Editing Mercenaries and planes (section)

====Recap====

Before we started, we had a few housekeeping things to do, mostly involving Hugs and Scotch. Scotch had to buy another plane, but was a bit short on cash. He was hoping to get another Viggen, but in the end it was cheaper to get a MiG-23. After he did some research, he actually seemed pretty happy with it. He was going to do Air-to-air again, but installed a centreline camera pod with sat upload. He also mounted eight Aphids. He had no time to repaint his aircraft either, so it was painted in desert brown, the color it was put into Russian storage as. The engine was apparently 'new' as was most of the plane. Hugs on the other hand, took a step up, and got a SU-30, but not the basic, he got the thrust vectoring two-seat version. Both aircraft arrived four hours (or so) before the mission started. Sandman decided to take his Fencer this time, instead of the F-111, since he seemed worried about losing the Aardvark. I was tempted to take the F-4 but decided against it. Judge didn't have too much work to do either, he put on four Archers, two bio-tanks and a centreline fuel tank. I had two AMRAAMs and four sidewinders, as well as two IED simulator bombs and two bio tanks. Sandy loaded four Bio-tanks and four IED weapons. Hugs followed the Scotch plan, and loaded eight Archers, and four Alamos.

We took off, 15 minutes prior to the Spetsnaz activation times. We began heading towards the border, with myself and Sandy low, the others sniffing a little bit but not much higher. As planned, the few remaining radars that were up suddenly dropped, apparently the special forces mission had succeeded. We turned, and began our run inbound. Our plan was to do both the airfield and the water reservoir at the same time, and take out the tv tower on the way out if we could have time to do it. After the last mission we didn't want to spend much time over the target area. None of us had our Radars on, since we were supposed to be 'stealthy'. We were banking on coming in with minimal time to prepare on the other side, and being gone before they knew we were there, especially given the short flight time. We crossed the border, and were about 30~40 miles out when all our radar warning systems went off! There was an airborne search radar, two fighter radars, and about five ground search radars that all went active at the same time.

We quickly looked at the locations, the fighters were a ways off, northwest of the city, as was the AWACs. The ground based radars were all SAM radars, located inside the city, and one on the airfield. We quickly decided that the airfield was a no-go, since a pass over it at low altitude was a guaranteed disaster. We decided to proceed as a group towards the reservoir, dump all our cargo, and then head back as quick as we could. Hugs and Scotch got ready to go after the two airborne targets, with Hugs trying to get an IR lock. We turned slightly towards the city, and went to max burner, all of us pushing close to the ground. We could see parts of the city illuminated, but not by lights, by scattered small fires in the street. It would seem that the riots had started. We began to see tracer rounds in the streets as we drew even closer. We hoped that the SAMs couldn't get a lock on us at our altitudes, and flew hard, our RWRs becoming even more persistent with their squeals. My RIO called out that it appeared to be Crotale systems, so out came the reference books for us.

We crossed the city boundary quickly, ripping across the night sky, when the anti-aircraft fire started. Luckily it wasn't directed, yet, but we saw a line of tracers pop up, followed by another, and another. Steve told us that within about five seconds there were too many to count reliably. Our RWR began picking up fire control radar from within the city, as the air defense units began activating, trying to find us amidst the clutter. We rolled every phase to avoid random fire, as well as the ground/buildings. Hugs got a lock on one of the airborne targets, calling out it was MiG-21. He was too low to launch, so he performed a manoeuvre to pop up and drop some missiles. He pulled it off, letting two Alamos loose, and heading back down, but not before getting pinged by radar sources, his RIO screaming about SAM launches and tracking issues. We saw the anti-aircraft fire shift, now firing in our direction, or as best they could. Steve explained that one of the problems with putting them in a city is that they have limited fire angles due to buildings being in the way close to where they are parked. Didn't reassure us much though, since we had a pretty good idea of how dangerous this fire could be. The aircraft in the air turned towards us, and began hammering us with their onboard radars, and a phase later we had missiles inbound towards us, with Judge and Sandy being targets.

Both the missiles rocketed towards Judge's Fulcrum and Sandy's Fencer. There really was no room to manoeuvre, based on our altitude and speed. Judge didn't have a problem for long, since Hugs missiles blotted the Fishbed out of the sky in a flash of light and fire on the horizon. The odd thing was that this caused some of the anti-air fire to turn towards that part of the sky. Unfortunately the other aircraft's missiles were still coming in at Sandy, we could actually see their contrails racing in to meet his Fencer. So Sandy pushed his plane lower, essentially rocketing at supersonic speeds underneath the roofline of the larger buildings of the city down a large avenue in Tblisi, his wake/sonic boom blowing out windows on either side of the street and on the few cars parked on the side. The tactic worked, the missiles lost guidance in the street clutter and smashed into the city near, but not close enough to hurt the Fencer. Hugs finally got a lock on the other aircraft, calling it as a Delta wing, probably Mirage, and popped up again to launch his Alamos. Unfortunately the Air Defense crews were ready, and immediately put six Crotales into the air from various points in the city.

