Bay Assault
Bay Assault is one of the Quick Play missions available to the F-45A. It involves the player's squadron destroying priority targets in enemy territory during a full-scale assault.
OBJECTIVES:
- Protect the carriers
- Destroy priority targets
- RTB
Walkthrough
You and your squadron will start off from an Assault Carrier and will need to take off as soon as possible to deal with the hostile forces attacking the fleet. You will then receive objectives to destroy four groups of hostiles: a group of rocket artillery trucks pelting the fleet from behind a hill, several bombers at one of the airbases, the two bunkers that the enemy is using as a command center, and several stealth fighters at another airbase in the map. You are technically allowed to tackle the objectives in any order you desire, but the order provided in this guide gives you the best chance of removing the biggest threats before they can become problematic. Another hindrance also remains: a large enemy fleet in the bay, including multiple NMSS Cruisers. There will also be a number of SAM defenses along the coastline where the enemy fleet launches from. There will be other fighter groups flying out to take care of these threats, so you should be safe to focus on your own objectives.
Your first targets are going to be the closest ones: the artillery trucks. Right before you crest the hills between you and them, you will receive a GPS path on group MSN 3 denoting the approximate locations of the targets. Immediately after you pass the hills, open your EOTS (targeting pod) tab and activate your Head-Mounted Cueing System (HMCS) to search for the targets. There will be four artillery trucks randomly scattered along the corner of the landscape; considering their large size, distinctive heat signature, and the prevalence of the smoketrails from launched rockets, finding them shouldn't be too difficult. There may also be an IRAPC in the area for air defense, so you should destroy that vehicle as well if it is present. It should be very easy to destroy all of the trucks with a single rack of AGM-145s or GBU-53s. Once all of the artillery trucks have been eliminated (command will inform you once this is done), immediately vector west towards the enemy's airbase to take down their bombers. Remember to fly low to avoid getting locked onto by the long-range missiles from the enemy fleet.
A number of bomber jets will be cued up to take off from the airbase, and depending on how long it took for you to destroy the rocket artillery trucks earlier, one or two may already be in the air. You will need to fly low as you approach the airbase to avoid its SAM grid. Target the SAM radar atop the ATC tower and order your wingmen to destroy it. At this point, you will want to use your TSD to find the bombers taking off from the enemy airbase. The simulated Datalink capabilities mean that you won't need to activate your fighter's own radar to find them except as a last resort. The enemy bombers are identifiable by the name "HB-106" on the TSD and identifiable visually by their wide wings and whale-tail rudder setup. If you find any in the air, you can deploy an AIM-120D missile against them to shoot them down. Don't worry about them potentially evading the missile; the bombers are fast, but somewhat slow to maneuver, making them easy prey for an active AIM-120D heading their way. After your missile goes pitbull, fly towards the left side of the airport and vector your thruster to 90 degrees. You will find a number of aircraft cued up to take off in this area, and a lot of those will be bomber jets. With your F-45A in vertical-flight mode, you can easily point your fighter at a ~45 degree angle and deploy your minigun against the fighters trying to take off in a clean strafing run. A properly lined-up strafing run can easily destroy an entire line of fighters/jets in cue. You should also be aware of a SAAW tank near the airbase's helipads that can engage targets at close range; you may need to destroy this one as well, or order your wingmen to do it for you. If there are any bombers left behind after your strafing run, vector your thrust back down to 0 degrees and bring down any jets remaining before they can get too far away.
Like with the artillery trucks, command will notify you that the bombers have been neutralized. Your next targets are located directly north, just outside of the nearby metropolitan area: the two C2 bunkers. This part of the mission is deceptively simple; you will have received another group of GPS targets on group MSN 2, these being the exact locations of the enemy's command and control bunkers. As such, bringing along at least two GBU-38s will make this objective relatively easy. Fly above the bunkers, select your GBU-38s, and squeeze the trigger once the two diamonds are inside the inner circle (make sure the auto-targeting mode is enabled in the SMS configuration page). Your only notable threats here will be another SAAW and a MANPADS unit near the bunkers for close-range air defense. Once the bunkers have been destroyed, you should have only one objective remaining: the stealth fighters. They will be landed at a larger airbase to the north. Fly underneath a bridge there and follow the river straight to the airbase. Crest the hill where the river ends and you will immediately find another airbase, where a group of ASF-58s are preparing to take off from. You should be able to get to them before any of them can take off, in which case a few more strafing runs (like the ones performed against the bombers) can easily destroy at least the bulk of them. If any fighters take off, they will immediately attempt to attack you, in which case you can simply hit them with heat-seeking missiles before they get a bead on you.
Once the fighters are gone, and every other objective has been completed as well, you will be cleared to return to the carrier. The rest of the fighters will likely have completed their SEAD objectives by this time, so the radars of the enemy fleet and the shoreline air defenses should be out of commission by this point. Fly over the bay towards the area where the artillery trucks were and crest the hills to rendezvous back up with the carrier fleet. Land back at the Assault Carrier to complete the mission.