Mission Date: November 5, 2023
Mission Commander: CAPT Trim
Mission Overview:
The mission was divided into two distinct objectives:
Dealer 1:
- Objective: Strike industrial sites suspected of storing ISIS weapons and ammunition.
- Objective: Conduct a Wild Weasel mission to eliminate SA-11 TELARs operating between Damascus and Homs.
- Key Notes: Flights were to provoke SA-11 systems to reveal their positions and destroy them using HARM or other suitable weapons.
- Widespread presence of MANPADs in areas not under friendly control.
- Pop-up SA-11 SAM systems in the region between Damascus and Homs.
- Weapons Free on assigned targets.
- FLIR pods were mandatory to verify civilian areas were not hit due to the likelihood of targets being in dense urban areas.
Dealer 1 (Strike Mission):
- Dealer 1 successfully destroyed all targets at the primary objective. The secondary objective was not engaged due to ordnance limitations. After performing in-flight refueling, they recovered aboard the USS George Washington. Dealer 1-2 did not fly due to repeated disconnects.
- Dealer 2 successfully found and destroyed an SA-11. They then returned to the USS George Washington and recovered.
- Dealer 3 successfully located and destroyed an SA-11. Unfortunately, Dealer 3-3 was shot down by the SAM before it was destroyed. Dealer 3-1 refueled in flight and then recovered aboard the USS George Washington. Dealer 3-2 was unable to complete in-flight refueling and diverted to a friendly airfield.
The mission had mixed success with Dealer 1 achieving their primary objective but not having enough ordnance for the secondary objective. Dealers 2 and 3 were successful in eliminating SA-11 threats, but there were disconnections and diversions due to technical issues and SAM threats. Unfortunately, the mission also suffered the loss of Dealer 3-3, which was shot down by the SAM before it was destroyed. The support of tankers and AWACS proved crucial to the mission's success, and ongoing technical issues should be investigated for future missions.
Dealer 1:
Trim - Ground Targets, Trapped
Sabot - Disconnected
Mr. Bean - Ground Targets, Trapped
Dealer 2:
Hedgehog - Trapped
Maniac - Ground Targets, Trapped
Rhino - Ground Targets, DCS Crash
Dealer 3:
Lion - Ground Targets, Trapped
Crash - Diverted
Chaos - Ground Targets, Shot down by SA-11
