-65D and the AGM-65H. Strange that I didn't notice I had the IR seekers when I was using them, but they worked well enough in the end, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Shaves a couple of miles off the range though. I've already downgraded the air defenses over a previous version for practice; trying to SEAD with the D/G is going to get you killed in any kind of "serious" scenario.

Entirely possible, but I switched targets to the smaller radar near a ring of AAA and it still refused to launch which is a tad odd. I'll have to do some more experimenting with the Froggie offline sometime.

Still, in regards to other missions I'm open for suggestions, I have the Ka-50 fairly much covered in regards to Vikhir operations, although manoeuvring is perhaps still a bit of a weak spot in particular hovering but some offline practising will probably fix that. Our line up basically consists of:

Me: A10C, Su25, Ka-50
Hunter: Su-25, Ka-50
Raptor: A10C, Su-25, Ka-50
Arclight: A10C, Su-25, Ka-50
TF: A10C, Su-25
Schroeder: UH-1, Su-25

So whatever mission we choose has to have some kind of setup of those, I know Schroeder doesn't like the Froggie, so finding some way to incorporate the Huey will be needed, perhaps as an SAR for whenever we get shot down. It's a shame that we can't program in something that prevents respawn until Schroeder can rescue you, although Raptor would have been completely SOL last night. :haha:

True. Though in any kind of serious scenario I'd send an aircraft with actual SEAD capabilities to take out the SAMs anyway.

We can just decide that we don't respawn until rescued, there's no real need to actually script it. Though it would have been a lot more practical if downed pilots could move at a speed of slightly more than two snail-lengths per hour, so moving to a safe area on foot is more practical.

I think the problem with a dedicated SAR aircraft is that to justify it missions would have to be both long and deadly. Otherwise by the time rescue becomes necessary and is accomplished the mission is basically over.

So, how's about this then. We run the training mission one more time, but with these roles in place.

Hunter: Ka-50 ground attack
Arclight: Ka-50 ground attack
Oberon: Ka-50 ground attack
Raptor: Ka-50 ground attack
Schroeder: Huey SAR
Zirran: Huey SAR
Task Force: A10/Su25 SEAD

We set mission start at 20:45Z (21:45BST) so that we're all gathered and any late arrivals have a chance to arrive and setup before we go, and then the Kamovs pair off into two pairs, they go for the convoy with the Huey lurking behind, while the A10/Su-25 starts nailing the airfield SAM defences. With the convoy taken care of, the Kamovs then head for the airfield to join the A10/Su-25 in clearing a path for the friendly convoy.
Anyone who is shot down has to wait until the SAR can pick them up and return them to the airfield before they can respawn (basically Schroeder/Zirran will land near you and then take off back to the airfield, when they land at the airfield, then respawn) but if the SAR is shot down then consider yourself a POW and respawn anyway.

If TF doesn't show then Raptor or myself can take his place in SEAD, if Zirran shows then he can join Schroeder on the SAR.

How does that sound?

Sounds fair. Got a scenario in my head where the Huey will deliver a SF team. Either work something out with triggers or just "fake" it. A-10 flying precision strikes (SaD), clearing a path for the helicopters which will assault a compound.

Yaarp, that sounds good to me.

As for 1 more training session well I'm pretty sure we'll have more of them when we have to work out some ''minor tactical missteps'' during our missions :O:

Also I would like to add the coordination of pairs during the flight.
One of the two takes the role of a leader and coordinates with his wingmen whenever he makes a adjustment in his flightpath (altitude,speed and heading whenever he makes a turn)
when reaching the target it would be wise to coordinate how you'll pick of the targets like working your way towards the center with one starting from the right and the other from the left to avoid wasting ammo on the same target. Just some basic stuff I wager to give a try.

I have pretty much mastered the basics of flying and shooting stuff with the kamov (apart from landing obviously) but still would like to get to know it better (the abris, navigating options, the use of the other types of ammo it can carry and designating targets with the computer for friendlies to see) so perhaps after having done some straight forward missions we should get to that as well but all on a step by step phase ofcoure :D

HunterICX

Who the hell are you? :O:

Raptor! Intruder! Kill!

http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_...8__stasi_2.jpg