Kuril Sunrise 29/10/18

[fitzpatv]

Balance of Forces

The rather unlikely premise for this one is that a populist government takes power in Japan and decides to go to war with Russia over the Kuril Islands, which extend NE from Hokkaido towards Kamchatka and were ceded to the USSR at the end of WW2. So far, hostilities have been limited to exchanges between local fishermen, but Tokyo has begun to assemble an amphibious landing force and Russia has sent reinforcements to the region. My standard practice for these scenarios is to play the default side which, in this case, is Russia.

The Russians have most of their Pacific Fleet pinned-down in the Sea of Japan and have had to rely on what they can scrape together in Kamchatka. A convoy of ten commercial ferries has been loaded with troops, with one ship carrying self-propelled artillery and another, tanks. A close escort consists of four Grisha V corvettes, which only carry guns, a few Gecko SAMs and short-ranged ASW torpedoes. Though the frigate Sovershennyy is 79nm to the S and able to join the force, it isn’t honestly much better than the Grishas, so the convoy is manifestly unable to stand-up to any serious attack.

More encouragingly, there is a screen of subs 150-250nm SW of the convoy. There are two torpedo-armed Kilos, three Akulas with good sonar and long-ranged Stallions and Starfish for ASW and two SSGNs, the Tver being an Oscar II and the Severodvinsk a new Yasen-class boat. Each carries a small arsenal of 20-30 anti-shipping cruise missiles, with Severodvinsk’s Strobiles also having an anti-land capability. They are no slouches at ASW, either, being similarly-equipped to the Akulas in this respect.

At Yelizovo on Kamchatka, there are 20 Foxhounds (the first time I’ve actually had the things on my side in all this time playing!), plus 8 Midas tankers, 6 ASW Bears and three Mainstay AEW planes. Ten Flankers, armed with infra-red Adder missiles, are at Dolinsk-Sokol in S Sakhalin and there are 10 Fulcrums and another 4 Flankers (all armed with Alamos and Archers) at Iturup, the convoy’s destination.

There are Gargoyle and Gauntlet SAM batteries at Iturup and Dolinsk-Sokol, but they are AI-controlled, as are some Improved Styx batteries dotted along the Kuril chain.

Russia hopes that the safe arrival of the convoy will deter Japanese aggression. China has promised political and satellite intel support (the latter adding to reports from Russian satellites) while the USA has tried to restrain Japan, grounding their planes on shared bases and will certainly not help them militarily.

Only a few Japanese surface ships are in the Sea of Okhotsk, comprising a small SAG of a Hatsuyuki destroyer and two Abukuma destroyer escorts. These are good ASW vessels and have Harpoons and some medium-grade SAMs, but don’t constitute a major threat.

Intel has it that there are ‘many’ Japanese SSKs in the region and all of these Soryu and Oyashio-class boats have Harpoons and torpedoes with an 8nm range.

In the air, the Japanese can field two squadrons of F-15s with excellent air-to-air missiles, one of Phantoms with dangerous anti-shipping stand-off weapons, plus Orions for ASW and Sentinels for early warning. Most of these assets are based at Chitose Airport, Sapporo but some are at Hachinohe in N Honshu. Chitose is warded by Patriots and other SAMs.

Note that Aircraft Damage rules are not in effect, so all hits on planes are fatal. It is only a medium-sized scenario, so it runs quite smoothly, without the performance issues I’ve experienced recently in the Pacific Fury series.

Assessment and Planning

It is 446nm from the convoy’s starting position to the arrival area at the ENE end of Iturup. At 20 knots, this can be done in 22.5 hours and there are 72 hours available, so it made sense to go slowly and carefully at first, allowing time for the screen to sanitise the area and the air force to achieve superiority.

I realised that the Japanese Phantoms could come-in low and thus immunise themselves from the Amos and Adder missiles carried by the Foxhounds and Dolinsk Flankers, but they lacked tanker support and were only likely to attempt a strike once the convoy was close to its destination.

Having mostly SARH missiles would clearly put the Russian fighters at a disadvantage against the F-15s’ fire-and-forget AAM-4s, but I fondly imagined that the Amos would have a compensating range advantage. It is also an old scenario which will not allow you to forbid cranking, which worsens matters, making it likely that a lot of shots would go blind and miss.

