USS Midway vs Cuba (SPOILERS) - AARs for rookies by a rookie

[JCM3000]

Hello All,

Intro
My goal with this AAR is to provide a descriptive narrative that can be used as a learning tool by other relative newbies to COMANO like myself. So I’ll try to talk about why I did things, and point out mistakes and potential take-aways as I go along. So obviously, there will be major spoilers, so be warned!

This scenario is based on a fictional WWIII scenario where Cuba has decided to join the Warsaw Pact and is attempting to interdict the sea lanes between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. My orders are to get the Midway CVBG through the narrow strait between the Florida Keys and Cuba to meet up with and escort a large convoy leaving Texas and destined for the Atlantic. Our mission is to not only make it through safely, but also destroy Cuba's air and naval power to reduce the threat to other ships transiting this passage. We are not authorised to attack land facilities in Cuba.

My OOB includes 5 full squadrons of F/18s, most of which are loaded for AAW. 10 are down for maintenance which gave me 50 available aircraft, of which 12 had ASuW loadouts, 30 had AAW loadouts, and 8 more AAW were still being readied and wouldn't be available for 3 hours. My Tico also has a load of SM2ER. These long range SAMs could prove quite useful. I have almost no anti-ship capability however, with only 4 ship launched harpoons in the whole CVBG.

Defensive Posturing
As the scenario began, the Midway battle Group was just entering the narrow straight between Florida and Cuba at a brisk 20kts heading due west. I had an E-2 Hawkeye AEW airborne as well as some ASW helicopters buzzing around in their patrol area ahead of the CVBGs plotted course, but nothing else.

So, I started by ensuring that EMCON was set to all passive for the ships of the CVBG but activated my AEW's radar to get a sense of the situation. I quickly noted a bunch of surface contacts, likely missile boats spread along the Cuba coastline and about 15 aircraft flying patrol over the Cuban mainland. Some of the surface contacts were soon identified by AWACs as missile boats and some of the aircraft as MiG 23s.

With that initial tactical situation in hand, I kept the battle group at quiet EMCON and moved the AEW's station farther to the west and away from the battle group. My hope was that putting some distance between me and my only active emitter would make it more difficult for the enemy patrol boats to localize and fire upon the battle group.

I then quickly proceeded to get my CAP up. I created 3 patrol areas: one about 30-40nm SE of my carrier group (between myself and the Cuban coastline) another one about the same distance SW of the CVBG, and a third due west (near my AEW Hawkeye). I assigned 6 F18As w/ Standard AA loadouts to each CAP w/ 1/3 rule engaged. I also set the doctrine for all 3 CAP stations to be EMCON silent initially, and rely on my AEW to vector my fighters towards bogeys. At this early stage, I wanted the Hawkeye to be my only emitter, as the range of it's airborne radar easily covered the entire battle space anyway.

I also decided to re-position some of the escorts in the CVBG to hopefully deal with the submarine threat that was mentioned in the briefing. My concern was that at 20kts my escorts wouldn't be able to hear submarines passively. So, I changed the station of my non-guided missile frigate (essentially an ASW-only platform) and moved it forward about 10nm ahead of the rest of the CVBG and slightly to the north of our heading (which was pretty much due west). I then moved one of the Perry FFGs also west 10nm ahead of the CVBG and 10nm south of the other FF. I also set these two units to active sonar to try to sanitize the area ahead of the CVBG and spot any subs well before they could get in range of my high value assets (the Midway and the AEGIS cruiser). I assumed that the 20kt speed would pretty much preclude any attacks by diesel/electric subs from the rear of the battle group.

After Action Report
It wasn't long after my initial 6 CAP fighters were on station that the E-2 began to see some of the Cuban fighters begin to go feet wet and approach the CVBG from the southeast. I immediately launched another 6 ready F18As and vectored 4 of them towards the SE CAP station, and 2 of them towards the SW CAP station to replace the 2 Hornets that had just left that station screaming east at full military throttle to join and reinforce the SE CAP.

