New Scenario for Testing: World War 85 - Kamchatka

[wild_Willie2]

Wow, your new version is MUCH better than the old one. I just actually lost a ship to a torpedo despite taking full ASW measures!! (I think this was only the second time that this has happened to me)

Well done on the subs, now to find out how the rest of this mission goes

[wild_Willie2]

Ok, I finished the scenario again and your Sub deployment is excellent in this version but I still was able to avoid the Backfire strike by intercepting the USSR recon before they could get a radar picture of my TF's and by staying EMCOM silent. Only by letting a recon plane get close deliberately and turning on all EMCON bells and whistles I was able to trigger the strike. I still advise hard-coding a Backfire strike as any decent player will simply go EMCON silent at the beginning of the scenario and use his bountiful support assets to get 24/7 radar AND fighter coverage and will thus easily avoid the strike..

[MBot]

I am glad the subs are working better now but your Backfires seem cursed. Since you were attacked by submarines, your ships must have been detected. I wonder why this didn't trigger the strike. I tested this twice yesterday by completely removing the patrol aircraft and each time the subs provided targets for the Backfires.

I guess it is not realy worth the hassel and the Backfires are better scripted than dynamic.

[AlexGGGG]

I find the idea of removing NATO subs great. That removed much of the temptation to cheat

I can confirm Russian subs are now really great.

[magi]

soviet doctrine relied on reconnaissance .... You should have more Reconnaissance aircraft… with some defender for them…you could have foreign flagships friendly to read side as tattletales .....
I think having a US sub or two it's more realistic in this type of situation… I believe your cvbg groups normally would have more helicopter asw assets .... I don't tend to be a creative cheater myself… And I really like scenarios that are more plausible… But this thingh is fun and I'm going to download your later now and check it out…
I still think it would be nice to have more assets at Shemya as it would be realistic… I know I'm a terrible guy because what I'm talking about his scenario Creep....I guess you guys call it…. All the cool stuff makes it more interesting for me…

I am going to load this one and start over…… Cool...

[MBot]

The question of how the Soviets envisioned to find targets with aircraft actually leaves me puzzeled. Playing it out in CMNAO suggests that it would have been very easy to destroy recon aircraft before they are within range of a CVBG to detect it with radar. Sure, the presence of radiating E-2 Hawkeye would give away the presence of a carrier in the AO. But it seems very unlikely that a carrier could have been located from recon planes with enough precision for an airstrike. In addition these were actually quite sparse assets (in the Pacific Fleet just one Tu-95RT regiment and one Tu-16R squadron, plus a regiment of Tu-142 and Il-38 ASW aircraft each), with no fighter capable to provide escort available in 1985. The only option I could think of is to support Tu-95RT with Tu-16 jammers, but I have never read that this was practiced by the Soviets.

That is what I like about CMNAO so much. It helps to visualize and put into perspective a lot of the stuff I just know from the books.


Regardning the US SSN, placing them at a realistic distance in front of the carrier at scenario start would actually put them beyond the bulk of Soviet subs (with the Soviet subs between the SSN and the carriers). This would be hard to justify. In order to have a SSN sweep through the Soviet subs, the scenario would have to start 24h earlier with the CVBG still a great distance further away. But I guess this would actually be better explored in a seperate scenario.

On a seperate note, anyone has a particular comment on performance? I cannot reasonably go above 15x time acceleration (it probably doesn't even reach this), so I was very cautious with adding more stuff (which I would love to do). Is the scenario faster for others or simmilar?

Thanks again for all the feedback. I will soon do another small rework of the scenario.

[wild_Willie2]

Under the latest release candidate (8), you can really race along a scenario. I am talking major speed improvement and this scenario now runs at about 15 to 20X speed.

[magi]

i can run at 15x here....

[AlexGGGG]

I have just finished the second version of the scenario and there were no glitches I was able to find and all in all I found nothing amiss. Great scenario to play.

[wild_Willie2]

I also replayed the latest version of the scenario without any issues. With some modification to my ASW screen I was able to get into strike range without being detected (sinking five subs while doing so) and thus avoided the backfire strike once again

[AlexGGGG]

You kinda missed the fun. Although killing Backfires does not count towards the score, they are still satisfactory to shot down. On my second attempt I actually invited the strike by explicitly allowing Russian recon aircraft in. This way I had the bombers in when I wanted it and when I was prepared.

[MBot]

First post is updated with another new version of the scenario.

Changes:
-I made the Backfires a separate side with omniscient detection. The Backfire raid is now triggered solely after a random amount of time regardless of recon. This change became reasonable after I played the Soviet side myself and it became clear that a human player can use the Tu-95RT under EMCON, stay outside the E-2 detection area and guess the carrier position with enough precision for an air strike by observing the Hawkeyes.
-I gave the Tu-95RT some more sophisticated missions, which hopefully will increase the chances of making contact with the carriers against a careless player. Tu-95RT and Tu-16R recon is still important to provide targeting for the SSGN missiles.
-Some minor tweaks to fit this scenario better into my World War 85 series.

[ojms]

Don't forget the Soviets had a lot of satellites (RORSAT) available to find the position of the CVBGs

[ojms]

Also you could change Shemya to a single unit airfield perhaps?