New Scenario for Testing: Mediterranean Fury 4 - Secure the Flank

[AndrewJ]

Hmmm... Welcome to Crete, Mr. Tango. Just checking to see if your papers are in order. Allow me to stamp your passport with this convenient Stingray!

[Gunner98]

[8D] You know the old saying... it takes two to tango...[:D]

[Vulcan607]

On the next version can we have a few RAF ready or readying, a ready ASW helicopter with the Bainbridge group and this is a bit naughty but do you think a few cross border raids by Syrian helicopter gunships would keep Jordan and Turkey occupied. Oh and finally Israeli forces seem more active would it be possible for them to do a bit of laser designation it seems like something they would do[;)]. Oh ad I’ve had a look Jordan and Turkey both use the M110 howitzer would any of these have the range to engage Syrian airbases and SAM sites assuming any are deployed in the vicinity.

[Gunner98]

-Ready ASW Helos - OK no probs
-Syrian AH raids - maybe, need to think on that a bit.
-Israeli designating - I don't think that fits with the spirit of AF2 going to visit to keep them out of the war
-M110 only have a range of about 18Km - so no. That's one reason they were starting to fade into obsolescence by the 90s. 155mm had 3 times the ROF and more range with better projectiles to come. And the USAF needed the 8" barrels to make GBU-28s[:D]

B

[Vulcan607]

Just reread my message that should be RAF tankers ready or readying not ready readying! I still haven’t learned not to post messengers just before I fall asleep! Ok thanks for the other stuff I was just remembering that the big m107 and m110s did some counter SAM site work in Vietnam and well I like artillery especially anything big!

[ZoroastroBR]

Hey Gunner, should there be double units in Jordan? The SAMs and Radars are on top of each other, one you can control and the other is as an ally.

Edit: There is a weird unit shadow... Not sure if it's in my end or in the scenario. Basically if I click twice on a SAM or Radar that is in Israel or Jordan I can see in the right panel two versions (sides) of the same unit. Does that make any sense?

PS: Any chance you could add AC damage for next version?

[Gunner98]

OK

That's probably a housekeeping issue. Will fix, but in the meantime: Select them all - hit 'P' to remove them as contacts and the real ones should reappear in a second or so of game time.

AC damage is on the way.

[ZoroastroBR]

Oh, ok. I edited the OP btw

[ZoroastroBR]

One more thing. The scenario is extremely laggy for me. Way more than all of your other scenarios, but it doesn't look that big. Task Manager is showing over 1 GB of RAM usage, which is lower than Med Furry 1, for example, but the game runs fine in MF1. For this scenario everything is very slow, even to open menus or move the map with the simulation on pause.

Edit: It's probably my PC. Restarted the game a couple of times an it's better now

[AndrewJ]

The weekend brought a little more time for Command, so here’s a quick update:

POLITICAL MANEUVERS

A few hours into the night I’m informed that a political delegation will be travelling to Israel on Air Force 2. They’re coming from the direction of Italy, and they’ve asked for an escort to make sure they’ve arrived safely. Evidently the situation with Israel is quite sensitive, and they need to conduct face-to-face negotiations. Up ‘til now my F-15s in Egypt have mostly stayed at home, but now they are tasked with this mission. One flight heads directly for the incoming airliner, settling on its wing as escort, and two more flights (and a supporting tanker) head for the Lebanese coast, just north of Israel. I figure that if the Syrians attempt to interfere, they will have to come that way, so I can cut them off long before they can threaten AF 2. Nothing happens, however, and AF 2 lands uneventfully. Somewhat disappointed, the fighter pilots fly along the coast and beat up the local Syrian CAP, before heading home.


NAVAL ACTIVITY

My task groups continue on their planned courses through the darkness, and AWACS keeps a constant eye on the Syrian and WP ships, but they are all staying close to home in Latakia for the moment. My three SSNs are slowly closing in on them, taking their time to be discrete, and in the small hours of the morning the LA starts getting good sonar contacts on the Krivak which is patrolling off the coast, screening the heavies from people like me. The LA’s torpedoes have a longer range than the Krivak’s sonar, and one long-range shot manages to kill the frigate without drawing any return fire. A couple of Petyas come to investigate during the next hour, and they each get torpedoed in turn. However, my attempts to close in on the heavies are foiled by the patrolling ASW helicopters. I can hear their dipping sonars, and I know they have MAD, and they’re so close together that any attempt to infiltrate further will almost certainly get me caught. My skippers reluctantly admit they aren’t going to get in, and they patrol quietly beyond the helicopters’ search area. ( The heavies are stopped at the moment, so they are very quiet, and my subs don’t have a detection on them yet. As a player I could theoretically open fire with a BOL shot, since I can see the enemy on radar, but in reality my subs wouldn’t have this information.)

