>>2411939
>Trust Dredd and Kenji's flights to the defence! Continue searching for the transponders.

>Abandon the search to reinforce the SAR flight! If those hinds get an alert out, Hwangsuwon will scramble it's fighters.

need a tiebreaker

>>2412219
I'll change my vote then.
>Trust Dredd and Kenji's flights to the defence! Continue searching for the transponders.

>>2411939
>>Trust Dredd and Kenji's flights to the defence! Continue searching for the transponders.

"Freelancer two-two, head to the southern section of the mountain range and begin searching for the transponder." You ordered your wingmate, sticking to the mission and leaving the defence of the SAR flight to your commander and the rest of the squadron. Outside of yours and Slider's flights of course.

"Understood, heading off." Scorpion confirmed, before breaking off from her position and heading south. Her position lights switching off as she left.

"So, what can you tell me about the signal? Did it seem in any way distorted?" You asked as you flew higher, intent on surveying the area from the peak.

"Negative, it just seemed weak. That may be due to distance, terrain, or damage to the transmitter. Really no way to tell." Slider answered, essentially re-telling you the same things you had guessed from yourself.

"Great." You huffed, before mulling over your options for the search.

>Try and fly slow over the mountain, you should be able to get the most exposure to a signal, if it's available.
>Range out further, there isn't much point searching places that have already been checked.
>Try and climb higher, if you can get clear of this terrain then you should be able to pick them out.
>Other (write in)

>>2412420
>>Range out further, there isn't much point searching places that have already been checked.

>>2412420
>Range out further, there isn't much point searching places that have already been checked.

>Range out further, there isn't much point searching places that have already been checked.

Instead of searching further up the mountain, you flew around it, headed towards it's more barren eastern slope. If you were shot down, you wouldn't want to keep in place and await rescue. It was one of the first things you were taught in SERE training, or the second after think positive thoughts.

"Alright folks, bad news. Those heilos sent out an alert, we can expect hostile aircraft any minute. Any luck finding the second pilots?" Dredd warned over the radio just as you began to slow down to search your area.

"No luck yet, but with four of us looking, we should find them soon. How's the evac going?" You responded as you tried in vain to scan the jungle bellow, but to no avail as nothing jumped out of the ordinary.

"Well enough, we've located the pilots and the SAR bird is picking them up. Don't know if they found the princess or not." Dredd informed you, sounding neither too worried nor too pleased about the lack of information.

"Should one of us divert to fly CAP?" Durendal asked, probably worried by her RIO’s detection of enemy aircraft at least within radar range of your position.

"That's up to you, but sort it out amongst yourselves." Dredd passed the buck back to your little group, before going silent. Leaving you all to your tasks.

>Continue searching! You can probably find them before Soviet aircraft become a problem.
>Move to provide CAP! You have to ensure that Slider and Durendal can search in peace.
>Other (write in)

>>2415614
>>Move to provide CAP! You have to ensure that Slider and Durendal can search in peace.

>>2415614
>Move to provide CAP! You have to ensure that Slider and Durendal can search in peace.
No surprises.

>Move to provide CAP! You have to ensure that Slider and Durendal can search in peace.

“Freelancer two-one and two-two, moving to provide CAP at angels ten. Slider, I'll need access to both yours and Durendal’s AMRAAMs.“ You notified the entire squadron, circumventing the need to discuss your decision by just going ahead and doing it.

“Go right ahead, it's not like we're going to need them down here.” Your annoyed squadmate sighed, obviously not best pleased by being passed the boring job of searching for the downed pilots while you got to go and get kills.

“Durendal, are you close to the southern part of the mountain?” Vampire asked, apparently unaffected by the strain of the climbs that both you and Weiss were performing in order to reach your CAP altitude.

“Oui, I am nearby. Why do you ask?” Durendal replied, her friendly voice tainted a bit by a hint of surprise. Though you weren't too unsure about where that surprise was coming from.

“I've got eyes on a couple of parked Soviet vehicles. You might want to check them out.” Vampire suggested, before adding. “I didn't have time to do much looking at them, so I'm not sure about if there are troops nearby.”

“Bon. I shall head over there as soon as I am finished over here. Merci.” Durendal thanked the German RIO for the information, before clicking off the channel, probably to talk with her own RIO.

“Scorpion, orient your radar search towards the south west. I'll look north east. RIO’s, call out targets as you spot them.” You ordered as you passed 9,000 feet and began to level off. Zeus had already switched your radar over to air searching mode, and it didn't take too long for something to come up.

