New Tweaks to Fiery Cross Reef, 2021 12-17-2020

[BeirutDude]

Looking for Play testers for this tweak (I think you will enjoy). Main change is the PLA(N)/PLA(AF) EW Radars pulse on/off with a 15 second interval and each radar has a 10% chance of turning on every 15 seconds. So in theory each radar should turn on for 15 seconds every 2 1/2 minutes but of course the random nature of it that will not happen and it will be more random.


Also there a few other new PLA(AF) and Rocket Force surprises added in.

EDIT: New/additional revisions below...

[AndrewJ]

Looks like the THAADs are giving an out-of-DLZ message, and will not engage the incoming DF-26s.

If you move the THAAD battery so it is right on the base, and thus directly in line with the incoming missiles, then it will engage. It looks like the THAAD can't handle targets with even the smallest off-axis vector.

Was the THAAD battery only supposed to have six missiles and no reloads? The other American THAAD batteries in the DB have 32 or 48 shots.

[BeirutDude]

So...

1. Glad to hear the DF-26 "Guam Killer Strike" Mission actually fired! That's good news! [:D] [8D] [:)]

2. BUT the Arleigh Burke DDG off Guam was supposed to provide some Point BMD as well. I tweaked it to add 2 16/64 RIM-174 SM-6 Duel-1's load outs (one in each MK-141 VLS) and removed the same number of RIM-174 SM-6 Blk IIa's

3. I added additional weapon load outs to the THAAD in Guam to give it 36 total missiles. Also moved to the east of Anderson AFB.

4. THEN, I provided load outs for the LAND BASED aircraft/readied them, AS I WOULD USE THEM, See scenario description changes.

5. Added USAF E-8 Control (2) & RC-135W ELINT (4) aircraft.

Changes in download...

[AndrewJ]

Playthrough

(I played an earlier version of this, so this is just a quicker summary this time.)

The game starts up, and man that's a lot of satellites! Fortunately, it's cloudy, so they can't spot me optically, but ELINT will still work fine. If I so much as turn on a radar they'll know where I am immediately. Plus, the Chinese have a pair of OTH radars on the mainland, poised to detect me if I head north. Luck of the draw puts two of my subs up north near Hainan, and one of them is the Ohio SSGN, crammed with cruise missiles. She immediately opens fire, using about 60% of her missiles to destroy both OTH radars, and flatten the hangars and wreck the runways on Woody Island. This should give me freedom to advance the carrier without being spotted, as well as opening a gap in the Chinese air cover north of the Spratleys.

The Chinese shoot back, bombarding Guam with a couple of salvos of ballistic missiles. I've got a THAAD battery there, which manages to knock off a few missiles, while the remainder land among my ammo bunkers. Fortunately, although some take damage, none are destroyed.

While that's going on, my stealth aircraft pincer the Spratleys from the north and south, and my F-15s do what they can from the east. Mostly they end up running away from missiles that appear out of nowhere, but they perform a valuable distraction role, allowing my stealthy aircraft to get in and focus on knocking down the Chinese AWACS and tankers. I also start getting good hits on the J-20s (and there are a lot of them), and I often find them as they try to refuel. As the patrols over the islands start getting cleared out, my fighters can intercept the Chinese reinforcements as they come south over the open ocean, since there are no longer any fighters from Woody Island to interfere. There are a number of alarming close-ranged encounters when opposing stealth-fighters meet at optical ranges, but things generally go my way.

At sea, my LCS (now the version that actually has missiles) swats the Chinese coast-guard cutter, and heads in to occupy its spot. My Australian diesel sub kills two ships lurking in the Spratleys, using night-time BOL Harpoon shots to hit them before they can react. There's also a pair of modern Chinese ships headed rapidly south-east into the Spratleys. My southern SSN is sent into their path, and manages to torpedo them both.

The Chinese carrier group is the big prize, and my F-35s find it during their efforts to hunt down tankers. It's headed north towards Hainan, to my surprise, rather than south into battle, but that means it's headed right towards the Ohio and my other SSN. My fighters knock off the enemy air-wing, and then kill the ASW helicopters, and set up a cordon to hit any which launch. F-15s may be outclassed against J-20s, but they work just fine for swatting helicopters. My two subs then batter the carrier group to pieces, staying well out of range of the short-ranged ASW torps on the ships themselves.