As the lead flights of Cuban fighters approached to about 35nm from my SE CAP, I lit off their radars and volleyed all of their Sparrow missiles at the incoming bogeys. I had previously set WRA for the Sparrows to 35nm (because I have read, and also from experience, am aware that Sparrows are not particularly effective at maximum range and that waiting till about 2/3 of maximum range greatly increases their effectiveness) and 1 weapon per target. Just as my first volley of BVR missiles was beginning to hit home my 6 reinforcement F18s began to arrive on station. They immediately greeted the oncoming MiGs with another full volley of Sparrows.

At this point I had taken down about 11 enemy MiGs (mostly MiG23s but with some MiG21 thrown in) without the Cubans having fired a shot. But things were about to get dicier as there were still 17 bogeys inbound and now within visual range of the 8 fighters on my SE CAP.

Outnumbered 2:1, my huge advantage with 4th Gen tactical fighters vs. much older Cuban aircraft was telling. In the end all of the Cuban aircraft were sent down and my sole loss was due to a lucky guns hit by an MiG21 during the furball.

Tally at this point:
Cuban Losses: 28x MiG23 and MiG21
USA Losses: 1x F/A-18A Hornet

We were now about 25 minutes into the scenario and there is a slight lull in the action (or at least I thought there was). So I paused the game and took a moment to assess the situation. I had 11 fighters in the air at this point. The SW and AEW CAP stations had 2 F18s each with full standard AA loadouts on station (2 Sparrow and 2 sidewinder each) but the 7 aircraft to the SE were down to 4 sidewinders total. I decided to leave the 4 F18s that still had 1 Sidewinder missile each on station at the SE CAP and sent the other 3 fighters home. I also launched 4 more F18s with Standard CAP loadouts and sent 2 to augment the 4 on SE CAP that had no BVR missiles remaining, and the other 2 to reinforce the SW CAP.
-16x sortied (12x on station; 3x RTB; 1x lost)

At the same time I decided since there were no enemy aircraft heading towards me that I'd take the opportunity to launch my 6 F18s armed with Walleye to take out the two groups of enemy missile boats that were closest to my position (5 to the SE and 5 along the coast almost directly south). My hope was that I could sink them before any additional enemy fighters came out to play. I would use the AAM armed F18s that were already in the air to provide cover for the bombers.
-22x sortied (18x airborne; 3x landed; 1x lost)

While the strike fighters were getting airborne I decided to make use of the sole FFG that had 4 Harpoon missiles. Luckily all 4 Harpoons hit sinking all 4 of their targets to the south.

Unfortunately I didn't have as much luck hitting the missile boats to the SE. As my 6 strike aircraft were bearing down on their targets, I saw a huge new wave of fighters coming up from Cuba from both the SE and the SW. I quickly vectored the 6 F18s in my SE CAP to intercept the SE swarm but unfortunately, as you may recall, 4 of them were out of BVR missiles and needed to close to Sidewinder range. This was a costly mistake for me.

Although my 6 strike fighters were armed with 2 Sparrows each, they weren't nearly enough to clear a path to their targets as there were just too many enemy fighters. And heavily laden with bombs their maneuverability suffered greatly. My strike fighters were able to fight through to launch their bombs on target but I lost 2 of them before they were able to drop their loads on target, and another 2 in the ensuing melee. My 6x SE CAP fighters arrived a bit late to the game (it took them time to get within sidewinder range as they were out of Sparrows), but they did manage to clear the skies to the SE, although during a significant part of the engagement several of them were fighting with guns only.

Despite the heavy losses to the strike flight, the Walleyes took out all of the missile boats to the S and SE. In hindsight I should have immediately turned the strike aircraft around after they fired their Sparrows and had them run for their lives back to the safety of the CAP and had them loiter there until the engagement was over. Either that or I should have actually sent fighters with them as escorts.