“Already have a couple of hits. We have a pair of flankers to the south, they don't look as if they have heard the news yet. Or they could be moving to plug our escape route, not sure.” Vampire called out, before sending you what little information she had right now. Such as their airspeed, altitude and heading.

“News isn't much better up north. We have a flight of four fishbeds inbound, they don't know that we are here.” Zeus reported a scant second after Vampire was finished. Their markers being projected onto your HMD as he spoke.

Your call chief, are we killing the fishbeds, flankers, or both?” Scorpion asked, eager for a fight.

>Take down the fishbeds, leave the flankers. The fishbeds are too close for comfort, but their inferiority should make it a one-sided battle.
>Take down the flankers, leave the fishbeds. The flankers are more likely to know that you are watching them.
>Kill them all, clear the skies.
>Hold your fire, wait for them to make the first move.
>Other (write in)

>>2418725
>Hold your fire, wait for them to make the first move.
Not just yet.

>>2418725
>>Hold your fire, wait for them to make the first move.

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“Hold off, for now, keep them monitored with IRST and keep up the search with your radars.” You ordered, instead choosing to wait for the enemy to make the first move. And, giving them the option to simply go on with their flights.

“Got eyes on another flight inbound from the east. Looks like a pair of large aircraft, neither are emitting. Either transports or bombers, I can’t tell which.” Vampire called out a couple of seconds later, once again, the information was pinged to your helmet. You didn’t bother to look back over your shoulder to see them though.

“Fishbeds have altered course directly towards us! They have not accelerated or taken combat spacings, but we’ve still got a fight on our hands.” Zeus called out, notifying you all that you would soon have visitors.

“Well, that was unexpected.” Scorpion sighed as she turned back to join you. Her sigh telling you that while she was looking for a fight, she didn’t particularly like the idea of fighting the more inferior MiG-21s.

“Can the chatter, we have to take them out.” You hissed over the radio as you considered how best to engage the incoming flight. You had the drop on them, assuming that you wanted a dogfight.

>Drop them with AMRAAMs! You don’t want them even having a chance of firing on you.
>Kill them with Agiles! You shouldn’t waste AMRAAMs on them, but you don’t fancy getting shot.
>Go in for guns! You don’t want to waste missiles on small fry.
>Other (write in)

>>2421579
>Knock out two with Agiles as quickly as possible to even the numbers
>Gun down the other two

Need another vote...

>Knock out two with Agiles as quickly as possible to even the numbers
>Gun down the other two

>>2421579
>>Go in for guns! You don’t want to waste missiles on small fry.

"Hold fire for now, we don't want to waste the AMRAAMs on small fry. Take them out with Agiles." You ordered, eyeing your weapons readout with worry. The distinct lack of air to air weapons was coming to bite you in the ass.

"You could say the same thing about the Agiles though." Vampire pointed out, poking a hole into your argument. "We have even less Agiles than AMRAAMs."

"Do you really want to go into a dogfight without the advantage?" You asked as you looked down at your radar again, the MiGs were accelerating. Knowing that they had no way to fight you at beyond visual range, they rushed to get as close as possible as quickly as possible. Little did they know that their charge would lead to their deaths.

"Usually, I'd say our jets are good enough to kill that flight with guns. But right now, we can't risk taking a hit to our tanks, so we need to beat them as violently as possible." Scorpion explained to her RIO as you switched over to Agiles, locking up one of the trailing fishbeds with your HMD as they approached.

"Exactly. Fox two." You answered, before firing one of your missiles on the incoming jets as they approached. The chosen weapon sprinted out towards the encroaching foes as they closed at mach 2, Scorpion's shot following close behind.

"Requesting assistance! I have spotted an enemy convoy headed for the mountains at speed. They know that we are here and attempted to fire on me." Slider called out over the radio as the MiGs attempted to slow down to manoeuvre away from the missiles. However, at such speeds they had almost no chance to dodge the missiles without breaking their jets into tiny fragments.

"They missed." Mags helpfully added as your missiles hit their targets, splashing a pair of MiGs and forcing the other two to go defensive and at your mercy.

