British Efforts, 1968 - new beta for testing

[Mgellis]

Another 1968 scenario. It is the second day of the war and elements of the Royal Navy have been assigned to hunt down Soviet submarines in the eastern Atlantic and the North Sea. You'll be assisted by an American anti-submarine carrier, Wasp, and by aircraft at Kinloss, but it will be a difficult mission, made even more challenging by the terrible weather you'll be facing.

As always, please let me know what you think. How is the gameplay, the readability and clarity and style of the background and the briefing, the choice of units selected for the scenario, missions, events, etc. What can I do to make this scenario better, more interesting, more challenging, and/or more fun?

Thanks in advance!

Version 2 (renamed Operation British Harpoon, 1968) uploaded 11:55 CST July 21, 2025

Faroe-Sheltland 1.JPG (347.57 KiB) Viewed 694 times

[HalfLifeExpert]

Awesome! Unfortunately I saw this post AFTER I arrived at work, so I'll have to wait about 6 hours until I get home to try this out

UPDATE:

I've got it running, a few initial look notes:

1) The scenario title could use improvement, as it's rather bland I think. Maybe something like "Clearing the northern seas" would be better?

2) I was somewhat surprised by the Wasp task group for two reasons. One, I think the carrier and its escorts should start as a group. Second, I really doubt the US would allow a carrier to operate without at least one of their own destroyers/frigates, and this early in the war before attrition sets in, I think there should be one US escort ship with the Wasp along with the two RN destroyers.

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've taken a couple attempts at this, and while I have found and blasted a few subs, this is really challenging.

If this is what the UK Home Fleet destroyers were like in 1968, then they were screwed without constant air support. Not having ASW Torpedoes is a massive handicap due to the short range of ASW Mortars. HMS Kent doesn't even have mounted ASW weapons, only Sonar and a helicopter.

It's a similar headache as with the Hellenic Navy in that earlier scenario: The enemy subs out-range my ship-based ASW weapons, so they can fire at standoff ranges without the ship being able to fire back.

That said, I did have a really enjoyable moment of tension and action in my last attempt where a Shackleton was able to drop a torpedo on a sub before it hit bingo fuel. I got HMS Argonaut to the area hoping to Mortar the disabled sub, and lo-and behold, it surfaces, dead in the water, a sitting duck for gunfire!

I'm going to try another attempt and this time I'm going for a new strategy: I'm going to focus my Eastern ASW Patrols in the "chokepoints" between the Orkneys, Shetlands, and Norway. I'll put my ships there, probably with one sub covering the Orkney-Shetland gap, and have my Shackleton's both support them directly and cover the southern approaches.

As for the western side of Scotland, I had more success there as is, so I think I'll keep my same general strategy, though I'm thinking I may deploy some of my carrier based S-2 Trackers to the North Sea, staging out of Scotland, to beef up the assets there as needed

My notes that I put in my previous message still apply, and I will report back after I try again with the new strategy

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've completed my most recent attempt with my strategy to concentrate on the Orkney-Shetland-Bergen line.

I got the Wasp on station, and I ended up finding and sinking 4x submarines, but all the Whiskey Long Bins got through, and I lost all but one of the detached RN surface ships. There's largely ineffective on their own, even with their helicopters.

I suspect the only hope would be to stage some of Wasp's S-2 Trackers out of Kinloss, but they would have to return to the carrier to rearm.

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've completed my most recent attempt with my strategy to concentrate on the Orkney-Shetland-Bergen line.

I got the Wasp on station, and I ended up finding and sinking 4x submarines, but all the Whiskey Long Bins got through, and I lost all but one of the detached RN surface ships. There's largely ineffective on their own, even with their helicopters.

I suspect the only hope would be to stage some of Wasp's S-2 Trackers out of Kinloss, but they would have to return to the carrier to rearm.

[Mgellis]

Thanks for the feedback.

I agree about the issues with most of the surface ships. While the Whiskeys and Romeos are not very good submarines by modern standards, when they first entered service, they were pretty lethal. A lot of the ships NATO had at the time, old WWII vessels that may have gotten upgrades but were still showing their age, were simply outclassed by those boats. I suppose it is simply a constraint players will have to face, try to figure out tactics to address, etc.

