Briefing:

Your task today is to neutralize Zinder Airport. The word neutralize is important, airports are almost impossible to destroy from the air. To properly destroy an airport would likely involve heavy machinery ripping up the airstrip and taxiways or nuclear weapons. Bombs will put holes and craters in tarmac, and with cement those can be filled quite easily. Buildings can be blown up, but tents and weather shelters can replace them in hours. Fuel and munitions can be destroyed but can be quickly replaced. Your job is to close the airport for as long as possible, thereby preventing enemy aircraft from using it.

What makes up an airport? Click on Zinder Airport, hit "V" or "9" on your number pad to change to unit view, and zoom in so your scale is in meters and not miles. This is what this very small airport has:

Target | No | DP | Effect of damage/destruction | Remarks
Runway | 1 | 900 | AC cannot take off or land | Special munitions only Cannot be destroyed
Runway Access point | 1 | 1000 | AC cannot taxi to runway | Cannot be destroyed
A/C Hanger | 1 | 600 | AC inside can be destroyed | Vulnerable to most weapons
Tarmac Space | 3 | 300 | AC parked can be destroyed | Cannot be destroyed
Avgas Tank | 1 | 20 | No effect but usually points | Vulnerable to fire
Ammo Pad | 1 | 300 | Ammo lost | None
Ammo Bunker | 1 | 1600 | Ammo lost | Needs penetrator
ATC Radar | 1 | 1 | Radar destroyed | Very vulnerable
Control Tower | 1 | 75 | No effect but usually points | Has weather radar
Terminal | 1 | 1200 | No effect but usually points |
Open Parking Spot | 1 | 300 | AC parked can be destroyed | Cannot be destroyed

Now let's take a look at your assets:

- 1 x Su-24MR: Great for finding out which of the parking spots are occupied by aircraft but remember you cannot see into hangers or HAS (Hardened Aircraft Shelters).
- 4 x Su-24M2 Fencer D: These are your heavy strike platforms. They have your only penetrators, a key weakness in Soviet era munitions. They also have some decent 500lbs guided bombs.
- 12 x MiG-23MLD Flogger K: These have a mix of anti-runway, cluster bomb, incendiary bomb, general purpose bombs and rockets. Key thing to note is that none of these munitions are guided, and all have a Lo-Lo-Lo profile. It's a good thing your target is only about 100nm away; you may note that the range in this profile for these aircraft is quite short.

Your next step is to figure out your plan. What do you want to destroy, why and when? Timing is important! There are ways of making everything arrive at the target at once, but this would be complex and quite unrealistic. The commander of the attack would only want a maximum of 2 or 4 aircraft directly over the target at any one time, otherwise the risk of collision is way too high. Command does not model midair collisions, nor does it model shrapnel from one strike hitting aircraft from another but it does model the time it takes for aircraft to do things like take off, assemble, etc.

Coordinating complex strikes is one of the most fun and satisfying aspects of the game. In this scenario you will have a few aircraft to coordinate. Imagine that you have aircraft from several different bases, some needing refueling to reach the target. Now add surface and air launched cruise missiles flying programed routes. Layer in some helicopters, artillery, Surface to Surface Missiles (SSM) and you have an interesting problem to handle. You can worry about that later, right now you need think about timing your reconnaissance and strike assets.

Do you want to close the runway first? Kill the radar first? Destroy the ammo and fuel first? Kill parked aircraft first? These are all good answers, your job is to choose one.

Reconnaissance:

First let's take a better look at your reconnaissance aircraft. Knowledge is a powerful tool, and this is the weapon that will inform your plans. And even though it is virtually unarmed (this one has some defensive air to air missiles) it is still a useful weapon. The Su-24MR Fencer E is equipped with multiple sensors. Open the "Database Viewer" and take a look:

- SLAR (Side Looking Airborne Radar): This is an early technology ground search radar built when radars were big, too big to fit in the nose of the aircraft, hence the side looking.
- TFR (Terrain Following Radar): This was truly state-of-the-art technology in the early 80's. TFR allows for high-speed low-level flight at night and in poor weather.
- Camera: The Fencer has three of them, an Oblique (great for analyzing depth), panoramic (good for the big picture), and TV or video. In Command you get instant return on what these cameras, but in reality, the film from these would be analyzed on the ground for hours or days, and these were very capable high-speed cameras for their time.
- IRLS (Infrared Line Scanner): Infrared spectrum allows for night reconnaissance.
- MAWS (Missile Approach Warning System), RWR (Radar Warning Receiver), DECM (Defensive Electronic Countermeasures) are all defensive systems. Very useful if you're going in ahead of the strike.
- Mk1 Eyeball: The vast majority of units will have this as a sensor, and it's quite handy. The 50nm range, as with most sensors is affected by curvature of the earth or horizon, so be sure to calculate for that.
- Finally, you will note that it is carrying an ELINT pod. If you drill into the database on that, you will note that it will easily detect electronic emissions from long distances.