Air attacks on the Spratleys start in the small hours of the morning. Carrier-based F-18s coordinate with Australian F-18s to hit Fiery Cross Reef in the south-west. The HQ-9 batteries with their built-in CIWS are very tough targets, and shoot down a lot of incoming ordnance, but they get damaged or run out of missiles by the time the JASSMs arrive to shut the runways. P-8s use their SLAMs to engage the radars which are dispersed on the central islands. My heavy bombers don't arrive from Guam until the morning, but when they arrive coordinated DEAD missions (F-35s with SDBs, EF-18s with ARMs) open the route for the JASSMs to strike unmolested. The northern-eastern islands (Woody Island, Mischief Reef, and Subi Reef) are all hit hard and put out of operation.

Meanwhile, my carrier has rounded the Indonesian west coast and is headed NE off the Malaysian coast, using its mine-sweeping helicopters to check for surprises in the choke-points between the islands. There have been a lot of UAVs operating north of us, which seem silly, but are actually quite dangerous if they cue anti-shipping ballistic missiles. I've knocked them down, and am feeling reasonably confident in my invisibility, so I've only got half a dozen fighters assigned to CAP, and the rest are involved in follow-up strikes on the islands. Naturally, that's when I get spotted...

Radar picket drones start getting glimpses of a few slow-moving planes headed south, and at first I assume it's a few more ASW Cubs or tanker Badgers trying to resume patrols. It's actually a massive incoming Badger strike. My only four ready dedicated fighters are sent north to meet it, and I start launching a hodge-podge of my few ready strike aircraft (anything with a missile on it), while F-22s scramble on a desperate super-cruise dash to try and cut off the incoming raid. Fortunately, some of the Badgers are already turning back, and my CAP and EF-18s manage to destroy most of the rest that push on. By the time the fuel-starved F-22s arrive, and start gulping at the one half-full tanker, there's nothing to do. One refuelled flight dashes north and manages to catch and kill a few retiring Badgers, but the rest make it safely back to base.

I got lucky here. If the Badgers had all arrived in a pack, instead of a 150-mile-long string, and had all pushed on to the target, then I might have been in a very embarrassing position. What spotted me? Probably a sub. One was detected (and sunk) north of the carrier group just before the Badgers showed up. Later another one was detected when it took a missile shot at the carrier group! This was easily shot down, and the sub was sunk, but I had to turn on my radars to do it, and I was very worried about a DF-21 attack as a result. Fortunately, nothing happened. A snorkelling sub was also sunk near my LCS up by Scarborough Shoal, and the Ohio got a whiff of something else up north, but was never able to pin it down, even with help from the P-8s.

(And that’s how it ended. Thanks for continuing to tweak and develop this scenario.)


Assorted Items

Do the Chinese have any radar satellites? That would really change things. I was able to hide for most of the scenario, but there’s no hiding from those. It would have been DF-21s inbound from the start.

The ‘Submarine Picket Patrol’ and ‘Type 039G1 Sea Control’ patrols have no prosecution area, and the subs are allowed to investigate contacts outside the patrol zone. This means they plot courses towards the sea-borne radar over by Guam, when it gets detected by satellite ESM. They would be better off confined to a patrol/prosecution area in the South China Sea.

There is no event to give points for sinking Type 093 subs.

It might be a bit of nice feedback if the player got a message on arrival at Scarborough Shoal, and on completion of the minimum duration?

There are points events for destroying runways, taxiways, weather shelters, etc. This sort of open structure can never be destroyed, so the player will get no points for them. They would need a damaged trigger instead.

The helicopter on the Peralta ASW patrol is allowed to investigate contacts outside the patrol zone, and will try and head for contacts in the South China Sea.

There are utility helicopters with troop loadouts on the Liaoning’s ASW patrol mission.

There are Cubs with sonobuoys on the UAV Recon mission way down south, which is an ASuW patrol. Had you wanted them on a separate ASW patrol mission to use their sonobuoys? They might be handy to check for subs in the carrier’s area of operation, or in among the Spratleys. (They got killed off quite quickly all alone down south.)

