|
Oh-ER,
Dragon - do we need legal advice before talking?
:)
My account: -
11 = Me
12 = Jester
13 = BigBrother
14 = Dragon
My
account is that I was flying with Jester as my
wingman and on the way into the target we tracked
and followed 2? planes about 20-30 miles ahead
of us (MiG 29's I think AWACS called them) - these
were moving away from us - so we had a slow closure.
Whilst closing up to them, other contacts were
detected ahead and we split into two elements
(11 & 12 - 13 & 14) to try a pincer maneuvers
on the 1st contact. However from my recollection
my radar showed four new contacts inbound ahead
and I turned to the right to investigate the closest
of these - at this point I am unsure if Jester
was still with me as I was busy trying to get
AWACS declares, I very quickly found myself getting
MiG-29 spikes from 11 to 1 o'clock ahead of me
(the new contacts) and the contacts I had on my
radar seemed to open up to approximately 8-12
individual returns. At this stage I had no Idea
the contacts were anything but bogeys due to the
AWACS calls I had had. I locked up one target
and asked for a declare and got a bogey call -
I am unsure at this stage if I fired on this contact
or broke off to fire on another (targets were
now about 10 miles away and closing fast). I fired
one AMRAAM and immediately heard a call of friendly
fire and as a result I withheld fire on other
targets. I had fired before I had a positive ID
on radar - but at the time I had every reason
to believe I had multiple MiGs ahead. I immediately
broke of the closure to the contacts after firing
and hearing the friendly fire call - realizing
that there were two flights of planes in a massive
furball - In which I had engaged and damaged an
A10. I headed out to sea and was very quickly
shot down by an AA-12 (I think) from a Su-27 (the
MiG 29's had actually been Su-27's).
In my defense :) I found the situation very confusing
with multiple targets ahead of me - of which I
had had no indication of any friendlies that I
can recall up to the point when I fired (I may
have heard one of my team call a location of friendlies
but I cannot remember what it was in relation
to - as we became split up). The time I had to
think from seeing 4 contacts at 20 miles turn
into 8-12 contacts at 15 or so miles to where
I fired at about 10 miles was probably only about
30 seconds- during this time I was constantly
switching targets and querying AWACS - I cannot
recall a friendly buddy spike call and there was
allot of talk amongst our team at the same time
so I may have not heard one if there was.
My key defense then is that:-
I had no indication of friendlies in the immediate
area
I had had multiple AWACS calls of bogeys on the
targets I locked
I had very limited time in which to choose
I was feeling as though I was about to be swamped
by about 8+ MiGs!!
I think I was on my own in the immediate area
- I think I had become split form Jester - and
I'm almost certain I was from 13 & 14
Thus rests my case your honour - I will abide
by my CO's decision :)
Ps - in hindsight I think I was stupid to engage
the contacts as I quickly became embroiled in
a situation I could not handle - and I let myself
be drawn away from the mission.
Thanks - Nojoke
|
