by Dave Pascoe

  Once the target has been prepped, then a direct overflight with your package in trail is possible. Again, however, you have to take note of target spacing and whether your wingmen's weapons are suitable for the task once you drop your ordnance. In planning the mission, it's a good idea to try to divide the target up into two separate targets for each element to attack.

This mission pulls an 86% weapons kill rate. Even though it gets a mission failure, all the targets remain dead and advance the campaign.

Carry One HARM

Carrying a single HARM can be a great help for keeping SAM radars shut down during a strike when you are acting as FAC, and you've got just a couple radar guided AAA or SAM sites threatening. In most cases, they will shut down when you target them with the HARM. If they don't shut down, let 'em have it. HARMS are big and reduce weapon load, so don't carry it unless really needed.

Another advantage to carrying a HARM is that the HSD will plot the all the air defense radars for you (except the SA-7) and give you a good, quick visual of what you are facing. The downside is that during an attack, it takes time to change weapons and accomplish this.

Mission Study & Review

The mission Debrief window has been fixed and is now working properly with the 1.07 patch. It can be used to accurately evaluate your performance.

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The most important thing one can do following a failed mission is to review it and find out what you did wrong. The same applies to finding out why successful missions were successful. Sure, that is yet more time-consuming work, but that is the whole point of debriefing -- to reinforce your understanding of what you did right or wrong.

After a while, you will notice certain patterns developing that will give you even more insight on what makes for a Sierra Hotel pilot. If you're not willing or able to make the investment in time, study and practice, practice, practice, then you have no reason to expect to succeed or improve. This is not an arcade game and is not intended to be easy.

If you don't already have a screen capture program, I recommend getting one. Screen caps are immensely useful for reviewing your missions. Not only can you take snaps of the campaign map for use in planning, but taking screen shots during an attack records lots of useful information for finding out what went right or wrong.

The clouds of dust will make the targeting of this group of tanks impossible for the Maverick.

They can also be used for mission planning when flying a recon mission over the target first. Take lots of snaps and you will have a record of everything in the air and on the ground around the target.

Parts 5 and 6 will discuss how to recon a target and the basics of mission planning.

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