Kola Peninsula 1953

[acbennett3]

Background:
July of 1953 Armistice negotiations in Korea fall apart. In response the UN forces launch a massive strategic bombing campaign of North Korea to drive them and the Chinese back to the table. The Chinese and North Koreans desperately plead with the Soviets for assistance and in response the newly appointed Premier Khrushchev cuts off Berlin again. The newly elected President Eisenhower protests and restarts the Berlin Airlift. This time the Soviets vow not to allow a repeat of 1949 and aggressively interdict the US flights to Berlin w/their fighters. This leads to 2 midair collisions between Soviet fighters and a US fighter and a cargo plane. Inevitably an American fighter shoots down a Soviet Mig getting to close to a cargo plane. In response both opposing squadrons engage in a massive dogfight over Berlin with loses on both sides. This starts the shooting war in the air and the ground war is soon to follow. The Soviets lay siege to Berlin and stream across the nascent West German border. Then, in hindsight what is a strategic miscalculation, the Soviets drop two atomic bombs on NATO troop concentrations near Hamburg and Hannover.

In response President Eisenhower, not wanting to utilize atomic weapons on West German soil, orders a counter strike on the Kola peninsula…

[acbennett3]

Forces:
To support the President's orders the 11th Bombardment Wing (26th, 42nd, 98th Bombardment Squadrons) based at Carswell AFB Fort Worth, Texas and made up of 27 B-36D's is dispersed/forward deployed to the recently completed Thule AFB in Greenland. With NATO activated the northern Norwegian airbases near the Soviet border are available for NATO use. The US 12th Fighter Escort Wing, tasked with the air defense of Norway, deploys 2 squadrons (560th and 561st) of F-84G's to Bardufoss Air Base. The Norwegians concentrate their 2 squadrons (331st and 334th) of F-84G's at Bodo Air Base. The plan is to use the 4 squadrons to clear the air in front of the B-36D's and then escort them in to the numerous military targets on the peninsula.

The Soviets are known to have 5 PVO Airbases spread across the Kola Peninsula each assumed to have 1 squadron of Mig-15bis assigned to air defense…

Plan:
The 11th Wing will launch from Thule and then 2 squadrons will transit to the Norwegian coast and the 3rd squadron will come over the pole and approach the Kola Peninsula from the North. The Fighter Escort squadrons will launch as the B-36's approach their pre-attack run positions. The B-36's will then break up into 3 aircraft flight formations (called the "Hometown" formation) and begin their attack runs led and escorted by 4-5 aircraft flights of F-84's. One squadron/3 flights of B-36's will approach from North of the Peninsula, and the other 2 squadrons/6 flights will approach from the West over Norway/Sweden. They will attempt to simultaneously arrive over the Soviet border in order to swamp the Soviet Defenses. Easier said than done…

[acbennett3]

In the below image the 3 B-36D squadrons have completed taking off from Thule and formed up into squadron formations. They are now in transit to their assembly areas before the attack run.

[acbennett3]

In this image the 2 squadrons of B-36's have arrived near the Norwegian coast and broken up into their 3 aircraft flights. The 4 squadrons of F-84's have taken off and break into their 4/5 aircraft flights and start to form up and lead the B-36's.

[acbennett3]

In this image the 3 flights of B-36's coming from the North are beginning their attack run. To the southwest their F-84 escorts are closing. Unfortunately they are a bit too far away as we'll see later.

[acbennett3]

Coordinating the 9 flights of B-36's and supporting fighters to arrive at the border at the same time takes some work. I can begin to appreciate what it took to pull this off during WW2 - and why it was easy and dangerous for the bombers to arrive over their targets piecemeal.

Here is an image of the approach from the west over Norway/Sweden

[acbennett3]

The northern approach was tougher - especially trying to get the escorts into position. I ended up sending 2 F-84 flights to the southeast with the idea of doing a fighter sweep, and sending the 3rd F-84 flight directly towards the approaching B-36 flights to provide escort - in hindsight this was a major mistake. Also the first enemy contact has appeared.

[acbennett3]

The 2 F-84 Flights performing the 'fighter sweep' begin to encounter and engage single Mig-15's attempting to identify the numerous contacts appearing on the Soviet radars. Initially this allows the groups of 4/5 F-84's to overwhelm the single Mig-15's one by one while losing a few F-84's.

[acbennett3]

Here's a cool image of a dogfight - the Mig-15 flew thru the a formation of F-84's and the F-84's are breaking in both directions to pursue him.

[acbennett3]

At this point I was feeling pretty good. The fighter sweep had shot down 5 Migs for the loss of 2 F-84s - an acceptable exchange rate - and no B-36's had been attacked yet. Then a contact appeared in front of the Northern B-36 flights and the Fighter Escort was still too far away…

[acbennett3]

As a test of bomber defense, I had the first B-36 flight break up - I had them all head in different directions and two dived to 20k and 25k feet altitude.

[acbennett3]

The Mig-15 proceeded to shoot down 2 of the B-36's and here is pursuing the last in the flight. The F-84's kicked into afterburner to assist - but they were too late to the party.

[acbennett3]

The second B-36 flight I kept in formation to see if that was a better defense. The Mig-15 screamed in and succeeded in shooting down one B-36D. In the process though all three B-36's cut loose with their 20mm auto cannons and succeeded in shooting down the Mig-15. Interesting - I think I will keep the B-36's in their 3 ship flights.

Here you see everyone firing at each other - in the end the lead B-36 was shot down along with the Mig-15.

[acbennett3]

That's it for now.
At this point the losses are:
US - 2 F-84s/3 B-36s
USSR - 6 Mig-15s

Still not sure how things are going to end up. Taking on single Mig's with groups of F-84's seems to be pretty successful. But all it takes is 1 or 2 Migs getting to the bombers and all bets are off.

I hope to continue this in the next few days - real life and the release of FPC Red Storm permitting.

[Dimitris]

Veeeeery nice [:)]

Is this scen available for download somewhere? (I've been a little busy the last few [:D]).

[acbennett3]

Not yet - this is the first full scale test run. I setup a basic automated Soviet air defense for this test but have a few tweaks I want to do to make it better.

I will also use it as a template moving forward and inserting B-47/Mig-17, B-52/Mig-19, etc.

[.Sirius]

Hi,
Great scenario you have there cant wait to play it

[Terminus]

NM

[Cap Mandrake]

This thing looks great. Count me in. Here is what I imagine happening somewhere about post #6

*************SAC HQ, Omaha************


Partially dressed attractive young woman incongrously wearing high heels in bed: <phone rings, she answers> General Turgidson's residence.............no, I'm sorry, the Genral is indisposed at the moment..........yes........very well, <cups hand over phone and calls out to the General who is in the lavatory> BUCK! It's the Swedish ambassador calling from Washington. He says it's urgent. He asks why there are dozens of NATO bombers in Swedish airspace...............

[acbennett3]

Swedish neutrality was something I thought about but skipped developing a rationale for - in nuclear warfare borders are irrelevant...

Anyway its late at night, most people are asleep, and the aircraft are at 40k ft - figured they wouldn't notice.
Besides its only 18 B-36's armed w/atomic weapons - what trouble could they cause? [;)]