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Gimme one of the Z-19s. I lust for sweet helicopter death.
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Mar 21, 2023 15:28
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 06:46 |
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habeasdorkus posted:Was thinking about potential scenarios and thought of a North Atlantic faceoff between the French and UK involving the Charles de Gaulle and the Queen Elizabeth in the frenzied aftermath of the Irish Unification of 2024. The Brits have had to pull their old Harrier IIs out of mothballs since the USMC F-35B's currently operating off the Liz have been recalled as the US doesn't want to have anything to do with the fight and the UK hasn't received any of their own yet, meaning the French Rafaeles aren't completely outclassed from the jump. Why not have a scenario somewhere in South America? Argentina vs Chile or Brasil or something. A wild collection of native and imported aircraft on both sides, and if you set it at the right time period you end up with a lot of cool gear like Mirages and Canberras and Skyhawks. I'm not a fan of the "latest and greatest" because so much of it is a blackbox based entirely on capabilities listed by the producer.
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Mar 21, 2023 16:27
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Spain v Italy: Balearics Boogaloo Giuseppe Garibaldi vs Principe de Asturias. Harrier on Harrier crime.
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Mar 21, 2023 20:53
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Do the Columbia vs Venezuela one, Yooper 
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Mar 21, 2023 22:06
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habeasdorkus posted:Was thinking about potential scenarios and thought of a North Atlantic faceoff between the French and UK involving the Charles de Gaulle and the Queen Elizabeth in the frenzied aftermath of the Irish Unification of 2024. The Brits have had to pull their old Harrier IIs out of mothballs since the USMC F-35B's currently operating off the Liz have been recalled as the US doesn't want to have anything to do with the fight and the UK hasn't received any of their own yet, meaning the French Rafaeles aren't completely outclassed from the jump. 2 problems here: 1. The Brits are already flying at least 2 squadrons of their own F-35s, not relying 100% on USMC aircraft. They might not have a full load available, but they'd have Lightnings. 2. They don't have any Harriers in mothballs - they sold them all to the USMC back in 2011 to serve as parts for AV-8Bs.
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Mar 21, 2023 22:31
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Darn. Gonna have to give the French some more stuff to make up for the F-35's then.
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Mar 21, 2023 22:47
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smdvogrin posted:2 problems here: laughs in Harry Turtledove
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Mar 21, 2023 22:48
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I'd like to see one of those old "fish wars" from the 1970s-1990s go hot, if we're talking about balanced but reasonably light-hearted scenarios. UK vs Iceland (+US reservists) in a Cod Wars Gone Hot, Canada vs. Spain in a Turbot War Gone Hot, UK vs France if the 1993 Cherbourg Incident escalated, for example.
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Mar 21, 2023 23:16
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habeasdorkus posted:Darn. Gonna have to give the French some more stuff to make up for the F-35's then. Why not just not have the F-35s, that should give the Brits a shot in the arm
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Mar 21, 2023 23:19
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The Brits should have their F-35s, I hadn't realize they finally received a bunch of them because I didn't check in on the problem for several years. it's just that the F-35 is a very, very capable aircraft that significantly outclasses the Rafales the French fly off the CdG, so I'd imagine a scenario creator would want to give the French more stuff to balance out the 30 or so F-35B's that the UK has so far received.
