New Scenario For Testing: Any Given Sunday

[BDukes]

This scenario should be run with the x64 beta, and it requires DB3000 v501

Introduction:

The Ukrainian Airforce's survival and impact on slowing Russia's invasion is a testament to its leadership, training, and courage. NATO certainly helped with intelligence, weapons, and training, but good planning and execution by the Ukrainians kept the VKS at standoff range and helped the Ukrainian Army stop the rush . This sandbox scenario is designed to see how you'll do.

To play:
1) Generate a few assigned missions via the special actions menu.
2) Add strike aircraft from the special actions menu. I've added some hypothetical aircraft for fun.
3) If you'd like to change load-outs, use the Ready Aircraft special action to ready them instantly.
4) Do your job and live to fight another day!

Mission Choices so far:

Bahkmut Bustup: Strike 3 rail lines east-northeast of Bahkmut to slow Russian reinforcement in the Bahkmut direction. Targets have been marked as Rail Line Aimpoints on your map. These are low damage point targets away from defense strong points but are very small.

BM-21 Targets Near Kherson: East Strike Mission: Locate and Destroy [2]BM-21 Firing Units South of Kherson. 2 Possible positions

Budiansk Airport Strike: Deep Strike: Budiansk Airport hosts a number attack and transport helicopters. Most are parked on various open parking spots around the runway. Destroy as many as possible with minimal loss to your own force. Very tall order for Ukrainian airforce without Storm Shadow etc.

Help HIMARS Help You: Command would like you to use your airforce to increase the probablilty of a successful HIMARS strike on the Belgorod S-400 site. 1 HIMARS fire unit (6 missiles) will be available in Khakiv. Use your forces to destroy the S-400 with little loss to your own. Your aircraft can be used as bait, SEAD shooters or even strikers.

Deep Strike: Budiansk Airport hosts a number attack and transport helicopters. Most are parked on various open parking spots around the runway. Destroy as many as possible with minimal loss to your own force. Very tall order for Ukrainian airforce without Storm Shadow etc.

Kerch Bridge Strike: Deep Strike: Strike the Kerch Bridge. An aimpoint has been added by command. Penetrate Russian defenses and hit it. Very risky target and not likely in real life.

Mainstay Hunt: Destroy 1 Russian A-50U.

Marinka-Donetsk Front CAS: Forces in the Marinka-Donetsk have good indication a Russian infantry human wave attack is underway. Conduct attacks on those forces In coordination with local Forward Air Controller (FAC) with UAV support.

Missile Boat Ambush: Command would like you to reduce the threat to Ukrainian shipping by damaging or sinking the Tarantul III missile boats tasked with interdicting anything moving towards Ukraine in the Black Sea. You are to bait them from port by launching Island class patrol boats from Odessa. You will be provided with a Neptun battery in Odessa and a Harpoon Battery southwest of Mykolaiv. Three ELINT stations should assist with detections. You should task airpower to enable or help destroy Russian units. Be wary as the Russian navy does have air, land and sea units that can strike your units.

Strike Russian Warship Patroling Off Sevastopol: Command would like to you to strike a Russian warship off Sevastopol. A Neptun SSM Battery is available in Odessa. Use other assets to enable and assist. Your target could be any modern Russian surface combatant with cruise missile capability assigned to the Black Sea Fleet.

Tank Interdiction Luhiansk to Bahkmut:A platoon of russian tanks is leaving the Luhiansk area to Bahkmut. Its expected route is H-21 South to M-03 West. You can turn on OpenTopoMap or Stamen Roads + Cities to view highways.

Player notes:

This is a 12-hour daytime scenario with great weather.

The scenario assumes you collected or will collect intelligence to generate missions and ferried aircraft from secret or hardened home bases and shelters the night before to forward bases to carry out strikes the next day. Keep in mind that Moscow may have plans too, which may or may not tie up your fighter aircraft. Please factor this into your planning.

Scoring is simple as it's more about what you want to do with this. You score 1 point for destroying things and lose 3 points for losing aircraft. 5 points scoring for certain mission targets.

