Desert Storm - Mission 06 - Scud Hunt

[beachav8r 360]

On the second day of Operation Desert Storm, in an attempt to draw Israel into the war and perhaps fracture the Coalition alliance, Iraq started launching Scud missiles at Israel. Politics aside, it was one of the few smart moves by Saddam Hussein's military planners because it accomplished two things: 1) It diverted a significant portion of assets away from striking more critical targets and 2) Had Israel responded there was at least the possibility of the war taking on a different regional tone. In response, Coalition planners were forced to divert A-10 and F-15E assets to "Scud boxes" in parts of Iraq including the vast western areas close to the Syrian and Jordanian borders.

* These AARs are fictionalized accounts loosely based on history. F-15Es on Scud missions primarily operated at night.



Our mission has a long flight out to Western Iraq. It is a shame that SF2 doesn't allow for air-to-air refueling. The addition of air-to-air refueling and multi-player capability would make SF2 one of the greatest sims of all time in my opinion. (Come on TK - please!!!)

The F-15E for SF2 is another brilliant 3D model and a nice cockpit. I'd give credit but I think the list of contributors to the project is really long. You guys know who you are...fantastic job!

Heading out with GBU-10s, AIM-9Ms, and a few extra gas tanks...



After takeoff we fly past one of the Royal compounds...



Heading across the vast nothingness...



Bringing my wingman in close... A hint of what multi-player would be like...



Running a parallel course to us is our CAP flight of F-15Cs. I don't know - personally I think being a strike pilot in the Gulf War would have been more interesting than the rather limited air-to-air that was available...



The late afternoon sun streams into the cockpit setting up an awful glare though the HUD..



About twenty miles out we start to let down slightly to get beneath the cumulus bases that are hovering around 15,000'...





Finding mobile Scud sites in real life proved to be extremely difficult. The ratio of sorties to actual successful Scud strikes was fairly high. The vastness of the desert and the fairly good camouflage techniques (parking them under highway overpasses or in buildings) meant that a lot of time was spent searching and very little time was spent bombing. Coalition Special Forces groups were sent in early to roam the Western desert on ATVs to find and direct strikes - a pretty interesting job if there ever was one. SF2 makes it easy to find targets with the "padlock" commands, so our search was no search at all. The LANTIRN pod displays a targeting diamond on the HUD...





Passing the IP we roll in on the attack...



Pickle!





Ka-rhump!



My wingman pulls off from his strike when his target (my target) is vaporized...



I visually acquire another launcher and direct my wingman onto that target as I circle overhead and observe...



Nice job!



I come back around three more times, targeting additional mobile Scud launchers and support vehicles. There doesn't appear to be any anti-aircraft defenses set up around the site, but we stay fairly high anyway...







With the job done we head east away from the setting sun toward our base in eastern Saudi Arabia...



An hour later the airfield comes into view...





Mission accomplished. As you can see, the variety and types of missions you can fly in SF2:ODS are pretty good. I'm basically running individual single campaign missions for different types of aircraft, but be aware that if you fly a full campaign you are stuck with one type of aircraft for the duration of the campaign.

Pssst..TK..we will pay good money for just the added MP capability..really!

BeachAV8R
 

[+streakeagle 867]

 

 

The addition of air-to-air refueling and multi-player capability would make SF2 one of the greatest sims of all time in my opinion.

Even without those features, SF2 already has that title in my opinion. No other combat flight sim since Jane's Fighters Anthology has permitted such a large planeset to be enjoyed over such a large terrain set. The stock options alone are impressive... add in what you can download for free from CombatAce and buy from RAZBAM or YAP, and you have the combat flight sim equivalent to MS Flight Sim. The next closest survey sim is Jane's USAF, and even in its most heavily modded SuperPro form, it never even came close to what the SFP1/SF2 series offered. The multiplayer issue can be partially fixed by going back to SFP1/WoX. For a sacrifice in graphics, electronic warfare detail/accuracy, and AI behavior, you can have enjoy co-op or deathmatch gameplay. The early SF2 3d models can be imported into Wings Over Israel when it has the Expansion Pack 1 installed. That's right, you can have multiplayer AND SF2 aircraft/cockpit models, but the RWR functionality has to be retrograded to the SFP1/WoX level.

 

 

 

Pssst..TK..we will pay good money for just the added MP capability..really!

Multiplayer was unpopular with the majority of the original fanbase for SFP1/SF2. Go to his forum. You can see that in later years, almost anytime I posted anything at all advocating multiplayer or even simply responded to someone elses post about mutliplayer, one or more anti-multiplayer fans would chime in requesting me to shut up. For some reason, the changes they wanted outranked my interest in the improvement or (after the release of SF2) return of multiplayer.

