There are about eight in-game hours left to chronicle in this final write-up. Don't worry, it will be over soon. In the meantime, to thank you for your patience, here's some potatoes:
I discovered some new air contacts and sent F-16s to engage them. They turned out to be MiG-23MLKs and the Flogger-Ks proved to be a very tough customer. In this and the following the fight, I lost eight F-16s for six enemy fighters. Partly down to having some very tough customers, partly for leaving one unit's radar off...
I did actually do another standoff attack shortly after this, sending five aircraft armed with Harpoons to attack the Soviet carrier group. I also must have launched some F-15s in a counter-air sweep at some point, because I downed two Flanker-Ds and three helicopters; two of the latter were AEW Helixs, so that was a useful bonus.
However, Suffren came under attack by Sunburn missiles. Downing one didn't exactly mitigate the damage of the other four and that vessel sunk. Shortly after, Cassard came under AS-17 attack and it too succumbed.
My standoff attack managed to launch 12 Harpoons at the carrier group, but all were downed. I lost an E-3 half an hour later.
At 05:52 the strangest engagement of the battle occurred, when an air combat between MiG-25s and F-16s went into gun range, after one of the latter had been downed by AA-6s. The battle ran a grand total of 17 and a half minutes; my notes show an increasing incredulity at the situation. Eventually, the F-16s (who I tried to withdraw) finally down the Foxbats and I was also able to dock some of my ships....
At 0621 I reflected it had gone rather quiet. Guess what happened five minutes later...