I have better luck near the west end of Crete, where the Cumberland (one of the good British ASW ships) is heading to meet up with the two oilers which are currently making preparations to get underway in Souda. Sonar operators report a good contact ahead, and as the Cumberland slows to 2 knots to listen, they assess it as a confirmed SS. I doubt it’s a Kilo, or I probably wouldn’t have detected it so far away, but I could easily see one of the lesser subs coming down from the Black Sea – possibly a Tango or the like. The Cumberland’s helicopter heads out, and shortly radios back the news of a good hit and breakup sounds, so they hurry home to paint a sub on their nose. (Postwar records show this was actually a Foxtrot, not a Tango, but the latter sounds better in the record books. When in doubt, overclaim!)


THE MAIN ATTACK ON LATAKIA

The major strike against the Latakia area starts getting underway long before dawn. Slow-moving support aircraft start taking off to preposition themselves, and F-14s head out to screen, while attack planes from the Ike, Foch, Souda, Egypt, and Incirlik all converge in a perfectly coordinate precision operation, designed to eliminate land and sea based targets with surgical efficiency. Hah! What really happens is a haphazard mess of miscommunication (no, go to those tankers!), forgotten orders (Sir, didn’t you want the F-18s at Souda to attack too?), and botched timings that results in a jumbled 300 mile long string of aircraft trying to sort out their positions and sequences. Even the navy’s not immune, as I cleverly poise my consolidated Iowa battlegroup just within attack range, only to realize that I’ve been looking at the range ring for the four long-range Otomats. The dozens of Harpoons on board are still 25 nm out of range! It takes a sudden flank-speed dash to try and get into position in time, while planes refuelling off the Cypriot coast straggle in to their loiter positions. Finally, everything’s sort of ready in the growing light of dawn.

My previous attack on Latakia (MF #2) made use of a large number of TLAMs, and I don’t have so many this time, but I have far more HARMs than before, so they will make up the balance. First blood goes to the Etendards, coming in low with short-ranged Exocets to engage patrol boats and draw enemy SAM fire. Once the SA-10s start opening up the wave of HARMs is fired in reply, crippling many of the land-based SAMs, and then the Harpoons and TLAMs (and my four problem-causing Otomats) arrive en-masse. Plenty get shot down, but enough make it through to sink the Russian heavies, and destroy one of the runways and the aircraft in open parking at Latakia.

With the major defences down, and almost no response from the Syrian air-force, attack planes are able to engage the remains of the lesser air-defence units, using LGBs and Mavericks from beyond their envelope. The it’s the turn of the squadron of F-5s in Cyprus to arrive in the morning light, and attack radars, broken SAM sites, and Styx batteries all along the coast. (Speaking of Styxes, they never fired at me, nor did any of the enemy ships. My task group kept its radars and jammers off this time, and always had a good jammer plane orbiting overhead, so I suspect the enemy never had a good fix on me, even though I was in OTH radar range.) With little opposition in the north, some of my F-14s focus southward, and start lobbing Phoenixes at the MiG-25s orbiting on the far side of the southern SAM belt in the Damascus area. Under their protection, attackers with SLAMs are able to engage some of the SA-5s around Homs, damaging their radars even if they don’t destroy the site entirely. (The SA-5s were a real pest earlier in the afternoon, but seem to have used most of their missiles by now.)


SECONDARY ATTACKS

As the main body of Latakia attackers begins straggling home, pausing to refuel before the long flight back home (over 800 miles to the Ike!), the Turks launch their attack on the Aleppo area. Recce flights over the northern Syrian air bases haven’t drawn any response, so the mix of F-5s, F-104s, and F-4s proceeds in reasonable confidence. The Turks don’t have any HARMs for this attack, and the Americans at Incirlik used all of theirs at Latakia, so there won’t be any SAM suppression. The Turks have to come in low. Fortunately, they’re only facing older SA-3s and SA-2s, not anything modern, and they rush in with rockets and bombs of all types, and soon they’ve left the Aleppo SAM defences in ruins.