Actually, the S-2s should be able to reload at Kinloss...the US and the UK used some of the same ASW weapons.

I've been busy revising one of my tutorial scenarios, but I'll start playing around with revisions for this one, too, including the title. I agree...a bit bland...I just couldn't think of anything better at the moment. I'll probably add a couple of American destroyers to help escort the Wasp and maybe add a few additional units (not sure which ones) to help the British ships track down those Soviet submarines. Any suggestions?

Thanks again.

[HalfLifeExpert]

Actually, the S-2s should be able to reload at Kinloss...the US and the UK used some of the same ASW weapons.

Ah, I'll have to double check on the magazines at Kinloss. If this is true, than it would be prudent for the player to transfer one of the Tracker squadrons there to reinforce the Shackletons. That might be a gamechanger.

As for the RN Frigates/destroyers, due to the limitations of the era, I understand, but perhaps replace HMS Kent since that ship doesn't even have any integral ASW weapons, all the others at least have ASW Mortars. And all of the RN ASW Helos are dependent on other units for targeting.

I don't actually have an issue with having ASW Mortars, as one rarely gets a chance to play with them, but the practical considerations make it really challenging when that's the ONLY option against a proper submarine threat.

One possible countermeasure that could allow the RN Ships somewhat more of a fighting chance could be for the Soviet sub's doctrine to be set to "pessimistic" for ambiguous targets, or some other doctrine setting that would prevent them firing torpedoes from longer ranges. Make them close in much more before firing. This could be explained by the poor weather hampering the Soviet's targeting solutions based on sonar, and of course periscopes would be getting splashed all around upon sticking up in Sea-state 5.

The Royal Navy had 3 SSNs by 1968, Dreadnought, Valiant, and Warspite. Perhaps one of them can be thrown in on the western side of the British Isles, and HMS Otter put over by the Shetlands instead?

Finally, maybe some help from one or two of the other North-Sea adjacent NATO members could be thrown in. We don't see the Belgian or (West) German navies all that much, plus there's the Dutch (The Norwegians would probably concentrate up in the far north). With the time allotted for the scenario, a couple ships from the south could steam northward to help?

[Mgellis]

My thoughts were also along those lines. So far, what I've done is added a squadron of Dutch ASW aircraft, an American SSN, and two American destroyers to help escort the Wasp. But a couple of other ships, perhaps a Dutch or Norwegian frigate or two, in the North Sea could go into the mix as well. If nothing else, it's a good excuse to add a few less common platforms so people can see how they would perform against Whiskeys.

[Mgellis]

Just uploaded version 2, renamed Operation British Harpoon, 1968.

The main change was that I gave NATO more units...a squadron of Dutch ASW aircraft, two American destroyers, three additional NATO destroyers (Dutch, German, and Danish), and an American SSN. I also tweaked the proficiency levels, giving both sides some veteran units and even a few ace units.

I've changed the difficulty level to 4, but I forgot to do that before I uploaded the new version, so it will appear as 3 when people playtest it.

As always, please let me know what you think. I think it's still a pretty tough scenario, but perhaps it is more playable now.

Thanks!

[HalfLifeExpert]

Sweet! I'll dive into it after work today.

Is the Soviet strategy still basically the same, where, among other things, you have to stop the Whiskey Long Bins from getting through the Orkney-Shetland-Bergen (OSB) line?

[Mgellis]

Exactly. The Soviets are trying to:

A) Get the Long Bins to their staging area

B) Kill the Wasp (and her escorts, if they can manage it)

C) Eliminate NATO forces in the North Sea

Sweet! I'll dive into it after work today.

Is the Soviet strategy still basically the same, where, among other things, you have to stop the Whiskey Long Bins from getting through the Orkney-Shetland-Bergen (OSB) line?

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've completed a playthrough of the fully revised scenario.

Got an "Average" with a score of 490. I was able to find and sink two of the Whiskey Long Bins after they had already fired missiles (which missed due to being jammed), as well as 3x regular Whiskeys.