Meanwhile, near my SW CAP, my 4 fighters stationed there were fighting for their lives. I had launched another 6 Hornets (4 of them F18Ds with Heavy Sparrow loadouts) and sent 4 of the 6 to the SW CAP while 2 went to reinforce the SE CAP. I also pulled my AEW CAP of 2 fighters away from the E-2 they were defending and sent them to the SW engagement. Unfortunately by the time my reinforcements arrived on scene my 4x SW CAP fighters had expended all of their missiles and were completely defensive, just trying to stay alive. I ended up losing one of them before my reinforcements arrived to annihilate the remaining Cuban fighters in a concentrated hail of missiles.
-28x sortied (19x in the air; 3x landed; 6x lost)

As a side note, at the beginning of the scenario I had set my long range SM2ER missiles with WRA of 45nm. I wanted to rely primarily on my fighters from the SW and SE CAP stations to defend the CVBG from air attack but allow the AEGIS cruiser to engage leakers with SAMs. Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, my 4 SW CAP fighters were overwhelmed and a number of enemy aircraft got past them and within 45nm of my CVBG before the reinforcement fighters arrived. So the Tike class AEGIS cruiser launched 12 SM2ERs during the engagement at the SW enemy fighters. It just so happened that the Sparrow missiles from my reinforcements were boring down on their targets at about the same time as the SM2ERs were launched. The result was that most SM2s had their targets destroyed before they arrived. In the end only one solitary SM2 found and destroyed it's intended target and the rest either missed or went to waste. After this, to avoid wasting any more valuable SAMs, I decided to set the CVBG doctrine to Surface-to-Air weapons HOLD for now.

In the end I lost the 4 hornets from the strike group, and the 1 Hornet from my SW CAP. However, in the two large Air-to-Air engagements I destroyed another 30 enemy fighter aircraft.

So far, I had sortied 28 of my 50 F18s and accounted for:
58 Cuban MiGs (All MiG23s and MiG21s)
10 Cuban missile boats
6 Hornets lost (including 4 of the 6 F18s that constituted the Walleye strike (OUCH!!!))

Once again there was a slight lull in the battle so I again took stock of my situation. I currently had 19 Hornets in the air (including the 2 remaining Walleye strike aircraft), but with the exception of the pair assigned to the western-most AEW CAP, they didn't have a single Sparrow missile left amongst them, and only 6 Sidewinders. Situation Not Good.

I then looked at what ready fighters I had immediately available to fly on the deck:
6 F/A18Ds armed w/ SLAM ERs (anti-ship)
2 F18As with Heavy Sparrow loadouts
6 F18As w/ Standard CAP loadouts

I also had a few more aircraft that were in reserve and were still in the process of readying:
4 more F18A Standard CAP loadouts that were about 60 minutes from ready
4 more F18A Standard CAP that were about 15 minutes from ready

All of the rest of my aircraft were many hours away from being ready as they had just recently landed (or were in the process of landing) and needed to be refueled and rearmed.

Not including the 2 AEW CAP aircraft, I decided to leave 6 of the 17 airborne F18s in the air (with 5 sidewinders remaining amongst them) and send the other 11 Hornets back to base as they were all completely Winchester. In addition I also launched the 2 remaining Heavy Sparrow and 2 of my remaining Standard CAP Hornets to augment the 6 that were still airborne (but lacking BVR missiles). I planned to leave my last 4 remaining Standard CAP Hornets ready on the deck as a reserve.
-32x sortied (12x on Station; 11x RTB; 3x rearming; 6x lost)

I then decided to take this opportunity to get my 6 F/A18Ds w/ SLAM ERs airborne with the intention of taking out the last remaining large concentration of missile boats to the southwest (8 of them).

While the SLAM ER strike Hornets began launching, one of my leading ASW frigates got a return on a Goblin positioned right in the CVBGs path. The contact was about 20nm ahead of my leading ASW screen. My 3 ASW helicopters dropped 4 torpedoes in quick succession and killed the contact, which turned out to be a Cuban Foxtrot class sub.

My SLAM ER strike managed to kill 6 out of the 8 missile boats. After they completed their strike I decided to leave them airborne on the SW CAP station as they each had 2 Sparrow and 2 sidewinders in addition to the SLAM ERs that they had already expended. When they arrived on station I sent the 6 Hornets that had remained there from the earlier air battle home as they lacked any BVR missiles (only had a few sidewinders left).
-38x sortied (12x airborne; 14x rearming; 6x RTB; 6x lost)

I now had 12x Hornets airborne, of which 4x F18s were on the SE CAP, 2x F18s on the AEW CAP, and 6x were on the SW CAP.

