Falklands 1 - Operation Paraquet 24/4/82

[fitzpatv]

With the continuation of the Fury series and Chains of War held-up awaiting formal delivery of the bug fixes in 1328.15 and 16, I decided to start the Falklands DLC. Being set in an earlier period, it hopefully avoids a lot of the bugs and annoyances affecting more modern technology.

The opening scenario covers the British recovery of South Georgia, with a few variances from history. You can only play the British side and have control of a small task group consisting of the DDG Antrim, FFG Brilliant and FF Plymouth, with the survey ship Endurance. These ships have 6 choppers between them. Nearby is the SSN Conqueror, which historically did a recce of the island approaches before departing for her date with the Belgrano. Here, she hangs around a little longer. On land, you have two SAS recon teams and an SBS troop.

Argentina has the upgraded WW2 American sub Santa Fe, while the corvette Guerrico, damaged during the historical occupation and then withdrawn, is still there and unhurt. The garrison comprises some infantry platoons, supported by 81mm mortars, while they also have some Hercules and Bandeirulha patrol planes for maritime recon.

24/4/82 20:00L: The scenario begins at night and, with Sea State/Weather special rules in force, heavy seas reduce the speed of your ships to 14 knots or so. There is heavy cloud cover down to 7k’, heavy rain and a thin fog from sea level to 2k’, further hindering scouting.

Following my experiences in Hormuz Hoedown, I put all ships on Auto Evade = No and, perceiving the Santa Fe as the principal threat, set sonars to Active to compensate somewhat for their limited range. I tried to adjust the task group into a diamond formation, with Brilliant (which has marginally the best sonar) at the apex and Endurance to the rear and spacing set to 4nm to allow the enemy sub no more than one target at a time. Unfortunately, the Formation Editor couldn’t actually execute this instruction (or I simply didn’t understand how it works).

As my two Lynx choppers had the ASW torpedoes, it seemed best to keep them back and use my Wessex for initial recon. It has shorter-ranged radar but can operate in all weather and has better endurance.

At 20:30, a message told me to use the special forces to scout the enemy barracks at King Edward Point, so I sent the two recon teams forward cautiously, with the SBS and their silly long-ranged high explosives in reserve, The SAS soon spotted the Guerrico in harbour and found nothing in Grytviken village. Before attacking the Guerrico, I really needed to wait for daylight, so that I could use the Wasp choppers with their AS.12 missiles. These, in any event, needed to be closer to the island before launching.

The SAS troop that had checked Grytviken moved on and promptly found an Argentine platoon. It seemed best to evade under covering fire from the SBS, who slightly damaged the enemy unit with 33% of their explosives.

22:00L: The Wessex returned from her recon and re-armed with ASW torpedoes. Frustrated with the Formation Editor, I simply detached Endurance to enable the other ships to make better speed.

23:00L: A Bandeirulha approached the task group with a death wish and four Sea Slug SAMs sufficed to take it down. This scored no VP.

25/4/82 00:00L: A similarly suicidal Hercules appeared and required only one Sea Slug.

01:00L: Moving slowly in from the NW, Conqueror detected the Santa Fe, so I launched both Lynxes to attack. The AI had the SSN fire a couple of Tigerfish and the Argentine sub turned to flee but the choppers duly arrived and put her away for 75VP. The Guerrico responded by slipping anchor and passing out of SAS detection range.

02:00L: As Guerrico had four Exocets, it seemed best to wait for daylight and attack her with helicopters rather than risk the ships (although Antrim and Brilliant had Exocets of their own). Accordingly, I turned the task group around, allowing Endurance to catch-up. The Lynxes were re-armed with Sea Skuas.

04:00L: Contact was lost with the Guerrico. She could either come and fight, head for Argentina or move somewhere else at random. I hoped that Conqueror would be able to track her while I waited for my recon choppers to re-ready.

07:00L: Dawn broke around 06:15L, allowing the helicopters to attack. They found that the Guerrico had remained in the Cumberland Bay anchorage. There were some issues with the Wasps’ lack of radar but eight Sea Skuas and a pair of AS.12s were enough to sink the corvette for 35VP, taking the score to +110 and a Minor Victory. We could now close-in with confidence but we still needed to locate the Argentine garrison.

08:00L: A second Hercules mounted a futile recon mission and went the same way as her predecessor.

Not long afterwards, the SAS at Grytviken pushed forward and resumed contact with the Argentine platoon. A Wasp softened them up with AS.12s and the SAS then finished them off. I then got 10VP and a buggy message which gave the impression that the Argentines on South Georgia had surrendered. Unfortunately, they hadn’t and there were three more platoons and two deadly mortar sections left, very much able and willing to fight. They were eventually wiped-out with the aid of the choppers and naval gunfire from the arriving task group but I lost one of the recon sections and the SBS troop to mortar fire in the process. Once a mortar has a ground unit’s number, there is generally no saving it. Rightly or (probably) wrongly, losing ground units costs nothing.

Even then, the game did not terminate and I had to run down the clock to complete a Minor Victory, with a score of +170. In truth, that was what it amounted to in real life (with considerably less resistance from the Argentines and rather more from the weather).