Hugs ducked back down, and a few of the missiles lost tone, but one launchers angle was such that it managed to maintain a lock, keeping two missiles heading in towards the chaff dispensing Flanker. As a last ditch measure, he flipped his jammer on as did Scotch. That seemed to do the trick, since the missiles suddenly spiralled out, passing over Hugs without detonating. It did however cause the anti-aircraft fire to shift again, pulling back towards us. To make matters worse, the enemy aircraft had evaded the Alamos and was heading back towards us, popping a few flares as he did, I guess Hugs had at least scared him. We crossed out of the city, heading north towards the reservoirs, leaving the hellish triple-AAA behind us, but still staying low, as the Crotales were still hunting. And then Scotch hurled back on his stick, rocketing his MiG up into the sky, sitting on a pillar of flame.

Hugs also began a climb to assist Scotch, making it a two on one engagement. Scotch couldn't get a lock, and then I realized why and handed him the weapon sheet, pointing to the missiles he had. They couldn't lock from the front aspect. The front of the Mirage blossomed in fire as it launched two missiles at Scotch. Hugs was about to launch two of his multi-aspect heat seekers, but then he got locked on by a lone Crotale, and he was again dodging and jinking through the air as the rocket powered death reached out towards the massive Flanker. Hugs was yelling at all of us at this point, asking loudly why we hadn't brought any anti-radar missiles with us. Based on the situation, I can't say I blamed him. I figured Scotch would try to evade the two missiles headed at him. He didn't, he just said “I've lost two planes already, I'm not losing a third. Switching to guns.”

Scotch popped flares, and then simply raced towards the missiles and enemy fighter, staring down the missiles, seeming to dare them to hit him. Maybe it was the flares, maybe it was the head on angle, but the missiles raced past Scotch's Flogger, disappearing into the night sky. Scotch didn't even blink, holding down the trigger, gouts of flame pouring from the GsH-23L twin-barreled cannon. Despite the hard angle, he still landed four hits, enough to severely cripple the enemy plane. The enemy tried a short shot, but only landed a single hit before the blew past each other at over 1500 miles per hour closure. Hugs had successfully evaded the Crotale again, and was trying to get into position to engage, but Scotch told him no, “This one is mine, go help the others” as he banked around to get at the enemy fighter which was heading towards the city. The rest of us were just approaching the reservoir at that point, and had spread out for our run, between the three of us we could cover it in one pass.

We came in just above the treetops, racing over the pools, pickling our weapons. I unfortunately got a fault, causing all my air to ground weapons to deploy, I still hit my target, but in addition to the chemical agent, I also sent two of the IED simulators into the reservoir, with predicatable fountains of water from their detonations. Sandy had no problems, Judge missed his reservoir, sending his weapons short of the desired hit location. It was a nearly impossible miss too, since he was aiming for a lake, but they still landed short apparently. Now came the hard part, we had to turn around, but were essentially travelling down a valley. We decided to come around to the east, bypassing the town for our exit out of the area, and staying away from the AWACS plane as much as possible, it was further out than 80 miles, but since we were all running with our radars down we didn't know more than that. Scotch had already completed a turn, and was closing in on the wounded Mirage. He finally had a good look at it, and realized it was a Kfir, it didn't matter much to him though, he fired a burst, scoring a multitude of hits, enough to finish off the aircraft, which lost a wing and began tumbling from the sky as it broke up. There was an ejection, but Scotch was already turning away from the city to join up with us as was Hugs. We figured it would be a quick dash to the southeast to exit Georgia. And then more markers started showing up, a single air search radar active, moving, climbing off waypoint Baker.

As we crested the hill of the Valley, the AWAACs finally connected with us, but we dipped back down, it lost a strong lock, so we were safe for now. Unfortunately, we were out of escape options, we were carrying enough speed to make a run, but passing over the airfield seemed like a bad idea, and pushing further to the east would take more time. The fastest route, unfortunately, was back through the city, and all the ground fire. We decided to risk it, as much as we didn't want to do it again. Hugs and Scotch moved to the left side of our flight, and we began pushing our speed back up, heading towards the city, sporadic tracers whizzing into the air from its streets. Hugs was busy, as was Judge, trying to get a solid track on the airborne target, when another one appeared, also apparently off the airfield at Baker.