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Mar 21, 2023 23:29
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0004Z Our CAP rises up from El-Obeid as well as Wadi Seidna. The base EMCON was Active, so I set it to passive for now. Once everyone is in position we can re-evaluate that.  The SA-2's in the west go random intermittent for detection purposes. We have fully isolated the location of the Chadian radar too. It is a RAC-3d, and is a really good radar. While it lives our options to operate in that area are nil. I'm going to frag a package from El-Obeid to hit it with some ARM's.  I'm not going to send an escort as we'll have fresh cap up nearby. I don't have much fuel to get spicy with this flight, it'll be in, out, and gone.  Flight Jive92 is up! Swinging 4 KH-31P with a standoff range outside of our RAC range. The KH-31 is super fast, uses a ramjet, but is strictly passive. It needs an emitter, if our target goes cold then this thing is dead.  We get a pair of bogeys coming in, rotary assets. All we know is they are 145 knots airspeed.  And they keep coming! I mark them hostile, as I think they are...  More!  One of the Volunteer regiments has an HQ-16B  which is a very capable mid range sam system. It has detected the rotary asset on camera and will probably smoke it soon. MI-35M HIND's!  That took about half a dozen interceptors, but we finally knocked them out.  It then fires on a pair of Tigre's.  Think French Apache. These things can do a surprising amount of damage if not intercepted.  Further north we pick up two bogeys. 350 knots, and a course south by southwest.  A pair of Rafale C's. It just turned on its radar and at that range is, without a doubt, getting a fiting solution on my J-10C Firebirds. Or maybe not? They are vectored towards a further group of J-16's?  Ahh. No, they had fired and are guiding the missiles in until they are pitbull. This is bad. Those are Meteors and an exceptional missile.  Flight Beast88 goes defensive!   The missiles, even though the same color as us are definitely hostile.  RIP Flight Beast88.  We launch a pair of KH-31's at the RAC-3D radar.  It's a kill!  Flight Jive92 has a pair of KH-31's left so I divert them to strike the short range radar at Abeche. They also achieve a mission kill. Jive 92 RTB's.  One of our SU-30's gets into AESA radar range and gets some solid hits on potential targets. Come sun rise we can set up some strikes and take of these... 
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Mar 21, 2023 23:36
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Attacking at night is rather uncouth of them
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Mar 22, 2023 00:36
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I'm enjoying the hell out of this! If there's still room somewhere, count me in!
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Mar 22, 2023 14:31
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I have no idea how we're gonna deal with those Rafales.
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Mar 22, 2023 15:44
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habeasdorkus posted:I have no idea how we're gonna deal with those Rafales. Plane art. Just draw some WWII pin-ups on the side of a cargo plane and fly it around within range of some ground-based AA, the French pilots won't be able to stay away from it.
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Mar 22, 2023 16:00
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habeasdorkus posted:I have no idea how we're gonna deal with those Rafales. if we put enough planes in the air they'll get to winchester eventually 
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Mar 22, 2023 16:19
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We should make the Sudanese A-5C's face tank for our expeditionary force.
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Mar 22, 2023 20:30
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0114 Z It's like pitch black out, 0300, night, and no dawn for awhile. Some of our strikers, Floggers, MIG-29 bombers, and FanTans, can only operate during the day. I really want to slide my AEW over a bit more west, but my hunch is it will eat a Meteor.  More Rafales! We have two flights up who can engage these. Though I'm willing to bet we already have missiles inbound and we're about to lose a pair.  So what better time to send up Dance Officer and the Z-19's than when the Rafales should be dry?  Murphy's Law of fighter aircraft says you'll need fuel the minute you're needed somewhere.  Both of them, ffs.  Missiles!   We spoofed one! Holy poo poo.  And another one spoofed!  Talk about a hell of a roll! 6% chance, and we get a 6.  Meanwhile our Z-19's are up and headed for hostiles.  I think someone is following us.  Oh dear, these are probably MICA's.  Four missiles actually. The nearest interceptor is 163nm away...  MICA EM's!  Oof! A cockpit strike too.  Ahh, there's the MICA IR's.  And it eats a MICA  At least it's not on fire! But it's probably out of action for this campaign.  The Rafale's close to within 1000 meters and then depart.  Now we have an interesting conundrum. These Rafale's are going to eat us alive one flight at a time. But... what if we do an OCA strike on the two Rafale bases? Gradenko's Floggers don't have the legs, but they can swat over to Abeche Airport and rain down on the M2K's.  I'm not sure I like it, but I like being slowly eaten by Rafale's even less. Oh poo poo.  Looks like 6 strikers. Naval Rafale's.  We lose a pair a J-16's, but it could have been worse.  Dance Officer strikes some tanks!  poo poo! SAM's!  Dance Officer eats a MANPAD  Meanwhile our HQ-9A knocks out a Rafale!  Scratch two more Rafale's!  MANPAD's knock out another Z-19, but we do some damage to the Chadian armor.  At 0155 the call goes out... it's time for an OCA Strike, or three.