The Oscar would clearly be bad news for Japanese surface ships, while the Stallions and Starfish would be the best weapons against enemy subs, provided we found them first.

Strobile strikes against Chitose probably wouldn’t work, so the weapons were best reserved for anti-surface use.

Day 1

29/10/18 00:00Z (10:00L): I started the convoy moving at Creep with active sonar and a Bear low overhead, while the Akula Bratsk screened the Tver and Severodvinsk as they hung back. The other Akulas (Vepr and Kashalot) and the Kilo Mogocha scouted ahead at Creep, while the Kilo Nurlat brought-up the rear.

There was an initial spate of sub-surface contacts in and around our sub formation. Most were diagnosed as fish, but one remained uncertain, so a second Bear was sent to check further, escorted by two Foxhounds and a Mainstay.

01:00Z: It was soon clear that the AI was not going to be subtle about this, immediately throwing-in every F-15 it had to the W side of the Kurils, aggressively looking for targets and followed by no less than four Orions and distantly supported by a Sentinel over Hokkaido. Unfortunately, I took time to realise just how extreme this approach was and variously tried to use Fulcrums and Flankers to attack the Orions and cut-off Eagles as they RTB’d while a couple of Foxhounds held the line in front. More Eagles kept arriving in a continuous stream and they proved capable of firing their AAM-4s effectively from 45nm distance, whereas I’d restricted the Amos missiles on the MiG-31s to 40. As a result, even Foxhounds had to evade away to tire-out their opponents before they could counter-attack and, when they did, they would just meet the next pair of oncoming F-15s. It didn’t go well, with 9 Flankers and 7 Fulcrums lost for 6 Eagles and the 4 Orions. None of this scored anything for either side.

Annoyingly, my attempts to use Fulcrums to lure the F-15s onto the AI-controlled Gargoyle batteries largely failed because the latter were chronically unwilling to open fire, loosing just three shots for one kill as Japanese fighters repeatedly flew well within their range.

Similarly, a Soryu-class SSK flagrantly surfaced SE of the arrival zone, within range of an Improved Styx battery, which likewise refused to fire. Tver threw a Shipwreck at it, but the weapon failed to lock-on. Russia isn’t known for inter-service co-operation, but this was ridiculous!

An Oyashio-class boat, the Makishio, then appeared a bit too close to Tver and needed three Stallion shots to sink. This, too, scored nothing.

02:00Z: A pair of Foxhounds engaged some Eagles NW of Iturup, bagging two for one loss. Again, the range of the AAM-4 and the SARH handicap didn’t help.

03:00Z: With the F-15 sorties finally abating, one of the three surviving Fulcrums shot down two unescorted Orions.

05:00Z: Bratsk detected a sub-sea contact and called-in a Bear to help, before doing the job himself. Again, it took two Stallion hits to kill the sub, the Oyashio-class Mochishio.

To 10:00Z: The AI kept sending out unescorted Orions and the Fulcrums shot them down one-by-one until the score reached 10 and they finally stopped coming. It was equally careless with its Sentinels, which were left exposed over Central Hokkaido with no F-15s left to help them and the three they had were picked-off by the Flankers from Sakhalin.

11:00Z: The Soryu-class sub Hakoryu turned-up close enough to Severodvinsk to get-off a couple of torpedoes. It took five Stallion and Starfish shots to sink her (two hits) and the Russian SSGN was able to evade.

16:00Z: I loaded a Fulcrum with Krypton C ARMs and sent it against two of the three radars the Japanese had along the N coast of Hokkaido. Inevitably, the first of its two shots malfunctioned, but the second struck home and the second radar wasn’t active, anyway.

Day 2

23:00Z: The F-15s returned in strength. Our two duty Foxhounds tried to fight the first pair, outlasted the AAM-4s by accelerating away a couple of times, then gave chase as the Eagles turned for home. As the next pair of enemy fighters raced-in, one MiG got on the tail of an Eagle, but it dove to the deck and the AI decided to have my plane pursue to 100’, which was below the firing floor for its missiles. Trying to get clear, the Foxhound was downed by a short-ranged AAM-5 shot. Its more cautious wingman got away. It was evident that our fighters couldn’t match the F-15s, so we had to concede air superiority and ponder how to repulse any escorted Phantom strike later-on.