It might be helpful for the Flankers on Liaoning’s anti-shipping patrol to have engage opportunities set to yes, to help them deal with American fighters in the area. Otherwise they mostly just fly around at very low level until they get shot. (Would they be better off as part of the AAW patrol, or an AAW intercept? There’s a lot of them tied up a mission that will only ever have two in the air at once, so they’re unlikely to get through any US ship defences. They might have been very useful trying to keep the F-15s off the ASW helicopters.)

I found the western tanker circle to be fairly exposed to attack (once I had found it), and it tended to pull fighters away from the Chinese ships and islands, and put them in a place I could deal with them in isolation, away from their SAMs and other patrol-mates. I’m not sure if moving it a bit north towards the carrier would help? Maybe there’s no great place for it once it’s identified.

ASW helicopters are mostly using Mk46s. I switched them over to Mk50s using the editor. I think they’d probably be using the good stuff, given how serious the situation is.

One of CSG 9’s RPs for the AAW mission is out of position.

The USS Ohio is not listed in section 5 b of the side briefing.

[BeirutDude]

The game starts up, and man that's a lot of satellites! Fortunately, it's cloudy, so they can't spot me optically, but ELINT will still work fine.

I need to change the weather not sure if I want to do it with a Lua script or just clear it out.

[BeirutDude]

The Chinese shoot back, bombarding Guam with a couple of salvos of ballistic missiles. I've got a THAAD battery there, which manages to knock off a few missiles, while the remainder land among my ammo bunkers. Fortunately, although some take damage, none are destroyed.

The Burke DDG didn't engage? [&:] [:o]

[BeirutDude]

he ‘Submarine Picket Patrol’ and ‘Type 039G1 Sea Control’ patrols have no prosecution area, and the subs are allowed to investigate contacts outside the patrol zone. This means they plot courses towards the sea-borne radar over by Guam, when it gets detected by satellite ESM. They would be better off confined to a patrol/prosecution area in the South China Sea.

Thanks will fix!

[BeirutDude]

There is no event to give points for sinking Type 093 subs.

It might be a bit of nice feedback if the player got a message on arrival at Scarborough Shoal, and on completion of the minimum duration?

There are points events for destroying runways, taxiways, weather shelters, etc. This sort of open structure can never be destroyed, so the player will get no points for them. They would need a damaged trigger instead.

The helicopter on the Peralta ASW patrol is allowed to investigate contacts outside the patrol zone, and will try and head for contacts in the South China Sea.

There are utility helicopters with troop loadouts on the Liaoning’s ASW patrol mission.

There are Cubs with sonobuoys on the UAV Recon mission way down south, which is an ASuW patrol. Had you wanted them on a separate ASW patrol mission to use their sonobuoys? They might be handy to check for subs in the carrier’s area of operation, or in among the Spratleys. (They got killed off quite quickly all alone down south.)

It might be helpful for the Flankers on Liaoning’s anti-shipping patrol to have engage opportunities set to yes, to help them deal with American fighters in the area. Otherwise they mostly just fly around at very low level until they get shot. (Would they be better off as part of the AAW patrol, or an AAW intercept? There’s a lot of them tied up a mission that will only ever have two in the air at once, so they’re unlikely to get through any US ship defences. They might have been very useful trying to keep the F-15s off the ASW helicopters.)

I found the western tanker circle to be fairly exposed to attack (once I had found it), and it tended to pull fighters away from the Chinese ships and islands, and put them in a place I could deal with them in isolation, away from their SAMs and other patrol-mates. I’m not sure if moving it a bit north towards the carrier would help? Maybe there’s no great place for it once it’s identified.

ASW helicopters are mostly using Mk46s. I switched them over to Mk50s using the editor. I think they’d probably be using the good stuff, given how serious the situation is.

One of CSG 9’s RPs for the AAW mission is out of position.

The USS Ohio is not listed in section 5 b of the side briefing.

All good stuff thanks! Not sure what to do with the Tankers. I agree once found...

[AndrewJ]

ORIGINAL: BeirutDude

The Burke DDG didn't engage? [&:] [:o]

Max target speed for the SM-6 Blk1A is showing as 6500 kts, and the missiles are coming in at over 9000 kts.