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Mar 22, 2023 23:00
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What's OCA short for?
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Mar 22, 2023 23:19
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Offensive, Counter Air, the closest I can think of is a sort of fighter sweep, except of course without being seen first and therefore made extra dead first, so quite unlike a fighter sweep.
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Mar 22, 2023 23:35
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PurpleXVI posted:What's OCA short for? Yup, like SIGSEGV said. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_counter_air Destroying the enemy on the ground or trying to. When it works, it works really loving well. When it doesn't, well, then you usually lose everything.
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Mar 22, 2023 23:43
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Yooper posted:Yup, like SIGSEGV said. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offensive_counter_air Destroying the enemy on the ground or trying to. When it works, it works really loving well. When it doesn't, well, then you usually lose everything. On the other hand, if we don't do something we get to see how much weight we can lose on the Meteor diet.
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Mar 22, 2023 23:53
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Lemme at the GAN, boss! Those naval Rafales won't be so effective if they don't have anywhere to land!
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Mar 23, 2023 00:23
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0155 OPERATION ABECHE ABERRATION So we have an issue with our half of our strikers, they can only strike during the day. We could refit some, but then it would be day by the time we were done. The operation will be timed so that we can get missiles on target at 0615 local time. Or 0500 Z. I'm going to do 3 packages. One to Ouadi Doum Airbase, one to Faya-Largeau, and the last to Abeche Airport.  Hangars and tarmac space are excellent targets. We don't really have the proper weapon type to knock out revetments, runways, or access points. That is our flight plan, 200 ft above ground level, 580 knots. Strike fast folks! You'll be back home with a shitload of fuel too.  Faya-Largeau is very crude, runway, tarmac, revetment. Our target here will be the tarmac. Where else can they keep the planes?  Ouadi isn't much better. My hunch is these are going to be defended by a capable SAM system. So we're going to be sure to saturate the area and send ARM aircraft as escorts.  We're having issues getting the tankers positioned perfectly. I've adjusted the Tanker path to put them in a spot to fuel these J-16's. But this is going to be a stretch.  Without those extra cruise missileish things, it's going to be a sparse drop. We are also basically without escort for this too.  We might as well use our A-5C's too, right? So I set them to strike tanks and avoid the MANPAD toting infantry.  We get a bogey, likely a Rafale. Not much we can do here.  Run away little helicopter! Run away!  Hell yah! Spoof those Meteors.  They can't all be winners...  Ugh, more. The only upside here is they will have to stand down eventually and refit. Right?  Ugh.  4 Bogeys, Multi-role, almost guranteed to be Rafales. Headed towards Nyala.  Arrath gets up, I'd like to sneak a peak at the CG.  Another group of bogeys pops up and engages our Forward airbase. A shame if those FanTans would eat poo poo. Shame.  Oof. That's a tough loss.  Flight Psycho66 is going to to intercept those strikers. This'll be interesting to see if we can actually stop these things.  Arrath gets some aerial contacts, and if they are AESA and 4, that tells me it's Rafale's.  Psycho66 fires!  We've got a hefty load of these PL-15's to chomp out at the Rafale's.  Go missiles! Go!   The Rafale strikers go defensive! With any luck they jettison weapons.  3 out of 4 are down! But they managed to launch a pair of vampires.  Sweet Jesus, how many of these things can it carry?  The last striker is down at a cost of virtually all of our Floggers. Sadly Gradenko didn't make it out from his radar coolant testing chamber.  Meanwhile Arrath heads north away from the incoming hostiles.  As expected, Rafale M's.  Our first strikers are up, they'll refuel and meet up with the rest of the teams. Hopefully we can catch the Rafale's mid baguette. 