Not to be outdone, the Jordanians follow up with their own strike. They don’t want to get deep into dense belt of low-level SAMs near Damascus itself, but there is one set of three SA-2s and an SA-5 exposed without low-level cover near Dumayr, and those are a worthwhile target. Like the Turks, the Jordanians have to attack without the benefit of ARMs, but their concentrated attack swiftly flattens their objectives, and they turn to retire. The Syrian fighters here haven’t been hit as severely as the ones up north, however, and two flights of MiG-25s scramble to intercept their retreat. Fortunately, two flights of American F-15s have flown in from Egypt, coming in from the south via Saudi airspace, and they manage to shoot down the MiGs before they can get into the retiring attack planes.


CURRENT SITUATION

It’s now noon, and the last few planes from the morning strike have landed and begun to re-arm. Only a modest CAP is up to protect the AEW and Elint craft near Incirlik and Akrotiri.

The distant Ike has turned and is steaming towards the western end of its patrol zone, ready to head for the Atlantic when its patrol time is finished. The Foch, now grouped with the Bainbridge, continues to close on Cyprus, ready to support further attacks. My resupply ships in Souda have left port, and joined up with my command group and the Cumberland to steam for the canal. The Kearsarge amphibious group has met up with the few remaining unassigned Brits (their oiler, the Type 42, and the Andromeda), and they are now turning SE to escort their supply ship to the canal as well. P-3s are screening these transits, looking for lurking subs, and the Nimrods are patrolling the canal zone, but so far nothing has turned up yet.

The LA did find the second Kilo, just east of Cyprus, and sank it. They now have one FF, two ASW patrol boats, and an SSK to their credit, which isn’t bad for half a day’s work. It, and the other two subs, continue to patrol.

Syria's northern air defences are gone now, and their only remaining SA-5s are down with destroyed radars. This means I should have freedom to operate at high altitude, provided I stay out of SA-2 range. With more HARMs reloading for an afternoon strike, I think the writing is on the wall for the Syrian air defence network.

[Gunner98]

Thanks Andrew

I think I will need to add in another surprise or two just to keep things interesting.

cheers.

B

[AndrewJ]

Progress resumes...

AFTERNOON ATTACKS

By mid afternoon, most of my aircraft are ready again, and the reduction of the Syrian air-defences recommences. Aircraft on the Ike, which is now sailing west, are not part of this attack, but F-18s and A-7s from Souda, F-18s and Super Etendards on the Foch, as well as attackers from Turkey and Egypt are ready to go. (The Jordanians, with their long ready times, won’t be ready again before the fading light of evening, so they will not be part of these strikes.)

I have plenty of HARM-carrying attackers, and they have enough missiles to devote two to every known battery of the SAM net. The aging system of SA-2s and SA-3s is essentially defenceless against them, and even the few SA-6s don’t manage to knock down the incoming missiles, and that leaves the network open to low-level attack by cluster bombs, iron bombs, and rockets. By late afternoon the known SAM sites have all been struck, and it’s safe to consider them out-of-service for at least a day or two.

A few of the lesser Syrian fighters make it into the air, but they don’t last long in the face of numerous American strikers, each carrying a pair of AMRAAMs. Aircraft bombing the air-defences near the Syrian airfields spot a few MiG-23s in outdoor parking at Marj Rhayill , and large numbers of Su-24s at the T-4 Airbase at Tiyas, but overflights by RF-4s and other planes find little at the remaining airfields. The aircraft parked outside can be hit easily enough (and some strikers are diverted to start doing that), but the problem is that the Syrians have numerous hardened shelters, and we have no way to know what’s lurking inside them. There could be surprises almost anywhere. I could start trying to plink shelters, but I could be hitting empties as easily as hitting full ones, so that may be a waste of ordnance. Instead, F-15Es and other aircraft with heavy LGBs, and F-4s with 2,000 lb iron bombs, begin bombing the runways of the major bases, hoping to throttle any remaining air activity that way. By the time night falls, all the military airfields are shut.


NAVAL TRANSIT OPERATIONS

There's little left to bomb in Syria at this point, so after putting up a modest CAP, the remainder of my pilots are given a chance to rest. No further Syrian air activity is observed.

