New Scenario for Beta Testing: Korean Campaign 2018

[Kitchens Sink]

I have been working on this (large) scenario for awhile. With the tensions in Korea today, I thought it would be a good time to release it for some initial testing. I still have some work to do on the scoring for S. Korea Losses, victory score conditions, and I'm sure a few more tweaks.

This is a large and resource-intensive scenario and requires some micro managing of assets. It represents a large combined arms assault on a massive N. Korean invasion into the South. It's got tanks, APC's, planes, ships, subs, ballistic missiles, ABM systems...even a Laser Plane! It's the U.S./South Korea vs. N. Korea...with the Chinese lurking around.

I'm still playing thru this latest version myself. Any comments on improvements/changes would be welcomed. Enjoy!

[wild_Willie2]

I'll have a go at this and will give some feedback later today.

W.

[Gunner98]

Looks interesting.

One initial comment on the setup. The briefing talks about 'New ATACMS.." I would not call the system new - perhaps the Block II missiles could be considered new and you may wish to mention that. http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/atacms.htm

Interesting anecdotal story on the ATACMs received from a very good source: In Jan 91 the original ATACMs was undergoing testing at White Sands Missile range with an initial batch of 48 missiles and a Battery of MLRS from Fort Sill OK. Simultaneously a Battalion of LANCE were lined up in Charleston SC for shipment to Kuwait for Desert Storm. The LANCE was considered by all to be the wrong weapon for the task (lack of precision, Nuc/Chem capability, poor performing HE warhead, wrong message, reliability, etc) but it was - at the time - the only long range system that the US Army had. ATACMs had successfully launched its first 6 missiles and a decision was made that if it could launch another 10 missiles without problem it would go instead. It did. The following 32 missiles were launched in Iraq to complete the testing, which required USAF support to track telemetry, performance and accuracy etc.

There are probably only about 300ish Block I missiles remaining and scuttlebutt puts most of those missiles right where you have them. I don't think the Block 1A has been fired in anger yet but my bet is that they would be prominent in Korea as well.

Looking forward to digging into this one.

B

[Kitchens Sink]

Thanks for the info and historical perspective Gunner. I guess I was referring to the Block 1A and the word "newer" would be more appropriate.

I have given you a mix of Block I and IA, as well as the standard warhead for your bombardment enjoyment. The Block 1A's are handy, but they have a disadvantage that will become apparent as you play the scenario.

[Primarchx]

I'm a little confused why I'd have F-16s with an iron bomb loadout at the start of a war in 2018? Also, why do I have ROK Vipers and Golden Eagles out of Kunsan under my command if I'm USA?

ETA - the ROK aircraft show up under the US OOB (in Kunsan facilities) screen but not in the mission screen.

[Kitchens Sink]

Primarchx, the ROK units out of Kunsan should be set on S. Korea side missions and the U.S. side should not be able to control them. They were meant to just be co-located at the Kunsan facility alongside U.S. planes. Maybe I didn't set it up right? I'll double check.

The iron bomb loadouts with the WRA settings I put in seem to allow more armor destruction per sortie than a plane with 2 Mavericks etc. But, if the players seem to think that Iron Bomb loadouts are antiquated in a 2018 scenario then I can always change to something more sophisticated.

[Gunner98]

No problems - I suspect the disadvantage is reduced warhead, designed for ‘the war’ not ‘a war’ the 1A has much better guidance but fewer sub-munitions and the unitary warhead is meant for hitting individuals not Tank Bns. Wait – just checked in the game there may be a DB problem. The Block 1A Unitary seems to be called the MGM-168A Blk IVA – but it should have the 1A’s range http://lockheedmartin.com/us/products/A ... itary.html or perhaps it’s a different missile. Not sure. I think the ranges are a bit short but checking open source, they are consistent with that.


Crawling through the ORBAT, impressive.

Might suggest that some of the SH-60B's especially those on the USS Makin be switched out to 'R' models and also the CH-46 should probably be switched out with SH-60S or CV-22 Ospreys.

