Pacific Fury 5 - Shemya Shakedown 15/2/94

[fitzpatv]

In this one, the USSR reacts to US raids on the Crimea with a politically-motivated strike on the Aleutian island of Shemya. While Eareckson airbase is reachable by Soviet bombers, the island also houses the COBRA DANE anti-ballistic early warning radar. Russia is anxious not to damage this, as doing so would be seen as an attempt to undermine America’s defences against a nuclear strike, suggesting that one was planned.

Eareckson has one operational runway and is home to an F-15 squadron, believed to be Sparrow-armed, as well as some KC-135s. There are thought to be some Stinger MANPADs, but no heavier SAMs. Sentry AWACS planes based in Alaska augment the island radars to give early warning.

The COBRA DANE is located at the Northern tip of the small island and has a comms uplink facility 150m to its South. Hitting either of these loses the game and would not be good for your Soviet avatar’s life expectancy!.

There is a Victor III at periscope depth off Shemya and a Spetsnaz squad on the nearby, uninhabited islet of Niski. Both have provided recon data on the base and will continue to monitor the situation there. They are under AI control but are in no real danger, as the US has no suitable assets with which to attack them.

Four ELINT and maritime patrol aircraft are to the W of Shemya, keeping outside the 250nm radius which has been proven to be the trigger for the F-15 CAP.

There is a Titan-class AGI off Kamchatka which can also gather ELINT. As it is Russia’s equivalent to COBRA DANE, the Americans are unlikely to attack it.

The top priority is to disable the runway at Eareckson. There are, otherwise, 6 hangars, parked aircraft, two ammo bunkers, four AvGas farms, a police station, HQ (‘Building 600’), control tower and five barracks on the high-value target list. Taking-out parking areas and revetments is also desirable, but hitting a hospital near Building 600 is not.

Given the distance to the target from the strike aircraft base at Mongokhto near Vladivostok, two diversion bases have been made available in Kamchatka, capable of accommodating eight aircraft each, while another six can land at the main Soviet base on the peninsula, Yelizovo. In emergencies, there are also a couple of diversion fields on Sakhalin, but these are so close to Mongokhto that they are unlikely to be needed.

To do the job, you have a large force of Backfires, four armed with Kitchen B stand-off weapons (for use against land targets) and the rest with good-old iron bombs of various calibres. To paraphrase a notorious London madam, equipping excellent aircraft like Backfires with bombs is like growing potatoes in a Ming vase, but you are stuck with it.

There are a number of support aircraft of varying usefulness, with four Cub OECM planes at Yelizovo and some Badger jammers at Mongokhto that don’t have the endurance to remain near the targets for long.

Also at Yelizovo are eight Foxhounds (finally got to use them in the Fury series!) assigned to escort duty. Their cautious commander has only allowed them to load Amos missiles and has forbidden them to dogfight. You can burn precious VP to scrounge more Foxhounds if you so wish.

My plan was simple enough. The Kitchen Backfires would launch straightaway and try to knock-out the runway. Hopefully, this would ground the F-15s and leave the other 34 Tu-22s free to swamp the MANPADs and take-out the targets. As the COBRA Dane was at the NW end of the island, the Backfires would approach from the SW and attack the airfield, which is in the SE and contains most of the targets. Bombing would have to be done at 2,000’ for accuracy and losses were inevitable, as there was no way of suppressing the Stingers in advance. I planned to use the Tu-22s with lots of smaller bombs first in an effort to destroy any Stinger teams identified. Aircraft would approach at maximum altitude to optimise fuel economy.

Priority for the Kamchatka diversion fields was given to the aforesaid Backfires with the lighter bombs, as the sheer number of such meant that they had the lowest endurance. Diversion fields would be specified at take-off. To avoid congestion issues, six Backfires would be kept in reserve at Mongokhto.

15/2/94 12:00Z (23:00L): Bad luck can ruin anything!. Unbelievably, soon after the Kitchen-carriers had launched, one ‘Lost Control’ and crashed, costing me 10VP and 25% of the ordnance I needed to close the runway. I’ve only ever seen this happen once before (coincidentally in the same part of the world in a Chains of War scenario). Shades of the Bermuda Triangle...

14:00Z: Despite this, the other three Kitchen-armed Backfires succeeded in disabling the runway, scoring 50VP and also destroying an F-15 on the ground for 5 more. One missile (of 6) was intercepted en route. I found that the scenario has no defined victory thresholds.

The PVO commander at Yelizovo, confident now that they wouldn’t have to do any actual fighting, made four more Foxhounds available…

Stretching credibility, one of the returning Backfires also ‘Lost Control’ and crashed!!. It was doing no more than RTB’ing at 36,000’. I don’t know why this feature was introduced but, however rarely it comes-up, we could do without it. In some scenarios, it could cost a player the game by eliminating a vital aircraft.

16:00Z: To my relief, the other two Backfires got home safely. I waited to exhaust the endurance of the F-15s that had launched. None of these were reported destroyed, so they presumably re-based to Alaska.

18:00Z: A Foxhound tested enemy defences, making a flypast of Shemya and finding no CAP. It then downed a Sentry further East for 20VP before returning over the US base.

19:00Z: The main Backfire strike went-in. This being the Fury series, Shemya proved to be crawling with Stinger teams and their fire was persistent and relentless, augmented by more of the things on a coastguard cutter in the harbour that was positioned to waylay AI-determined RTB routes. Unfortunately, there was little choice but to grin and bear it. Even taking-down the Stinger teams was hindered by OODA limitations. We eliminated three units of five elements each, but there were plenty more and they don’t score any VP. In all, 92 Stingers were fired at the strike planes and downed 13 Backfires, damaging several more. In return, the bombers made a serious mess of the base without hitting the COBRA DANE facilities. With no diminution of the MANPAD fire and few viable targets remaining, I called-off the last six Backfires (with the heaviest bombs) to prevent further losses.

23:00Z: All surviving aircraft made it back to base without any more ‘Lost Control’ incidents.

16/2/94 12:00Z: There were no VP scored for damaged structures burning down after the strike and no more Sentries presented themselves as targets, so it ended with an unrated score of +102 (the scale in Evaluation runs to +100, so that was good enough for me).

The USSR lost 15 Backfires (10VP each), 13 of these losses being legitimate. Interestingly, the ‘Lost Control’ losses did not appear on Losses and Expenditures.

The USA lost 12 F-15s (5VP each), 3 Tankers (10 each), a Sentry (20), all 6 hangars (10 each), one of the two ammo bunkers (10), three of four AvGas farms (10 each), one of five barracks, the control tower, a comms centre and 15 Stinger elements, as well as damage to various parking spaces and revetments that scored 3VP a time.

Whether the raid was worth the loss of so many front-line bombers was for Moscow to judge, but the base had categorically been put out of action, at least for a while.

The last Pacific Fury scenario is another long one and follows-on from Scenario 4. I’m not wildly enthusiastic and it will be good to get back to Northern Fury afterwards, but I will soldier through it, playing one day at a time.

[Gunner98]

Thanks Vince

I'll check on the victory thresholds; they should be there.

Bart