How to use Air Intercepts missions?

[thewood1]

And that comment he made does nothing but prove my point.

[Schr75]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

And that comment he made does nothing but prove my point.

Yes it did. I just couldn´t resist the possibility to mention Kingkong Bundy.

Sorry[;)]

S

[thewood1]

Any day KingKong Bundy is mentioned is a good day. How about a Haystack Calhoun reference.

[Schr75]

Sorry

I know absolutely nothing about wrestling.

I only know KingKong Bundy from "Married with Children". One of my all time favourite sitcoms.

[thewood1]

Yeah, it was 50/50 which one you were referring to. I went to the good side.

[KungPao]

ORIGINAL: cns180784

ORIGINAL: Cik

i've never used interception for canary's cage; it's a force projection scenario, and the distances involved means scrambling off the deck is a no-go assuming you want to get up to the enemy with any real speed.

what i do is split my AAW into two forces, one CAP to protect grupo alfa as it steams SW, consisting of most of the harriers off of alfa's carrier and some from rota, patrolling behind or near the ships themselves (to benefit from the AD blanket; unfortunately harriers are REALLY TERRIBLE) and then a CAP covering sidi slamane, to protect my fighters transiting to <----> from spain as well as any ASW / AEW flying around on various taskings near delta / alpha's tail. once sidi slamane's air forces have been attritted you can shift increasing numbers of hornets forward to protect alpha's leading edge, which you'll probably need to do as the amount of vampires increases steadily as you move south.

the most important thing at least is maintaining your AEW / ASW around alfa's leading edge. the sea is dark and full of goblins (most of the time)

the real limit in that scenario is your tankers; as you steam south you really start to run thin on fuel; playtime is ever-decreasing and the demands on your very limited hercules becomes really bad. whatever you do protect the tankers, and try not to lose too many of your carrier-based harriers or you're going to have real problems maintaining your ALFACAP.

i should mention that prosecution zones for AAW patrols are basically required so you can shape your forces' response to bandits. make sure you're shaping them so that your CAPs aren't off chasing bogeys halfway across the planet, only the ones that are beginning to move into the threatzone of your ships. the enemy's fighters are basically a non-issue as long as they aren't threatening you (not that i've ever seen that happen..) there's no reason to chase them over sidi slamane, if they're flying BARCAPs over their own airfield there's no reason to go chasing them.

generally i find using a prosecution zone is wise in 99% of scenarios, it really helps control the bloodthirst of anything on patrols, but especially AAW as they tend to be fast and with high-detection radars they really like to dive into enemy AD nets chasing bandits.

I loved Canarys Cage.

What i did was i used my Harriers from Alfa and Rota (at first just my Harriers from Rota, then those from Alfa after i found the intercept mission wasnt the best idea) and used them to fly a BARCAP in between Alfa and Sidi Slimane to protect Alfa/Delta and my ASW assets. I had AEW assets from Alfa/Delta but i think they were flying directly over Alfa so they had the protection of the SAMs.
I maintained two flights of two Harriers in the air nearly all the time whilst my Hornets in Spain prepared for a strike package to destroy the Sidi Slimane ammo stores, which they did and was successful. After those were destroyed the only a/c to launch from Sidi Slimane about an hour or two later (probably more) was a strike package headed for Alfa which were all shot down (just about, the last two bombers were shot down by Alfas' SAMs, at a point where my Harriers couldnt keep up with them).
I was lucky in that the Fox 3's that my Harriers had took care of the F-16's. If they missed then those F-16's would have had my Harriers for lunch in a WVR fight. Later as Alfa sailed South i lost about 6 Harriers to Mig 29's launched from the Canaries after my Harriers' Fox 3's kept missing or were spoofed...my luck ran out but managed to deal with them in the end by luring them into a SAM trap...was a bad time my forces went through, could have been a turning point in the conflict!

I used my F/A-18 to take care of Mig-29. Micromanagement on air-refuel hurts, but it is better than lose your harriers

in this scenario if you compare mig-29 and f-16cg, it is much more harder to kill a Mig-29 with AIM-120B. Because Mig-29 has 2 layer of protection

10:03:00 AM - Contact MiG-29 Fulcrum C #527 has been lost.
10:03:00 AM - Weapon: AIM-120B AMRAAM #1901 is attacking FulcrumArg #9 (MiG-29 Fulcrum C) with a base PH of 90%. PH adjusted for distance: 84%. PH adjusted for actual target speed (915 kts): 79%. FulcrumArg #9 has nominal agility: 4.9. Agility adjusted for proficiency (Regular): 3.92. Aircraft has a weight fraction of 0.32 - Agility adjusted to 3.16. High-deflection impact (no effect on agility). Final agility modifier: -32%. Final PH: 47%. Result: 10 - HIT
10:03:00 AM - Defensive jammer (L-203 Gardenya; Tech: Late 1980s) on FulcrumArg #9 is attempting to spoof sensor: Active Radar Seeker(Tech: Early 1990s)(Of: AIM-120B AMRAAM #1901). Final probability: 15%. Result: 27 - FAILURE
10:03:00 AM - Decoy (Generic Chaff Salvo [5x Cartridges]; Tech: N/A) from FulcrumArg #9 is attempting to seduce sensor: Active Radar Seeker (Tech: Early 1990s)(Guiding weapon: AIM-120B AMRAAM #1901). Final probability: 15%. Result: 75 - FAILURE