What do with do with this aircraft? That depends on what you wish to achieve. You could put it on an area surveillance task, through it up to 40,000 feet and let the ELINT pod do the work. But that won't find where the enemy aircraft are located on your target airbase.

For this mission you need to get down and dirty! The task here is to locate where the bad guy's aircraft are so you can better direct your bombers. This means you will be looking for them in the visual spectrum not the electronic because those aircraft won't be emitting anything. You will need to see the target with your eyeball, cameras and IR. It's unlikely that your radar is good enough to pick them up, but many modern radars will be useful in this role. To do this you need to be low and to survive when you're low you need to be fast. There are two ways of doing this:

- >Manually: Launch the Fencer, plot a course directly over or very close to the target base. Make sure there is a Waypoint in your course before and after the base with a straight run over the target. When you launch keep your Altitude around 12,000 ft to conserve fuel (not a requirement here but good practice). At the waypoint before the base set your speed to afterburner and your Altitude to about 500ft. At the waypoint after the base slow her down and bring your altitude back up.
- Mission: Define an area (CTRL + Right click), drag a box and release. Four RPs will appear. With those RPs (and only those RPs) highlighted, create a Support mission. You will see three sides of the area linked with light blue lines and arrows. Move the RPs so that one leg of the box is over the target, making sure the other RPs don't create a cross or messed up route or the route planning for the mission will fail. Adjust the speed and altitude of the mission. Add the Fencer-E. This method loses some control over the speed and altitude as it remains steady for the entire circuit, but it takes a bit of micromanagement away from you.

Strike:

You could handle this attack manually, it's really not that big but I would advise employing missions, the process I use is this:

- Make sure you are in Group view ("V" key or number pad "9" toggles between group and unit view).
- Select the target airfield, you will do a series of missions with this selected.
- Hit "CTRL + F11" to bring up the create new mission box.
- Name the mission, select "Strike", "Land Strike", "Active".
- Now you have all of the possible targets in the Target list.
  - Choose what this mission will be for, say Parking Areas.
  - Add "Parking Areas" to the Name box.
  - Delete all the other targets from the list leaving only the 3 tarmac and one parking space.
  - If this is going to be your first target leave the activation menus alone.
  - Select your strike aircraft (lovely target for Cluster bombs or rockets).
  - Now you want to give your recon aircraft some time to do its work so set this mission to activate at about 0820. In either the mission creation screen or in the mission planner set the "Activation" time to the scenario date and a time of 0820. A red [D] will appear beside the mission name, which will be in italicized red.
- Click "Add" (located above the missions list) to create a new mission directly from the mission editor (all the targets come back to the list as the whole base is still selected).
  - Choose another target type, say ammo bunkers.
  - Change the name.
  - Delete all the other targets.
  - Select your Aircraft.
  - In this case you want this to be the second target so click on the Activation Time and make it ~0822 (2 minutes after the first mission starts) this will set the takeoff order from your home base, and this mission will follow the first.
- Repeat as needed.
- I would launch my Recon Fencer first, then have the following missions but you should experiment:
  - Runway - 2x MiG-23 with BetAB-500SP Anti-Runway Bombs
  - Aircraft Parking - 4x MiG-23 with RBK-250/500 Cluster Bombs
  - Radar - 1x MiG-23 with S-5K 57mm Rockets
  - Hanger - 1x Su-24 with KAB-500Kr TV/EO
  - Control Tower - 1x Su-24 with KAB-500Kr TV/EO
  - Ammo Pad - 2x MiG-23 with ZAB-500 Incendiary Bombs
  - Ammo Bunker - 1x Su-24 with KAB-1500Kr-PR TV/EO [Penetrator]
  - AvGas - 1x MiG-23 with S-5K 57mm Rockets
  - Runway Access Point - 1x Su-24 with KAB-1500Kr-PR TV/EO [Penetrator]
  - Terminal - 2x MiG-23 with FAB-500M-62 GPB
  - General (All targets) - No Aircraft Left
- Now, once you are ready, close the mission interface, hit start, and watch your air force go to work.