30/11/18 06:00Z: After seven hours of watching F-15s surging up the NW side of the Kurils, I decided that it would be a good idea to divert the convoy to the SE side and keep it out of their surface search range once it reached an appropriate latitude. The SSNs Vepr and Kashalot were told to alter course to cover this move.

08:00Z: The F-15 patrols finally ceased, so the Krypton Fulcrum sortied and destroyed one of the remaining coastal radars. The other was still dormant, so Severodvinsk wrecked it with a Strobile.

All Foxhounds began to move S to Iturup, the better to protect the convoy. Several patrolling Bears were also re-based there.

10:00Z: Tver finally got within range of the Japanese SAG, which was cruising aimlessly off the N coast of Hokkaido. As the Mainstay only has a search range of 215nm and I didn’t want to risk one that far forward, I used a Fulcrum to spot. It took all 23 of the SSGN’s Shipwrecks and a Strobile from Severodvinsk to sink the Hatsuyuki and two Abukumas, one batch of six missiles failing to lock-on and the AI being very lucky with jamming rolls. Again, this scored absolutely nothing.

19:00Z: Pushing W of the arrival zone, the Kilo Mogocha encountered the Soryu-class SSK Unryu and came-off worse, but Tver, supported by a Bear, took revenge. Again, no points to either side.

20:30Z: The F-15s began to launch again with the same mindless, big stick approach as before…

Day 3

31/10/18 02:00Z: As the convoy neared its destination, the swarming F-15s found and shot down two Bears that were escorting it. This woke-up the Iturup Gargoyles, which downed two of the Eagles.

04:00Z:The entire convoy was now unscathed in the arrival zone, but there were no messages or VP. It was clear by now that the scoring system was completely inoperative and the game did not conclude as might have been expected.

05:00Z: The Soryu-class Kokoryu (which had been spotted surfaced earlier) got uncomfortably close to Vepr before being sunk in a crossfire of torpedoes and Stallions. She managed to reply, but a combination of her wire breaking and a fortunate jamming roll saved Vepr as he accelerated and dove away.

21:00Z: A final F-15 swarming began. We ignored it. For whatever reason, there was no Phantom strike, even though the Eagles must have spotted the convoy. I had been ready to throw every remaining fighter into the fray and Severodvinsk was going to try to distract some of the fighters by firing Strobiles at their base at Chitose, but it proved unnecessary.

1/11/18 00:00Z: The scenario ended, ostensibly with a score of zero (Average). However, given the balance of losses and the safe arrival of the convoy, it had to count as a Russian victory.

Russia lost 18 fighters, two Bears and an SSK.

Japan lost 10 fighters, 10 Orions, 3 AEW planes, a chopper, a destroyer, two destroyer escorts, 5 diesel subs and 3 radars.

It could have been a good scenario, but the scoring issues, the passive Russian SAMs and the AI’s blunt tactics detracted badly from it.

I had a look at the scenario from the Japanese point-of-view afterwards. It turned-out that they had 30 F-15s and just 8 Phantoms at Chitose and none were on Quick Turnround, so that each plane had to wait 20 hours between sorties. This was all the more reason NOT to commit all of the fighters at once.

There were seven SSKs in all and the two I didn’t get were to the W of the Unryu, within Harpoon range of the arrival area. Again, for whatever reason, they did not fire.

If I was playing the Japanese, I would have moved the three advanced SSKs out of the way of the Russian subs (maybe easier said than done) and tried to circle them round to intercept the convoy, keeping the other four as a last line of defence around the arrival zone. The F-15s would have been fed-in gradually, using their advantages to chip away at the Russian fighters while conserving strength to escort the Phantoms (15 would have been kept-back). Needless to say, the Orions would not have been used until air superiority had been achieved and I would have taken better care of the Sentinels. The surface ships would have been moved out of the way as quickly as possible.

Anyway, I’m off to South Korea for a couple of weeks and will return to this part of the (in-game) world for Pacific Fury 5 after I get back.