Hell of the East

[Bashkire]

I'll preface this by saying that I love reading Fitzpatv's AARs so I thought I'd try my hand at doing one myself while I was deployed for the past year as a way of killing the time. I am in no way a good C:MO player but I do enjoy playing the smaller scenarios. That being said, I thought I'd give a longer one a go for once.

This is that story.

Please be gentle in your critique!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Briefing:

VA/14-2-2019

CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTATION

SMD: VA2019:44:8245

DATE: March 03, 2019

MEMORANDUM TO: General

FROM: Capo di Stato Maggiore della Difesa Claudio Graziano in conjunction with Stato Maggiore della Difesa

SUBJECT: BRIEFING AND OBJECTIVES

The SMD is transferring to the General complete freedom of operation on the battlefield against military targets of all the assets currently available be it ground, air or naval.

Thanks to the image gathered with the Italian spy satellite#001 Cosmo Skymed and the Italian spy satellite#004 OptStat 3000 we have been able to mark the positions of the enemy SAM batteries and identify it as Hawk XXI short/medium range.

The objective of the mission is to gain air and naval superiority rendering a minor threat both the Turkish Air Force and Navy in order render secure the battlefield for the Amphibious and Air Assault on the Turkish part of Cyprus.

The enemy Air Force are primarily composed of upgraded F-16C and D and some F-4T 2000 and count of 200+ aircrafts while the navy is primarily composed of 8 ex-Oliver Hazard Perry class fregates (4.100 tons), 4 Barbaros Class Fregates (3.300 tons)and 4 German MAKO class ships.

Particular attention is needed for the numerous enemy subs that might patrol the battlefield, all of the submarines are Type209 variants without AIP capabilities.

For this operation you will have almost the entire Air Force and Navy capabilities, our Typhoons are already deployed in Greece and also a small part of our AMX and Tornado armed with Storm Shadow Cruise Missiles.

On the Italian Airfields are deployed the AMX, Tornado IDS and ECR, 6 KC767, 2 KC130, 2 EC222, 3 MC27J, 2 G550 AEW and 4 P72A.

Our 4 Todaro Class Submarines, 2 Sauro III and 2 Sauro IV class are already deployed near the Turkish national waters, while the Cavour Strike Group and Giuseppe Garibaldi Strike Group are still in International waters.

On Greek Soil are already deployed several SAMP/T long range SAM and Spada 2000 short range SAM covering our Airbases and the Greek Mainland.

Albania and Greece has guaranteed to us the access to their airspace but don't expect any help from their part if things might go south.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

03 0700z
There are several aircraft at my airbases that have Reserve [Available] loadouts, so I readied them with a variety of Meteors, Storm Shadows, HARMs and tanker fits to enable them to be of use to me further down the line. My reasoning that it will take 3 - 6 hours to ready them now may pay dividends later.
Immediately there is an unknown sub-surface contact near the Giuseppe Garibaldi Strike Group. This is probably going to be a spurious contact, but you can't be too careful in war, and the nearby Alpino Patrol Group was sent to check out the area. The helicopter that was sent found nothing while dipping, so I sent the three ships into the area to flood the place with noise.
My three submarines I decided to use to sanitise my immediate surroundings while moving out to the Agean Sea to screen for any Turkish units in that area.
My strike groups would move closer to the front lines, but remain comfortably close to Crete and the Greek mainland in order to be within range of friendly air support if required. They have a decent flight of Harrier IIs each, but I wanted some extra insurance.
I sent one of my two precious Gulfstrean G550s up to take a look at what the picture looks like in the Agean and in fairly short order it detected several Turkish F16s and two Turkish SAGs transiting south towards our lines. Looking around at my assets, I don't seem to have a huge amount in the way of stand-off strike, but I do have lots of bombs. Reluctant to commit my aircraft so early on to bombing ships at sea, I'll let them pass for now.
In response to the F16s, though, I scrambled Garuda 1 and 2 from Araxos and sent them on towards the middle of the AO where they would be able to react accordingly to any perceived incursion while maintaining my QRF in Crete.
Towards the end of the hour an AB.212 ASW helo was detected (or rather, a Sea Spray emitter was detected and I type classified it as an AB.212. Note for the devs: can we have a feature that allows the player to declare to the computer "it's this aircraft / ship"? It would be massively helpful to keep our SA). That immediately became the first target for my CAP, and if I got my way would be the first shot fired in this war. Garuda Flight 1 banked east and approached the area of the emitter to narrow it down. As they approached, another two ships were detected - a Meko and a Bozcaada (probably the Homeplate for the AB.212) - very close to our defences. I started debating my options for a strike.

