Desert Storm - Mission 08 - Mirages

[beachav8r 360]

Our next series of missions takes a look at one of the lesser appreciated airframes of the Gulf War – the Dassault Mirage F1. The French Air Force sent F1C and F1CR to participate in Operation Daguet while the Kuwaiti Air Force flew their F1CK from bases in Saudi Arabia. Since Iraq also fielded Mirage F1s, the Coalition F1s were held in reserve until complete air superiority was achieved to prevent misidentification and possible blue on blue incidents.

* A reminder that these missions are just general representations and are not historically accurate with respects to bases, missions, and loadouts. *

The French F1CR was well suited to its reconnaissance role and I believe later in the war they also performed direct bombing attacks. They were also apparently paired up and utilized as pathfinders for the Buccaneers since they had better avionics and navigation capabilities. For our mission today, we will perform a recon flight to assess the strength and disposition of an Iraqi fortified area on the border of Kuwait and Iraq…



Heading off with wing tanks and the center mounted reconnaissance pod…





Dropping to low level over the Gulf on approach to the Kuwaiti coastline…



Elsewhere the Kuwaiti Tornados are gearing up for a mission…



That’s not a MiG-29 shooting a missile, that’s a MiG-29 that just dodged a Sidewinder!



A-7 Corsairs getting shot off the carrier will add to the mix…



Soon we are abeam Kuwait getting ready to turn westbound toward the target area…





As we make the turn, we turn our ECM pods on…



We have a massive screen of Coalition aircraft to our north acting as barrier to any enemy fighters that might be working their way south…



We stray a bit north of the inbound course line in order to keep some distance from some mobile SA-8 sites that appear on the map…



Nearing the target area we pop up to a few thousand feet and snap our photos…



As soon as we cross the target we drop back down to about two hundred feet for the quick egress to the south, chased out of the area by a couple SAM launches from the compound we overflew…



Back at base safely with the recon photos in hand…





We hand off our intel to the Kuwaiti pilots who are eager to hit back at the Iraqi forces…





Since the F1 is a bit outclassed on the battlefield, it is a good idea to slow down a bit and let the bulk of Coalition aircraft push out ahead to clear out the airspace…



Our Kuwaiti fighters reenter their homeland…





A few miles out they spot the target from mid altitude and dive down to low altitude to deliver the high drag bombs…







The party gets started as the base defenses kick into gear and start launching SAMs…



Pickle!



A great example of my poor interval setting (I forgot to set it!) versus my wingman who has a better spread on his stick of bombs delivered from a slightly higher altitude…



His bombs hit just before mine – he gets good hits while my cluster of bombs goes long and hits just outside the perimeter fence…







As we peel off to the south the smoke rises from the Iraqi compound…



Not content to let us get away unmolested, the SA-8 opens up on us…



My wingman pays the price for lingering at too high an altitude. Safety is found below 200’ or at much higher altitudes. Medium altitudes are suicide…



Two went out – only one returns…



In a nod to the fact that not all of the air war was uncontested, there were a few brave Iraqi Air Force pilots that flew into impossible odds on impossible missions. Iraq also fielded their own F1 Mirages but many fled to Iran after the onset of hostilities and a few more were shot down. A fairly bold strike was attempted by the Iraqi Air Force on January 24 when a pair of F1s and two MiG-23s were sent on a mission to strike the major Saudi oil refinery at Abqaiq . AWACS vectored a pair of Saudi F-15s toward the incoming strikers and the MiGs turned tail and ran while the F1s tried to press on. One of the Saudi F-15s quickly dispatched both of the F1s, effectively ending Iraq’s offensive air operations for the duration of the war.

An Iraqi F1 takes off for a strike against Saudi oil facilities near Dhahran…







I flew this mission multiple times and found it was near impossible to work south into Saudi airspace without being detected and promptly hunted and executed. Even getting into the air from some of the Iraqi airspace can result in fairly quick action. Here we’ve just taken off and intercepted an F-18 strike coming toward our base…







The Coalition F-15Cs are impossible to defeat or evade. I assume this is fairly true to form since Coalition air dominance was pretty complete throughout the war.