 

TK assessed that the cost effectiveness/profitability of programming multiplayer (as opposed to shoehorning in a basic DirectPlay interface per SFP1) just wasn't there. He always stressed how much of a minority the online crowd was but I suspect the flip side of the coin is that TK lacked the skills/experience necessary. Achieving anything like other mainstream multiplayer flight sims in terms of net code efficiency would take too much time to expand his knowlege or too much money to hire someone else. Instead, he struggled to improve the terrain graphics per the majority of fan requests, and still bankrupted himself. Now SF2 fans are left with a new terrain/environment system that is not particularly mod friendly, doesn't support large maps, causes a big hit on performance, and will never be improved due to SF2 game development apparently being frozen indefinitely. Many people don't even play with the latest patch level because of some problems that it causes that won't be fixed. All "new" modder terrains still use the original map system. In fact, modders duplicated the Iceland map of SF2NA to improve performance for those having problems with the new Iceland map. Perhaps SF2NA would have been equally successful in terms of sales, but more profitable due to reduced costs if just the F-14 and naval operations had been added?

 

Now the only news from TK is when another plane is added to one of the mobile apps. The mobile apps could be more fun if they had multiplayer, too! Simple head to head fighting like the SFP1 deathmatch could be fun.

Edited March 29, 2014 by streakeagle

[+streakeagle 867]

I have never focused on modern aircraft, my focus for Jane's FA, Jane's USAF, and SF series has been to fly Vietnam era aircraft, so I haven't ever installed or played the ODS mod for SF.

I am curious. Looking at the screen shots, it looks like flying the F-15E in SF2 rivals/exceeds flying it in Jane's USAF, leaving multiplayer and refueling as the only major features missing compared to Jane's USAF.

I never played Jane's F-15E much. The graphics, even when played on a Voodoo 5500, were just too terrible for me (melting mountains were the most annoying thing).

Jane's F/A-18 never held my attention long either. I didn't enjoy flying the Super Hornet, I wanted the more agile F/A-18A or F/A-18C as I favor air-to-air over ground pounding.

 

The SF series was the right game at the right time for me, it just took a long time for it to expand its feature set and squash the bugs: SAMs, ECM, clouds, aircraft carriers, and repeated tweaks to FM and AI.

Even now, SF2 is the only game to fly if you want to fly combat in Cold War era aircraft.

Edited March 29, 2014 by streakeagle

[Stratos 3,186]

Cool AAR BeachAV8R, thanks for taking the time of creating and sharing it.

 

If only TK release the source code with us...

[beachav8r 360]

Thanks for the brief history lesson there Streakeagle - it is interesting and slightly depressing to read. I really appreciate all that TK has done for the flight sim community and even if he walked away totally I can't begrudge him the fact. He did leave us with an awesome sim(s) and even though they aren't everything to everyone, they are still damn fun. It would be really cool if he someday decided to release the source code to allow others to give a shot at improving and expanding the sim. I mean, look how much has been done with the EECH source code. I think Falcon 4, EECH, and SF2 could really be the standout legacy sims for a long time coming.

 

BeachAV8R

[+daddyairplanes 9,927]

Hey BeachAV8R, there are KC-10 and -135 in ODS, for eye candy. Assuming you have mission editor, you could set them on an orbit (loiter for 2-3 hours) and go by as a way point. The KC-10 as is in the mod is for the gunship gray used in the 90s. But i am working on the Douglas and Shamu skins for them right now, then shortly the -135s.

[beachav8r 360]

Hey BeachAV8R, there are KC-10 and -135 in ODS, for eye candy. Assuming you have mission editor, you could set them on an orbit (loiter for 2-3 hours) and go by as a way point. The KC-10 as is in the mod is for the gunship gray used in the 90s. But i am working on the Douglas and Shamu skins for them right now, then shortly the -135s.

 

Thanks - I'll have to look for them. In that vein - didn't the guys doing Yankee Air Pirate finagle some sort of psuedo air refueling for SF1? I seem to recall reading something about that..but I could be mistaken..

 

BeachAV8R

[+streakeagle 867]

In SFP1, you could assign a negative fuel flow value to an engine.

So I think they rigged it so you refilled your fuel tank by entering the throttle setting where flow was negative or something similar.

Zerocinco was somewhat irritated by the fact that TK patched the code to eliminate negative fuel flow.

TK was merely fixing a bug, but 05 took it personal as if TK was trying to hurt his business model by releasing patches/new games that were incompatible with his previous work.

To be fair, Razbam finally gave up since patches were coming out too frequently and breaking their SF payware, too.

Ironically, just as Razbam gave up, SF2 has become extremely stable.

I really wish the market would have supported the SF series better. For the longest time the SF series was steadily progressing into a better game and sim. The sudden stop is sad and frustrating.

[+daddyairplanes 9,927]

i'll send the skins for the Extender to ya say by next sunday.  in the middle of the ini dance to decal the Douglas scheme,  and given its the first skin to get it, ALOT of trial and error.  the planes are there for mission editing, just not exactly historically accurate skins for the tankers

[+ST0RM 145]

I really wish the market would have supported the SF series better. For the longest time the SF series was steadily progressing into a better game and sim. The sudden stop is sad and frustrating.

 

TK is to blame for that. He always kept up with the "I dont care about mod/3rd party" attitude, so it drove off any potential interest. Even here at CA, he never acknowledged the work the group here put in to add life into the series and kept it going. And continues to do so.

 

 

Beach, another great AAR. Love reading/viewing them. If M/P ever found it's way into SF2, I'd buy back into the series.

 

-S