Black Aces Over Kosovo Campaign

The Black Aces Over Kosovo Campaign is designed to recreate the air combat missions flown from the USS Roosevelt against Serbian forces in Kosovo during Operation Allied Force in 1999. The missions included in this set represent a sample of the types of missions flown during the campaign, as described in the book "Black Aces High" by Robert Wilcox. (Much of the text for the briefings and debriefings comes from this book.)

As with my past missions, I have tried to be as faithful as possible to the historical account.  However, I have "gamed" up one or two missions with limited air-to-air engagements against enemy aircraft that were encountered, but never actually engaged.  

The missions are flown using the North Cape Theatre to represent the Balkans region.  I use the Baltic terrain file (by Blitz, I believe), as an option to the Northcape terrain.  

To add to the realism of the campaign, I also include the following files and skins:
-- USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) skin files,
-- VF-41 Black Aces squadron files,
-- Baltic Terrain files, as noted above.

The Resource folder contained in this zip-file contains various F-14 loadouts for easy use, also a few loadouts with the AIM-54C Phoenix. These loadouts are based on what the F-14 can carry. No F/A-18E weapons such as HARM, SLAM, HARPOON, SKIPPER or Walleye will be availble for the player.

Important Note: These missions were written using the TSH v1 F14 add-on. Jane's F/A-18, the offical Jane's F/A-18 v1.01 patch, the TSH v1 add-on (including both TSH Objects Package Part 1 and 2), and the TSH v2 ("Iraq Paq") add-on are required to play these missions.  All required addon files can be found at: http://tsh.war-fighters.net/


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*Installation Instructions:  

1.  Unzip (extract) kosovo.zip into a temporary folder.  Please check the option to USE FOLDER NAMES in WINZIP or use the appropriate option in any other unzipper to maintain the directory (folder) structure during extraction.  Unzipping (extracting) kosovo.zip results in two file-containing folders (which are Campaign and Resource) and one text file (which is Black Aces over Kosovo README.txt).
                             
2.  Place the ten .cmf files provided in the temp Campaign\mission folder into your Jane's Combat Simulations\FA-18\Campaign\Mission folder (note that the contents of the temp Mission folder--not the mission folder itself--are to be copied).

3.  A new CTEXTE file is found in the Campaign\data folder.  Back up your existing copy of this file, and then replace it with the new one provided in the temp Campaign\data folder.  This will include texts for all known existing campaigns (including some still being tested).

4.  Place the Black Aces Over Kosovo.MCF file into your Campaign folder.


**** Optional Steps ****

5.  Place the .lot files provided in the Resource folder into ...C:\Program Files\Jane's Combat Simulations\FA-18\Resource (note that the contents of the temp Resource folder--not the Resource folder itself--are to be copied). 
                              
6.  Copy the Resource\VF41 folder provided in this zip file to C:\Program Files\Jane's Combat Simulations\FA-18\Resource\VF41.  This will place the VF41 bmp and VF41 txt files into this new folder, and create VF41 as a new squadron that can be selected for the campaign (The VF-41 squadron history file comes from the Home of M.A.T.S. F-14 website).

7.  New carrier skin files are provided in the Ncape\cvn71 folder.  These files are to be copied to the ..\FA18\ncape\objects directory.  First be sure to back up your existing files.  Alternatively, these files can be used with the Art Manager utility by Datajack and Fritzdog (see instructions with that program).  TSH carrier skin by Hornit, modified deck numbers by Mnemonic.

8.  Blitz's Baltic Terrain files are provided in the Ncape\terrabaltic folder. This modifies the terrain appearance to make it more similar to the Baltic's region. Brown color was added, green was toned down, overall more warm looking terrain. These files are to be copied to the \FA18\ncape directory.  First be sure to back up your existing files.  As with the carrier skin, the Art Manager utility by Datajack and Fritzdog (see instructions with that program) can also be used to install and replace this terrain file.


 

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Please note:  On the Mission Map page of the Main Briefing the World Label map filter should be off and the Mission Label map filter should be on.  Also, SA-2s, SA-3s, and SA-6s are represented by SA-10s, SA-13s, and SA-15s in these missions.

I wish to thank all the members of TSH for creating the original TSH F14 Addons; I want to thank Recluse and Ripcord for their help and for agreeing to post these missions for the community; and finally I especially want to thank Robert Wilcox for his books on the evolution of modern air combat, and for giving me permission to use his work in developing the mission brief and debrief narratives.  The image files and text files come from various F14 websites and the Department of Defence website.

Finally, send comments, or requests for any of my previous flight sim campaigns to lee61156@aol.com.

Good hunting!

Dragon