My lead ASW frigates picked up another Goblin contact on active sonar and again dispatched it.

While the 2nd Goblin was in the process of being dispensed with, my E-2 began picking up a VERY large number of airborne contacts approaching from the SW. I checked and the 8 Hornets that were readying at the beginning of the scenario with Standard CAP loadouts were now ready to go so I immediately queued all 8 of them up for launch to reinforce the 6 fighters currently on my SW CAP station. This left me 4 CAP F18s as a last-ditch reserve.
-46x sortied (12x airborne; 8x taking off; 6x RTB; 14x rearming; 6x lost)

Here is where another major learning opportunity came about for me, thanks to the impeccable timing of my Cuban adversaries.

Of the 8 AAW equipped Hornets that I had just queued up for launch, only the first pair were airborne. I hadn't noticed but the other 6 had been held up from launching because the flight deck was still in use because the carrier was still in the process of recovering the 6 fighters that were coming off station that I had sent home 10 minutes earlier (no remaining BVR missiles). What clued me in that something odd was going on was that I noticed a Sparrow missile was launched from the direction of the carrier but it almost immediately went blind and self destructed before reaching the incoming attack aircraft. Then it happened again. The reason was that a lone F18 was circling endlessly above the carrier but not going anywhere as it was waiting for its wingman to takeoff. It was firing missiles at the incoming bogeys but as it loitered in a circle the missiles kept losing guidance!!! It took me a while to realize what the problem was. It turns out that by ordering my aircraft to launch while other aircraft were trying to land was seriously degrading the speed of both launching, and landing of aircraft. Major FacePlant!!!

I remedied the situation as quickly as I could be directing the 4 F18s that were still in the landing queue to a newly created holding pattern (Support mission) just north of the CVBG and out of the way. This I hoped would clear the deck to get the rest of my ready fighters launched and in the air.
-46x sortied (14x airborne; 6x taking off; 4x RTB holding pattern; 16x rearming; 6x lost)

Now with 50+ bogeys inbound (most coming from the SW but a few from the SE) I was faced with a situation where I had only 6 Hornets up on the SW CAP station (with 2 more soon to join them). And to make matters even worse, my E-2 had identified at least 8 of the incoming bogeys as MiG29s, a much more formidable opponent than the MiG23s and MiG21s that I had been dispatching with relative ease for much of the afternoon.

As the Cubans got closer, and my E-2 was able to better identify the bogeys, I realised that there were at least 12x MiG29s coming at me at 36k ft altitude (maybe more as some bogeys had not been 100% identified by type) and the remainder of the bogeys were in fact low flying MiG23 strike aircraft (at least 30) flying at 200ft altitude and heading straight for my CVBG. In addition there were a number of bogeys approaching from the SE at high altitude as well.

I immediately sent all 8 of my SW CAP fighters (the original 6 had just been joined by the newly launched pair) to intercept the onrushing swarm of enemies, specifically ordering them to target the highest threat: the 12x MiG29s. I also pulled the 2 F18s from my AEW escort CAP station and vectored them to join in the attack on the MiG29s.

My hope was that these 10 fighters would be able to eliminate the MiG29s and the other fighter aircraft as quickly as possible and then give me an opportunity to dive down and go after the low flying attack aircraft. I also hoped that my remaining 6 F18s, whose launch had been delayed, would be in the air in time to intercept the low flying attackers.

The SE CAP got into range and engaged first. They quickly dispatched 4 MiG23s with Sparrow missiles, unfortunately expending all but 1 of their inventory of BVR missiles in doing so. They followed up by closing range and dispatching another 4 MiGs with Sidewinders and a dogfight at guns range while suffering no losses.