[BeirutDude]

Should have two load outs of RIM-174 SM-6 Dual-1's in the Mark-141 VLS (one forward and one aft). you might have a version before I made that change should be a 16/64 load out for each VLS.

[BeirutDude]

Hmmmmm Interesting! So the RIM-174 SM-6 Dual-1 will engage the DF-21D (6500 kt) but not the DF-26 (10,000 kt)! Thanks!

BTW did you notice how many THAADs engaged?

[BeirutDude]

If you get a chance see if there is anything I missed.

1. Cleared the weather that should change things a bit. Wish we had weather systems/areas, oh well!

2. Didn't move the Tankers (yet), have to think on that one. They have an escort but that still isn't enough.

3. Kinda tired will play with the Cubs tomorrow.

otherwise I believe the rest of what you suggested has been addressed here.

[AndrewJ]

Yes, I had the first version posted in this thread, so I didn't have the ABM version of the missiles.

I only had the 6 THAAD launcher, and all six of them fired.

[BeirutDude]

More Tweaks, predominantly I reviewed every PRC (AI) Mission and adjusted many of them. I found a much better and likely frustrating for the US player use for those Cubs!

[BeirutDude]

Tweaked on 3 September 2020...

So I typed this long and detailed message with all the changes and it timed out before I posted and lost all of my work!

Reader's digest version: Fun changes that will make it a very different ballgame for the carrier strike group! These changes should make a huge difference. The BMD Taskforce was useless against DF-26s near Guam so now it teleports to the South China Sea where it can support the carrier against DF-21Ds. The changes to the PRC missions are huge and I added P-8As in Singapore to support CSG-9.

[AndrewJ]

DF-26 ASBMs are firing on the carrier, and the player has no defensive missiles which can engage them. The carrier starts 200 miles within range of the missiles, and is detected by optical satellites. Course changes at flank speed after the satellite pass do not work. Jamming does not work.

-16,800 points an hour and a quarter into the game. Realistic or not, the player probably won't enjoy this much.

[BeirutDude]

Point taken, DF-26s ASBMs removed.

[BeirutDude]

So my current play test (latest Version without DF-26s) about 6 1/2 hours into the battle...

1. The P-8As struck first with The PRC Coast Guard Cutter at Scarborough Reef destroyed. The LCS makes its way toward the reef.

2. The Australians hit Mischief Reef with a coordinated JASSM and HARM/SEAD Attack destroying many aircraft on the ground, Damaging the HQ-16 and soaking off a large number of SAMs. One E/A-18G id hit by an HQ-16 SAM and two F-35As are sucked over Mischief Reef by two J-20s and shot down by the HQ-9 battery.

3. USAF B-52s and B-1Bs strike Mischief Reef, Hughes Reef, Gavin Reef, Subi Reef and Johnson Reef. Mischief Reef and Subi Reef facilities are heavily damaged. Hughes, Gavin and Johnson Reef rendered combat ineffective with all facilities destroyed. Two B-1Bs lost to J-20s.

4. B-2As now hit Fiery Reef with major hits to SAMs, Radars and the Aircraft on the ground.

5. As the Above was occurring a major PLA(N)/PLA(AF) H-6 airstrike is launched against CSG-9. Many (29) H-6s are shot down by the CSG and BMD TFs. As much as possible the RIM-174s SM-6 Duel-1s are held back for the ASBM threat.

6. Two B-1Bs from Anderson AFB launch and attack on the PLA(N) CVBG using LRASMs which is easily beaten off.

7. USS Mississippi after an hour of prosecution and four torpedoes sank, A WHALE! [:@] [:o] HMAS Rankin sank a PLA(N) frigate near Mischief Reef.

8. Now USS Mississippi is sneaking up on Fiery Cross reef to launch a short range tomahawk strike with the hopes of overwhelming the remaining SAMs and limiting response time.

9. So far no DF-21D ASBM strikes, DF-26 strikes on Guam or any PLA(N) submarine contact.

[BeirutDude]

USS Mississippi moving in to launch TLAMs at Fiery Reef...

[BeirutDude]

1st round of TLAMs inbound with SAM response...