Caesar

Mission: Strike fuel reserves at Jazireh Khark - Island Air Base Aircraft Strike Package: 2x F/A-18F, VFA-11 Red Rippers Target: Jazireh Khark's fuel tanks. Mission started normally, indeed it was quite dull for the fly-in; radars off so as not to give away our position. Cruising altitude was about 15k feet, until we started to get towards the target. Roughly 25 miles out we started to get lit up; dropped altitude down to about 5k feet and initiated jamming to try to force whoever was tracking us to have to interfere with water returns. This worked and I turned the radar on to see who was peeking. Two sets of contacts, one further, one closer. I locked up the closer guy and selected the AIM-9X. He was about 10 miles out and we confirmed the target to be an F-5A Freedom Fighter. Fired a pair of AIM-9X at the lead and thought I splashed him, but apparently not. Trailer came blowing through, so I told -2 to take him. He tried to spray me with 20-mike mike as we passed each other, but failed. About this time, group 2 burned through my ECM, so I continued towards them, as they were also en-route to the target fuel area. F-4 Phantom II's. Locked the lead about 10 miles out and put a Slammer his way at around 8. He exploded 4 miles away, while his wing man failed to seize the initiative and instead of shooting an AIM-7 at me, closed to the merge. I pulled into him in a moderate 4.4g turn due to my stores, but the Iranian reversed his turn and put himself my nose damn quick. Fox 3 and good kill on F-4 #2. During this time, the pair of F-5's had gotten around my wingman, with one on his tail, one closing above me. I overstressed the Bug with a 6.3g turn (about 0.8g over limit at my weight, so fortunately I don't think they'll have to open the weekly stuff this evening) to get onto the F-5's chasing down my wingman. I was able to lock up the trail F-5 first and sent an AMRAAM his way. This struck and destroyed him (he was the one that took the AIM-9's earlier). Shortly after, the lead F-5 began spraying 20mm at -2, and I told -2 to break. It was about this time that the F-5 noticed me, but it was a bit late for him. After a few sudden jerking turns and over-alphas on the Tiger's part, I got good line up and shot him down with the M61. With the air threat taken care of, we moved onto the fuel tanks. Had a pair of SAMs come up at me, but I was pretty close to the ground and they were accelerating too fast to be able to turn onto me before rocketing past. Good drop with 2x GBU-31 JDAM, good kill against the tanks. We also damaged one of the generator buildings and destroyed an arming pit in the blast; it is uncertain at this time the extent of the damage or what it means for operations from Jazireh Khark, but they'll be hard pressed to fuel or launch fighters from that site at this time. Had a bunch more SAMs come up, none managing to adequately track. End result: VFA-11 has destroyed fueling capacity at Jazireh Khark, as well as one of the base generators. 4x GBU-31 JDAM expended, 2x jettisoned by wingman, 2x used in strike. Also, 2x F-4 and 2x F-5 shot down. This area shouldn't be able to support Iranian operations at least for the near future.

Thank you very much, Wrench/all involved! Just tested it - running fine for me.

Can you give the wings/fuselage a StructuralFactor=2.0 (or higher) and see what that does? With the EF-2000 that ought to make it a hell of a lot harder to overstress - if it works right, that should give your AI 18g to play with.

Well, you could adjust either the MaxG or the StructuralFactor. If you play Easy and only want the airframe's recommended max g, up the StructuralFactor on the parts affected by stress (isn't that the main parameter that causes the jets to break?). I personally am enjoying the fact that the AI are now breaking their jets from overstress. If my jet is damaged from excess "g", and I have to watch my stick inputs to prevent that from happening, their jets and "pilots" ought to abide by the same rules! Its only fair.

TO: JFC SHAPE FROM: CVW-11 STATUS: GO

TO: JFC SHAPE FROM: CAG CVW-11 MESSAGE ACKNOWLEDGED, RESUPPLY OPERATIONS COMPLETED, CARRIER AIR WING ABLE TO SUPPORT.

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Good Luck!

TO JFC SHAPE FROM CAG CVW-11 WE'VE RUN INTO SUPPLY ISSUES AND WILL BE UNABLE TO SUPPORT OPERATIONS FOR 72 HOURS. PENDING PART DELIVERY, WILL ADVISE JFC SHAPE WHEN CVW-11 CAN CONTINUE OPERATIONS. (Trans/RL: Have a TDY for a few days)

Top Gun did one thing I haven't seen before or after - it depicted the more physical aspect of air combat from the cockpit. In other movies, you have folks looking straight ahead, never/rarely loosing sight of an enemy, or having an enemy just randomly go from defensive to offensive somehow. Top Gun has the aircrews twisting and turning, looking back, left, right, up, down, straining to maintain SA. They are fighting against "g", loosing sight, reacquiring, no "radar vision" shown there. Enemies generally maneuver into position, or when they show up unnoticed there is a good reason (overt focus on one bandit, radar/sort group 1 while not paying attention to possible threats hooking behind the 3/9 line.) In that regard, I haven't seen another movie that matches Top Gun. I would never put it in the same league as Pearl Harbor, and Iron Eagle/the series might well be a contender as one of the worst movies/series of all time IMHO (a friend and I watched III last weekend; he felt his Netflix had been soiled - hell, I prefer Plan 9 from Outer Space!). That said, yes TG is gimmicky, has a less-than-ankle-deep plot, and makes plenty of errors, but you really do have to take it as a popcorn movie. Heck, I enjoy "War Games" in spite of all the blunders they make with the ITW/AA network (among other things). As a popcorn movie, I think Top Gun is great. Other good ones IMO that I see listed include The Final Countdown, Flight of the Intruder and Memphis Belle.

