Ah, Air War! I still have my copy, on a shelf somewhere down in the basement. We played it from time to time from the mid 80s to the early 90s, and even managed to have some good fun with it too. I particularly remember "VIFfing" with the Harrier, struggling to keep high speed jets together on the ...

I was trying the "two F-35" method in a few scenarios recently, and found it worked quite well. A lead radar-silent F-35, trailed by an active radar F-35 using its OECM, can hide in the fuzz until within no-escape range of the enemy, bump up to afterburner, and launch and turn away, delivering a ...

It was neat to spot the Smeli over by the Bulgarian/Romanian coast. If I remember rightly, she served well on shore bombardment duty when I was running her in the Soviet invasion scenario.

Here's some observations after looking at the other sides.


Impressions

Interesting scenario! The various munitions limitations make it a challenging act to try and get the best use out your limited resources, against a numerically enormous enemy, and I found myself faced with dwindling stocks ...

Here's the next installment.

FEB 23 – NIGHT STRIKES ON BULGARIA

Going into the evening, a pair of RF-4s are sent probing into Bulgaria to test their responses. This draws a pair of MiG-23MLs down from the north, and a little bit of SA-10 fire, but no significant fighter response, which is ...

Here's the first part of how it went for me.

SITUATION

The struggle for the eastern Mediterranean continues, and this time we’re expected to cripple the Soviet invasion of Greece and Turkey, first by wrecking the Black Sea fleet near its beachhead, and then by battering the Bulgarian airbases ...

Day-only designator pods... Enough HARMs for the ships OR Bulgaria, not both... Not enough anti-shipping missiles for a big second strike... Already running out of missiles for Mirages... Swarms of Soviets left even after heavy air fighting... Distinct lack of night vision for Greeks/Turks...

All ...

I'm also finding 1302.1 to be very slow. I'm running it on "Flame 1' to get any significant acceleration, and x1 speed is well below actual 1:1.
(This is with Gunner98's latest.)

There are 48 desperately needed HARMs on the Cimarron, which is headed off to Brindisi.

Are they fair game, if I were to fly over some cargo helicopters to take them back to Souda for the Marines, or are they reserved for future operations?

So little of everything! This is going to be really interesting.

Tankers! My kingdom for some tankers!

I notice that the Turks and Greeks mostly don't have their fighters on 'quick turnaround'.

Is this intentional? (Combat fatigue, lesser sortie generation capability than USA, etc?)

I finished off my playthrough of V1.3, and here’s how it worked out for me.


SITUATION

War has broken out between China and Taiwan, and the US has been drawn into the mix. We’ve been ordered to take a US carrier group, currently arriving from the direction of Guam, and attack a Chinese carrier ...

- U.S. Global 4 and BlackSky Pathfinder-1 satellites detected and ID'd some small units that they should not have been able to see. The satellites have 1M resolution, and the object imaged is larger than 1m, however I am not happy with how many were discovered, so for balance, I may significantly ...

I just noticed that when a KJ-600 is shot down, both the 'points.plan.KJ-600' and 'points.plaaf,H-6 down' events fire.

Both of them have the 'destroyed.plan.KJ600' trigger.

Was the H-6 down event intended to have the 'destroyed.plaaf.bomber' trigger instead?

Same for me. Reloading it showed no extra. Definitely something funky on my end.

I downloaded the most recent version, and when the scenario starts there are two Vinsons present.



One is over by Saipan, with the other ships, and has its full load of aircraft on board.

The other one is adjacent to Taiwan, and has no aircraft.

Here's some items after a look inside.

Impressions

Well, this is certainly a stomping, just like the description and title say. I would not want to be the Syrians in this situation! The player has plenty of resources, particularly that base bursting with Eagles down by Cairo, and they should be ...

SITUATION

We’re back in the eastern end of the Mediterranean, where the situation has calmed down a bit after furious fighting with the Syrians and Russians earlier last week. Now we’re being directed to hit their diminished forces again, this time to knock down the Syrian regime’s government ...

That's a lot of enemy planes up there... I think I liked the other version better!