Falklands 6 - Wolf Pack 8/5/82

[fitzpatv]

This hypothetical scenario assumes that all three Argentine diesel subs remaining after the Santa Fe was sunk at South Georgia were available to make a co-ordinated attack on the British Task Force. Only the San Luis made the attempt in reality, with the more-advanced Salta and Santiago del Estero down for maintenance. You can only play the British side, despite the fact that it would be a good challenge as the Argentines.

Britain has two carriers, three destroyers and four frigates cruising 145nm ENE of Port Stanley, with a replenishment group of four auxiliaries escorted by the frigate Yarmouth 27nm further ENE. The SSN Spartan is 35nm WNW of the main task force.

To defend these ships, there are a decent number of Sea King, Lynx, Wessex and Wasp choppers, not all of which have sonobuoys or, indeed sonar or torpedoes in some cases. As there is a potential surface and air threat, two of the Lynxes are loaded with Sea Skuas and there are Sea Harriers to provide CAP.

Sonar on the ships is inadequate, with a range of 4nm at most, so any contact with a sub is likely to be too late (Argentine Seeaal torpedoes having a 5nm range). The choppers are vital and Spartan can provide some much-needed extra cover with her strong towed array if she can be gotten close enough to the ships in time. A balance needs to be struck between having enough ASW cover and keeping enough helicopters in reserve over the 12-hour course of the game.

The Argentines have two Salta-class subs, which are similar to the Turkish Atilays in Mediterranean Fury but with ASW as well as anti-surface torpedoes. Also lurking is the San Luis, a WW2 vintage Balao-class boat, which constitutes a lesser danger with her inferior sonar, torpedoes and noisier performance.

At least one Drummond-class corvette is in the area, not amounting to a major threat but having four Exocets to use if she can get close enough. Argentina also has one or more Abnaki-class patrol gunboats, which have nothing heftier than 40mm guns.

The game starts at 1am local time and the Argentine aircraft on the Falklands are not capable of night-time operations, nor are strikes from the mainland a threat. However, it is possible that some Pucara and MB-326GB light attack planes might put-in an appearance after daybreak. Neptune MPAs from the mainland can help them search for the British fleet.

8/5/82 01:00L: I altered the pre-set missions to Weapons Tight vs Sub-Surface and adjusted Auto Evade to No for all ships and aircraft. This ensures that ships will run away from torpedoes instead of trying to outmanoeuvre them. It occurred to me that I could simply move my fleet at speed out of the pre-defined task force holding area, but this did not seem sporting, would not eliminate risk early-on and would also reduce the chance of sinking anything (which is necessary to win, as the default score of zero is Average).

There was a quiet first hour or so, with just a couple of biological contacts. I put-up four choppers to begin-with and laid some sonobuoys, but these ran-out quickly (each chopper carries eight) and they don’t stay operational for very long. Detection relied very much on random sampling with dipping sonar, which has a limited radius of some 3nm. Very few of the choppers are on Quick Turnround, either…

02:00L: We had a definite stroke of good fortune, as a Sea King used its dipping sonar right on top of the submarine Salta, some 25nm N of the task force and promptly sank it for 100VP, taking me into Minor Victory territory.

03:00L: By now, everything was within range of Spartan’s sonar, which was comforting.

05:00L: As the choppers changed the guard, the patrol gunboat Sanaviron was detected 75nm W of the task force, which was leading the replenishment group and preceded by Spartan, all travelling at 5 knots. The corvette Drummond was also located 67nm SSW. The two Lynxes with Sea Skuas were sortied to prosecute these contacts. One engaged the Sanaviron, which was hit twice, slowing to 6 knots, only to be spared from the second pair of missiles by the good old double malfunction!

The other Lynx attacked the Drummond and, again, two out of four Sea Skuas malfunctioned on what, I believe, is a 15% chance. I had to laugh…

06:00L: It was now getting light, so I switched-on HMS Coventry’s air search radar in case of Argentine strikes.

08:00L: A Neptune was now shadowing us at her maximum radar range, some 200nm to the S. The damaged Drummond responded to her promptings and suicidally moved towards the entire British fleet at 10 knots!.

09:00L: The Sanaviron died of her wounds, saving me the trouble of wasting an Exocet on her. She scored nothing.

10:00L: A re-armed Lynx went after the Drummond. Another malfunction, a spoof and two hits reduced the corvette to 2 knots. The other Lynx then finished her off, not that it scored anything.

11:00L: A Harrier hauled-out to the Neptune and shot it down, but this scored nothing, either. As the time limit neared, I could be freer with chopper sorties and the swarm around the fleet grew.

13:00L: Nothing else happened, so it finished as a Minor Victory, with a score of +100.

The other Argentine subs had a lot of ocean to cover with limited sonar (especially in the case of the San Luis) and either failed to locate us or were out-of-position and unable to catch-up. This was despite my remaining in the task force’s designated box throughout.

It is quite possible that this scenario could play-out very differently, especially if the starting positions of the Argentine subs are random. I only won because I got lucky in finding the Salta and it could easily have finished with a zero score.

[Eboreg]

Way I did it, I armed all of my helicopters for ASW Patrol with the Quick Turnarounds on at the very beginning and micromanaged them to go home immediately once they ran out of sonobuoys. I was able to get two of the Argentine submarines that way.