Scenario for playtest: Senkaku Islands Clash 2019

[BeirutDude]

OK, I am putting this out a bit earlier than I would like to as I've been alerted for Hurricane Ops starting Monday a.m. and likely will be out of pocket for a week or two. So I had the sceanrio 99 and 44/100s % the way I wanted with just a few tweaks made today. I would have liked to play it a few times (and ask AlexGGGG to take a look as well) but I figure if someone wants to look at it you could be doing it while I'm working the storm. So might be a week or so before I can respond, so please be patient.

Scenario the Tariffs and work economic disruption lead to increased tension and nationalism across the globe. With major problems in Chinese ports due to slowing trade the PRC whips up nationalism over the Diaoyu (Senkaku) islands leading to a Falklands like amphibious assault in November 2019. Japan is not prepared to let that aggression stand and unlike the Falklands the U.S. (honoring their treaty obligations) will be a full belligerent. The World;s three largest economies are poised to square off over 7 square miles of island...

[Excroat3]

Giving this one a quick look through, some comments:

I'm not sure if you want to give the player pre-chosen loadouts or not, as you give some aircraft loadouts and keep others on reserve. With the amount of build up that's been happening, you can probably argue the point that those crews have their aircraft loaded up and ready to launch on a moment's notice.

On that same note, not many aircraft are listed as down for maintenance. While again, you can argue that crews will keep their planes in top shape, that won't be true after 2 days of combat. Although it hurts initial readiness, I would make a certain number of planes unavaliable to reflect those high-intensity operations

At Anderson AFB, the B-1Bs are from 1986, rather than 2018. This restricts them from a lot of loadouts, including JASSM

Just a suggestion for now, but with the US about to go up aganist a near-peer enemy for the first time in a while, you would have thought that they would have brought some OECM aircraft [:D]

For whatever mission the J-20s are on, I would turn off their radars, so they are harder to detect

Make sure that the Chinese are free to fire on any unidentified air contact, so I don't always get the first shot in while they wait to ID my planes


That's it for now, on to the real battle!

[AceOfSpadeszzzzzz]

Long-range loadout for J-20 will makes them much easier to be detected.
Formation for Liaoning CSG is weird since PLAN units are teleported into the game.

[Excroat3]

Got a Triumph with 23 hours left. Didn't even spend 12 hours with my ships in the zone! This scenario was a lot of fun, really demonstrated the power of 5th gen aircraft. My stealth fighters did the bulk of the AAW work, while my F-15s and F-16s mopped up tankers, bombers, and missile salvoes. The missile attacks were tense, only 1 airbase was hit (with 2 warheads, basically no damage), but I lost the Blue Ridge to a DF-26. After that, I opened up with JASSM strikes, and that was the end of the Chinese air force. Every coastal SAM, missile site, and radar I could find got hit, as well as the runways and runway access points for every Chinese airbase. Later, all that was left was the 2 Chinese SAGs, which had been shrugging off near constant missile strikes by SLAMs from P-8s and F/A-18s. Eventually, the missile spam was too much. I actually sunk the Chinese carrier with cluster bombs from my A-10s, after it tanked literally everything else I threw at it. The second SAG was less interesting, falling victim to SLAM and HARM attacks. Some more points:

The Chinese seem to shoot their anti ship missiles at really uncertain targets, resulting in staggered and random missile attacks that came nowhere near my fleet. Not sure how to fix this.
The 2nd Chinese SAG also wasn't firing on my aircraft, even though they were quite clearly in range. I went into the editor and was able to fix this by unassigning them from their mission, and giving them an auto-attack order.
Even though I knew there were subs around, I never encountered one. Maybe they are too far away from my ships, or I just got a lucky teleport.

Again, thanks for the great scenario!

[LMychajluk]

Nice scenario! I really like the modern ones.

One note. Not sure it was intentional or not, but the side scenario had Fuel State set to Joker+20%. It seemed to be causing me some odd behavior where some units would go off and try to refuel, even if the tanker was farther away than the target or home base and they still had 80% fuel left. Going to re-set the doctrine on my next play through and see if it comes up again.

[BeirutDude]

So have a quick break home (God what a mess I came from and am going back too next week)...

So first thanks for looking it over!!!!!!!

I'm not sure if you want to give the player pre-chosen loadouts or not, as you give some aircraft loadouts and keep others on reserve.

Most of the aircraft with load outs are long lead time or support. The Fighters/Multirole with less than 6 hours ready time I wanted to give the player the freedom to choose.

