Khrushchev's War, Day 3 - Duel near Cape Verde, 1957

[Mgellis]

Happy New Year!

This is a beta for my newest 1957 Khrushchev's War scenario. It is the third day of the war and, unexpectedly, the Portuguese colony of Cape Verde seems likely to come under attack. (A Soviet force on its way home from Cuba is tasked with destroying the airport, one of the few in the region that can service modern aircraft). Can a small SAG, led by an American cruiser, and cobbled together from Portuguese, Spanish, and Belgian forces, keep the Island of Sal safe?

As always, please let me know what you think. Gameplay, Events, orders, units chosen for the scenario, tactics chosen for the Soviets, etc....what needs to be fixed, improved, corrected, etc.? What do I need to do to make this scenario more interesting, more challenging, and more fun?

Thanks in advance!

Version 3 uploaded 12:45 AM CST January 11, 2025

Cape Verde 2.JPG (250.38 KiB) Viewed 507 times

[HalfLifeExpert]

Well this is a surprise! I had thought Khrushchev's War was over or on a hiatus for longer.

I'll give it a try and report back!

UPDATE:

I've just fired it up, and having had a look at the briefing/description, I've got a couple observations:

1) The inclusion of a Spanish warship surprised me, as Spain did not join NATO until 1982, after the death of Franco in 1975 and the transition to democracy. The briefing could mention that in this timeline, Spain joined the war at the urging of NATO leadership, particularly due to the desire of having the fallback position of the Pyrenees being available if the war turns in favor of the Soviets on land.

2) The briefing/description mentions that the Soviet surface group, en-route back from the Caribbean, is suspected of having delivered supplies to the rebels in Cuba (presumably Fidel Castro's force). Historically, Castro really didn't receive support from Moscow until after he had overthrown the Batista regime.

This provides an interesting opportunity for a scenario in this campaign, if you are so inclined. Perhaps a peripheral front of this war is the continued guerilla war in Cuba against Batista's regime, who now have (limited) US Combat support, since it seems that the Nikita Khrushchev in this time line is more expansionist to the point that led to this war, and the lethal support for Castro being given, presumably, in late 1956/early 1957.

Perhaps such a scenario could have the player control Batista's forces with some US help, or maybe even a semi-covert US Campaign of bombing and/or special forces operations against Castro, but interestingly, not necessarily in support of Batista either, due to the CIA historically having supported the idea of General Cantilo overthrowing Batista following many defections to Castro's side.

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've completed a playthrough. Got a Major Victory with a score of 500.

I successfully deployed the 4x Portuguese F-84s to Sal Island, but it was a little touch-and-go with the refueling.

I was able to sink the cruiser, a frigate and two destroyers when they approached Sal Island, but I had already lost the Belgian corvette to a submarine attack.

This campaign has really shown how dangerous it had become for any surface combatants without proper ASW weaponry/ASW escorts that can reach more than point-blank range from the ship. Homing Torpedoes combined with the Sea state made it assured that I would lose that corvette in the encounter.

I ended up following the suggestion in the briefing to put the US, Spanish, and Belgian ship in a surface group, with the two Portuguese vessels doing independent patrols. I feel like the Portuguese destroyer would be better served in the main surface force, with the minesweeper patrolling in the immediate vicinity of Sal Island, possibly joined by the Belgian corvette.

When the scenario ended, I noticed in the "Scenario platforms" window that there was still at least one other submarine, destroyer and the fleet oiler out there, but I never encountered them.

My thoughts on possible improvements would be:

1) Throw in some occasional special messages with SIGNT intel reports on the estimated location and/or bearing of the Soviet ships, so that the player can have a little more direction as to where to vector their vessels, especially since the few "scouting" aircraft you have are really not all that helpful. Maybe there could be some reports from an allied submarine out there that had spotted soviet vessels too.

