Shoreline, I actually did it

[Eboreg]

The Shoreline scenario from the Kashmir Fire campaign is possibly the most brutal official scenario ever released. While it is technically beatable, for the vast majority of players such an accomplishment is beyond their abilities. In order to win, you need to get 125 points. However, there are 140 points in play, 10 for damaging each Indian carrier, a further 20 per carrier sunk, 15 for each of the 4 guided-missile destroyers, 10 for the sole frigate in play, and 10 for the submarine. However, that's not all as there are ways to lose points. 1 for each Pakistani aircraft shot down, 2 for every land facility destroyed, and 10 if any of their runways get damaged. While naval losses are heavily penalized (5 for a ship, 10 for losing the submarine) none of the units in question are in any real danger unless the player does something monumentally stupid. However, the Indians have a massive firepower advantage in the air, both in terms of defenses and aircraft, and they are going to hit your airbases about 2 hours into the scenario.

While the P-3 Orion I had was useful for tracking the Indian shipping, I very quickly realized that my submarine was the only real chance I had of causing enough damage to it. Defending my airbases was a completely different matter so I decided to bend the rules a bit and ordered one of my ships to turn on its air search radars to provide early warning. I only had 4 F-16s to defend against 18 Fulcrums so I had to make every shot count. I decided to use one of my Vipers to bait away the escort fighters while a flight of 3 got into favorable positions and whittled away at the attack. The Spada 2000 defending Masroor took out its fair share of Fulcrums (possibly due to the fact that it did not fire unless I specifically ordered it to) before they started showing signs of indecision and backed off. I soon found out that they didn't have enough fuel to make it back to the carriers and only the escort fighters were able to make it back onboard without crashing. I did lose my bait F-16 but that was really only a small loss.

I then decided to go on the offensive and launched 4 Flounders from Faisal/Mehran to take out the lead guided-missile destroyer. The attack went off without a hitch but I soon realized that things were considerably more complicated than I thought when the Flounders landed and I was given an estimated time of 10 hrs before I could use them again. I soon realized that I did not have as many missile salvos as I thought I did. Swearing under my breath, I decided to use one of my Fishcans to constantly bait away the intercepts launched from the Indian carriers in order to run them out of fuel but after the task force crossed into range of my C-802 battery, I decided enough was enough and ordered it to fire on one of the escorts hoping that this would force them to go Winchester. I then followed up with an Anti-shipping missile attack from all of my remaining assets and, to be quite blunt, the damage was negligible. All it really did was deplete enemy SAMs which would be nice if I could send a follow-up strike but as stated before, that wasn't possible.

Everything was then up to S143 so I rushed it down to a chosen intercept point keeping one eye on the fuel capacity and the other on the ETAs of both parties to the intercept. On a lark, I launched one of my ASW helicopters and was surprised to find the Indian submarine in waters that were way too shallow for its own good. After wrecking the submarine while making sure it didn't get a shot off with it's MANPADS as well as some other inconsequential actions, I got the submarine ahead of the Indian task force and waited for it to get into range. After the Indian Task Force ate 8 torpedoes sinking both carriers, a destroyer, and a frigate, I was informed that the 4 Flounders I had used to sink the picket destroyer had finished re-arming, and decided that it would be foolish not to use them, especially given how depleted Indian SAMS had gotten by this point. After some tomfoolery trying to get a suitable targeting solution on the remaining ships, I was able to sink both with a salvo of 8 YJ-83Ks each bringing me over the necessary scoring limit.

I ended with a score of 139 points which was well over the threshold necessary for a victory. I've often excoriated this scenario for having too brutal of a scoring system but to be quite honest, if I can complete this scenario...

...actually no scratch that. My ability to beat the scenario doesn't really prove anything.

[fitzpatv]

If I ever get around to playing Kashmir Fire, I may well look this AAR up, as I would probably need all the help I could get.

I think you underrate yourself as a player - or are you just being exaggeratedly modest?

[Eboreg]

If I ever get around to playing Kashmir Fire, I may well look this AAR up, as I would probably need all the help I could get.

I think you underrate yourself as a player - or are you just being exaggeratedly modest?

Glad to be of help. Also, I do like downplaying my ability as a form of humor. If people don't laugh at it, they still appreciate your humility.

[BobTank63]

Nice job. This one is really hard to do. Barely completed it myself.

I checked the scenario in the editor, and I think the reason it's so hard is that database updates to the game beefed up the originally depleted SAM batteries of the Indian naval group. The Indian carriers received Barak SAMs at some point in the DB between the campaign release and now (to reflect the IRL refit). These have their full ammo loads and make any attack much harder.

I really wish the devs would go back and remaster some of these old scenarios to account for DB changes. Kashmir Fire got hit the hardest out of all the DLCs.