I never encountered any subs on the Western Side of Britain & Ireland. I lost one ship, HMS Lynx, in a torpedo attack off Norway, but the RAF was able to blast the sub shortly after the Lynx was lost.

The other ship I lost was HMS Argonaut. This ship had actually detected a submarine just about within ASW Mortar range, and dodged the torpedoes fired at her. She fired a mortar salvo which scored a non-fatal hit. With her helo already in the air, I dropped the air-torpedo on the sub, which hit, but the sub was so close to Argonaut that the frigate took serious damage.
The Hangar was destroyed (so I diverted the helo to Kinloss), several sensors were damaged, there was a fire, and worst of all, the ASW Mortar was destroyed.

With Argonaut no longer able to play a useful role, I dispatched her to seek shelter near Kinloss, but the crew failed to control the long-burning fire, and the ship was lost. I lost the Argonaut due to friendly fire collateral damage.

What's clear to me is that whoever in the RN or UK government thought it was proper to NOT equip their frigates and destroyers with ASW Torpedoes made a colossal blunder, and the RN ASW forces would have paid dearly if WW3 had broken out in this era.

As for the scenario, what's clear to me is that it's basically a roll of the dice as to whether you'll be able to find the submarines outside of the chokepoints. I dropped SO MANY sonobuoys and most never detected anything.

Maybe it's the weather, or maybe it's the diesel boats moving slowly, or maybe it's the limited ASW tech of the time.
Whatever the exact reason, the RN could not conduct effective ASW it it's home waters in 1968.

[schweggy]

I just finished a run through on the latest version. I'm running CMO 1.08.Build 1706 (beta).

I'm not a big fan of pure ASW scenarios, mostly because I suck at them. Anyway, I scored a 290 with the Wasp group intact inside the staging area. I lost 1 Shackleton due to pilot (me) error keeping it on station trying to kill a SS longer than I should have. It was all for naught anyway.

Thoughts on this scenario:

The weather is a real issue
The Soviet subs are nearly undetectable in these conditions
The North Sea is where the action is, but the focus on getting the Wasp TF to the staging area is so far removed that none of the air assets on her can really participate in any ASW work in that AO.
The NATO warships assigned to the North Sea breakout zone are... "hampered" by their lack of reach with their ASW weapons and the weather.
Soviet subs can, and do get close enough to fire off a pair of torpedoes, but the NATO ships always flee in time. Rince/repeat. This happened about a dozen times. No kills on either side during these encounters.
A Soviet Whisky V just west of the Faroes was sunk by the patrolling SSN and a lucky Shackleton hit a Romeo trying to breakout of the North Sea near Norway.

FWIW there are some annoying bugs still present in the core CMO build. They've been documented in the Tech Forum, but since they're still present and in some cases cause both scripted and non-scripted missions to behave erratically these long duration scenarios that require planning can be really problematic. There are times aircraft will not respond to commands even after being removed from a pre-planned mission and the only way to resolve this is to play inside the editor. Lastly, I would have thought that most of the Soviet sub fleet would sortie out of the Arctic and into the GIUK, not the North Sea. Would have been interesting to have the scenario take place in and around the Denmark Straits, both in the Baltic and North Sea if that many Soviet subs were in the Baltics and attempted to break out.

Anyway, other than the conditions present and the bugs, it's a challenging scenario. Good job.

[Mgellis]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. Anything else I should do or is it ready for the Community Scenario Pack?

Yes, I agree about the Wasp being far from the units in the North Sea...I realized as I was writing this that in a way it's really two scenarios going on at the same time. But I think it works better this way. With more objectives to achieve, it keeps the Awfully Slow Warfare from being too awfully slow for the player. I hope. There are actually four submarines in her path, and those are worth points if you can sink them. However, Wasp is at the eastern edge of their patrol zones (and, as the briefing points out, this was deliberate, to keep her away from them if possible).

One thing I will do is change the scoring categories slightly...a 490 will now count as a Minor Victory.

Thanks again for all the help with this one.