Originally in this mission, it only intends to teach some basic mechanics, how to define zones, planning patrol, etc. but, since version 1.00, ver 1.11 SR7 made some advanced and convinient approch to gameplay.

Let's get to the Side Briefing. we have Situation, Enemy Forces, Friendly Forces, Mission, Execution. this brief helps your decision by what to strike, avoid, how-to-do like things.




Situation
targets including an airfield complex, an industrial complex, a missile assembly site and various air defence, early warning radar sites.
Enemy Forces
1. MiG-21 and MiG-23 fighters.
2. SA-2, SA-3 and SA-6 surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems.
3. Various types of anti-aircraft artillery (AAA).
4. Long-range early warning radars.
Mission
You are to conduct a single coordinated air strike also known as an Alpha Strike on the airfield and industrial complex in the B-17 bombing range.

in short version, there is a building & airfield target protected by mixture of aircraft, air defence forces so we have to pour in one time and no second chance. Alpha strike(Strike Package) in proper term.


and then, let's see what we have in our hand now.



We can see A2A fighters of 24 Tomcats but actually half of them are unavailable by maintenance. so you can't get a hand to half of them unless you cheat by editor, so lets exclude them. 12/24 Tomcats.

as you see, they are equiped with AIM-54 missile as Heavy BarCAP(Barrier CAP).
(Heavy BarCAP consists 4/2/2 loadout (Pheonix/Sparrow/Sidewinder), while Light BarCAP has 2/2/2 loadout)



and 14/25 Corsairs.

4 of them are simple Bombers equipped Mk82 500lbs dumb bomb.
6 of them are equipped with AGM-54B Anti Radar Missile(ARM), and CBU-59/B Cluster bomb. they are DEAD units, not just fire SEAD mission and run. they will fire ARM and charge upon enemy SAM and hit them with clusters.
4 of them are equipped with AGM-62B Walleye II missile, means they are Standoff bombers who can strike out of range.



8/10 Intruders

4 of them are simple Bombers with Mk82(500lbs)
4 of them are equipped with GBU-10E/B 2000lbs Laser Guided Bomb. with integrated TRAM Attack FLIR(not on A-7 Corsair II) this unit can perform a Precision Strike on targets we miss on first attempt.



at last we have 2/5 KA-6D Tanker, E-2C Early Warning, and EA-6B Electronic Attack Aircraft.

so. our 'Actual Asset' in disposal is.

• 12x F-14A - BarCAP(BVR Fighter)
  
• 4x A-7E - Mk82 500lbs(Tac Bomber)
  
• 4x A-7E - Walleye II(Standoff Strike)
  
• 6x A-7E - Shrike/CBU(DEAD Escort)
  
• 4x A-6E - Mk82 500lbs(Tac Bomber)
  
• 4x A-6E - GBU-10 LGB(Guided Strike)
  
• 2x KA-6D - Refuel Tanker
  
• 2x E-2C - Airborne Early Warning(AEW)
  
• 2x EA-6B - Electronic Attack(Jammer)

there is a saying 'If you know your enemy and know yourself', well whatever.

this is Alpha Strike Ops so we can expect no second chance. we have to maximize destructions on first run. so let's review what our target is. many buildings. airfield. air defense. radars.



First we drop the Airfield from Target list. as you see, most of facilities are hardened bunkers and we don't have some dedicated Penetrator or Anti-Runway munition. we probably ended up scratched airfield anyway.

Air Defence is a target of EA-6 and DEAD Escorts, so we can allocate those units to pre-clear it for main element's safety.
Radar could be a problem as it spotted our strike force and make them prepared, so I'll shut it down first by standoff missile.

Buildings are mostly our targets, and our Tac bomber will target those facilities. but what if they failed? for it, I will standby precision bombers for just-in-case.

Simply, those MiG's will charge upon us so we need to make a stable CAP Barrier to make our casualty minimum before making a strike plan.

'Define Area' to make a rectangular space for Combat Patrol, and those F-14's will fly inside Patrol Area.



and set 'Proscution Area' for wider zones. when contact enter this area, fighters will identify their contact and engage when they are hostile.



'1/3rd Rule' is a continuous Patrol cycle that 1/3 get to work, 1/3 gets rest, and 1/3 wait for further situation. as this mission is short, there's no means to get 1/3rd rule, but i'll turn it on anyway.
'Try to keep 'n' units of each class on station' means when currunt on station is near bingo(fuel low) or winchester(ammo out). backup flight will be on the way to replace them



but, If there are only fighter aircrafts in AO, there could be problem number one.

"how do we know they are hostile fighters?"
of course this scenario only has Red forces but what if they are attacked by your manual order and identified as civilian flight?
those Tomcats have to identify who they are, and to do so. they have to be in close range to recognize what they are. but. if they are MiG screen indeed. those intercepter would close within range in no time and Tomcats will lose their BVR superiority against MiG screen.

here comes the Electronic Warfare.




the Airborne Early Warning(commonly knows AWACS) has a long range radars to get a bogies from further, but also have 'ELINT' module. those thing IDs incoming emission and classfies faster than typical fighter aircrafts.




F-14's started firing phoenix missile to MiG screen
in addition, I included OECM aircrafts for electronic jamming attack. when it active, it makes emission of electronic noise and reduce enemy radar capabilities.
while you can't see who has affected by your jammer. when looks through eye of enemy by cheateditor, they have 'JAMMED' beside units. means harder to find, harder to lock target. reduced sight and range. and blue forces have higher ground.



when you encounter A2A combat, you got this messeges flying. it is some kind of 100d Dice game of some kind of tabletop games. with complex accuracy and agility factor included. when number comes lower than hit percentage, it HITs. or vice versa.

accuracy is determined by Base PH(80% for AIM-54) and target speed, signature modifier, and agility is determined by nominal agility, altitude, Pilot proficiency, weight fraction, and impact course.