2) I don't know how else to address the submarine concern in any way other than "give us better ships". I get that the tech of the time made submarines much more dangerous than in WW2, but given the threat with only on ship showing potential to really be effective against submarines feels like there's a certain degree of helplessness.

Perhaps there could be another way of looking at having a submarine threat in this scenario that I don't recall seeing done before.

Perhaps there could be an update early in the scenario that another SIGNT intercept determined that there is a damaged Soviet sub in the area that might be trying to meet up with the surface force. Due to the damage, it could be limited to no deeper than periscope depth (if that is possible in the sim), thus giving the chance for the sub to be spotted on the surface by an aircraft.

[Mgellis]

Thanks for the feedback.

As for Spain...ack! That was just a blunder on my part. I'd forgotten they didn't join NATO early on. However, this could also provide an answer to a related problem...I'll go through the other NATO countries (Netherlands, etc.) and see if there are any with significantly better ASW ships. If I can find one, I can swap out that country for Spain, move the air base with the tankers to somewhere else in Europe, etc. I wanted to create a sort of "Oh, hell! We didn't expect them to attack THERE" situation and NATO has to scramble to put together a surface group from random available ships that were in the area. Gives me a chance to use ships that might get left out otherwise.

(If it turns out Spain is the absolute only option for a good ASW ship, which doesn't seem likely, I can come up with some kind of reason in the briefing why they are willing to help out.)

Part of the trouble is that ASW capabilities in 1957 just weren't all that good. Against WWII subs firing straight running torpedoes that had to get really close to hit targets, the early sonar, depth charges, etc. was enough.

Well, back to the lab again...I'll see what I can come up with.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[Mgellis]

Just posted version 2.

I dealt with the Spanish issue by replacing the Spanish destroyer with a Dutch one that appears to having pretty good ASW capabilities (well, for the 1950s...)

Since I'm no longer using the Spanish air bases, I'm now having the American aircraft flying out of Mildenhall. This makes the scenario marginally more challenging, since you need to work a little harder to coordinate the fighters with the tankers. It's a little tricky without any other way to refuel (the Canary Islands base is now gone) but it can be done. Just stick close to the tankers.

Decided the best way to handle the submarine issue was to give the player a little more ASW firepower in the form of a pair of P2V Neptunes. These are also flying out of Mildenhall, and as far as I can tell they can't refuel, so they have to stop at Monte Real and refuel there. This means it is a bit of a race to get them there before anyone has to deal with a submarine.

I also tweaked the radar emissions for the Russians. The group that was just actively emitting is now emitting only a few seconds at a time. This should make them a little harder to spot and track.

Anyway, I hope this is an improvement. Please let me know what you think. Thanks.

[Mgellis]

Anyone had a chance to playtest this yet? Just curious if there's anything else I need to do or if it's ready for the Community Scenario Pack.

Thanks in advance!

[HalfLifeExpert]

Anyone had a chance to playtest this yet? Just curious if there's anything else I need to do or if it's ready for the Community Scenario Pack.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Mark, I've not actually been able to complete a playthrough of version 2 yet (Just got back from being evacuated due to one of the Los Angeles fires)

I did make an attempt yesterday, and I ended up getting pulverized by a Soviet sub within the Cape Verde islands. The Neptunes were unavailable since they had only just got to Sal island after staging via Portugal, they didn't have the range to go to Sal island direct.

I think that the only thing I can see that might make this scenario viable is to either pre-deploy the Neptunes to Sal island, or minimize the Submarine threat

[Mgellis]

Anyone had a chance to playtest this yet? Just curious if there's anything else I need to do or if it's ready for the Community Scenario Pack.

Thanks in advance!

Hi Mark, I've not actually been able to complete a playthrough of version 2 yet (Just got back from being evacuated due to one of the Los Angeles fires)

I did make an attempt yesterday, and I ended up getting pulverized by a Soviet sub within the Cape Verde islands. The Neptunes were unavailable since they had only just got to Sal island after staging via Portugal, they didn't have the range to go to Sal island direct.

