TempestII

Defender of the fleet:

I imagine there's 2 Typhoons on something equivalent to a QRA which can be scrambled within moments. The other 2 wouldn't be at such a high readiness so I'd assume it'd take longer to get them up.

A few Strike Eagle action shots:

Pete Maddock Diary 06 Apr 1980: (I think my campaign date may be glitched as it's been the 6th of Apr for about 5 missions now haha) This afternoon saw our first mission failure. As the rumormill predicted we were sent on a naval strike using the hijacked Exocet shipment. Our target was a a trio of Soviet ships heading towards Vaga Floghavn delivering reinforcements & supplies to a landing force. On paper it looked quite straight forward: the plan was to go in with 12 Eagles at low level, launch the Exocets & then Foxtrot Oscar before SAMs engaged us. The problem was that within minutes of taking off a group of a MiG-27s & a separate group MiG-23s appeared almost out of nowhere. Red Crown only warned us just before they came into firing range. Survival became the number one priority & it really did turn into a furball. How all of us made it out alive I don't know. In the excitement I completely forgot to drop my fuel tanks & air to surface weps but luckily it was of no consequence. After the cluster***k that occurred, I was the only one with my Exocets left. Nonetheless we carried on to the firing point where the rest of the squadron engaged a pair of Tu-128s while I fired my two missiles. The Soviet ships didn't actually engage us but I assume they shot down the Exocets as the post mission debrief showed the transport ship was totally undamaged. It also turns out the MiG-27s hit Lossiemouth but the damage was very minor thankfully. Our mission was a relative milk run compared to the RAF strike on the Kiev though: the debrief said that all 4 Buccaneers tasked with SEAD, all 8 Phantom FGR.2s carrying out the strike & 2 out of the 4 Lightnings on escort duty were torn apart by the Kiev group's SAM network. Apparently they damaged the carrier but it's unlikely to prohibit Soviet air ops. The big question: is Operation Stamford Bridge in danger of failing? If we have another set of sorties like this then we'd be on our knees.