Intelligence Information

This section gives the pilot a listing of anticipated ground and air-based threats, at least the ones that they know about. Intelligence is by no means perfect and you should expect the unexpected. That being said, you can probably count on the threats listed in the Intel area showing up. Make sure you've reviewed in your mind how to counter the anticipated threats.

Airframe Select

Although you have the ability to select airframes during mission planning, it doesn't have a significant impact on mission or campaign performance. This may be an area for further improvement for F-15, as the airframes used during a campaign will no doubt require overhaul, maintenance, and improvement during the course of a protracted war. The ability to schedule maintenance, rotate airframes, and possibly cannibalize aircraft for spare parts would be a nice addition for resource management, but doesn't exist quite yet.

Flight Crew Select

Like the Airframe Select section, you have the ability to rotate flight crews. Beyond that, there doesn't seem to be much use for this feature. The designers may have intended this to reflect crew experience and performance in their Artificial Intelligence (AI) calculations, but it doesn't appear to be included at this point. Further modification to this area would again improve the campaign's resource management capabilities by allowing the player to optimize mission performance. The more sorties a crew flies, the more experience they gain, and as a result the better they become. Then you could spread the wealth around, or save the best pilots for the hardest missions. We'd need to see the sorties/kills/shacks on a kill-board menu to manage this.

Arming - Select Loadout

The Mission Briefing should give you the rundown on what ordinance to select for the mission. By default, F-15 places 4 Mk84s, 2 AGM-65Gs, 2 AIM-120A, 2 AIM-9Ms, M56 gun ammo, plus FLIR and IR targeting pods. While this may be adequate for most missions, it may not always do the job. Follow the recommended ordinance selection in the mission briefing. Make sure you are aware of the target type, flight range (if extra bags of fuel are required) and expected threats during the mission.

Click to continue . . .

Does your mission require a FLIR or Target IR pod? If not, it may be better to leave them behind. In campaign mode, especially for the Iraq campaign, these are precious items and should not be risked.

Targeting

Close investigation of the target's location is important to mission success. This is magnified when the target is located within the confines of other objects, such as a large city or airbase. Even with a high resolution map, it may become difficult to distinguish the mission objective from other targets of opportunity. Although your wingmen generally are smart enough to find their designated target, you must search for it manually. During target review, identify large objects with distinguished shapes that surround your primary target such as large buildings, runways, or bridges. You can then use these objects to orient yourself relative to the large object's location.

Remember, you have the ability to re-designate targets among your wingmen. You could do this if you have every confidence in your abilities to hit the target, but want to make sure that the other targets are hit as well. Given the number of mission objectives, it may be prudent to designate a particular objective to more than one aircraft in your flight - someone may get shot down prior to ingress.

One final note: there is nothing that prevents you from training for a particular mission. Real F-15E pilots will rehearse an attack plan, possibly several times. This becomes even more important when the route chosen, the ordinance selected, or the ordinance delivery profile is different that what you are use to. You can practice the mission by either using the TRAINING area, or building an INSTANT or custom mission.

This article was intended as a summary to mission planning. Subsequent articles will discuss in detail the methods for attack, ordinance selection, ordinance delivery, stealth/evasion, and mission building tips and tactics in Jane's F-15. Please write me at Snacko if you have any comments or suggestions for future topics.

Go to F15 Ordnance and Delivery