I think that the only thing I can see that might make this scenario viable is to either pre-deploy the Neptunes to Sal island, or minimize the Submarine threat

[sent a private message]

Thanks for the feedback. I may pre-deploy the Neptunes (maybe that's one reason why the Soviets are interested in pounding Sal Airport, along with it just being a target of opportunity if they were on their way back from the Caribbean). I don't want to degrade their submarine threat too much...it's one of the few real advantages they would have had in a naval campaign during the 1950s.

I'll fiddle around with this and maybe post a version 3 in the near future.

Thanks again.

[Mgellis]

Just uploaded version 3...

Biggest change is I followed HalfLifeExpert's suggestion and put the ASW aircraft and a small amount of munitions on Sal Island. It doesn't look like container operations are supported in the CWDB, and there don't seem to be many cargo aircraft in the CWDB that can handle more than two tons at a time anyway, so I figured anything like a logistics element of the mission wasn't going to work. (Okay, I'm a nerd...I really like being able to put logistics into some scenarios.)

The submarine threat remains the same. For a scenario like this, set in the 1950s, it's really the only way to give the Soviets a chance. I don't think there's anywhere in the region (most places in this part of Africa were still British or French colonies, after all) they could have an air base.

Anyway, I hope the new version is fun. I hope people give it a try; as always, I'm grateful for any feedback I can get on how to make the scenario more challenging, more interesting, more accurate, more fun, etc.

Thanks in advance!

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've completed a playthrough of version 3, but I will give detailed feedback in a PM to avoid spoilers for those who haven't played before.

Overall I only think a couple of additions to the briefing are needed to make this a much more viable scenario than the previous versions.

[Mgellis]

Some excellent ideas in the PM. Thank you. I'll run through it a couple of times more, see what else I can do (I'm going to add a couple of fishing boats, just so there is a little extra traffic to contend with) and then probably post the final version.

Does anyone else have any ideas for this scenario?

Thanks again to everyone for their help!

I've completed a playthrough of version 3, but I will give detailed feedback in a PM to avoid spoilers for those who haven't played before.

Overall I only think a couple of additions to the briefing are needed to make this a much more viable scenario than the previous versions.

[schweggy]

I completed a playthrough with V3 yesterday.

I noticed that the weapons magazine at Sal Island has a couple of the ZUNI 127mm FFAR loadouts.... however there's a missing weapon to use these if so desired. The "Tiny Tim" 300mm HVAR Rocket is a required weapons loadout for the ZUNI's to be used.

Anyway, I got a Triumph even though I lost two of the F-84G's to AA during an attack on the Soviet CL group. This, even though I'd hammered them with naval gun fire. Pilots shoulda' been more careful. Also bagged a Zulu sub hanging out near the Allied base. Got a wiff of another sub, but never reacquired it.

Horrible conditions at sea. Makes it a bit of a struggle at times. Still... a fun scenario. Good job.

[Mgellis]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll check the loadouts, etc.

Yes, sea conditions are a little rough. I always use a weather app or two to check what the weather is like in a particular place and time of year when I set things up. Apparently, it's windy in Cape Verde!

Thanks again for the feedback.

I completed a playthrough with V3 yesterday.

I noticed that the weapons magazine at Sal Island has a couple of the ZUNI 127mm FFAR loadouts.... however there's a missing weapon to use these if so desired. The "Tiny Tim" 300mm HVAR Rocket is a required weapons loadout for the ZUNI's to be used.

Anyway, I got a Triumph even though I lost two of the F-84G's to AA during an attack on the Soviet CL group. This, even though I'd hammered them with naval gun fire. Pilots shoulda' been more careful. Also bagged a Zulu sub hanging out near the Allied base. Got a wiff of another sub, but never reacquired it.

Horrible conditions at sea. Makes it a bit of a struggle at times. Still... a fun scenario. Good job.