A few minutes later the SW attackers had closed within missile range, and my 8 SW CAP fighters volleyed off all of their Sparrows at 40nm aimed at the 12x MiG29s approaching them at high speed. They had less success against the much more maneuverable MiG29s as only 3 MiGs succumbed to the 16 Sparrows that were launched. The remaining 9+ MiG29 began to turn towards my fighters again to resume their attack and began launching their medium range missiles in return fire.

Luckily at this point the 2 F18s coming inbound from the AEW CAP station were able to launch their 4 sparrows, partially disrupting the MiG29's attack and causing some of the enemy missiles to lose guidance and self destruct. However I still lost 3 F18s to the barrage of medium range AAMs. 2 of my last 4 Sparrows connected taking down 2 more MiG29s. There were now 7 remaining MiG29s closing to visual range with my 7 remaining F18s (the 5 survivors of the SW CAP plus the 2 reinforcements closing from the AEW CAP).

As the short range furball erupted just south of my SW CAP station, the E-2 reported more bogeys approaching from the SE but we could also see a huge number (at least 30) low flying attack aircraft flying at 200ft and passing unmolested far beneath the dogfight that was still ongoing between the MiG29's and my F18s. I had to engage the low-flying attackers before they could get in range to hit my CVBG.

Meanwhile 4 of my remaining F18s had finally gotten into the air over the CVBG (after being delayed by landing traffic), and I immediately directed them south at low level to intercept the incoming attackers. The MiG23 bombers were easy pickings for my F18s, but there were so damned many of them I knew my 4 fighters were heavily outnumbered and I wouldn't be able to hold them all off. I had another 2 F18s just getting airborne as well, which I also directed into the massive stream of low flying MiG23s.

Despite my 6 newly launched F18s wrecking havoc on the once orderly formations of low altitude attackers, leakers were still getting thru, and some were within 25nm from my carrier. So it was time to go weapons free with all my SAMs.

Fearing the worst, I also began launching my last few remaining fighters. I had now sortied all 50 F18s that I had begun the day with and had absolutely no remaining reserves (crossing my fingers on that one) as the first 3 F18s that had RTB after the first air engagement of the scenario were still about 30 min from being ready .

There were now 6 (with 4 more just getting airborne) F18s swarming to engage 30+ MiG23s in a small box of airspace at just 200ft altitude over the waves and about 20-30nm south of my carrier. To add to that swarm, my AEGIS cruiser and AAW DDG had started slinging SAMs into that box as quickly as they could. It was no surprise that the airspace in that small box became an almost incomprehensible swirling mess of twisting and turning aircraft and streaking missiles.

Meanwhile, high above, the dogfights in the SE & SW CAP zones were coming to a close. I had lost another 3 Hornets to the formidable MiG29s in the SW CAP (6 total in this engagement) and another F18 over in the SE CAP area but I had downed 12 Fulcrums and a bunch more MiG23s.

So, with the sky now cleared of high level fighters, I directed the surviving CAP fighters to dive down to sea level and engage the last of the approaching attack aircraft with their remaining gun ammunition.

I was truly amazed to see that I had managed to prevent any of the attack aircraft from launching their weapons at my carrier group. I suspect that I had gotten lucky and chosen just about the right moment to start firing my SAMs. The SAMs, combined with the volley of Sparrow missiles coming from the fighters that had just taken off from the carrier, must have looked like a hail of fire coming at them from straight ahead just as the lead wave of attackers were approaching their final attack runs.

Many of the attacking aircraft had split off to the west and east to evade missiles. Many had already died. Those that survived tried to loop around to approach the CVBG again but were intercepted by the F18s coming outward from the carrier group and had at that point closed to sidewinder range. Eventually, the attackers also had to suffer from attacks from the rear as my surviving CAP fighters trapped them from escaping.

Just 10 minutes earlier this coordinated massive airstrike had the Midway battle group on the ropes and teetering on the edge of disaster, but the tide had turned, and that small box of sky in front of my CVBG had become a slaughter house.

After mopping up the remaining scattered attack aircraft (and losing 1 more F18 to enemy cannon fire during the low altitude melee), most of my F18s returned to their floating air base. I found 4 fighters that still had a few missiles left, and kept them aloft as a make-shift CAP just in case the Cuban Air Force still had a little fight left in it.