>Keep to the plan! Slider, Kay or one of the other tomcats can handle it.
>Divert Scorpion to the convoy! You can handle the small fry.
>Divert to hit the convoy! Scorpion is experienced enough to take the MiGs on her own.
>Other (write in)

>>2426791
>Keep to the plan! Slider, Kay or one of the other tomcats can handle it.
[extreme unease]

>>2426791
>Keep to the plan! Slider, Kay or one of the other tomcats can handle it.
Better make this fast. Can't let some prepackaged MiG parts drag us around.

>Keep to the plan! Slider, Kay or one of the other tomcats can handle it.

"Keep to the plan! The others can handle it." You ordered your wingmate, keeping the German bloodhound to task. You were pretty sure that she wouldn't abandon the guns kills just to pound a ground target. However, you didn't feel like chancing it. "Switch to guns, we just needed to thin the herd a bit."

"You didn't need to tell me either of those." Scorpion huffed in response, sounding slightly offended that you would even assume that she needed reminding not to go running off.

The MiGs fired first, a missile fired from each jet lanced out at your tomcats. Flares dropped clear of your jets as you and Scorpion both pulled your noses up a few seconds after to gain separation from the descending flares. With neither of you engaging your afterburners, the flares were so easy for the missiles to detect that they completely avoided your jets, leaving you both free for a head-on pass with the MiGs. Both you and Scorpion took your spacings, around as wide apart as the remaining Soviet jets.

"Jammer is up, the can't call for help." Vamprie called as you approached the enemy jets, giving you piece of mind that the enemy couldn't call for help.

You approached the enemy jet at subsonic speeds. You had to. If you missed your pass, and couldn't turn onto him, then he would have a juicy tail-aspect shot on you with his missiles. And you couldn't have that. You watched the enemy fighter as he approached, and waited with baited breath for him to fly into your engagement range. However, this one was smart, and at the last second, he rolled right. Avoiding your burst as you pulled down the trigger. However, instead of turning quickly after him, you instead went for a more sedate turn. Opting to instead to take a wider turn to conserve fuel. As you turned you watched over the rim of your cockpit's canopy to see Scorpion's kill. The enemy Fishbed foolishly tried to hit Scorpion with a head-on gun run. And caught a full burst of 20mm shells for his trouble. The entire front section of his plane disintegrated, with the rest of the aircraft following as Scorpion passed under it.

Looking back at your MiG, you saw that the enemy fighter was taking his turn wider than you. Even though you had a wider angle to cover before you could get your guns on target, you would still be able to get him before he got you. And sure enough, you came in parallel to him, his entire aircraft turned with it's top facing you as he tried in vain to turn towards what he assumed was just a helpless and unmanoeuvrable little tomcat.

He was in for a deadly little shock.

>CONT

>>2432753

You waited for the right moment to shoot, before pulling down the trigger. The aircraft shuddered slightly as the rounds sailed out towards the enemy aircraft. And they did more than just shake the little plane. The first few tracers cut just in front of the aircraft, giving the pilot a second to shit himself before the shells punched into his plane's nose, radar housing, cockpit, and traced a line of destruction down the aircraft. Leaving the murdered aircraft to slam into the jungle below, the pilot's body not to be found in one piece, if ever.

>Check up on those Flankers! You don't know if they are still inbound.
>Return to patrol patterns! You have to keep up a screen against incoming attacks.
>Take down the convoy! You don't know where they are going, but it can't be good.
>Other (write in)

>>2432756
>Return to patrol patterns! You have to keep up a screen against incoming attacks.

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>>2432756
>>Return to patrol patterns! You have to keep up a screen against incoming attacks.

>>2432756
>Return to patrol patterns! You have to keep up a screen against incoming attacks.

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>>2432756
>Return to patrol patterns! You have to keep up a screen against incoming attacks.

>>2432756
>>Take down the convoy! You don't know where they are going, but it can't be good.

"Alright, let's return to patrol." You ordered as smoke began to rise form the jungle below. Scorpion formed up off your wing as her RIO brought their plane's radar back online.

"I can't see the Flankers. They might have moved off." Vampire called out as Zeus brought your radar up and running. And sue enough, your scope was clear over the coast.

"Or they might be sneaking closer. Look-down shoot-down is good and all, but if we can hide in choppy seas, they can too." Scorpion suggested, reminding you that just because the Flankers were no longer on your screen, did not mean that you could just assume that they had stopped being a potential issue.

"Let's just hope that they left. Keep looking for more targets while we wait." You ordered, before breaking off from Scorpion to orient your radar back towards the north-east. However, almost as soon as your radar was oriented towards the north, your radio crackled to life.