If you are patient, and can wait for the bulk of the air activity to calm down, you can pick your way south. Here we try an extremely low attack profile from over the Gulf…



Soon the oil complex on the coast comes into view through the HUD…



Without a CCIP HUD display, it is a bit of guesswork to release the Beluga CBU cannisters…



I get lucky with my guesswork and the CBU bomblets rip across the complex…





We break hard to the east and hope the Coalition air defenses are late to the switch…



While escaping to the north you had better be careful to avoid the Coalition fleet in the middle of the Gulf…





Things don’t end well..



Flying the Iraqi side of the Operation Desert Storm campaign is pretty brutal. I don’t care what side of the conflict you are on – if you take up arms and fight for your country, that takes courage and even though the Iraqi Air Force never had a chance, there were still some moments of extreme bravery shown. The Mirage F1 saw some interesting action in the Gulf War on both sides.

BeachAV8R

 

[Wrench 9,429]

as always, great AAR!!!

[MigBuster 2,861]

Great stuff that - and flying the F1 for 3 different countries!

[Stratos 3,167]

You're giving the simming community a new look on this fantastic set of games. Thanks for creating this AAR.

 

You know what? Soon we will have new models for the three F.1's you used!!     

[Antares81 16]

Have you make a downloadable mission pack for Desert Storm ?

[33LIMA 972]

Lovely plane, great pics, excellent report!

[beachav8r 360]

Thanks guys - just showing off what you guys do - you make it possible.

 

I probably should have made a mission pack with these missions...but I didn't really think about it ahead of time, so I've not been real diligent about keeping them together. Basically most of them are started campaigns, then saved the invidual missions and tweaked them up a bit to make them track the historical missions. Probably wouldn't be too difficult to eventually put them together as a package, but people would have to understand they'd be flown as just single missions and not a campaign where each mission affected the campaign.

 

Good idea though!

 

BeachAV8R

[+Dave 2,318]

I wonder where you have been Beach, great AAR. Always a good read. 

[+Sundowner 4,516]

Excellent stuff m8, I don't fly campaigns but I'd love to fly these as single missions.

[Peugeot205 2,745]

This is just a "fake" version made by me..... The good one will me amazing...

 

[Stratos 3,167]

This is just a "fake" version made by me..... The good one will me amazing...

 

 

This one looks already amazing!

[jeanba 1,915]

Great account !

Will you try French Jag ?

[citizen67 40]

did you use some mod to improve effects and visual?

[Peugeot205 2,745]

Great account !

Will you try French Jag ?

About the Jaguar A , all of us will enjoy it in a future in the new version of the operation DS.  The work that what are doing is amazing!!!  Thanks to Jeanba for share with us that incredible plane!!

Edited April 18, 2014 by cangas

[jeanba 1,915]

Hello

 

Is this image :

 

Is this the result of a "photorecon mode" ?

[beachav8r 360]

LOL..no..that is just a quick PhotoShop I did to make it look like it.. I exercised some artistic license there.. <g>

 

BeachAV8R

did you use some mod to improve effects and visual?

 

I'm using SweetFX - plus a lot of Stary's explosions and effects... I purposely chose SweetFX settings that sort of give a harsh look. I think the Gulf area had pretty stark and harsh lighting (just speculating), so I have my SweetFX settings set to reflect that. I can attach my SweetFX file if you guys want to take a look at it..

 

BeachAV8R

[citizen67 40]

Yes! It would be great. Thank you.

[citizen67 40]

I've found this:

http://sweetfx.thelazy.net/

 

It's a configurator that - I suppose - should change SweetFX settings and/or parameter without editing the settings.txt file.

 

Anyone knows more about it?

[TipodiraMartin 0]

Those ships... How did you made them appear?