Operation Lightning Strike 2014

[fitzpatv]

In this rather apocalyptic scenario, a rogue Pakistani officer has seized control of Minhas airbase near Rawalpindi/Islamabad, with its nuclear stockpile and launch vehicles. He threatens the US and India with nuclear consequences unless the former withdraws from the South Asian theatre and the latter hands over Kashmir. Washington is unwilling to accede to these demands and orders a resolution by any and all means possible. Pakistan declares that this is (somehow) an internal matter and threatens to use force against anything that intrudes on its territory. Meanwhile, both India and Iran put their air defence systems on high alert.

If you're looking for a 'how to win guide' for this scenario, I'm afraid you're not going to get it from me, as I must confess I'm out of ideas right now. What follows is more of a summary of the problems.

The American forces are widely spread, from Cyprus to the Middle East, Afghanistan, East Africa and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. You have three Aegis destroyers, three SSNs, all the Tom Cruise missiles you could wish for and a limited number of fighters, attack planes and recon aircraft. Unfortunately, a lot of the planes are inappropriate for the task, in the wrong place or on Reserve loadouts.

The enemy nuclear bunker is pinpointed from the outset. It has 1600DP (TACTOMs do about 300 on average) and is protected by Crotale and Vanguard SAMs (latter are MANPADs) and some half-decent AA guns in rebel hands. The SAMs aren't immediately visible and neither are the launch vehicles for the nukes and supporting conventional ballistic missiles.

Pakistan puts-up four Thunder fighters with decent air-to-air missiles and an AEW plane to cover the Minhas area, while India launches several MiG-29, SU-30 and MiG-21 (!) fighters to defend its borders. There are also civilian airliners and the like wandering about. At least there is no naval opposition.

The SSN Ohio carries a ridiculous 154 TACTOM missiles with ample range to reach the target. Before you can strike, though, you need to pinpoint the rebel launchers. I soon found that this is almost insuperably difficult (to be honest, I'd omit the 'almost', but other people may have solutions). I tried using Prowler aircraft and Reaper drones from Bagram in Afghanistan to spot from Afghan airspace around the famous Khyber Pass, but these spotted nothing apart from Pakistani radars and Aspide SAM sites and plenty of aircraft. Without going into Pakistani territory and getting shot at, there's no obvious way of improving on this.

On my first attempt, I lost patience and just launched 70 TACTOMs from Ohio at this point, routing them via India to give the Pakistani Air Force as little time as possible to react. Seventy is about the right number and, despite losing 30-40 to SAMs and aircraft, those that got through rubbed-out the storage bunker with something to spare. The only problem was that the rebels launched a nuclear strike as soon as they saw the missiles coming and destroyed Delhi, ending the game in a crushing defeat!. The Indian, Pakistani and, indeed, some Iranian (!!) fighters tried to do something about it and even downed some missiles while losing some of their number to rebel SAMs, but there were eight nukes and 16 conventional warheads and two of the former got through. Not that it mattered much, but I found that losing Pakistani, Indian and Iranian planes scores points against you. I did learn that the Crotale sites were NOT at Minhas, but further E, no doubt sheltered by sympathisers in the Pakistani military. This suggested that the launchers were somewhere nearby, which was maybe why I couldn't detect them from the Khyber. I'm also aware that Prowlers aren't good at tracking mobile ground targets (according to the game database, anyway) but augmented them with a Reaper and a Harrier to cover for this.

Clearly, I needed better recon to locate the launchers, but with what??. For my second attempt, I tried a Wraith stealth drone based at Kandahar in the slim hope that its famed qualities would enable it to elude the Pakistani air defence system. No chance!. Even with its radars off, it didn't get close. Interestingly, the Pakistanis don't go hostile if they fire at your cruise missiles, but they do if you use an unarmed drone....

Tried a third time with a desperate attempt to fly a Reaper from Bagram right around Pakistani territory via the Waziristan Corridor (between Afghanistan and Tajikistan) then along the Tibetan border into Indian-controlled Kashmir. The idea was to improve my search area by coming-in from the East. It has plenty of endurance and can overfly the Himalayas, the Indians didn't shoot at it, but on arrival it failed miserably to locate the launchers, Crotale sites or anything else.

I also considered sending Falcon fighters from Bagram to help screen Delhi from the nukes, supported by Extender tankers flown-up from Diego Garcia. Problem was that there's realistically no way of getting the Falcons there without overflying Pakistan and getting involved with their Air Force, which might prompt a rebel strike into the bargain. The latter consideration also applies to going gung ho and just attacking the Pakistanis (which may cost you VP as well).

Even if you locate the launchers, I can see no way of taking them out before they can fire, given the resources available. You would probably need a ballistic missile strike of your own, coming in from the stratosphere and this simply isn't an option here.

So, I'm out of ideas. Any suggestions, folks?.

[dcpollay]

I played this under CMANO, not sure how much the scenario was changed or updated. If I recall correctly, the real asset here is the U-2 plane. I think that is the platform that was able to find the bunkers and launchers.

For the strike, I suppose you have to take out all of the nukes in one swift lightning strike. Probably within a window of a few minutes from the first attack. I didn't do that, and it was goodbye Delhi.

[Eboreg]

This scenario got broken from the C:MANO days. In those times, it took 15 seconds for the Separatists to launch nukes once they had gotten attacked. Now it takes 3. I probably would be able to beat it if it weren't for that one small detail.