12:52:02 PM - Contact F-16CG Blk 42 Falcon [Peace Vector II Upgr] #224 has been lost.
12:52:02 PM - Weapon: AIM-120B AMRAAM #1107 is attacking Falcon #2 (F-16CG Blk 42 Falcon [Peace Vector II Upgr]) with a base PH of 90%. PH adjusted for actual target speed (648 kts): 90%. Falcon #2 has nominal agility: 4.9. Agility adjusted for proficiency (Regular): 3.92. Aircraft has a weight fraction of 0.16 - Agility adjusted to 3.55. High-deflection impact (no effect on agility). Final agility modifier: -36%. Final PH: 54%. Result: 22 - HIT
12:52:02 PM - Decoy (Generic Chaff Salvo [5x Cartridges]; Tech: N/A) from Falcon #2 is attempting to seduce sensor: Active Radar Seeker (Tech: Early 1990s)(Guiding weapon: AIM-120B AMRAAM #1107). Final probability: 15%. Result: 93 - FAILURE


So F-16 only has decoy, 15% chance of spoof active-radar seeker.
Mig-29 has Decoy and Jammer, 15% chance on each, total chance is 27.75% chance of success ( 1-0.85*0.85)

[Cik]

yeah. really the air ops in canary's cage are pretty difficult in general around sidi slamane, because the hornets are loaded with the standardCAP which only carries 2 amraams per jet. you are stuck between shotgun, where your guys will bail in the first 10 seconds of the engagement due to shotgun, or winchester where you risk lots of jets trying to close into AA-10 alamo for heater shots.

you can get around this by re-arming 1/2 or so of your hornets with a heavier loadout. that's what i do when replaying it these days. once you have 1/2 or more of your hornets toting 4-6 AMRAAM air superiority gets a little easier. the hornets at least do have a range and PK% advantage, and the strength of your sea-based ADnet should not be overstated. even grupo delta has quite an umbrella, and i think alpha's is noticeably stronger. if all else fails, you can try to bait them into the range of sea sparrows.

[KungPao]

Yes, I would suggest other players to change the loadout to heavy cap asap. You might need the default standard cap F-18 to beat back the first wave strike. But after that you will need a lot of AIM-120B to keep your AEW/ASW Helo safe. And those ASW Helo are crucial for your victory. also it’s better to rebase several sqn F-18 to the northern base way before the AIM-120 in your main base are drain out. Again, you will need a lot of tanker to support that rebase.

Actually, AIM-120 (40nm) don’t have longer range when compare it to AA-10 (45nm) on Mig-29 or AIM-7M (55nm) on F-16. However I noticed that AI will shot 1st AIM-7F around 35nm, probably it’s a AI doctrine setting (hold fire until confirm hostile) or insufficient radar reflection on a fighter size target (and my OECM plane helped a lot) . So , yes, you should have range advantage. The greatest advantage is it can force AI get into evasion mode and make their SARH missiles lose lock, while you can turn around and run with your Afterburner, or a much better plan, getting close to release next salvo of AIM-120 to ensure higher PoH.

[KungPao]

If I play this scenario again, I will try something different setting with much more fun. I would coordinate one or two heavy cap load F-18 with several others with a different loading setting (2xAIM-120+6xAIM-9). it’s better to strike from different direction, but it should also work well with one direction too.
The heavy cap F-18 is function as a bait for SARH missiles . AIM-120 will be used as a LMG to provide suppressing fire. Release the first wave AIM-120 as soon as enemy F-16/Mig-29s get into the range, one missile on each target, then manually release the 2nd wave or 3rd wave in every 10s interval. Hopefully it will keep enemy at evasion mode. The other F-18 with AIM-9 will rush in with AB on, release all their AIM-9 when getting into the range, that should be fun.

[Cik]

you do have to be careful with that though. if you flank them from the wrong direction you can actually cause yourself more problems; the MIGs fire + receive fire from your blocking element of hornets, then they crank- right into your flanking element. the problem is that, should that happen you will probably actually lose your flanking element as the AA-11 archer has superior range, off-boresight capability and PK compared to AIM-9J/JULI that your hornets are carrying.

regards, a guy who has lost scenarios because of that ^

[KungPao]

OK Thanks for the suggestion, I didn't think about that.