"Canary's Cage" AAR... well, sort of

[Temple]

I have been playing this over two evenings and have given up after about four hours of game time. It's an interesting scenario, but a bit overwhelming for me as I'm still trying to figure out how to play this game well. I do have a few comments which I'll pass along. It's not brilliant gameplay, but boy was it interesting...

Some spoilers below, be forewarned!!!!!

First of all, I'll start off by noting that the scenario briefing identifies the Difficulty and Complexity of the scenario as both being two out of five. This is rather an understatement. I'm not sure about the difficulty, but I'd give the Complexity five out of five based on the large number of different types of platforms, everything from attack aircraft to patrol planes to ships of every ilk, bases, subs, landing forces... heck, I'm willing to bet that the USS Kitchen Sink makes an appearance later on [:)]

It's been mentioned in these forums, the old adage about planning your strategy based on the enemy's capabilities, not his intentions. However, you are playing against a programmed opponent, so this isn't a case of going up against an enemy that will react to your moves using an OODA loop. A clever scenario designer has to insert in his design AI actions that will challenge the player without being able to respond to a player's bonehead moves.

So, how does "Canary's Cage" challenge a player, or in this case, me? First of all, multiple objectives as noted in the Side Briefing:
- Deliver a landing force within the time limits of the scenario
- Stop an enemy landing force
- Protect my naval assets
- Attack enemy air bases

At this point I'm already printing out the briefing and using color highlighters to break down the tasks. And then I look at the map and assess my own assets [;)]. In the way of aircraft I've got fighters, ASuW jets with Harpoons, ASW fixed wing and helos, ELINT, ECM, tankers, AEW, and probably some other classes I missed. On the water I've got two task forces, under the water I've got four subs. And there are land bases to boot. And that's just the overview.

OK, so I've already used up my six seconds and have dropped from being a great naval officer to only a good one. Time to start using the mission editor. Soon I've covered the map with reference points and have Barrier CAP, ASW patrols, ELINT and tanker support, AEW support for the two task forces, and I'm sending some Hornets over the enemy airbases to knock down the enemy numbers.

Time to press Start/Resume!

Some time goes by... my aircraft are taking off, forming up, heading to their patrols. OK, it's a bit on the overwhelming side, all these things happening at once, but I do some grouping and it's manageable.

And then the enemy starts showing up.

Some enemy aircraft are incoming towards my Grupo Alfa and my land based CAP isn't going to get there in time. Did I put up enough CAP from the carrier? Probably not. So I uncheck the "1/3 rule" box and soon I've got Harriers going up over the task force. I've got to protect my ASW helos that are looking for those reported subs.

But what's this? The enemy air assets aren't heading to my task force. Instead they are holding near the coast. In a little while I find out why, there's an enemy task force. Great, time to fire up the Hornets with the Harpoons.

A little longer goes by and I'm tweaking my ASW patrol areas in front of Grupo Alfa when I start getting messages about enemy aircraft coming from their bases towards my ships. OK, not a problem, my Barrier CAP will take care of them... except I haven't been paying attention to the Barrier CAP planes and I realize that several of them are heading towards the enemy air that's out in front of their fleet... and to get there they are overflying the enemy ships, who start launching some SAMs. I lose some planes [:(]. And it gets worse. Enemy aircraft are coming up from the Canaries and my fighters are spread thin and many have fired off their AMRAAMs. I let them go at the enemy with Sidewinders, but I lose a few more.

Suddenly I get sensor reading that the enemy has several patrol craft directly ahead of Grupo Alfa. I don't have any air assets with ASuW loadouts, so I panic and fire a Harpoon on a bearing only launch... and nail a fishing boat [:-]. The enemy patrol craft aren't near me at all, but since I neglected to send aircraft out very far to search ahead, I didn't know that.

And now I get a Special Message to send one of my subs to a landing area to offload some special forces. I assign the task to the sub but get a message a little while later that an enemy ship is in the way. And oh by the way, the sub's batteries are used up and he's dead in the water. And there's an enemy torpedo on the way in. Oh my.

My ASuW attack on the enemy fleet using my Harpoon Hornets seems to go well, but I after a while I can't find those aircraft. Where are they? Oops, they decided to go Air to Air refuel with my tanker, which I put way, way too far off the coast. And when the Hornets finally land I find out that there are only a few Harpoon left to load. My next attack will have to be a lot more up close and personal.

The enemy aircraft have been picking off my isolated Harriers and Hornets. I've lost five of the former and nine of the latter and the scenario is only in it's fourth hour. And I'm in really far over my head. My air assets are all over the map and I've got a ton of reference points floating around. I have killed a number of enemy aircraft, a couple of ships, a fishing boat and a whale. I'm not sure about the fishing boat but the whale did look kind of suspicious.

So I decided to halt playing the scenario for now and come back to it after I've spend time in the smaller scenarios learning my craft.

So what lessons do I take away from playing "Canary's Cage"?
- Do a better job of assigning support assets. I never launched my EW helos from my Grupos, and frankly I'm not sure what to do with them. My tankers were too far away and my ELINT launched late.
- Understand what re-arming loadouts are available after the first sorties return. I didn't realize that I used up most of my airborne Harpoons in one strike.
- Much as I hate to do it, I have to do more micromanaging of my air units. They didn't stop after using their AMRAAMS and even their Sidewinders, and chasing into enemy skies with just a few cannon shots isn't going to help.
- And more besides...

I also have to research a few things, like why my sub ran his batteries flat. Do I have to micromanage this? I hope not.

Overall it was a fun experience, which might sound kind of odd. I liked the challenge, and even though it was a bit too much of being thrown into the deep end, it gave me a lot to think about. And that's always good [:)]