3CAB - 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade Headquarters

After action report

Objectives:

Evade enemy huntingparties, get evacuated and support 1st platoon with cas, ISR and supplies

Accidents:

Viper was hit twice by shoulderfired enemy AA devices. The crew were able to RTB and sucsessfully recovered and repaired the airframe. one of our ISR drones was shot down for reasons unknown. We had scanned the area and could not observe any AA threats in the AO. Though our crew saw the drone shortly before it impacted, they claimed it was shot down and Viper set up to go hunting for the enemy AA site. It was never located.

Areas of Strength:

Areas of strength for this operation was undoubtly good airmanship by the crew flying the Viper. They were always 1 step ahead of the situation on the ground, and were readily waiting for tasking by the FO.

Areas of Weakness:

Radiocommunication was rough at times. We might need to look into having more personell on the ground who are able to take over for Punchline, if he is indisposed during firefights (knocked down etc.). We also need to get better at sending the ISR up earlier, so we can give the groundunits a better picture of what they are up against beforehand.

Suggested Improvements:

Send up eagle as soon as we enter the server - and keep our distance to the AO with our CAS airframes. We have been pushing it in regards of being within the enemy's reach and risk losing more airframes in the future, unless we take action to mitigate the risk.

Overall Outcome:

Positive

Summary:

All in all, a sucsessful mission. Our Pilots were recovered after some time, and evacuated by the groundelements. We soon there after initiated our regular tasking, and had Viper, Stallion, Workhorse and eagle on station around the clock. We conducted several target engagements, and had overall good sucsess with providing CAS. We also conducted one re-supply mission in the AO, to ensure the groundelements had the right resources to continue the fight and push through the enemy encampments.