For USAF:

51 FW at Osan: 25FS ‘Flying Elvises’ (OA-10) and 36FS ‘Flying Fiends’ (F-16/40s)
8 FW at Kunsan: 35 FS ‘Pantons’(should be F-16/40s), and 80 FS ‘Juvats’ (should be F-16/40s)

Not in scenario: http://www.f-16.net/units_airforce171.html
432 FW at Misawa: 13 FS ‘Panthers’ (F-16/50s), and 14FS ‘Samurais’ (F-16/50s)

Will check out the rest of the stuff shortly

B

[Gunner98]

The iron bomb loadouts with the WRA settings I put in seem to allow more armor destruction per sortie than a plane with 2 Mavericks etc.

Most Western Air Forces have publicly stated that the days of the 'Dumb Bomb' are gone, mostly in public reaction to collateral damage and civilian casualties etc. This however may not stand the test of time in an all-out war against a peer enemy where we go back to the classic WWIII 'Target Rich Environment'. Modern sensors and targeting pods are pretty dam good and dumb bombs aren’t so dumb any more, except to the media... (won't open that topic..). That said, a simple Laser Guidance attachment is very cheap and easy - it just makes the Ftr a tad more vulnerable when you may not want it to be. Against Korea, I suspect that precision would be the name of the game for the first while unless that is not working - and with less than a few thousand targets, PGMs would be used i think.

B

[Kitchens Sink]

Thanks Gunner. I did take some liberties in upgrading some units to the newer F-16 models given that it's 2018, but maybe I should revert to the historical units (?). Also I got lazy after awhile and stopped putting actual unit designations. I need to go back and fix that.

As far as the Block 1A ATCAM, I found the main disadvantage to be its minimum range requirement. I can only attack more distant targets. That's ok, there are a few N. Korean SAM and Radar installations that felt their wrath.

[Primarchx]

As I recall the Vipers at Misawa are likely to be replaced by F-35As, so the placement of those a/c there seems good to me.

[Coiler12]

On unguided bombs- in the conventional phase of the Iraq War (closest example to this), the ratio was about 70-30 for guided to unguided munitions.

[B52H]

You've beat me to it!

[wild_Willie2]

Ok, just played through the scenario until I destroyed all NK armor and arty and I generally like it

I have some remarks though, previous posters have already mentioned upon the dumb bomb load-out of the F16's and A10's and I have to agree that Mavericks and JSOW's would be better suited for the job, especially in 2018. Also, the NK infantry and APC's are powerless against both armor and AC and thus just act as cannon fodder in this scenario (Especially that group of NK foot infantry armed with nothing more then MG's is totally hilarious).
I would also interchange the SEAL recon teams with Green Berets to make the scenario a bit more realistic.

As the the scenario stands now it has great potential and the NK armor and arty are killers, but the infantry needs some more work done (maybe put in some old shoulder launched AT missile like the RPG7 and a SAM like the Strella into the mix?). Also, the SK AC are standard set to "strafe" targets and once you put some organic shoulder launched SAM's into the mix they will take a beating. Another observation is that the SK forces engage the NK forces pell-mell and some re-positioning would give them the chance to be more effective instead of being defeated in detail. You also don't need the southern most US force as the NK forces have already been defeated by SK army and the two Northern US groups before these Southern troops can even come into play. I also don't get why you put the US task force on the East side of the peninsula, they can't really do much there, it would be more interesting to put them at the southern tip of the peninsula, it and the sub can then go and play with the Chinese once these become involved.

So spice up the NK infantry a bit, change some load outs to more modern ordinance, move the TF and the sub to the south and get the Chinese to trow in a curve-ball or two once activated and you'll have created an excellent scenario.

Keep up the good work.

W.

[B52H]

I would suggest to make the aircraft have actual squadron names. Other than that, great scenario so far.

[Kitchens Sink]

Wild Willie, spot on with my notes so far in playing thru this...with the exception of moving the Task Force. I want the Chinese ballistic missiles to play, so I'll have to move things around, but I agree that moving it to the South would create more chaos with China. I'll try to beef up some of the NK land units so things are more challenging and there is less "cannon fodder". I did feel that NK infantry units would be a realistic part of the NK land attack, but they don't have a prayer as things stand currently in the scenario.