At sea, my ships continue to advance towards their destinations. P-3s and Nimrods are working near the Suez Canal, and P-3s and S-3s are covering the path of the retiring Eisenhower. Despite the presence of numerous biologicals and false contacts between Sicily and Libya, no enemy submarines turn up there, and the Eisenhower makes its way to the rendezvous zone without interference.

My logistical ships also arrive at the Suez uneventfully, to await the arrival of the Nimitz. A few hours after they arrive ASW operators report a very faint contact at the northern edge of the Suez sonobuoy field, but it happens just as the plane is heading home to refuel, and by the time the next plane can get there the contact has faded out, and the new plane isn't able to recover it. The mystery contact (a Tango, it turns out) remains at large when the scenario ends shortly afterwards.

[Gunner98]

Thanks Andrew. Should have a chance to take a look at this one again next weekend.

Cheers

[AndrewJ]

Here's a few notes to go with it.

Playthrough

Odd as it sounds, I was a little unsure about my orders with respect to Syria and Russia. Were they still the same as in MF #2? While the moves of the Eisenhower Group, the situation with the Garibaldi, and the positioning of the AOEs to meet the Nimitz are all spelled out in detail in the briefing, very little is actually said about Syria except that we are to "neutralize" it. An explicit order to sink the Russians / cripple the IADS / shoot down the airforce no later than time X would probably help flesh out the Side Briefing. A 'red text' sentence to have the AOEs in the Replen RV zone by end of game might be helpful too.

I suspect anyone coming into this from MF #2 is going to have a reaction like "What? I just sank those!", when they find they're up against an almost identical target set to the one they just defeated in the earlier scenario. I was initially worried that I might not have enough to bust into Latakia again (fewer TLAMs, fewer SAMs, etc.), but the player can bring in large numbers of airborne anti-shipping missiles from the carriers and Souda, along with very large numbers of HARMs, so it turns out they have plenty of resources for the job. (Possibly too many, in the case of the HARMs. I had over 150 left at the end of the scenario, and that was after using 150 in the game.)

I was very proud of taking my oilers west around Crete, instead of east, in order to avoid subs, so it was a lot of fun to find a Foxtrot right in my path, having anticipated my move. (I did send a bunch of S-3s to investigate the east coast of the island, where I expected the sub, but of course there was nothing there.)

The poorly skilled Jordanians were certainly an interesting contrast to the other forces, with their rotten OODA times and slow re-arming. The F-16s at Sigonella never really came into it for me. By the time they were ready in any numbers the situation was well in hand with existing forces.


Ship Behaviour:

Now I see why the Russian ships never engaged me. They haven't reloaded their big anti-shipping missiles! I was cringing in fear of those, expecting a crushing barrage if I revealed myself. I was hiding from a 'virtual fleet'. That's the main reason I hurried the amphibs away.

The Osas on the Msl Bt Strike mission kept trying to advance to engage land forces at Incirlik (particularly the Patriot) and the city marker at Tarsus, since their Styx missiles are capable of making land attacks. This brought them out from their SAM cover and exposed them to individual attack. (I kept putting them back after I figured out what was going on.) Perhaps if the autodetect on those targets was turned off then the Syrians wouldn’t see them to attack them? Or maybe they could be manually marked neutral by the Syrian side? Not sure if this would work. Or Weapons Hold vs land targets? Maybe a Patrol, with a zone instead of a strike?? My attempts to turn down the attack range on their mission didn’t seem to do much.

The issue with the members of Moskva group heading out independently in various directions has been mentioned earlier. Maybe they need to be assigned a series of waypoints to patrol, and those reloading need a manually ordered 0 speed? (I found that simply sitting them still behind their ASW helicopters made them almost impossible to detect by sub, without a very risky attempt to advance through the helicopter lines, so that might be a viable trick too.)


Scoring

Scoring may be a bit too easy at the moment. In my case I was able to earn a triumph early in the scenario simply by shooting down Syrian aircraft (and giving up the Garibaldi) before making any significant attacks on the Russian forces or Syrian infrastructure. If the destruction of the enemy air defense net is supposed to be the focus, then perhaps reducing the point value of Syrian planes would be a useful countermeasure? (Or raising the score thresholds.) As it is, the points for getting your ships to their destinations become of minimal value if you already have enough points elsewhere.


