Ukrainian Falcons, August 2024. Hypothetical Scenario.

[Broncepulido]

My latest Harpoon HCE/HUCE scenario, based on contemporary events:
Ukrainian Falcons, August 2024. Hypothetical Scenario.

A Harpoon Commander's Edition scenario for EC2003 Battle for the Mediterranean Battleset and the HCDB2-170909 (or later) 1980-2025 era Platform Database. This scenario is designed with Advanced Scenario Editor Build 2017.013 and to be run with HCE 2015.008+ or later.
This scenario is designed to be played from the Blue/Ukrainian/NATO side or from the Red/Russian. You should play a few times first the Blue side to avoid spoilers, and only later play the Red side.
Image: A Ukrainian Tupolev Tu-22M3 (NATO-Codename: Backfire-C) bomber is dismantled through assistance provided by the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program implemented by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, November 12, 2002. Depend on Russia and its consecutive nuclear disarmament was probably the greatest error of the Ukrainian history. Photo by an US serviceperson on duty, and in consequence in public domain, took from Wikipedia Commons.
From the eventful year of 2014 (Mainly from the Russian invasion of Crimea) the world was beginning clearly the so-called Second Cold War, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin (ex-KGB lieutenant colonel) was showing clearly his plan to recover the Russian Empire including previous Soviet territories for reinstitute the greatness of "his" Russia, and to guarantee his passage on the History as saviour of the Rodina.
After the massive Russian build-up of forces from late 2021 in Russia and Belarus near the Ukrainian border, NATO forces were forced to an increased and constant deployment near Ukraine and the Eastern Mediterranean, to deterrent Putin's ambition.
The probably original plan was to avoid an intervention by NATO ground forces but preventing the Russian main forces to enter Ukrainian territory, and to get this target to establish an air and sea exclusion zone around and over Ukraine.
But at last, on February 24, 2022, Russian forces invaded Ukraine against most forecast, sinking the world in a new state of international relations, as consequence of a long and failed campaign of unexpected outcomes, extended more than two years at this moment.
After that time, the Ukrainian Air Force is almost depleted of effective aircrafts, and at last at late July 2024, and after a long preparation, the first F-16AM/BM begin to arrive in Ukraine. They come from many NATO countries, mostly Denmark, Netherlands, Norway and Denmark, and were update in the early 2000, expected to receive between 79 and 129. But they came apparently supplied with older models of AIM-9M Sidewinder and AIM-120B AMRAAM, not with state of art AIM-9X-2 or AIM-120C-7.
Many speculated at the Russian invasion start about NATO establishing an air exclusion zone over Ukraine, but that time was over after the first days of war.
This scenario is very simple and mainly abstract and hypothetical, and not based in the real (secret!) placement of the Ukrainian F-16AM.
I started it as a simple test of capabilities developed in only two or three hours (After some days of thinking on it), and grow a little, and decided to publish it as tribute to the Ukrainian resistance against the invader.
Enrique Mas, August 7, 2024.
Download it at:
https://harpgamer.com/harpforum/files/f ... -scenario/