Tips:
I'm your scenario designer, not your referee. Add as many aircraft and ready as you wish. Up to you to sort out what's fair.
Logistics turned off as it's 12 hours with limited assets.
Fly at minimum altitude with terrain following on unless a reason supersedes the risk.
Consider low-risk diversionary missions.
Consider the possibility of a Russian attack somewhere.
NATO will provide some intelligence periodically with variance at around 4:15, 7:10, 8:55, 10:25, 12:30, 13:15 Zulu.
You have reconnaissance assets or can spawn them in.
Russia does fly SEAD missions. Turn forward air radars on at your own risk

Updated 1/20/2024

[BDukes]

Gonna be busy and out of comms for about a week. I will definitely reply when I get back. Any feedback is welcome, other than I'm ugly. I know that.

Mike

[BDukes]

Any feedback or is it good?

MIke

[BDukes]

Any feedback or is it good?

MIke

[Tcao]

I finished Operation Emerald Horizon two days ago. Going to give this a try next week.
I chose the strike S-400 Mission, it will take me a while to give a feedback.


Berdiansk Airport: An-26, Mi-24, Mi-28, MI-14v5, and Mi-52 aircraft.
Ka-52?

[BDukes]

I finished Operation Emerald Horizon two days ago. Going to give this a try next week.
I chose the strike S-400 Mission, it will take me a while to give a feedback.


Berdiansk Airport: An-26, Mi-24, Mi-28, MI-14v5, and Mi-52 aircraft.
Ka-52?

Haha. Thanks. Yes.

I'm working on an update for this with new units from DB update, front lines and missions. I'll probably post it within a couple of weeks. Was shooting for this week or so but want to give the devs time to fix a few things I'm seeing with SAMS and air-to-air missile engagements.

Mike

[Tcao]

I updated the scenario to latest DB, and add new equipment while delete the old one (new DB separate the HARM modified Su-27, Mig-29 with the default Ukrainian Migs, so the on map Su-27/Mig-29 doesn’t carry HARM anymore), I also change the universal WRA to 50% but later noticed that you have already adjusted some of the Russia WRA, interesting….

After a testing on S-400 strike I added another exclusion zone for Russia. Their Mig-31s in chase of my Mig-29 always fly over Ukrainian S-300 site at Poltava. I also change some of your exclusion zone/ADA’s setting, make the Russia plane can still fire long range AAW missiles at the target in the ADA zone

I also feel that the S-400 strike mission might be too hard and I am not ready for it, so I restart the game. Choose the Budiansk Airport strike mission instead. I added six pair of SU-24, that is total 24 Storm Shadows. SEAD A/C took off first, began the strike on one of the radar site. Later found out it is the search radar for Buk-M3 so the attack failed. It’s interesting to see the new 9K37M missiles has a >90% chance to intercept HARM but only <30% PH against a fighter. Anyway couple minutes later, the US satellite pass overhead. With a better knowledge of Russia AD system my SU-24 push forward to carry out the original strike plan. With a busy time of manually assign strike target, 24 SS missiles achieved a TOT on Budiansk Airport. 2/3 of the missiles breakthrough, total 7 Russia Helicopters destroyed on the ground.

SS missiles.jpg (395 KiB) Viewed 1230 times

The 2nd try is a BM-21 strike mission. My first group of the strike took out the lone SA-22 and the search radar. Then a lone TB-2 take out the BM-21s while the Su-35s were distracted by my Mig-29

SEAD.jpg (383.25 KiB) Viewed 1230 times

Will give another try later, this time the target will be the rail line at Bahkmut


Some suggestions,
1, the US satellite’s SAR radar seems to be too powerful, any large size Russian vehicle units will become visible after its pass. While there is not doubt S-300/400 fire position can be detected by SAR radar, small size TELAR like Buk and SA-22 will be very hard to be detected in a timely manner.
How about change the way intelligence works in this scenario? Delete the satellite. Make some of the Russian units auto-detectable. Others are visible at the start of scenario, but without an observer the contact will be faded in two hours. Or, just put some reference point on the map says “suspected Russia SAM position based on yesterday’s intelligence”?