Thanks for your input!

[AlexGGGG]

Well, looks nice but I have pulse times upwards of three seconds, so it is awful slow. I a day of real time I'm only through the first hour of play. Time to upgrade maybe.

[Kitchens Sink]

AlexGGGG...yes this scenario is a resource hog. I'm running a little ASUS laptop with Win 10 and 8gb RAM. It seems playable with that but gets slow sometimes, especially with a bunch of MALD-J jammers up.

B52H...Yes I will update scenario with correct units. I started that way but got lazy with the research.

Primarchx...I see what you mean now about the ORBAT for the ROK units at Kunsan. Even though the US side cant control the aircraft they show up in the US ORBAT because they are co-located at a US airbase. I guess the only way around that is to create a wholly separate Kunsan single unit airfield on the S. Korean side and put the planes there (?). Or, just explain it in the briefing that these units are really S. Korea's.

Good input from everyone, thanks!

[Kitchens Sink]

Ok, Version 2 of Korean Campaign is attached to this post. Thanks for all the input, the scenario is tougher and more fun.

Change Log:

1. Updated S. Korean and US planes to PGM munitions instead of “dumb” bombs
2. Gave U.S. a few starting CAP planes
3. Gave N. Korea some additional AAW assets
4. Moved Convoy Busan to the South to make things more difficult
5. Gave the N. Korean foot infantry some MANPADS and anti-tank weapons to defend themselves
6. Changed most of the CH-46 helos to Ospreys in Convoy Busan. Also changed SH-60B’s to F model in Convoy Busan.
7. Fixed a Lua Script programming error that accidentally made things much easier for the Good Guys than intended
8. Deleted some US tank units too far away to come into play, re-positioned S. Korean tanks to minimize “Borg-like” AI attacks.
9. Updated briefing explain co-located ROK units at Kunsan are not under control of US, even though they show up under US ORBAT
10. Updated briefing to advise players to turn Special Message Popup ON, and added some other player notes in the Briefing
11. Added some S. Korean ships to the mix with ASW and Land Attack capabilities
12. Improved Scoring and tweaked Victory Conditions
13. Changed loadouts on US MLRS systems. GMLRS ER (Alternative Warhead) warheads appear to have no effect on any targets, so switched them to 90 kg HE standard warheads which seem to work fine. You still have ATCAMs to play with also.
14. Added a discussion of specific units in the battle to the Briefing. I did not go back and change all individual unit designations or delete/rename/reassign aircraft on the ground (just too many of them).
15. Numerous changes to AI attack profiles, patrol zones, and loadouts; most of which are designed to give you headaches on the US side.

Enjoy!

[SeaQueen]

True, but by the Bosnian war just a few years later, the majority of American weapons were guided.

I think these days a nation's preference would almost certainly be for guided weapons if they're available, for many reasons. The fundamental question would be logistics and manufacturing capacity. Can they supply guidance kits at least as fast as they can drop guided weapons? If they can't, then depending on what their inventory is, and how fast they're consuming them, eventually you're going to end up having to fall back on unguided weapons.

ORIGINAL: Coiler12
On unguided bombs- in the conventional phase of the Iraq War (closest example to this), the ratio was about 70-30 for guided to unguided munitions.

[Lawdog1700]

Ok, this is a really great scenario. It has incredible potential. Just a few issues (although, I think I have been playing the 1st version), and those are:

1. Major resource hog, you know this. It has taken me almost 3 weeks to get through the first 4 hours of the mission. I think I am getting like 1:10 compression. Frustrating.

2. In the first 4 hours pretty much all of the North Korean ground forces are gone...short of like 6 platoons of infantry. I'm not sure if I am supposed to do anything else.

3. The Chinese have been a non-factor. They flew some of their fighters over South Korea, and then returned to their carrier. No offensive acts at all. My next wave of air strikes will start pulverizing airbases (as almost all of the SAM sites are history). I think I'm done with Triumph: 586.

Now, I'm certain the Chinese were supposed to do something...am I still waiting for it?