Part I:
I feel this campaign is coming to an end now and so I wanted to share my experience.
Remembering a suggestion from @SpbGoro some years ago (I have a heavy real life load), I did not move units manually. Although, I handed some of the white bordered units over to HQ after they had achieved their “magnetic task” to draw the automated units near them (I especially wanted to have the units on the east coast available). Challenge rating was Rookie (which for itself is very demanding, having MIGs and Mirages all over the Map).
For most of day 1 I let the sliders and PAKs under HQ control because I felt I wouldn’t do it much different. Then I set higher priority to Basrah and Southern Iraq and adjusted sliders a bit towards SEAD and OCA (although they were almost perfect already).
My strategy was to take out the SAM thread and some of the dangerous airbases near the front, clearing Kuwait and Basrah for other flights and then working my way up to Baghdad. Basrah INTL and Al Taqaddum especially required me to frag multiple packages for the same time, also having EF-111 Raven support to blind the radars. Even so, enemy HQ masterfully put Interceptors into the air. Relatively soon I also took out H3 and H2 in the somewhat unbalanced west. SEAD is really tricky with the updated HARM system and no thread circles available on map.
For this, I took over the 33rd Fighter Squadron with F-16 Block 25 and decoupled it from HQ to be near the action and to reach everything well. I love the 421st with Block 40 (read Vipers In The Storm) but it wasn’t very good for frag frequency operating out of Al Minhad).
The entire campaign was a high thread environment until recently even when the enemy had just some aircraft left on each airbase and most SA-2, -3 and -6s were down (those nasty SA-9, -8 and -13 almost always got someone). Later, enemy AI concentrated its few aircraft into effective point operations (Interceptions, packages towards Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, CAPs and Sweeps …), keeping the threat level high. At the moment of the screenshots, it is rather quiet, but I’m sure they will come back again soon.
The ground unit movement was a big surprise to me because they not only invaded Kuwait from the south, but even encircled it, drawing units from the west. But the most important thing to see was the push in the middle of the FLOT (it looks almost like the real flank maneuver). Major movement started when the HQ “felt” confident for success (see JSTARS replay). I think that is because of the PAK sliders or has @SpbGoro done some magic?
At first, I was a bit disappointed not seeing those beautyful Tu-22 Blinders. Imagine my lucky surprise, when they were sent to Al Taqaddum for reinforcement.
Now lets see how the troops advance around the bay, then over the Tigris and into Basrah.
Minor flaws I came along:
- The reinforcement squadron of Su-7 at Al Iskandariyah was never utilized by enemy HQ.
- From later Day 1 to Day 2 the 17th Squadron (F-16 Block 25) got no missions. I switched over, fragged a few for myself and the problem was gone, they got missions again.
- The same time A-10 were almost not fragged. Playing with the sliders did help.
Other thoughts:
- What a great campaign!
- Not a single CTD
- That doesn’t feel like Rookie!
- Should the GBUs be taken out of Inventory? Are they squadron or base related? Remembering Vipers in the Storm Keith Rosenkranz always loaded 2 Mk-84. (But please leave those unrealistic TERs for Mavericks in there )
- Is there a way to disable HTS pods in loadout screen? They aren’t loaded anyway.
- F-16 loadout for bombs always adds GPU/5 gunpod (jammer or center bag would be better)
Screenshots (I forgot to make some more earlier):
Flank maneuver
As seen from JSTARS
Force Levels
Challenge rating Rookie? Watch those losses!
Sliders after softening the SAM and aircraft threads.
PAK adjustments same time as sliders above
Tu-22 Blinder! For them I let Al Taqaddum get repaired and send a Package to see them in action (what I did).
EDIT:
Other other thoughts:
- Nice “Abandoned Warehouses” in H3 depot (many Very High targets)
- Kuwait Towers! (Feeling like in F-15 III. Did they exist in Falcon 3.0?)
- Incirlic missing…
The last point is missed very bad. Without tasking aircraft from Incirlic, one can’t almost do nothing against Mosul or Kirkuk. I know from the old 128 theatre where it was existent, that it is a huge task just for that one airbase. You would have Syria, Israel and Jordan on the map. And in the old theatre, all the eastern gulf bases where not existent (no Al Minhad). But those are important for the new Anti Iran Campaign.
A fake Incirlic would not be possible in the upper left corner of the map? Just for balancing?