[Eboreg]

ORIGINAL: Eboreg

This scenario got broken from the C:MANO days. In those times, it took 15 seconds for the Separatists to launch nukes once they had gotten attacked. Now it takes 3. I probably would be able to beat it if it weren't for that one small detail.

Me and my big mouth. The idea of this updated scenario is that you should not use tomahawks to take out sites but B-2s. Load one with stand-off cluster munitions and the other with JASSMs. Also, arm up your B-52s at Diego Garcia with MALDs, your F-22s at Al Dhafra with Internal Long-Range Loadouts, your F-16s at Bagram with Heavy Fighter loadouts, and all tankers that are armed as Reserve should be armed as tankers. Set up a Tanker Orbit and maybe a Sentry Orbit off the coast of Pakistan far enough away that the Pakistani regulars won't bother them and send a U-2 over the border at max altitude to keep an eye on the Separatists' base. Turning on the U-2's radar helps with tracking ground targets and you can use the tanker orbit to keep it in the air indefinitely (unless you're like me and worry about pilot fatigue). Once your B-2s and B-52s arm up, launch all B-52s in a flight of 4 and then launch the B-2 with cluster bombs, once it gets out of JASSM range of Diego Garcia, launch the B-2 with JASSMs. The B-52s should not enter Pakistani airspace and instead launch MALDS along your approach path, which should avoid all airfields, in order to bait Pakistani fighters. Get the B-2s and the F-22s to top up at the tanker orbit then use the F-22s to escort the B-2s to their targets at Minhas. If any Pakistani regulars get too close, shoot them down. You can't afford to take any losses and, to be honest, the Pakistanis are part of the reason you're in this mess in the first place so you shouldn't shed too many tears over them. The B-2 with cluster munitions should approach the two launchers from a path that remains equidistant from them both and launch two at each when it does get in range. However, if you're unsure whether or not the B-2 really is equidistant, just launch 2 cluster bombs at the Ballistic Missile launcher, wait a bit, then launch 2 at the cruise missile launcher while preparing for your F-22s to shoot down a lot of cruise missiles. After that's done, launch all of your JASSMs at the Storage bunker and cluster bomb the [DELETED] out of the rest of the separatists' forces to get even more points. Get your F-22s to RTB to Bagram if you're having fuel issues (which you might not have) and if you can't escort the B-2s back, get them into Afghan airspace ASAP and get them to the Tanker orbit by taking the long way around Iran whereupon they can top up and get back to Diego Garcia. I'm not too familiar on aircraft accommodations in Afghanistan but I'm pretty sure they don't have the specially air-conditioned hangars that B-2s need.

Hope that helps.

[fitzpatv]

Sounds like a seriously-impressive plan!. Also suggests I have things to learn about Reserve loadouts. I'll give it a go and report back. Thanks.

[fitzpatv]

Well, I learned a lot about Reserve loadouts and executed Eboreg's plan as far as getting the U-2 over Minhas (having flown it around Iran and refuelled from a tanker). Unfortunately:

1. The U-2 located a number of mobile targets around the base, but was completely unable to distinguish the launchers from the tanks, SAMs, etc, leaving me with insufficient data to order a strike. I suspected that this was because of a cloud layer between 20-23,000'.

2. To descend below the cloud layer was suicide with half-a-dozen Pakistani jets frustratedly buzzing around below me at 45,000'. The only solution was to clear them out of the way with Bagram's Falcons, so I launched four and did the usual radars on and evade=no orders, flying at 45,000' to make sure I stayed out of range of enemy Aspide SAMs. I shot down all six Pakistanis for one loss (typically to the only missile they managed to fire at me).

3. I then took the U-2 perilously down to 19,000', which made NO DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER, even when I closed the range. Short of physically overflying the site (and I'd already done this at 85,000'), I can't see any way of improving on this and, the longer the U-2 stays low, the more risk there is of more enemy aircraft scrambling and shooting her down.

4. Checking the score, I found to my astonishment that the Pakistanis, Indians and Iranians had been killing each others' planes all game without my knowledge and that every casualty was being scored against me, including a civilian Boeing 737 that someone had destroyed. Even the six Pakistani planes I'd shot down counted against me!. Quite what Iran's part in the fighting is and whose side they are on I have no idea....

So, I have an ongoing disaster and still don't have enough intel to hit the launchers. To be honest, this scenario just doesn't work for me.

[Eboreg]

Are you using the latest version of Command?

[fitzpatv]

I haven't got the latest v1.02 (?) that came-out with Sahel Slugfest yet, but should otherwise be up-to-date, as I have all the other modules.

[fitzpatv]

Just bought Sahel Slugfest (might even get around to playing it sometime) and installed it along with Version 1.02. No apparent change, but perhaps there wouldn't be with a game started under an earlier version?.

[Eboreg]

Might want to file a ticket with Tech Support because for me, the U-2s radars classify the ground contacts once it gets within about 40 nm of Minhas.

[BobTank63]

I tried Eboreg's method. The radar on the U-2 had no problems detecting and identifying the radars. The Indians and Pakistanis went at it in my playthrough too, costing me 2000 points, however, each launcher and the bunker gave me 4000 points, so I easily got a Triumph. All in all, it was a very fun exercise on how to conduct a precision strike without causing too many casualties to an unfriendly force.

[fitzpatv]

Might have to try this again sometime. There's been at least one update since my last effort, so perhaps this has fixed the problem I was having. Won't be for a while though, as I have plenty of fish to fry with Northern Fury.