2, Russia AD seems too sparse. While some of the high-tech SAM system are impossible to defeat (Buk-M3!) , adding extra low tier SAM system will make the scenario look more authentic. And, any plan to add some decoy on the map?

3, this is more about CMO’s problem, Russia A/C are not taking the correct action to counter SS ALCM. The Su-35s are patrolling at 36000ft, their IRST detected the ALCM at 3nm away, let’s put aside the question on if the IRST can detect the low flying target, let’s focus on a different AI problem. The IRST detected the target, but cannot read the target’s altitude. So these Su-35 kept at 36000ft, chasing the vampires but never dive down. The MANPADS around the airport began the interception but they could not report the altitude. Maybe adding some equipment around HVT that can read the detected target’s altitude at close range will help Russia AI’s defense?

dive.jpg (318.3 KiB) Viewed 1230 times

[BDukes]

Thanks Tcao!

I've made some substantial updates to this, but real life has been slowing me down. I'll have an update out by the next big holiday if things stay as they are.

Some things of note:
1) Reduced the chance of the Buk M3 appearing. Very few systems have been seen on the front lines. I was giving equal weight to that system when randomly picking it in the code instead of reducing the chance. I'll add more mobile systems. I'm balancing AU counts with units that have sensors vs. game speed.
2)Satellite-recon thing. Thanks for the feedback on this. One of the design goals of the scenario for me was to figure out if I could slow the feed of recon information (donesky!) but I didn't handle the long time out once things were reported (think its 2 hours before it starts to degrade). I'll look for another idea. It was a good exercise but it doesn't mean it was suitable for the player or scenario
3) Most missions have been updated with more things as they've been added to the database. I've made a commitment to include the db things I've asked for in my builds so that the team knows their time was used for something. Many more enablers have been added to help.
4) I should be able to help with #3.

Thanks again! Your feedback is deeply appreciated.

Mike

[BDukes]

Ok update to this scenario attached to top post.

Updates:

1)I've added tons of new Russian Ukrainian and Russian units and loadout I've asked for over the past six months.

2)Russian SAM and Radar add scripting adjusted to lay off the Buk-M3 and provide a bit more coverage on the left bank.

3)NATO recon is now scripted. A list of autodetectable=false units is generated and the game picks out a number to expose for a short period of time so you get the sighting and then the time out. This runs once at game start and a 50% chance of running again halfway through.

4)There are now 78 special actions. Added a few more things to help.

5)Adjusted Marinka-Donetsk Front CAS mission with more Russian support units


New Missions:

Damn Hippies: The Velyka Novosilka Front is in immediate need of supplies that are being loaded on Hip transports at Artsyz Air Base and the Highway Strip in Kiev. Get them there safely.

Kiev Shieldbearer: You have intelligence that a rare daylight drone and missile attack on Kiev is imminent. We don't know which systems, from what bases,or directions it will come. I didn't say your intelligence was good! Defend!

Melitopol or Bust: Command would like you to disrupt the logistical routes from Melitopol to Crimea. This will require numerous SU-24s with cruise missiles with as much support as you can muster. Good luck. Targets are marked on the map but they are: the Melitopol Airbase bunkers, the Melitopol Railway Station Warehouse, the Velykyi Utluk 2-Lane Rail Bridge, the Henichesk 2-Lane Road Bridge, the Henichesk 1-Lane Bridge, the Syvash 2-Lane Rail Bridge, both Chonhar 2-Lane Road Bridges and a locomotive geolocated in Rykove. Pick several as your targets. Good Luck!

I'm close to being done with this for abit. Depending on feedback, you'll likely get one more round of updates, mostly polish (I hope!).

[BDukes]

Hi All

Updated this to the new db and adjust the scripts to the updated Panstir version.
Keeping the existing F-16 choices for now. (I picked Danish or Dutch anyways.)

Mike

[Twistedpretzel]

Just started my first play through, and I'll just say that this type of scenario format is phenomenal. Really enjoying the planning, mission choices, and other variables. Thanks for making it.

[BDukes]

Just started my first play through, and I'll just say that this type of scenario format is phenomenal. Really enjoying the planning, mission choices, and other variables. Thanks for making it.

No prob. Have a good weekend.

M