15 January, 2023 - Operation Noble Tempest Week 13

Rhino · Post by **Rhino** » Fri Jan 13, 2023 1:19 pm

SITUATION

Bravo Zulu Black Aces on the destruction of two enemy Kilo-class submarines! While three known Russian subs are still patrolling the Black Sea, your actions have significantly reduced the threat to the Truman CSG as we continue to operate in these confined waters. Now however, it is back to the original task at hand: the dismantling of the Russian IADS covering the western Georgia Area of Operations. In order to achieve this, a re-attack on the Gudauta and Sukhumi area SA-10’s is necessary.

MISSION

This evening's mission is a re-tasking of the destruction of the two SA-10 SAM sites in Abkhazia. BDA from the strike attempt two weeks ago confirmed that the southernmost site, near Gulripshi, sustained damage to its Big Bird long range search radar and it is now out of commission. The northernmost site, closer to Gudauta air base, appears to have sustained no damage previously and is believed to be fully operational .

The northernmost site is located near the small town of Primorskoe between Gudauta Airbase and Sukhumi. As before, Waypoints 3 & 4 denote the two sets of launchers while Waypoint 5 is co-located with the Big Bird long range search radar. The southern SA-10 site is located closer to the Sukhumi airport right along the coast near the town of Gulripshi. At this site, Waypoints 6 & 7 denote the launchers and Waypoint 8 has now been co-located with that site's Flap Lid tracking radar. Ideally, all elements of the sites should be destroyed, but priority goes to the Big Bird radar at the northern site and the launchers.

Weapons considerations include TALD decoys, HARM missiles, AGM-154A JSOW, GBU-38 JDAM and AGM-65 Mavericks. Support will be provided by an EA-6B Prowler from VAQ-138 (Uzi Flight), which will orbit approximately 50 nm offshore the targets and provide standoff jamming. This should reduce the effective range of the SA-10, so long as the Prowler remains on station and isn’t shot down.

THREATS

As before, the SA-10’s themselves are a formidable threat to all aircraft. While no significant SHORAD systems have been observed co-located with them, you should expect various AAA and MANPAD threats to be present at or near the sites. The Abkhazian capital of Sukhumi is located between the two SA-10 sites and is well defended by AAA guns of various calibers. Finally, the VKS aircraft at Gudauta have suffered losses in our past actions and as such have been reduced to flying alert responses instead of proactive CAPs. That said, don’t expect the Russians to lay down while we conduct this strike.

FRIENDS

In addition to the Jamming support aircraft, a S-3B will be conducting a SSC flight north of the Strike group and an E-2D AWACS will be overhead. A recovery tanker will be available, but o additional airwing assets are scheduled for this event.

ROE

Weapons free. Russian and Abkhazian ground and air targets may be engaged as required.

MISSION OVERVIEW

DATE: 15 January, 2023

TIME: 1700 local

SUNRISE: 0906 local
SUNSET: 1810 local
MOON: None

TASK: DEAD

WX: 060@06kt /SCT 17,000 / FEW 36,000 / T03 / Q30.12

FLIGHT DURATION: ~350nm

AVAILABLE SQUADRON ASSETS:
Dealer 1: 4 x F/A-18c
Dealer 2: 4 x F/A-18c
Dealer 3: 4 x F/A-18c
Dealer 4: 4 x F-14b

CARRIER:
USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN-75) / Freq 127.500 [6] / TCN: 75X / ICLS: 5

SUPPORTING UNITS:
AWACS / E-2D / OVERLORD/ Freq 266.000 [5]
Mission Tanker / / / Freq: []/ TCN:
Recovery Tanker / S-3B / TEXACO / Freq 353.000 [10] / TCN:61Y

DIVERT
Batumi [WP]
Rwy: 13/31
VOR: TACAN 16X
ATC: 131.000 [16]

BULLSEYE: Sochi Harbor[WP10]

ROUTE OVERVIEW: