30 April, 2023 - Operation Noble Tempest Week 25

For scheduled squadron missions and unscheduled pick-up missions.
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Rhino
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30 April, 2023 - Operation Noble Tempest Week 25

Post by Rhino » Sun Apr 30, 2023 11:03 pm

VFA-41 Black Aces were tasked with a precision strike of the oil refinery facility in the port city of Tuapse along the Black Sea coast. Five aircraft launched on the sortie and made their way to Waypoint 1 where they orbited until the assigned push time of 0625 hours. Once other air wing assets had a chance to suppress the nearby Russian air defenses, all flight proceeded toward the target area with Dealer 2 launching AGM-88 HARM missiles at some still radiating SA-11 SAM systems. Before Dealer 1 pushed from the target, Dealer 1-1 suffered a catastrophic CPU failure and was zapped out of the mission. Dealer 1-3 then took over mission command and continued mission. Enemy aircraft were picked up on datalink and ID'd by AWACS, but appeared to have been downed quickly by VF-211 F-14's. Dealer 1-3 and 1-2 released three GBU-31's between them and were able to destroy 2 of the 4 primary target structures. One of Dealer 1-3's bombs was determined to have struck a different structure in the facility, destroying it as well, but his second bomb malfunctioned and would not come off the rail. After two attack runs attempting to release it without success, Dealer 1-3 terminated the attack and jettisoned the bomb over the water.

Dealer 2-2 successfully struck a SA-19 Grison SAM with a HARM shot as well, but sadly, Dealer 1-2 was lost to a SA-11 located just south of the target area. On egress it was discovered Mother's TACAN had stopped transmitting and help from the E-2 crew as used to vector all remaining aircraft back toward the ship. Eventually, the TACAN began working again and the three remaining Dealer aircraft recovered CASE 1 without incident.

Dealer 1:
1-1 Rhino -Computer malfunction, disconnect.
1-2 Crash -Primary targets destroyed, shot down by SAM
1-3 Hedgehog -Secondary targets hit, trapped

Dealer 2:
2-1 Trim, -trapped
2-2 Chaos -SAM struck, trapped

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