Sorry 'bout that, Sid, blame it on bad research on my part. Could "exchange" if no one had any gripes about it.

Been enjoying it myself. The thing is, Battlefield at one time was ONLY multiplayer (most folks here remember BF1942, right?). The SP campaign is a bit linear and I'm not much a fan of that, but I still love the BF series especially for MP. The fact that its point-based (both map and "victory" points) forces you to work as a team to take the points, and centralizes the combat, rather than the COD series which is more lone-wolf kill everyone. Less tactics needed, less team play needed to win, so I'm not as much a fan as I used to be. I'm pretty happy with BF3 (sans install and the strange web-browser launch system, but those are more afterthoughts than anything), it looks gorgeous and still has that great Battlefield play. On that subject, I'm finding it more and more that games today focus too much on graphics and not gameplay. Look at the new Ace Combat - sure it looks great, but half the time you're not even controlling the jet, you're just watching stuff explode as you mash buttons. If I want to watch Top Gun, I'll watch Top Gun. By not damaging the good play dynamics (don't fix it if it ain't broke), Battlefield provides an experience that both looks great and plays great, and that's a winner to me.

TO JFC SHAPE FROM CAG CVW-11 ACKNOWLEDGE MESSAGE. ALL AIRCRAFT READY AND ABLE TO SUPPORT OPERATIONS. END

TO JFC SHAPE CAG CVW-11 ACKNOWLEDGES ROE CHANGE

Dave, let me know if there's any stuff specifically you need me to do. I'll be sporadic this weekend, but I'll see if/what I can do.

//PRECEDENCE IMMEDIATE //271202ZOCT11 //FROM CAG CVW-1 TO: CO VFA-2 WE CAN GIVE YOU A HAND WITH THE BUSTED BUG. FLY TO GW AND WE'LL HAVE THE RIPPER'S MAINT DEPARTMENT TAKE A LOOK. //END

VFA-11 on CAP. No hostile actions encountered.

GEORGE WASHINGTON IN POSITION. 32 F/A-18F, 32 F/A-18C, 6 EA-6B, 2 E-2D.

//PRECEDENCE FLASH //FROM SHAPE JFC-OPS CELL //SUBJECT FORCE PROTECTION //TIME 260000ZOCT11 445TH HEAVY AIRLIFT FROM WPAFB, REQUEST SUPPORT FOR PAC-3 PATRIOT BATTERY DELIVERY TO AOR. EXPEDITE DELIVERY TO WITHIN 72 HOURS FOR FIRST 15 BATTERIES AND RADAR SUPPORT EQUIPMENT. DEPLOYED UNITS USE EXTANT PATRIOT BATTERIES IF AND WHERE AVAILABLE. RECOMMEND EXPEDIENT HARDENING AND RISE TO MOPP-2 AS BASELINE FOR ALL AIR BASES WITHIN AOR. APPROXIMATE RANGE OF SHAHAB-3 IS 1200MI. RECOMMEND MOVE BASE COMMAND CENTERS TO HARDENED STRUCTURES (ESPECIALLY CONCRETE BUNKER/BUILDINGS) IF POSSIBLE. //END

//PRECEDENCE EMERGENCY //FROM JOINT FORCES COMMAND //SUBJECT CONFIRMED NUKE-FLASH //TIME 252240ZOCT11 NORAD HAS CONFIRMED NUCLEAR DETONATION AT GPS COORDINATES 34.651285N, 54.215698E THROUGH DSP/SBIRS AND NUDET ASSETS. MISSILE TYPE UNDER INVESTIGATION, SUSPECTED SHAHAB-3. IRAN HAS CLAIMED ITSELF AS A NUCLEAR POWER AND MAY PRESS A NUCLEAR ATTACK UPON ISRAEL. INTELLIGENCE ASSETS ASSESS WITH MEDIUM CONFIDENCE THAT IRAN MAY BEGIN FUELING NUCLEAR-TIPPED MRBMS WITHIN THE NEXT WEEK, AND ASSESSES WITH HIGH CONFIDENCE THAT IRAN HAS PRODUCED AT LEAST 4 MORE NUCLEAR WARHEADS. ALL UNITS WITHIN AOR WILL INCREASE ALERT STATUS. //END

//PRECEDENCE FLASH //DTG 252014ZOCT11 TO SHAPE JFC FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON GEORGE WASHINGTON IS IN POSITION IN THE PERSIAN GULF

For #1, check the DeploymentMethod for your wings - they should read "AUTOMATIC_MACH" by default. I think you have to change that to MANUAL or MANUAL_WITH_BLOWBACK, and set your animation ID (kind of like your flaps). The thing is, I've never tried it with MANUAL, so I have no idea how well it will work; suffice to say to give yourself control, it cannot use AUTOMATIC_MACH as its deployment method, and you're going to have to experiment some. For 2 and 3, MB's got you covered. I remember the same info in terms of carriers - you can either have an indestructible carrier that you can take off/land from, or have a destructible carrier which you cannot.

//PRECEDENCE FLASH //DTG 250341ZOCT11 TO SHAPE JFC SUBJECT POS ACK EAM GEORGE WASHINGTON ACKNOWLEDGES EAM READ AND UNDERSTOOD

Happy Birthday, and good luck!