Recon mission tactics

[harryleith 12]

I took a break from mud moving last night and took an unarmed RF-111 on a recon mission over Libya in SF2. It was a very different and hair-raising experience and I was hoping someone on the forums could give me some advice on developing appropriate mission tactics.

 

Coming up onto the recon target, my 2-ship flight was intercepted by MiG-23's. Being unarmed, the only thing I could think of was to light up the afterburners and go like heck! I used chaff and flares and some jinking to avoid several AAMs, and once I had reconned the target I dove for the deck and stayed there. I evaded another couple of AAM's from the trailing Floggers and a couple of SAM's. My wingman wouldn't fly as low as I was and he got picked off by a SAM. Apart from slight course corrections to skirt Shilka AA positions I just stayed low during the egress and ran for it. The MiGs lost interest after expending their missiles, and for some reason didn't close for a guns pass.

 

While the mission succeeded, I wasn't happy with the tactics I used. It seemed more like good luck than good management. My RWR screamed at me the entire flight and it felt strange to have someone in my 6 and not be doing anything about it. Should I have maneuvered hard against the MiGs to break their lock, or would that have just slowed me down? Should recon flights be escorted? That would seem to be impractical. I don't fly unarmed often and it was an interesting experience to be in a combat situation and not be able to defend myself.

 

Anyway, thinking about it kept me up all night and I would love to hear any suggestions to improve my tactics for this type of mission.

[Sakai 2]

Sounds like you had a good time to me! As I see it, you did what you were supposed to do. Most recon flights are not escorted to my understanding. One single aircraft, or single element, attracts much less attention then a flight and its escort. You out maneuvered the enemy interceptors, and evaded enemy SAM firings. On top of that you got your pictures, sounds like a successful mission to me.

[Viper6 3]

Sounds like you did well. I try to use terrain whenever possible to hide from bad guys and sam's and I'm always low and fast til I have to climb to get the pics then its back down to ground level and hiding lol yep sounds like your tactics are good because you made it back. I also recall a .ini edit for the 1st gen series that allowed your wingman/flight to get as low as flight lead. I'm pretty sure the same may be applied to the 2nd gen series.

[Slartibartfast 153]

Should recon flights be escorted interesting question personally I love doing recon RF-4 Jaguar A-5 etc I prefer the unarmed variants as it makes it a lot more interesting...

 

Your Tactics worked as advertised because thats what they do low and fast also if flying recce I ditch my wingman as they cant go as low as you can and they aren't evasive enough to avoid being nixxed by guns. My prefered Tactic is high until I get close to the area of interest and then get down low sub 200ft low and fast 500knots to 600knots or max dry thrust no burners no jamming no radar. If I get picked up by Radar I wait until I know whats picking me up Gunnery i.e. Shilka toss some chaff and then go for a climb dive routine to through of its tracking only up to 500ft and back again usually works for me. If its a SAM being 200ft and below they have a hard time tracking apart from the heatseekers aka SA-13 (no warning from those) so keep an eye out for SAM trails. About 5 miles out pop up to 500ft to simulate the photo shot over the target dropping flares and chaff (Carrying a chaff/flare pod is advisable). Once off target back low still no burner just keep the speed high and then turn for home or the other option is to fly past your target low level offset by 10 miles or so and then turn back in on your target and photo it as above but with the added extra that you are on your way home. If Intercepted by Aircraft in any of this ditch external stores and get low and mighty fast burners up to 90% and jink in case they decide on playing guns with you also try to get lower i.e. 100ft and below it all helps. Throw out the odd flare as well as a heat seaker might get lucky down low.

 

All else fails call it quits and go home... Better to runaway to fight another day...

[+Cliff7600 1,148]

Hi

 

I started a thread called "Tactics for reco mission" and I had some great advices about how to deal with recce flights.

We made reports and tried different ideas.

 

Maybe you'll find it with the "search thing" because it's out of sight now. It was in the Thirdwire general discussion section.

 

Hope it'll help!

 

Cliff

[Darrin 3]

I took a break from mud moving last night and took an unarmed RF-111 on a recon mission over Libya in SF2. It was a very different and hair-raising experience and I was hoping someone on the forums could give me some advice on developing appropriate mission tactics.

 

Coming up onto the recon target, my 2-ship flight was intercepted by MiG-23's. Being unarmed, the only thing I could think of was to light up the afterburners and go like heck! I used chaff and flares and some jinking to avoid several AAMs, and once I had reconned the target I dove for the deck and stayed there. I evaded another couple of AAM's from the trailing Floggers and a couple of SAM's. My wingman wouldn't fly as low as I was and he got picked off by a SAM. Apart from slight course corrections to skirt Shilka AA positions I just stayed low during the egress and ran for it. The MiGs lost interest after expending their missiles, and for some reason didn't close for a guns pass.

 

While the mission succeeded, I wasn't happy with the tactics I used. It seemed more like good luck than good management. My RWR screamed at me the entire flight and it felt strange to have someone in my 6 and not be doing anything about it. Should I have maneuvered hard against the MiGs to break their lock, or would that have just slowed me down? Should recon flights be escorted? That would seem to be impractical. I don't fly unarmed often and it was an interesting experience to be in a combat situation and not be able to defend myself.

 

Anyway, thinking about it kept me up all night and I would love to hear any suggestions to improve my tactics for this type of mission.

i was in my a-6 one time on an egress when 2 mig 29s went after my wingman i called Bulls**t i then pulled in let him close shoot past then i kept him there sent my wing man home safe then played with the other two totally weponless but the one i think got tired of being dead. it was steller.no guns no missles pure dog fight. them to egressive and coulnt go as slow as me.yee ha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[johnrey 0]

When I'm flying the SR-71,my standard evasion technique is go full burner at low altitude.

That way radars can't pick you up and probability of SAM's fired at you are low.No worries about AAA.There's little or none chance that they will hit you.

[JediMaster 451]

The problem is your max speed at sea level is far less due to the thicker atmosphere, and your range drops correspondingly. Plus the SR-71 is no agile bird, so if you have to maneuver around terrain or buildings or whatever, you need a LOT of room.