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Mar 23, 2023 22:08
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What's the current spread of kills and losses in this operation?
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Mar 23, 2023 22:33
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PurpleXVI posted:What's the current spread of kills and losses in this operation?  
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Mar 23, 2023 23:00
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I'll take those trades, right? Losing the Y-20s is not phenomenal but 2:1 on fighters is sustainable.
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Mar 24, 2023 01:23
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Rafales wrecking poo poo. You love to see that
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Mar 24, 2023 11:20
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even in death, we still serve o7
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Mar 24, 2023 11:32
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I'm helping!
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Mar 24, 2023 14:26
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Taking out 7 Rafales is a very good return - the French Airforce only has 102 Rafales total (now 98!) and the Marine nationale only has 42 carrier borne variants (now 39!) By comparison the only 4.5 gen airframes we've lost are the 3 J-10C and 5 J-16s, and China's built 180+ and 250+ of those since 2018 and 2012, respectively. That's really good considering the Rafale's advantages in range. Losing the Y-20A's is too bad, though, because China's only built 34 of them thus far and they're pretty much the only heavy airlift capacity the nation has. (compare with the US running out over 200 comparable C-17s and more than 50 much larger C-5s). e: Seemso dd that the AI decided to use the Rafales as strike craft rather than the Mirages with Rafales as cover, but there's maybe something obvious I'm missing. habeasdorkus fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Mar 24, 2023 |
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Mar 24, 2023 14:58
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habeasdorkus posted:
I'll need to look into the scenario when we're done and see what the mission logic is for the M2K's. They might just be tasked for anti-armor or something. Keeping steady pacing is a definite scenario goal, even if not terribly realistic.
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Mar 24, 2023 17:01
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Having lost my ride, I'd like to switch careers and fly an A-5
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Mar 24, 2023 17:33
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what are our odds of getting a ground based missile strike on the CdG?
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Mar 24, 2023 17:53
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Put me in the AEW if possible, please
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Mar 24, 2023 20:42
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The trade rate is very roughly 1:1 when it comes to...well...fighters that actually count. No, I'm not counting the Floggers or Fantans for this. Feels like the question is PL-10s vs Meteors. I wish I could be surprised at how murderously effective the Meteors are against our craft (oh god is this what it was like for the OPFOR in all those Hayard Gunnes scenarios?) but I'm honestly a little surprised the Rafales didn't dodge more of our LRAAMs.
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Mar 24, 2023 21:49
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Feeling bad for all those volunteers, when you say “I lost my brother when he was volunteering in Africa” I don’t think eating a French missile is what most people imagine…
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Mar 24, 2023 23:14
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Our flights with cruise missile like missiles are at the orbit point while they form up. This should give us a handful of weapons on target... We get another group of bogeys heading towards the FLOC. Flight RAM31, J-10C's, is in a decent position to intercept.  Meteors out!  RIP  Another group of Rafale M's comes in. This is proving troublesome. After this next strike is done I'm going to route my MPA over Eritrea and see if we can get a ping.  RIP Arrath.  Habeas Dorkus picks up a radar contact, it's so shallow in his current location that his radar warning system was tickled by that rotary asset. We steer for deeper water.  They literally flew all that way, with 4 Rafale's, just to dunk on Arrath.  Our J-16's with KD-88's head in for a quick refuel.  Strikers rise up from El Fashir. This is our SU-24's with FAB-250's.  This is pretty cool, our tankers are flying the strike path to maximize our range for our J-16's.  Sound the horn! Our strikers are up!
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Mar 25, 2023 00:26
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Gonna suck to be working at that air field shortly.
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Mar 25, 2023 00:35
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| # ? Jun 10, 2024 06:46 |
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With my glorious sacrifice I have forced the hand of the dastardly French, burning up valuable flight time and fuel just to chase me down!
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Mar 25, 2023 00:41
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