"Contact, we have aircraft taking off from Hwangsuwon. Radar pegs them as helicopters. The base is probably scrambling." Vampire called out, a scant second before your HMD updated with new information. The flight of 4 hind helicopters had obviously just taken off, and were making no attempts to fly lower to avoid detection.

>Hit the Hwangsuwon airbase! You can't let them scramble and drown you in fishbeds.
>Keep on station! Their taxi-way is almost 3 kilometers long, you should be out before they can bring much force to bare.
>Other (write in)

>>2436653
>Keep on station! Their taxi-way is almost 3 kilometers long, you should be out before they can bring much force to bare.
When in doubt, fuck Flankers.

>>2436653
>>Keep on station! Their taxi-way is almost 3 kilometers long, you should be out before they can bring much force to bare.

>>2436653
>>Keep on station! Their taxi-way is almost 3 kilometers long, you should be out before they can bring much force to bare.

"Inform the boss that he has incoming, he needs to know." You ordered Vampire as you continued your search. However, for a good minute or so, nothing came up.

"Freelancer three-two to all aircraft. We have an issue." Durendal called out, shattering the calm that you were enjoying.

"Which is?" Dredd asked, his strained voice telling you that he was not taking well to having to fly a pair of stressful missions back to back.

"I have detected the GPS receivers from both downed aviators. However, they are both coming from a Soviet convoy that is heading down the mountain." The french aviator explained, her voice calm, but concerned. And for good reason.

"Hold up, are you saying that the princess and her RIO have been captured by the Soviets?" Kay asked, shock and confusion mixing into her drawl.

"That is the most likely explanation. It also explains why we can't get a positive read on their transponder." Durendal replied, confirming everyone's worst fears. You were all too late to get to the princess before the Soviets got her.

However, there was still a chance to get her out...

>Attack the convoy! If you can stop it from moving then you can make things easier for the SAR flight.
>Keep on CAP! You can't let the Soviets bring in more aircraft.
>Other (write in)

>>2440862
>>Attack the convoy! If you can stop it from moving then you can make things easier for the SAR flight.

>>2440862
>>Attack the convoy! If you can stop it from moving then you can make things easier for the SAR flight.

>Attack the convoy! If you can stop it from moving then you can make things easier for the SAR flight.

"Freelancer two-one, moving to engage the convoy." You stated as you chopped your throttle and began to turn towards where Durendal was circling.

"Hold on Razor, what's your plan here?" Dredd asked as you abandoned your post, leaving a hole in the squadron's defences. Then again, you didn't see anything incoming.

"Sir, if I can get the convoy to stop, they will have to start moving on foot. If we can force them onto foot and away from their vehicles, it will be much easier for the SAR flight to overpower them and get the princess out." You explained as you reviewed your ground attack load. 16 Zunis, and a pair of 1,000lbs bombs rounded our your load. You didn't have much room for error.

The radio was quiet for a few seconds, before Dredd sighed and gave his response. "Fine, you are cleared to engage. Durendal, guide him in."

"The convoy is comprised of three armoured vehicles, two trucks and two jeeps. The GPS signals are coming from the APC in the middle of the convoy." Durendal explained, transmitting a view from her jet's FLIR to you, which was pulled up onto one of your MFD screens. Sure enough, the convoy matched her description. The open-topped trucks sat just in front and behind the APC that held the princess and her RIO. And both trucks were packed with infantry, a good squad and a half of soldiers in each.

Hitting the APCs at the front and back of the convoy was practically a given, however, you considered the idea of hitting the trucks as well. If you did, you could take out a large chunk of the enemy's infantry with one strike.

>Stop the convoy! You can leave handling the infantry to the helicopters. (use 1000lbs bombs, or rockets?)
>Inflict as much damage as possible! If you are good with your rockets
>Other (write in)

>>2443020
>>Stop the convoy! You can leave handling the infantry to the helicopters. (use 1000lbs bombs)

>>2443020
>Stop the convoy! You can leave handling the infantry to the helicopters. (rockets)
We don't need to annihilate everything within 40m of the front and rear vehicles.

>Stop the convoy! You can leave handling the infantry to the helicopters. (use 1000lbs bombs)

Taking direct control of Durendal's FLIR, you zoomed out to get a better view of the convoy, and the surrounding convoy. The convoy was heading along a small dirt path, with deep drainage ditches on either side. There was no way for a vehicle to pass one in front of it. As such, you didn't see much reason to use more than your iron bombs.

