Falklands 9 - Operation Sutton 20/5/82

[fitzpatv]

Operation Sutton was the code-name for the British landings at San Carlos Water, which were met with an all-out onslaught from the Argentine Air Force, albeit after many of the troops were already ashore. You can only play the British side and are tasked with defending the landing force.

Task Force 317.1, comprising the carriers Hermes and Invincible, three destroyers, two frigates and two auxiliaries, starts 126nm NE of the Falklands. The landing force is at the N end of San Carlos Water, between East and West Falkland and consists of a destroyer, five frigates and a dozen auxiliaries and amphibs. Another frigate, the Ardent, is detached a little further S on a mission to bombard the airstrip at Goose Green.

Note that the LPDs Fearless and Intrepid each carry 8 landing craft. The Briefing suggests that these can be used to ferry Rapier MANPADs and light AFVs ashore but, in practice, it is neither possible nor necessary to do so (none of the vessels have any cargo).

Between them, the British carriers have 22 Harriers with A2A or Reserve loadouts, plus a few more with bombs should you wish to raid Argentine bases on the islands. There are also plenty of ASW choppers but, as there are no Argentine ships or subs in the scenario, you won’t need them.

What the Argentines do have is a fairly large force of Skyhawk and Dagger attack planes, with Mirage IIIEA escorts and Hercules tankers on the mainland and some Pucara and MB339 counter-insurgency attack planes on the Falklands. They also have some low-grade SAMs and AA guns to protect their airfields at Stanley and Goose Green (the one at Pebble Island appears to have been neutralised by the earlier raid (see Scenario 8). All Argentine aircraft are limited to bombs and maybe rockets – there are no Super Etendards with Exocets. The Argentines on the mainland are likely to be handicapped by fuel considerations.

To simulate the way the terrain on West Falkland historically helped to mask the approach of low-flying Argentine aircraft, all SAMs on the landing force ships have been set to Manual targeting only. While it would be possible to use the Doctrine settings to override this, I chose not to in the name of realism. Note that the Sea Darts of TF 317.1 do default to automatic fire and, while the Sea Cats aren’t, this doesn’t matter in practice, as the task force won’t be attacked.

20/5/82 09:00L: HMS Ardent bombarded Goose Green as ordered, writing-off the eight Pucaras based there for 20VP each. As the frigate hastened to re-join the rest of the landing force, four MB339s approached from Stanley. Two were downed by Rapiers on-shore (they fired automatically despite what it says in the Briefing about the MANPADs not being set-up yet) and the others by Ardent’s Sea Cats. Three Pucaras followed, also from Stanley and fell to more Rapiers and the arriving Harrier CAP.

10:00L: Another three Pucaras appeared and Harriers got two before the other was shot down by a Sea Cat from the frigate Argonaut.

By now, numerous aircraft were approaching from the mainland and it paid to slow the action down to 1x or 2x to assist with manual SAM targeting. The Argentines suffered from a lack of co-ordination, coming as they did from several bases and arrived in ones and twos, several turning back due to fuel depletion. Others went Engaged Defensive and failed to press home their attack runs. Harriers and SAMs accounted for 6 Skyhawks and 8 Daggers. As the survivors withdrew, a Harrier flew halfway to Argentina and destroyed a Hercules tanker. The main concern was the time it took Sea Cat mounts to reload, which enforced some care about what to target with which ships or fighters.

11:00L: Around 11:40, the Argentines were back with more Skyhawks and Mirage escorts. The latter got-off a couple of R.530 missiles, but the Harriers evaded them by turning tail. Avoiding the Mirages, they helped the ships nail another 14 of the A-4s.

13:00L: Another strike came-in, consisting of Daggers, Skyhawks and Mirages. By now, more Harriers were available and the attackers were again shredded, 11 Daggers and two Skyhawks being downed without loss.

17:00L: There were no further raids and it finished as a Triumph, with a score of +1,200.

Argentina lost 59 attack planes and a tanker, while there were no British losses whatsoever.

All-in-all, pretty easy, though there were a couple of moments when the Argentines came close to making some successful attack runs and might have done so had their planes not been on Auto Evade.

For the next few scenarios in the series, the player must switch to the Argentine side and I suspect that the next one, in particular, could be a much stiffer challenge...