Official tutorial advises you to make a ASuW and SEAD Patrol this time. but since later version of CMANO abled some complex coordination into little manual effort.



As all enemy air threat neutralized, we could organize alpha strike into action.

as Pre-Planned, I'll hit Radar and SAM first by standoff strike and DEAD. and main body hit the complex and backups will hit what remains of them.
(if you have some Anti-Runway or some Penetrator Munition in other scenario. it's better to hit Airfield instead rader. Walleye has penetrator capacity but it was not enough to blow gas bunker.)

so, actual OOB by Mission is this

• Building Destruction(Main)
  4x A-7E - Mk82 500lbs
  4x A-6E - Mk82 500lbs
  [Escort]2x A-7E - Shrike/CBU(DEAD Escort)
  [Escort]2x A-7E - Shrike/CBU(DEAD Escort)
  
• Targeted Strike against EW Radar Facility
  4x A-7E - Walleye II
  [Escort]2x A-7E - Shrike/CBU(DEAD Escort)
  
• Air Defence Jamming
  2x EA-6B - Electronic Attack
  
• Strike backup
  4x A-6E - GBU-10 LGB
  
• Refuel Tanker
  2x KA-6D

when all aircrafts in the air. pause the game, open Mission Editor and assign aircraft into your planned target.

cool features of later version is a auto callsign generation and Strike/Escort Aircraft Distribution.


All flights on the way though some escorts gets too away from main body.

In Aerial Warfare on CMANO, planning almost took half of gaming experience. after that. you could just sit on armchair and watch if you're not interested on micromanaging. anyway, aftermath could be variable because of your plan has some defect or even by cursed percentage dice troll.



as planned, escorts will take vanguard and rush to enemy SAM.

but it comes out it was too early. first escort squadron diverted and spent their ARMs to a EW radar that actually not a prior threat. and red forces waited their prey to get easy game and ambushed.



Zombie 51 down. wingman downed just after this screenshot. although acceptable loss on those scenario. but maybe I calibrate escorts strike manually, it could be avoided though.



well, downed flight got a confirmed kill on radar what was intended standoff target and managed to attack 2K12 Kub with ARM missile and hit. BDA indicates SA-6 Btn got medium damage, and we could only see this part.



but I'll look into god's eye view and see what our anti-radar missile actually hit.
good. killed 1S91 Straight Flush and 9S35 Fire dome radar vehicle. those are fire control radars so this means Kub battery lost it's engagement capablities and can't fire back.


and, later DEAD escort flight disabled SA-2/3 missile and dropping Cluster bomb on them. destroying missile itself to dust. and main body is hitting industrial complex with carpet bombing.



8 Tac bombers made bombing run on facilities and delivered heavy blow to them, Missile Assembly gone. but two target is intact, and industrial complex has not blown(though got on fire and suffered heavy damage.) now it's a turn of backup bomber.

they have a Laser guided bomb so able to blow scattered target and 2000lbs hits more hard.

Manually target the survived buildings by F1 and clear the rest of them



After killed remained target. I left plenty of guided bombs so jettisoned cargo onto red airbase. as expected. it was not successful.

even 2000lbs Mk84 on Gas bunker just made scratch, one bomb was enough to make a hole in TARMAC and access point but not enough to kill all of them.

Strafe Target down.
Bull's eye Target down.
Missile Assembly Site down.
Industrial Site down.
P-14 Early Warning Radar down.
All SAM Site down

Good. All Targets except indestructable airfield down, though two A-7E down is not good though.


Major Victory: 1600Pts

SIDE: CVW-15
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
2x A-7E Corsair II


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
16x AIM-54A Phoenix
4x AIM-7F Sparrow III
2x AIM-9L Sidewinder
10x AGM-45B Shrike [ARM]
8x AGM-62B Walleye II ER/DL
4x Generic Chaff Salvo [5x Cartridges]
160x Mk82 500lb LDGP
8x CBU-59/B APAM [717 x BLU-77/B Dual-Purpose Bomblets]
2x Generic Flare Salvo [3x Cartridges, Single Spectral]
16x GBU-10E/B Paveway II LGB [Mk84]



SIDE: Red Side
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
4x MiG-21bis Fishbed N
4x MiG-23ML Flogger G
1x Radar (Tall King A [P-14])
1x Vehicle (Fire Dome [9S35])
1x Vehicle (Straight Flush [1S91])
1x Vehicle (Flat Face B [P-19])
6x SA-7a Grail [9K32 Strela-2] MANPADS
1x Vehicle (Low Blow [SNR-125])
4x SA-3c Goa Quad Rail
12x Building (Large)
6x SA-2f Guideline Mod 1/2 Single Rail
1x Vehicle (Fan Song F [RSNA-75M])
1x Vehicle (Spoon Rest C [P-12])
3x SA-6a Gainful [2P25] TEL
1x SA-6b Gainful [2P25] TEL


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
2x AA-7 Apex C [R-24R, SARH]
16x SA-3c Goa [5V27D, V-601PD]
9x SA-6a Gainful [9M336]
6x SA-2f Guideline Mod 1 [S-75M2 Volkhov, 5YA23 / V-759]
3x SA-6b Gainful [9M336]
2x SA-7a Grail [9M32]