Switching over to your bombs, you descended to just above the treetops, and began to follow the road that the convoy was heading along. You waited and watched the ground before you as the miles began to drop away before you. You rotated your wings fully forwards as you slowed down. While keeping slow wasn't something that you particularly enjoyed, you couldn't afford to miss. And soon enough, you spotted the convoy. The rear APC's turret tracked to try and shoot at you, but even at such slow speeds, you flew faster than they could elevate the gun. And, with careful deliberation, you released your payload.

The first bomb was released with the aiming point practically on top of the rear APC. Not so much looking to destroy it, as to cut off it's escape. A couple of seconds later, the second bomb was dropped just in front of the first APC, a similar intent in mind. And, with both bombs sailing on their way towards their targets, you rolled hard to the left, and pulled away from the convoy. You couldn't hear the bombs go off over the sound of your engines, so instead, you counted for five seconds, before dragging your jet towards the right and looking back towards the convoy. All to marvel at your destruction.

The rear-most APC had been launched forwards and up into the air. The entire thing landing hood-to-hood on the jeep in front of it, crushing the unfortunate crew of the jeep and trapping the APC's crew within their vehicle. The forward APC had fared much worse however, and had been practically vaporised. The jeep behind it had also been destroyed, though the truck full of troops had survived almost unscathed. Aside from the huge chunk of bumper sticking out of the side of the cabin. The first truck had not stopped when you had made your run, in fact, it had apparently tried to accelerate along with the rest of the convoy. As such, when the first bomb had gone off, the truck had driven head-first into the crater it left behind. The results on it's passengers were fairly obvious as many had been thrown out of the vehicle when it fell in. The APC containing the princess however, had managed to just about stop in time to avoid falling fully in, instead ending up teetering on the rim of the crater, with it's front wheels over the rim, while the rear wheels remained on the isolated track of road.

"Flankers incoming! They're low and fast!" Scorpion alerted, linking her information to you. The Flankers were uncomfortably close, but your wingmate did have the altitude advantage on both of them, putting her into a great position to intercept them.

>CONT

>>2443981

>Keep on the infantry! If you can thin them out before the SAR flight arrives, you can cut down the amount of time you have to spend here.
>Take down the flankers! If they shoot down an aircraft, then any time saved will be for naught.
>Other (write in)

>>2443985
>Take down the flankers! If they shoot down an aircraft, then any time saved will be for naught.
WHEN IN DOUBT, FUCK FLANKERS.

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>>2443985
>Take down the flankers! If they shoot down an aircraft, then any time saved will be for naught.

"Damn it! I'm on my way!" You stayed as you brought your tomcat around to face the incoming threat. Your powerful engines now unchained to bring you skywards at supersonic speeds now that the bombs had been dropped.

"Shit! Missiles!" Zeus called out. A pair of missiles were fired at you, while another pair were fired at Scorpion. You dropped one of your TALDs and some countermeasures as you broke hard left, heading northeast for a few seconds. You kept going for a few more seconds until your MAWS shut off, signalling that the most immediate threat had passed.

"Weiss, are you-" You began to ask, only to be cut off.

"I'm fine! No damage." Your wingmate snapped back, obviously pissed off that the Soviet fighters had fired on her. Looking over, you noted that she had done the same as you, and had dropped a TALD to soak the incoming missile. "Damn it, they're too close for AMRAAMs!"

Switching back to your air to air weapons, you had but a second to contemplate what you would fight with.

>Fire off your Agile! You can't
>Take them out with guns! You can't just give up your last Agile so quickly.

>>2444315
>Fire off your Agile! You can't
-finish that thought before firing, apparently.

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>>2444328
>Fucked up, again
Notto Disu Shitto Agen

For the record, it's meant to be "Fire off your Agile! You can't afford any half measures."

>>2444315
>>Take them out with guns! You can't just give up your last Agile so quickly.

Need a tiebreaker...

>>2444315
>Fire off your Agile! You can't

>>2444315
>>Fire off your Agile! You can't

>>2444315
>>Take them out with guns! You can't just give up your last Agile so quickly.

>>2444315
>>Take them out with guns! You can't just give up your last Agile so quickly.

>>2444315
>>Fire off your Agile! You can't

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Due to not being around for the past 2 days, I've lost my window to be able to finish this thread before it falls off the board. As such, we'll have to migrate to this new thread in order to finish up:

>>2451132
>>2451132
>>2451132