Where's The Beef? Help

There are 2 versions of this mission - Beef_lt, and Beef.

   Beef_lt has 5 Flankers - 3 from Hyon Ni, and 2 from Maeng San.

   Beef has a third Flanker from Maeng San.

If you are a novice, fly Beef_lt and you will have less to worry about near the freighters - the Flankers may not bother you too much, if you take precautions.


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Beef

Conserve fuel, and you may prefer to take Hornets 2 & 3 in formation with you (<F6> twice for Hornet 2 to formate close to starboard, and <Shift+F6> once to get Hornet 3 further out on your starboard). They are tasked to SEAD, so if not formated they may try to divert before they get to waypoint 1 (there are a couple of SAM's on the coast), and as a result may alert the Flankers. Release them shortly before wpt 1, and when you near the target at wpt 2, help them by taking out the northernmost SAM (on the island) from about 8,000' and 12.5 miles. Some of the SAM's have experienced crews, but they may be busy tracking H 2 & 3 as well as yourself, and as a result may not strobe. Turn north and reduce altitude to keep your energy up without using too much fuel, as soon as you fire at the first SAM - you can't afford to try to avoid a missile with a couple of 84's on board slowing you down. As soon as the first SAM is destroyed, turn back toward the northern end of the bay to keep plenty of room to maneuvre and look for the second SAM near the harbour on the RWR. Do the same for it if your wingmen haven't dealt with it.

Then go for the first hostile freighter at low altitude (better visibility), which you could have already locked on Radar before you hit the first SAM. Watch out for the gunboats, but as long as you break away from them when you release the 84, you should be OK. Unless you're spiked, ignore any Flankers - they may be too busy with H 2 & 3 to bother you. You may even be able to get both the ships on this run, but even if you don't you can afford to spend a little time on the Flankers now that your weight is down a bit. Once you are able, finish off the second ship, and any Flankers which may threaten you. Then call Hornets 2 & 3 to you (if they are still able), and head back to the Enterprise at an economical throttle setting. They may run out of fuel though - they don't bother with little things like fuel consumption, and they're stuck with the preset loadouts for SEAD with only 1 Ext Fuel.

The Tomcats take off from Chuncheon and CAP north towards Maeng San. They run into some Flankers from Hyon Ni, some of which may get through, but may not bother you if you stay near the bay. The Tu-20's provide a distraction for the Tomcats - 1 flies from Maeng San to Kaesong, and the other from Kaesong to Maeng San. The helos in the bay are there to distract Hornets 2 & 3 from their primary mission, and give you a bit more to do. Ignore them, but try not to collide with them - if you stay under 1,000' you'll be under them.

Replay

This replay is of a development version of Beef, but gives a good idea what to expect - the only changes were to some of the timings, and the Maeng San Flanker's responses, to make it a bit more difficult.

You'll notice that I gave the Flanker less chance of getting me by turning my Radar and ECM off when not necessary. I gave him a couple of AMRAAM's, then switched to Sidewinders with Radar and ECM off. I kept maneuvering in the vertical while keeping his RWR spike at 12, to give the Sidewinder a chance to find him and lock, and used a barrel roll to avoid his missile. Got him!

Another thing you'll notice is that I still haven't managed to get my traps right, but at least I had 100% power on the engines and could go around easily when I missed the wires on the first go. The second was better . . . but I still had trouble getting the AOA and airspeed right. Practice, practice . . .

If you want to use the keyboard commands to check on other aircraft during the mission, it's reasonable to check on the friendlies only (Shift+5). You are likely to have radio messages giving the status of other friendlies in real life, but not so much on the hostiles. Hornet 2 radio's contacts etc. so rely on them only for the enemy aircraft.


Aircraft

   Friendly

F/A-18 x 3 (FA18-00/01/02)
F-14D x 3 (F14D-00/01/02)

   Enemy

Su-27 x 5 (SU27-00/01/02/03/04) Beef_lt
Su-27 x 6 (SU27-00/01/02/03/04/05) Beef
Tu-20 x 2 (TU20-00/01)
Mi-24 x 5

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Cheers,

Deep Runner

Kerrie Reay   :-)-8

<kerrie_reay@bigpond.com>
