Falklands 2 - Superfuse 1/5/82

[fitzpatv]

This scenario covers the first British strikes on the islands, though it begins after the ultra-long-range mission by a lone Vulcan bomber (which entailed an awful lot of effort for very little effect). ‘Superfuse’ relates to the ordnance carried by the Vulcan. You can only play the British side and are charged with destroying airfield facilities at Port Stanley and Goose Green.

Commanding TG 317.8, you have the carriers Hermes and Invincible, with 4 DDGs, 5 frigates and three support ships. Each carrier has Sea Harriers, with Hermes assigned a dozen with which to conduct the strike and Invincible seven to provide CAP and one for recon. Plenty of choppers are available for ASW, compensating for the ships’ lousy sonar, but some only carry depth charges. A couple of AI-controlled SBS teams ashore are supposed to disrupt Argentine defences.

Argentina is believed to have at least one sub in the area, the Salta being a dangerous beast with sonar and Seeaal torpedoes that outrange those available to the British ships. They only have a modest force of Pucara ground-attack planes on the Falklands, along with a few Cessna and Skyvan support aircraft, so the air threat is slight. Around the targets are some basic Tigercat SAMs (though these were not in evidence in reality), at least one Blowpipe MANPAD team and a number of AA guns, some enhanced with Skyguard or Super Fledermaus radar. All except the MANPADs have been pinpointed in advance.

1/5/82 02:00L: With around four hours to dawn and our recon and strike Harriers incapable of night operations, it wasn’t feasible to get straight-on with the strikes. Besides, it seemed unwise to risk Harriers armed with iron bombs against unbroken SAMs, even limited ones like Tigercats. I therefore sent the task force towards Stanley at Cruise with the intention to arrive before dawn and shell the air defences before launching any planes (the British actually did this after the strike in real-life).

ASW was the main concern, as the Salta was capable of making a nasty mess of things. I dispensed with the supplied Missions and set-up a new ASW Mission with a prosecution area moving relative to the task group, keeping this well-stocked with choppers. All sonar was put on active mode though, if a ship were to detect the sub, it would already be too late – on this basis, I saw no point in slowing to Creep speed.

Predictably, the AI-controlled SBS made little contribution, wasting most of their high explosives while taking-out the less capable of the two Argentine radars at Stanley (40VP) and a couple of infantry platoons while managing to remain undetected (no enemy mortars in this one).

The choppers made a pretty terrible job of identifying a batch of initial underwater contacts, all of which were obviously biological, moving at one knot. I had to drop these contacts to prevent the helicopters clustering around them.

At 06:30, we had a message telling us to launch the recon Harrier, which I ignored, as it wasn’t yet dawn by some margin.

03:00L: Another message arrived to say that the Vulcan strike had succeeded (I think).

04:00L: Another erroneous message implied that the recon mission had succeeded and that we should mount the strike. It was still two hours until dawn and I can’t help thinking that the designer was using Zulu instead of Local time as the basis for these communications.

Leading the task group in, HMS Coventry got into range and destroyed the Tigercat sites with 114mm fire for 20VP each. At +100, this made it a Minor Victory.

Losses and Expenditures indicated that the Salta had torpedoed some fish. She should really have been set to Weapons Hold for underwater targets.

05:00L: Coventry demolished the Stanley AA guns, though only the lone Skyguard 35mm scored 10VP. The task group could then reverse course out to sea, as Goose Green was out of feasible range. The latter base had no SAMs, just AA, though hidden MANPADs could not be ruled-out. It seemed best to hit Stanley first and then decide whether to risk going to Goose Green.

Dawn broke at 05:45, so the recon Harrier was launched. It found several infantry at Stanley, was fired-at by a Blowpipe by the second radar in the hills to the W and then flew on to reveal four Pucaras on a tarmac space at Goose Green before returning safely.

06:00L: The nine-Harrier strike on Stanley went-in, destroying 6 Pucaras (20VP each) and 4 Cessnas (nil) on the ground, as well as 3 hangars, 2 ammo shelters, an AvGas tank and the control tower for 20VP per facility. Mk13 bombs proved rather more effective than the BL.755 cluster bombs carried by most of the aircraft. With the defences thoroughly softened-up in advance, we encountered no fire, though I left the second radar well alone to avoid the Blowpipe team.

The remaining trio of Harriers went to Goose Green (as historically). The first avoided some AA fire and cluster-bombed the tarmac space to write-off the four Pucaras. With Argentina out of attack planes, there seemed little point in risking the other two Harriers against the flak, so I diverted them to Stanley, where they clobbered another ammo shelter for 20VP and cluster-bombed some infantry (nil).

07:00L: With the Salta failing to appear, it ended as a Triumph with a score of +470. There were no UK losses, while Argentina lost 10 attack and 4 support aircraft and 49 ground elements.

Unless the next official software release happens in the interim, I’ll be continuing with this next time. The third scenario looks as though it will be rather more challenging.