We all switched on our jammers, since there was no real point in hiding our exact position, we just wanted to make it out of here with most of our aircraft in one piece. My backseat called and said the contacts radar looked like it was from an F-104. Another token was placed on the airfield as yet another aircraft was climbing out. We crossed the city limits, barreling through the anti-aircraft fire again. Sandy turned, and headed toward a tracer series, and dumped all his IED simulators as he blazed past, two low and fast for them to hit him. From the cloud of orange fire that burst from the street, it was obvious that at least one of his weapons found its target. By this time there were four targets off the airfield, with another placed on the board as we pushed past the city center, taking hits from Crotale radars and the starfighter's occasionally.

Our flight kept going, each of us trying to get to our maximum speed, in a hard sprint for the border. The Starfighters were having a tough time tracking us, but they did angle towards us, and it became apparent we were going to end up in a tail chase scenario. A sixth plane departed, and like the fifth had a different radar sig then the other four. It was quickly apparent that these new planes were advanced fighters, they had much bigger radars then the starfighters. Our hopes dropped even further when a seventh plane appeared off of Baker. And then Sandy took fire, getting hit with AA. It was only a few minor hits, but because he was at such low altitude he had to make a roll. He failed, his Fencer losing stability long enough to blast it's way through a low rise building, ending Sandman's life in a blaze of fire. It all took us by surprise, since once he'd survived the anti aircraft, we figured he was in the clear. To make matters worse, an eighth plane had come off the runway, and Hugs RIO had narrowed it down to F-16s, so we were being chased by eight fighters, four relics and four modern warplanes.

We continued our flight towards the border, leaving the city behind us as we pushed further east. The F-104s were slowly gaining on us, but none had taken a shot yet, the F-16s weren't catching up, but holding their distance. We were more worried about the Falcons, since we knew they probably had BVR stuff, the F-104s apparently didn't or were not getting locks with them. We crossed the border a good 25 miles ahead of the F-104s, but we realized (late) that they didn't seem intent on stopping, and shortly after, crossed into Azerbaijan, still closing on us. We were now in serious crap, we didn't want to engage, since turning would put us close to the F-104s, and let the Falcons catch up, but at the same time, leading them back to the base wouldn't be a smart idea, we decided to turn straight east, putting as much distance between the Falcons and us as we could. Then Judge picked up aircraft to the north, closing on our position at high speed. He tracked three, but a quick scan aided by Hugs showed that there was a good 12 aircraft heading south towards us. We started wondering if we should broadcast a surrender on an open frequency, when the targets north of us opened fire.

The missiles raced towards us, but headed for the starfighters behind, destroying them to a man, a series of small fireballs marking their ends. We got a transmission at this point, from a Russian sounding voice, calling in with our mission code name, and directing us to land at a field in the Russian controlled territory. The planes north of us had turned to go at the Falcons, and lit off their radars, showing them to be a mix of Flankers and Fulcrums. They quickly rippled off more missiles, again, punishing the falcons, who's radar signals disappeared one by one. We slowed, and climbed some more, as the (apparently) Russian squadron rounded on us, forming up around our tired warbirds. Our RWRs were going wild, and as we headed to the Russian airstrip, we flipped on our own radars, seeing dozens of planes heading into Georgia. We landed without incident, and taxied as instructed to covered hangars before shutting down.

I don't remember exactly how the next bit went, so I'll try my best to paraphrase what Steve said. As we climbed out of our planes, we were met by our handler, who told us that thanks to us, the pacification of Georgia's corrupt and unstable regime would be accomplished without outside interference in 'Russian Affairs'. The FSB would ensure that stories of Georgia's internal collapse, from it's problem with domestic terrorism, to it's aggresive violation of neighboring airspace, in this case Azerbaijan, would paint the picture of a despotic regime struggling to maintain power at the expense of its population. The recent food shortages, and the 'appalling' intestinal disease sweeping the country, especially the capital, were just further proof of this neglect. (Apparently the Russians had lied about the compound in the canisters, it was fatal, to a segment of the population, particularly the elderly and the very young) The final master stroke was our dragging of the PMC into Azerbaijani airspace, and 'cleaned' tapes would show an unprovoked intrusion, followed up by the Russian craft responding in accordance with Commonwealth of Independent States joint security treaties, to interdict the offending aircraft. As we were talking, a full scale airborne invasion was underway, utilizing the darkened skies and riots in the streets as cover. And that is where we ended, with Georgia in flames, us in a cold hangar in russia, being offered Vodka by the most cold hearted son of a bitch we'd met so far.