There actually was one final threat to deal with as well. As mentioned earlier, 2 Cuban missile boats to the southwest had survived the SLAM ER attack and were still moving Northeast towards my battle group. And, I had absolutely no anti ship ordnance available to hit them with.

So with few other options, I pulled two F18s that still had gun ammo left out of the landing queue and sent them off to strafe the leading missile boat which was traveling about 15nm ahead of it's other surviving sister. I made sure to set the doctrine for this 2 aircraft flight to allow strafing of surface targets and had them attack from wave skimming height. After several passes they had exhausted their ammo and left the missile boat with reported medium damage, no fire, and moderate flooding. More importantly she had been slowed to just 11kts. I may have damaged her missile launcher tubes as well, as she appeared to be nearing launch range but never did launch any missiles.

I contemplated sending two more of my precious few remaining CAP fighters to finish the job but decided against it as I was still worried about another air attack. Instead I detached a frigate from the battle group and sent it SW at flank speed to intercept the 2 missile boats. It approached within gun range of the damaged missile boat about 1 hour and 20 min later and finished it off with a barrage of 127mm HE shells.

At this point the last remaining undamaged missile boat had closed to within 45nm or so of my carrier group and launched it's 4 Styx anti ship missiles before my frigate could close to cannon range. Luckily I had recently had another flight of F18s which had finished re-arming and was airborne and in position circling over the enemy missile boats keeping an eye out for this exact eventuality.

I quickly ordered them to dive and engage the 4 incoming anti ship missiles. Their initial salvo of 4 Sparrows downed two ASMs and then they were able to close range on full afterburner to chase down the remaining two with sidewinders. That ended what turned out to be the final threat.

Scenario Review
Although it was a really close call at one point, and some of the attackers had almost broken through my defense, the final result was a Triumph (1820pts) for the Good Guys as the ships of the Midway Group escaped unscathed and the Cuban Air Force had been utterly eviscerated having lost 118 fighters and attack aircraft, along with 18 missile boats + 2 submarines.

The victory hadn't come cheaply however as the Midway Battle Group lost 14x F18As, 20% of her air wing. She also expended about 250 missiles of various types, 9100 rounds of Vulcan 20mm cannon ammo (clearly a lot of close range dogfighting had occurred with F18s that were out of missiles!), and 138 rounds of 5 inch (127mm) cannon ammo.

Lastly, there are a few things I that I might have done slightly differently. The fact that I used 9100 rounds of 20mm cannon ammo is ridiculous. Perhaps, if I had been able to manage my missiles better I could have avoided having to fight so many up-close and personal gun duels, and thus may have been able to reduce my F18 losses.

There's two things I could have done to help remedy this. First, those 8x F18s that started the scenario needing 3 hours to ready were being readied with Standard CAP loadouts. It would have taken the same 3 hours to change those loadouts to Heavy CAP. I should have done that. That would have meant an extra 32 Sparrow missiles available for that final huge air battle.

Secondly, hindsight is always 20-20, but perhaps I should have been more liberal in the use of my SAMs. I wanted to make sure I had enough in inventory to defend myself against incoming Vampires if the Cubans had managed to launch airborne anti-ship missiles against my CVBG. I couldn't have known (or maybe I could have?) that the Cubans didn't actually have any long range airborne anti-ship missiles and that their aircraft would have to close to less than 15nm to attack me. If I had known that, I would have been much more liberal with the use of SAMs against aircraft, especially after I had taken out most of their missile patrol boats.

The final tally:

SIDE: USA
===========================================================
LOSSES:
-------------------------------
6x F/A-18A Hornet
6x F/A-18A Hornet
2x F/A-18A Hornet

SIDE: Cuba
===========================================================
LOSSES:
-------------------------------
4x PSKR Stenka [Pr.205P Tarantul]
36x MiG-23MS Flogger E
6x RK Osa I [Pr.205]
12x MiG-21bis Fishbed L
12x MiG-21MF Fishbed J
6x RK Osa II [Pr.205ER]
10x MiG-23ML Flogger G
2x PSKA Zhuk [Pr.1400M Grif]
2x S 725 [PL-641 Foxtrot]
12x MiG-29 Fulcrum A
36x MiG-23BN Flogger H

[JCM3000]

I just realised this AAR is super long. I'll try to be not concise next time.