Garibaldi

The ‘retroactive’ release of the Garibaldi, essentially stating it was never actually there, feels odd. It was there just a moment ago! I understand that in the storyline the decision would actually have been made earlier, but the ‘retcon’ seemed a bit artificial. A simple statement to the effect that the Italians have retained control of the Garibaldi would be equally true, without drawing attention to the timeline mechanism.

You still get the message stating the option to release the Garibaldi is no longer available when the 5 minute window expires, even if the Garibaldi has already been manually released and the option was gone a few minutes earlier.


Strike Missions

I'm not sure why, but in many cases (if you just hit play and watch) the H-5 HAWK Strike mission won't launch its Su-22 ARM carriers out of Shayrat until long after the MiG-29s with cluster bombs have launched out of Saiqal. This allows the HAWKs to engage the MiGs, defeat the strike, and then turn off their radars to reload before the Su-22s can get there. You may need an independent mission for the ARMs, just to make sure it happens at the same time as the bombing.

Despite having both HAWK sites on the target list, it looks like the mission will only attack the closest one. You may need two separate missions, one for each site. I would also suggest making the ARM carrying planes in the H5 Hawk Strike mission able to strafe. (It was odd that they overflew me and didn't shoot because my radar was off.) Switching the strafing doctrine in their ROEs to yes works. Might be handy for the MiG-29s with cluster bombs too, although that does mean they'll hang around longer. A bit of a tradeoff, I guess.

The H-5 Strike mission target list is all Tarmac Spaces, plus the control tower and two hangars. However, there is nothing on those tarmac spaces or in the hangars. All the aircraft are in the hardened shelters. Therefore this strike cannot accomplish anything, even if completely unopposed. Perhaps the somewhat softer runway access points would be a more profitable target for the light weapons on an Albatros?

The WP's Maritime Strike mission will also engage land targets (radars and airbases on Cyprus) if they happen to pass within weapons range. This will usually prevent them from getting far enough to engage ships, if the ships are ID-ed far away by Syrian aircraft when they are still W of Cyprus. (This can happen when the Syrians send fighters to try and intercept a P-3, or the like, and the ships give themselves away by opening fire).

Watching the big strike missions run, it seems there's currently a bug happening. (It's been reported.) The planes are allocated to targets based on proximity, which is not the same as the actual target list order in the mission editor. So at the moment the planes won't specifically go for the targets you've selected.

However, even when its fixed, I suspect that the fact that many of the listed targets are indestructable (tarmac spaces, etc.) means the same targets will be hit again and again and again, even though there is no hope of doing anything to them. For example, the first AS-10 may destroy the airplane on a tarmac space, but that same empty indestructable tarmac space will be engaged repeatedy by later shots or following planes. I let the big Larnaca strike run unopposed, and the Syrians only hit 2 of the 27 aircraft on the field, although there were numerous re-strikes on empty tarmac spaces.

I'm not sure if there's anything you can do about this, other than divide the big strikes into smaller strikes, each aimed at separate parts of the airfield.


Scuds

The Scuds have no mission, and no pre-selected targets, which means they ended up trying to target whatever's closest. Thus they target things like hardened aircraft shelters (in the closest part of the H-5 airbase), which they have no reasonable chance of hitting close enough to damage, and even non-combatant items like the Irbid city marker. They might be better off on a mission with preselected targets such as the runways, which they have a better chance of hitting and damaging. (Although the strike mission target list bug currently seems to be preventing this from working.) Also, having them engage an airfield without many hardened shelters, such as those on Cyprus, could have a much bigger payoff, as near-misses will still kill aircraft parked in the open.


Extra Surprises

You mentioned you might want to add some extra bits to the scenario

The Ike seems nice and secure, all alone out there, so it’s easy for the player to consider sending everything east to hit Syria. You could easily strip the carrier of all fighters if you wanted to, but that would never happen in reality, with a nearby hostile shore. A few (empty) single unit airfields in Libya might do a lot to foster some enjoyable paranoia in the player’s mind, and provide a reminder that the situation is not totally secure. Perhaps a radar or two, just to generate some detectable ESM activity? A Libyan Foxtrot in the Ike’s path might be an unpleasant surprise if the player tries to leave things too late and makes a blind dash for the second patrol zone. (Wth all those false contacts there I was truly expecting one!)

