Phantom Leader PBF

I agree with Armed Recon. The good news is we don't have to choose the pilots until we see the sites; that might change things.

Armed Recon it is. Here's the target card with sites drawn:

cid-0fab1e236bcb7de7.skydrive.live.com/s...eader/PL-M02-T00.jpg

Not too bad a selection, although I was hoping for some more SA-2's since we can effectively ignore them for this mission Western approach looks like a good bet again.

We've got five pilots. Looking at what we've got ...

Midas should stay at home.

I'd quite like to take Barbarian to get him promoted, and he can handle more stress.

Driver is a tricky choice. He'd get a promotion out of this but he's barely okay to fly. I guess he should probably rest since he'll be no use next mission otherwise.

Showtime should go. He's the main man.

Buick should definitely rest.

Poco is another difficult choice. He could use the rest but he's our main AtA cover man and we're going to be hitting some bandits in this mission. However, hopefully there won't be too many (we get to remove a center one as well) so maybe he should rest.

Easy Money is in good shape to fly and he'll keep the flak off us.

That leaves Gringo. Another tough one. He's the main AtG target man and he can fly but we may need him in the future. Either he or Driver will have to fly, I fear.

So that's Barbarian, Showtime, Easy Money and either Gringo or Driver. The fifth slot should probably be Poco but I'm wondering if we should try flying this with just four since the opposition doesn't look too dangerous.

This looks very easy compared to the last target.

Actually I think we should come in from the North. That way the only opposition we have are three infantry (2 North, 1 Centre) and the 1-range AAA in the East. And Bandits of course.

Ten bandits are possible, so we should take at least that many pairs of missiles.

If Gringo carries four Mk.84s there's a good chance he'll destroy the target alone.

Matt, you can copy and paste this format:
Po: Politics, AS: Approach Sites, AB: Approach Bandits, CS: Center Sites, CB: Center Bandits,
H: Hits, V: Victory Points, R: Reconnaissance, I: Intel, Pi: Pilots, S: Soft

We should actually consider coming in from pre-approach area 3. Either Showtime or Easy Money can fire two (or more) rockets at the M1939 in turn 1 and in turn 2 flying into the Eastern Zone drop two (or more) CBUs on Zu-23-2. The infantry in the centre is hardly worrisome but could be disposed of too.

So I suggest: Easy Money: 3 rockets, 2 CBUs.

3xRocket attack miss chance: 6.4%, 2xCBU miss chance: 1%.

On the pilots, I say definitely Barbarian (AtA), Showtime (AtA), Easy Money, and Gringo. Gringo can handle another Stress, which still leaves him available for Day 3, if needed and things go okay in this mission. I'm not so sure Buick or Poco should stay home. If one of them comes, then Barbarian or Showtime can take on a split AtA/AtG and give us more chances against the target.

There's a certain merit in coming in from the East, although we can't commit Showtime to AtG in turn 1. We're going to need him for AtA. It is slightly riskier, though.

I played a fun mission of this last night in the USAF medium-length version of this same campaign. My target - a major bridge - was pretty prickly in terms of number of sites and bandits but had only 1 SA-2 site on the whole map and only needed 7 hits to kill.

So I bought Tanker Priority and six AGM-65's. Four planes: two slow AtG specialists with 3 AGM-65's each, and two fast pilots one with six AGM-45's and one with six AIM-7's.

Turn 1:
Fast pilot #1 unloaded six AIM-7's on the bandit in southern approach, wiping it out.
Fast pilot #2 unloaded six AGM-45's on the SA-2, wiping it out
Slow pilots unload a total of six AGM-65's on the bridge, destroying it (just, it has -2 to hit).
Mission complete, head for home

Cost me fully half of my SO allowance and it's only mission #2 in the campaign. We'll have to see if it's worth it in the long run, but in the short term the amusement value was payoff enough

Did you enter a distortion in the space/time continuum and wound up flying over Baghdad in 2003?

Well, whoever controls Buick/Poco should take the choice. I've lost track of whose pilot is whose

Thanks for the formatting, Simon. I was trying to do that but couldn't work out how.

I wouldn't overdo AtA on this mission though: remember we get to take a center bandit off the map. So we're looking at a maximum of five, and realistically so long as can cope with 4 we should be okay. 8-10 missiles is probably enough.

My reason for coming in West is to avoid that wretched M1939 until we're over target: it can be suppressed with a pair of rockets that turn while we unload on the target. We can probably ignore the infantry and so we only have to deal with the ZSU on the fly-past. Seems to leave maximum ordinance to use against the target itself (given that we're on recon, I'm not sure why there's a target at all - but that's what it says on the card).

Schweig! wrote:

Did you enter a distortion in the space/time continuum and wound up flying over Baghdad in 2003?

If we're taking the suppression route, I might actually take Gringo to air instead of Easy Money -> more weapon points. But I have the strange feeling one of Justin's pilots might need his arse saved again.

MattDP wrote:

I wouldn't overdo AtA on this mission though: remember we get to take a center bandit off the map.

Why's that?

MattDP wrote:

(given that we're on recon, I'm not sure why there's a target at all - but that's what it says on the card).

We're just bombing everything we see, like that chopper gunner in the famous Vietnam film.

In general, we should be careful about going in with just enough ordnance to take care of our targets. So far, we haven't had any pre- or post-flight events that caused us trouble, but all it takes is one encounter without any tools to respond to chew up a squadron. There's a reason this mission requires 5 pilots.

Anyway, Buick and Poco belong to Dog, so it's up to him what he wants to do with them. If he's not going to bring either one, then maybe Barbarian could take a couple Mk. 82s or something. With 8 WP, we can have a fairly reasonable mix. In the absence of Dog's pilots, I'd keep Showtime on AtA with his Fast +2. Otherwise he could carry some AtG, too.

I'll agree to whatever route in you guys want to take.

Schweig! wrote:

We're just bombing everything we see, like that chopper gunner in the famous Vietnam film.

I'm going to be unhappy if I don't get to napalm someone before this campaign is over.

MattDP wrote:

Cost me fully half of my SO allowance and it's only mission #2 in the campaign. We'll have to see if it's worth it in the long run, but in the short term the amusement value was payoff enough

Fun mission! But boy, are you in trouble.

I myself was prompted to pull out my HL2 on the weekend. I flew two long Ace-level campaigns, Iraq 1991 and Libya 1986. Iraq was very well handled; top results with no pilots lost. I got my ass kicked in Libya. I lost 3 pilots early and barely squeaked out an adequate campaign result by 1 VP on the last mission.

I think there was an error in the log file, namely Gringo was listed as having 3 stress, but he didn't get hit last mission. I corrected it to 1 with R&R.

Schweig! wrote:

I think there was an error in the log file, namely Gringo was listed as having 3 stress, but he didn't get hit last mission. I corrected it to 1 with R&R.

IIRC didn't he have to evade something? That adds 2 stress. On inspection it isn't required so looks like you're right, and he's coming on this mission with us. Just waiting on Dog to pick a pilot now and we can arm up. Feel free to pencil in ordinance for your pilots if you want.

We get to remove a center bandit because of the Intel we earned last mission. I haven't put the marker on the campaign map, but that's where it is.