Marine Fighters
MiGMan’s Combat Diary | 1995
Kurile Islands.
The what islands?
I rushed out to a Sydney map shop and grabbed an ONC (Operational Navigation Chatrt) map of the aforementioned islands which showed them to be north of Japan.
OK... contested by the Japan and USSR since WW2. That sounds like a good setting for conflict. When you look at the Operational Navigation Charts it's amazing to see that the Soviet Union's Air Defense zone actually extends over the Japanese mainland!
Anyway besides being mostly blue, the maps weren't much use in Marine Fighters as the terrain didn't correspond too closely to reality. Not to worry.
The first mission was a toughy. You first had to get past a Su-27 Flanker CAP which was very difficult, I finally figured out that the Flankers were gunning for my aircraft in particular, so I would send my wingmen in to attack while I concentrated on evading the wall of missiles those Flankers seem to put out!
This gave my wingmen a chance to mop them up. Then it was a race against time to splash 3 Tu-160 Blackjack bombers before they destroyed a friendly convoy.
This wasn't too hard unless they ran away... which they usually did, then to "CAP" it off more Su-27's arrived on the scene. If we could splash the Blackjacks quickly enough it was possible to run away from the Flankers at very low altitude.... they usually lost interest! Oh yeah, did I mention the Hind Gunships?
Mi-24 Hind
Tu-160
The Yak-141 was not the most nimble of fighters. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
The AC-130 Spooky, airborne artillery.
AC-130 Spectre Gunship. What other flight sim offered the gut-shaking experience of firing a 105mm Howitzer?
Landing on the Tarawa was always difficult for me. I found it useful to tell my wingman to "BUG OUT" about 10 miles from the ship and then follow him in to the landing.