Reloading some of the SAM sites (particularly the SA-5s) with a Lua action might be entertaining partway through.

An unseen SAM site or two which only activates its radar partway into the game could be a pain, especially if it moves in and pops up behind a strike into deeper territory.

Currently, you can rely on the enemy to flinch and turn away when you fire a missile at them, which usually means you can be confident that they will lose any SARH missiles provided you return fire reasonably quickly. Perhaps a few units of planes with the “straight-in” missile doctrine and auto-evade turned off could cause some consternation if mixed in with the others.

The Syrians could probably use some light flak at their airbases and larger SAM sites. At the moment, once the radars are shot off by HARMs, NATO is free to come in unopposed at low altitude and bomb with impunity. A dense Baghdad-level defence probably isn't needed. Just a scattering of ZSU-23s here and there to keep the NATO player on their toes. (There are the geriatric Grails associated with the SA-2s and SA-3s, but they are slow to react, and can't engage an incoming target.)

The Scuds might work well as a mid-game element. Have the some of the Scuds fire into Jordan, but retain some for a strike at Cyprus. The player is given an intelligence warning about possible Scud activity in an area close enough to hit Cyprus, and then they have an hour or two to try and find and hit them (in the dark?) before the launch occurs. (Unless Scud-hunting and the Israeli problem are reserved for a later MF scenario?)


Assorted lesser items

My usual concerns about ineffective long-ranged SAM fire. The SA-5s in particular used up all their shots quite early, trying to engage far distant fighters which they had no hope of actually hitting.

The Israeli SAMs (particularly the northern Patriot) are engaging aircraft well out into Syria at the moment. While this is handy for NATO, I am not sure if that's intentional from the perspective of your political storyline.

Several aircraft have no loadout:
The helicopter on the Numancia
Three Pioneers on the Iowa
KC-10s at Sigonella
Helicopters and tankers at Akrotiri

One Cobra on the Kearsarge is not on quick turnaround, unlike the others.

Should the Cumberland’s helicopter be on quick turnaround?

The Savannah is in ESG Kearsarge, not the Iowa group as stated in the briefing.

In the briefing chart showing which missiles fit which ships, some of the long-range missiles at Souda will also fit the Dahlgren.

Aircraft damage was not enabled.

The 'Msg - AF2 warning' action is not associated with any event. Should it have been on the 'Air Force Two arrives in AO' event? (Also, was there supposed to be any enemy attempt on the plane? It doesn't seem like anything could get to it, coming in from the far side of Israel, etc.)

A marker for Port Said might be handy.

The Krivak will reach the end of its course and stop with 3/4 of a day left to go.


Assorted Typos, etc.

Comd TG Iowa: BB, 1x CG, 4x FF/FFG (US, German, Turkish, Spanish)9 (extra “9”)
we have confirmed that still has between 350 and 400 A/C, (Syria still has?)
war stocks are being released to replace some loses (losses)
the Butte, and Concord currently reloading at Sauda (Souda)

[Whicker]

great info, as someone who will eventually play this I really appreciate the feedback for the designer.

[Gunner98]

Ok, finally have an update ready for this one. Been a crazy time lately so sorry about the delay.

A big Shout out to Whicker for helping with some of the code. Don't know what I would do if it wasn't for some of the 'Lua Wizards' out there. A big help.

Changed up quite a bit on this one:
-COW now enabled
-SAR now enabled
-You can resupply Larnica from RFA Fort Grange
-Quite a few surprises and improvements for the Syrians and WP
-Lots of other fixes pointed out earlier.

As always, I look forward to your comments and critiques.

[alghblag]

Are you no longer pre-setting some missions, or am I doing something wrong when I extract it?

[Gunner98]

I don't think I had any or many pre-set missions in this one.

They come with mixed reviews so I try and only put them in where they're critical. Like a CVBG with a sub under the bow or an incoming strike.


B

[alghblag]

Ok cool.

Instructions are a little unclear about the ship resupplies. The briefing makes it sound mandatory, are points awarded or is it just for convenience?

(Quick note: The briefing has USS Savannah with the Iowa group, though it's actually with Kearsarge.)

[Gunner98]

ooops thought I fixed that.

You get points for getting the resupply ships to Port Said. The ammo from the Brit RFA is for convenience.

B