Phantom Leader PBF

Bullwinkle wrote:

Ignore the infantry in the western zone (EM's bonus means they only have a 10% chance of damaging. If he targets one of the bombers, we can always choose to suppress or evade.)

To be precise, the infantry has no chance of damaging anyone (unless 10s always hit[?]), but a 40% (7+) of adding stress to any pilot. Which I think is acceptable.

Turn 3: Showtime napalms the Zu-23-2. EM suppresses the sites in the east. Payloads dropped.

Use two CBUs instead, it's only a 4% miss chance. (We might use BLU-1 but then Midas should carry them, too, instead of Mk.82/84s.)

My plan for EM would be:
Turn 1: Nothing.
Turn 2: Fire 2 rockets at S-60.
Turn 3: Drop a CBU either on any surviving AAA or the factory. Use one rocket each to suppress AAA sites in the East.

Dogmatix wrote:

The western plan seems much more sensible. Do we still need both of my pilots in a pure AtA role? [I'm not looking for bombing glory, just making sure my loadout is most effective for the changing mission parameters...]

I think we do. I made a mistake originally with the number of Sparrows, but I fixed that. Right now, including Showtime and Barbarian, we're set to take down around 6-7 bandits, maybe 8 if we're lucky.

The real problem is that we won't know what the bandit count is until too late. So, in my experience, in most missions, you end up with more AtA ordnance than necessary, since you more or less have to plan for the worst case scenario. It's much much better to have more AtA than less, because unlike sites, bandits follow you around the map. It's even worse here, since we don't even have guns to defend ourselves. As it stands, if we draw 9 or 10 bandits, or an Approach Target event that adds bandits or reduces our ordnance, we're totally screwed, because we don't actually have the coverage we need.

Dogmatix wrote:

The western plan seems much more sensible. Do we still need both of my pilots in a pure AtA role? [I'm not looking for bombing glory, just making sure my loadout is most effective for the changing mission parameters...]

If Matt keeps drawing like that, we might be facing 10 bandits. We're currently carrying 9 pairs of AIMs. We could reduce that to 7 by giving each of your pilots a Mk.84, but I wouldn't lower that number any more.

And you guys with all the math impress and scare the hell out of me. Y'all are train gamers in disguise

Dude, I had to learn all that crap in school.

Schweig! wrote:

To be precise, the infantry has no chance of damaging anyone (unless 10s always hit[?]), but a 40% (7+) of adding stress to any pilot.

10s don't always hit. It's possible with modifiers to have target numbers 1 or less (guaranteed success) or higher than 10 (guaranteed failure).

Use two CBUs instead, it's only a 4% miss chance. (We might use BLU-1 but then Midas should carry them, too, instead of Mk.82/84s.)

I'll use the CBUs if you prefer, although I personally think the Politics hit is negligible considering the importance of the target. I'll update the file and then I'm ready to go.

Locked and loaded!

Yeah, I'm also ready to go. Since we're all online we might even get the mission done before the weekend.

I'll leave the decision whether to use Napalm to Matt. As I said, if we go with Napalm, he should equip BLU-1s on Midas, too.

But we'll still need to roll good to destroy that factory. We can blame Dogmatix that he didn't carry any bombs.

Okay our outbound event is a mixed blessing:

Down Time

Regain 2 SO points.

So useful for future missions.

Going to draw bandits now, will post here and update map later:

North: Mig-21 & MiG-19
East: MiG-21 & MiG-17
South: MiG-21 & MiG-17
West: None
Center: Mig-21

oops. It's seat of pants time.

One thing I didn't mention - and I'm not sure if I should have or not - is that we had an above-average number of sites that flipped to "no bandit" so it's not surprising we've got an above-average number of bandits. I would assume you're not really supposed to check this before picking armaments.

Let's hope for a good over-target event.

SAM Sites

Add 1 SA-2 to center area

Not what I was hoping for, but at least it's kind of irrelevant since we're staying Low.

Stupid me. We've got some AtA action first.

MattDP wrote:

Okay our outbound event is a mixed blessing:

Down Time

Regain 2 SO points.

Excellent.

North: Mig-21 & MiG-19
East: MiG-21 & MiG-17
South: MiG-21 & MiG-17
West: None
Center: Mig-21

Actually, this isn't that bad, unless more than one of us misses this turn. They can't attack us this turn, which means we don't need to waste ordnance on suppression. If we miss, though, we're in real trouble. Am I calling for Dog still, or are you back, Justin?

One thing I didn't mention - and I'm not sure if I should have or not - is that we had an above-average number of sites that flipped to "no bandit" so it's not surprising we've got an above-average number of bandits. I would assume you're not really supposed to check this before picking armaments.

Hang on a second, I'm confused. In HL2, the bandit counters are kept separate from the site counters. You can't draw No Bandit until the Determine Bandits Step. Is that different now?

SAM Sites

Add 1 SA-2 to center area

Not what I was hoping for, but at least it's kind of irrelevant since we're staying Low.

Yeah, this is just fine.

Bullwinkle wrote:

Hang on a second, I'm confused. In HL2, the bandit counters are kept separate from the site counters. You can't draw No Bandit until the Determine Bandits Step. Is that different now?

Yeah, the Phantom Leader counters are double-sided - Site/Bandit.

Schweig! wrote:

Any fast pilot should save a pair of AIM-7s for the MIG-21 coming in from the East.

We don't need to. At the end of this turn, we'll move into the West zone, and the pilots in the East will move into the center. They'll be one zone away in turn 2, close enough for Sidewinders.

I'm here but I can't get to the google docs stuff at the moment due to the firewall at this particular site [what our outlying facilities opt to block or not appears to be a little capricious]

I'm Ok with the suggested loadout swap; I have no AtG munitions to jettison, and I presume that my Fast pilot will get the first Bandit attack pass.

Bullwinkle wrote:

We don't need to. At the end of this turn, we'll move into the West zone, and the pilots in the East will move into the center. They'll be one zone away in turn 2, close enough for Sidewinders.

Just noticed this, too. Anyway, attacks are kind of a no-brainer. All three fast pilots fire 2 AIM-7s at MIG-21s in North, Centre, South.

Schweig! wrote:

Bullwinkle wrote:

We don't need to. At the end of this turn, we'll move into the West zone, and the pilots in the East will move into the center. They'll be one zone away in turn 2, close enough for Sidewinders.

Just noticed this, too. Anyway, attacks are kind of a no-brainer. All three fast pilots fire 2 AIM-7s at MIG-21s in North, Centre, South.

Agreed....

Dogmatix wrote:

Schweig! wrote:

All three fast pilots fire 2 AIM-7s at MIG-21s in North, Centre, South.

Agreed....

And agreed. Missiles away!

Hang on. Don't we need to know who is firing at who so I can apply the proper AtA bonuses? Or are they all the same?

And I assume that there's two sparrows heading for each MiG?