With the amount of build up that's been happening, you can probably argue the point that those crews have their aircraft loaded up and ready to launch on a moment's notice.

I totally agree but I'm trying to strike a balance between giving the players the freedom to choose vs. realism. I could load them out and then folks would have to change them. I would like to think this would give them the opportunity to experiment with different load outs.

On that same note, not many aircraft are listed as down for maintenance. While again, you can argue that crews will keep their planes in top shape, that won't be true after 2 days of combat. Although it hurts initial readiness, I would make a certain number of planes unavaliable to reflect those high-intensity operations

Yeah, actually those are the reinforcing squadrons and I assumed the hanger queens were left behind. Each Squadron has between 8 and 10 aircraft that have arrived. Now one could argue being away from home base without all the spare parts and regular servicing crews some would go down on deployment. Again a balance had to be struck for play. If you note the squadrons with 12 aircraft do have some down for maintenance.

At Anderson AFB, the B-1Bs are from 1986, rather than 2018. This restricts them from a lot of loadouts, including JASSM

Yeah, I struggled with B-1B which to use wondering if 2018 was to new for the scenario. I can, and will, switch that out pretty easily! Thanks!!!!

Just a suggestion for now, but with the US about to go up aganist a near-peer enemy for the first time in a while, you would have thought that they would have brought some OECM aircraft

I looked in the USMC Japanese deployed OOB for some Growlers and didn't see any Growler Squadrons. Maybe I'll throw in a USN Squadron (6-8 aircraft or so)

For whatever mission the J-20s are on, I would turn off their radars, so they are harder to detect

Oooops, maybe that's why I dropped so many of them! [:D]

Make sure that the Chinese are free to fire on any unidentified air contact, so I don't always get the first shot in while they wait to ID my planes

Good idea, as I was shooting down a huge number of them (of course they were getting a lot of mine!)

[BeirutDude]

Nice scenario! I really like the modern ones.

Thank you. I enjoyed designing this one (though it scares the crap out of me in real life!).

Not sure it was intentional or not, but the side scenario had Fuel State set to Joker+20%. It seemed to be causing me some odd behavior where some units would go off and try to refuel, even if the tanker was farther away than the target or home base and they still had 80% fuel left. Going to re-set the doctrine on my next play through and see if it comes up again.

I did set it to Joker, reason was I had some J-10s crashing from running out of fuel. Maybe I'll tweak that a bit and just set Joker for the J-10s and J-11s?

[BeirutDude]

Long-range loadout for J-20 will makes them much easier to be detected.
Formation for Liaoning CSG is weird since PLAN units are teleported into the game.

Will work on the J-20s, maybe send some tanker aircraft over the Senkakus so they can have a non-long range load out. Also turn off their radars.

I set the relative positions of the escorts so they should have reposited themselves around the CV??????? Thanks, I'll look at that again.

[BeirutDude]

Got a Triumph with 23 hours left. Didn't even spend 12 hours with my ships in the zone!

Note, tweak the Victory Conditions. Maybe double what the Japanese/U.S. need now.

This scenario was a lot of fun,

Great! That makes me very happy! [:D] [8D] [:)]

really demonstrated the power of 5th gen aircraft. My stealth fighters did the bulk of the AAW work, while my F-15s and F-16s mopped up tankers, bombers, and missile salvoes. The missile attacks were tense, only 1 airbase was hit (with 2 warheads, basically no damage), but I lost the Blue Ridge to a DF-26. After that, I opened up with JASSM strikes, and that was the end of the Chinese air force. Every coastal SAM, missile site, and radar I could find got hit, as well as the runways and runway access points for every Chinese airbase. Later, all that was left was the 2 Chinese SAGs, which had been shrugging off near constant missile strikes by SLAMs from P-8s and F/A-18s. Eventually, the missile spam was too much. I actually sunk the Chinese carrier with cluster bombs from my A-10s, after it tanked literally everything else I threw at it. The second SAG was less interesting, falling victim to SLAM and HARM attacks. Some more points:

The Chinese seem to shoot their anti ship missiles at really uncertain targets, resulting in staggered and random missile attacks that came nowhere near my fleet. Not sure how to fix this.

The 2nd Chinese SAG also wasn't firing on my aircraft, even though they were quite clearly in range. I went into the editor and was able to fix this by unassigning them from their mission, and giving them an auto-attack order.

Hmmmm, have to look at that, come to think of it I think I've seen the same.

Even though I knew there were subs around, I never encountered one. Maybe they are too far away from my ships, or I just got a lucky teleport.

Yeah you got lucky! In one play test I sank 4 and one of them got the Kaga.