[Gunner98]

Another great AAR, well written and well played.

You were wise to keep a grip on your SAMs, some scenario designers like to mix things up a bit, and if there were any Soviet reinforcements, Su-24's or an SSGN in the area you would have needed your SAM coverage.

I think you managed the air battle fairly well, the landing pattern issue is a hard one to learn and we all do it. The one area where You should re-look is your Hornet vs Fulcrum fight, your casualties were pretty high there. Judicious use of BVR or even sniper shots with RIMs from your ships to disrupt the Mig SARH shots, this happened by accident with your pair of reinforcements but, it is effective when staged well.

Did you have any EA-6B's or ECM aircraft?

I remember playing this scenario quite a while back, it certainly simplifies the problem, but I've got a couple issues. The Midway never carried more than 3 Sqns of F/A-18, the other two were A-6Es - but you should have had some assistance from Florida based USAF, USN and even USCG forces, in the way of radar coverage, ECM and more fighters.

Nonetheless, its a good scenario to learn A2A fighting off of a Carrier.

If you like this theatre you should try Feltan's classic 'Havana Daydreamin', as a mater of fact you've inspired me to go and give that another go. My Caribbean Fury 1 'Hot Tamale's is another example, but more complex with Panama, Belize and Gitmo involved.

Thanks

[JCM3000]

Hi Gunner,

Yeah I definitely think I could've done a better job managing my BVR missile use, particularly in that MiG29 engagement. And, that sniper idea with the long range RIMs to throw off enemies using SARH is a great idea! I just used the trick during an engagement with some Iranian F14s in the Brass Drum scenario that I'm currently in the midst of. So thx for that!

As far as prowlers go, none available in the Midway scenario. The mission briefing states that the Midway's attack squadrons (and presumably the EW squadrons) have been taken to replace heavy losses to air wings in the carriers engaged in the North Atlantic. Instead you've been temporarily assigned several just called up reservist F18 squadrons and a newly activated F18e super hornet squadron. So 1 of the 5 F18 squadrons in this scenario are super Hornets.

[HalfLifeExpert]

USS Midway vs Cuba is easily my favorite CMANO scenario, thanks for making this AAR.

I basically learned Carrier Operations in this scenario, it is an excellent 'trial by fire' for tackling command of a Carrier Battle Group.

[Excroat3]

Thanks for the great AAR! Always love it when people play through my scenarios. To address some of the comments, I didn't include any Florida ANG because while it would be realistic, it would make the scenario far too easy for the player. The original version of this scenario also had many more ship-based Harpoons, but I found that in my playtests, you could just dispatch the Cuban patrol boats much too easily. As for the aircraft stationed on the USS Midway, while I do agree that it is unrealistic, the book that the scenario is based on (The War That Never Was), specifically states that the Midway only has reserve F/A-18 squadrons. The Gladiator squadron was the result of a bit of personal liberty I took with the scenario.

[HalfLifeExpert]

Yes, the CVBG in this scenario is not ideal or realistic for a reason. This battle takes place about 3 weeks into the war, and the US Navy, while not losing, is being stretched to it's limits.

Upon Castro giving indications that he may bring Cuba into the war, the US scraps together what forces it can to make this battle group. Plus I think much of ANG would be ether forward deployed to Europe or held in reserve for air defense of CONUS in the event of Soviet Bombers coming in.

In this fictional war, with this scenario's added twist of Cuba joining the conflict, the battle of Cuba against the Midway is a very critical one. The loss of the Midway CVBG would mean that Castro would effectively control the Caribbean, as few, if any, USN assets can be spared from Europe, the Pacific, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

Such a victory would be spectacular politically for the REDFOR Countries involved in the war (Warsaw Pact + North Korea, Libya and Cuba)

[JCM3000]

Great scenario Excroat,

Realistic or not, it was a great fun scenario. Keep up the good work!