Sea of Fire 1982

[fitzpatv]

In this second Falklands/Malvinas War scenario, you are given four bomb-armed Skyhawk attack aircraft with which to sink the British destroyer Coventry and frigate Broadsword, on SAM picket duty for the RN task force. Historically, this was one of the few Argentine successes of the conflict.

Two planes are assigned to each ship via pre-set Missions. Coventry has Sea Dart SAMs, which have a decent 40nm range, but are ineffective below 100' AGL or within 3nm. Broadsword uses the Sea Wolf, which has a range of just 6nm, but can fire at targets as low as 30' AGL and has a minimum range of just 0.2nm.

On this basis, I had both flights approach at the pre-set 40,000' to conserve fuel, then dive to their minimum of 80' AGL and speed-up to maximum for the attack runs. The Broadsword group used Pebble Island, to the S of the frigate, to provide cover until the last moment, as the Argentines did historically. The Coventry pair came in from seaward to place the destroyer between themselves and the frigate's Sea Wolf system.

A problem arose when I discovered, too late, that the Broadsword flight's 1,000lb bombs could not be released below 1,000' AGL (the other flight's 250kg weapons did not have this drawback). I therefore had to make a second pass, riskily climbing to 1,000' with the Broadsword pair.

The planes dodged two SAMs, which were handicapped by the low-altitude approach. It was otherwise a case of facing lots of AA guns with the standard 1% chance to hit. As a result, all four Skyhawks managed to drop their payloads and hit both ships without sinking them (best estimate was light damage). Perhaps I should have changed the Missions and concentrated on one? On the way out, an AA gun rolled the 1% and shot down a retiring plane.

This left it as a Major Defeat with a score of zero (losing the plane didn't matter, as it's all assessed on the damage you do). The above caveat apart, I couldn't really do more without rolling better virtual dice, which reduces any enthusiasm for a replay, I'm afraid.

[Rory Noonan]

ORIGINAL: fitzpatv

... I couldn't really do more without rolling better virtual dice, which reduces any enthusiasm for a replay, I'm afraid.

This is one of the pitfalls of historical scenarios; you're constrained by what actually happened and the more accurate you make it the more linear the scenario is.

One reason why my favourite scenarios are what-ifs!