Again, thanks for the great scenario!

Thank you and with your suggestions It will be much better! Might be a week or so until I can get back into tweaking it.

[BeirutDude]

Updated to version 1.2 further below in the thread (this download Version 1.1 has been deleted)...

1. Added USN F-18G Growlers to the MCAS
2. Changed the B-1Bs to more modern ones and loaded them out with JASSMs
3. Turned off PLAAF J-20C radars and made standard CAP with P-15 AAMs
4. Made PRC weapons firing free and optimistic with engage opportunity targets on.
5. Moved Southern Tanker mission southward to better refuel J-20Cs
6. Most air missions now Bingo Fuel (J-10 and J-11s now Joker +10% reserve)
7. Redid the PRC CV Group formation relative positions (but they looked good. Maybe they loose them in teleporting?).
8. Increased Triumph VPs to 25,000.
9. Increased Range for SAG/CV SAG HQ-10A/B SAMs to maximum range (was 30 nm which may have been the issue)

I think that address most of the points brought up. Thanks for your help so far guys and if you can play it through I think this will be better with your help.

[Whicker]

great briefing, I sent you a PM with some minor corrections.

[BeirutDude]

Whicker, Thanks I made those corrections! Sometimes you proof read what you think you wrote rather than what you actually did. Also I was kind of tired the night I did that time line. Some of what you pointed out I adjusted what I wrote to make it clearer. For example "...Japanese Coast Guard, 'guard vessel'..."

[Whicker]

there is a Patriot battery at Naha that starts moving around as soon as the game starts. I think this is because its original station is under water for some reason so it is trying to go to its station but can't - so it just moves around. I moved the entire Naha base east a bit and then its station was on ground and it was happy. I don't quite understand the station concept though, and when I moved it and highlighted the patriot the little red f didn't show up like it did before I moved it.

[BeirutDude]

Well that base location was taken straight from the database. As to the Patriots I found it and locked him down with a manual 0 knots order.

[Whicker]

also you have engage opportunity targets set to yes for the entire side, I'm not sure I like that, when there are ground units it seems like they need that (if they are not on a mission) but in my experience if I have that set to yes on an air strike on a specific target those units might expend there munitions on something else they happen to fly over vs the actual target I want them to attack.

Again I don't quite get all the little things this effects, just my 2 cents.

Maybe you do the opposite and have it set to yes for the side but then turn it off on an actual planned mission? haven't thought of that, that may be a good idea. Actually, now that I think of it, one reason I think I didn't like it set to yes for an entire side was that cruise missiles would suddenly launch from a ship at some random target that came available.

[Whicker]

As to the Patriots moving I did my best to stop that but the game doesn't allow fixed units

hmm. I've never had problems with facilities moving unless I told them to. If I just place a patriot somewhere I have never had it start moving on its own. Same for any other facility unless I assigned it to a mission. I suppose it could have to do with the Engage Opportunity Targets Yes -as I never have that on globally. Even when I turned it off in this scen the patriot still was moving - it was only when I moved its station that it stopped moving.

But I'm still new to the editor so maybe I haven't gotten that far to notice units not holding there position.

[BeirutDude]

also you have engage opportunity targets set to yes for the entire side, I'm not sure I like that, when there are ground units it seems like they need that (if they are not on a mission) but in my experience if I have that set to yes on an air strike on a specific target those units might expend there munitions on something else they happen to fly over vs the actual target I want them to attack.

Again I don't quite get all the little things this effects, just my 2 cents.

Maybe you do the opposite and have it set to yes for the side but then turn it off on an actual planned mission? haven't thought of that, that may be a good idea. Actually, now that I think of it, one reason I think I didn't like it set to yes for an entire side was that cruise missiles would suddenly launch from a ship at some random target that came available.

Actually, I JUST adjusted that with the afternoon update, if it cause problems that is a simple fix to turn off.

[BeirutDude]

I got the patriot fixed. Gave the unit a manual 0 knot movement order.

[BeirutDude]

OK the doctrine changes had some unintended consequences and am turning them off now.

[BeirutDude]

I've never had problems with facilities moving unless I told them to. If I just place a patriot somewhere I have never had it start moving on its own.

Here is what happened. I originally had the Patriots in their own group, but then for visibility later grouped them with the Naha AFB units. That changed the relative position for the units in the group and thus they want to move to their group position. If you have an individual unit they don't move but it is good to group units to keep the clutter down around airbases and such. So it had to do with the units having been part of one group them moved to another but they still had their relative positions assigned.