0800z
I bowed to the inevitable. I readied and launched two Tornadoes - Callsigns Trimmer 5 and 6 - armed with HARMs to have a go at hitting the MEKO and Bozcaada. They're getting close, and while the Bozcaada isn't a significant threat, that MEKO is armed with Harpoon missiles and I want those safely on the seabed rather than the side of my ships or facilities ashore. The plan will be to fire 2 HARMs at the MEKO, wait for them hit, and then either re-engage or attack the Bozcaada.
One of the Frigates to the north in what I'm calling "HSAG 1" has now been classified as a Gayba class.
I was wrong, but at least the first shots were on our side. Without my knowing one of my Mamba SAMP/T batteries fired a couple of Aster missiles at some F-4E Phantom IIs. I should have reduced their engagement criteria, because those missiles are never going to reach them with any good chance of taking out the targets. At least it's making the fighters burn a lot of fuel to get away.
...Turns out I'm wrong again. I'm not sure why but another one of my SAM batteries fired a missile as well and this one hit it's target. The Airbus A.380-800 tumbled from the sky, and I started asking pointed questions of the battery commander. This is not the way I wanted the war to start...
Some Turkish F-16s got too close to Garuda Flight 1 and they felt sufficiently worried enough to launch four Meteors at them to turn them away as they approached the AB.212. Again: I need to set a better WRA policy for my side to not just loose weapons at maximum range. However, I stand corrected at the might of the Meteor, and both F16s were splashed! Interestingly, the mistaken airbus shooting didn't cost me a thing, but I've netted 10 points a piece for the Turkish jets.
As Garuda Flight neared the helo, it turned out that it was the Little Helo that Could, and managed to tank the first AIM-2000A hit before dodging the second, and finally going down with the third, netting me 10 more points.
Now the hornet's nest had been kicked, I launched Scarface 3 and 4 from Araxos to bolster my lines as another CAP formation with their Meteors.
Another Gayba class frigate has been detected to the south.
Turkish tracking on Garuda Flight must not be so great, as the fire control radar on the IHAWK site 100 nm away has just been turned on.
Another civilian airliner has been shot down. This time I have no idea which battery fired it. Are we the baddies..?
Two more F16s try their luck and four more Meteors are sent after them. Garuda Flight are sent back to base now they're Winchester and Garudas 3 and 4 (Flight 2) start taxing to meet them half way. Annoyingly, the Meteors all miss.
I've just noticed an aircraft flying out of North Macedonia flagged as Suspect. Is this why my northern most SAM battery has been claiming kills against civilians? But alas, the suspect flew over the site with nary a shot fired. I classified it as Neutral and filtered it out.
The MEKO and Bozcaada are now 15 miles from my SAM battery, but Trimmer flight is at weapon release range and 3 HARMs are fired at the MEKO with one being aimed at the Bozcaada. The MEKO manages to shoot down 1 of the HARMs, but 2 smash through for unknown effect. Her speed has decreased down to 3 knots, though, so it looks like her engines are severely damaged. As expected, the Bozcaada had nothing to say to the HARM fired at it and it hit cleanly - again, to no known effect. As they're still moving, however, I feel resigned to the fact that I'm going to have to try hitting them with Paveway III equipped Tornadoes from Aktion. Black Knights 1 and 4 get this dubious honour and start to taxi.

0900z
Two contacts have been detected flying in close formation but without any emitters. I've flagged them as Suspect and sent Scarface Flight to investigate. As I engage and destroy the MPA with Garuda, the contacts up speed to 850 knots, so they're certainly not friendly. Eventually they get classified as F-4Es, and Garuda - having just destroyed two more Phantoms after the MPA - turn to engage these new contacts. Two more Meteors flash across the sky, and one more Phantom splashes down. Garuda re-engage and splashes the remaining aircraft and then two more contacts are detected approaching them. Eventually these are classified as F-16s, so Garuda fires two more Meteors at them and then turn to head back to friendly lines as another 2 Phantoms backed up with F-16s approach.
Scarface Flight have also engaged and destroyed several F16s and F4Es meaning that both my CAP flights are now out of long range missiles. Our AIM-2000s outrange the Phantom's Sidewinders by about 5 nm so they can be kept on station for now, but I'm scrambling more fighters from Souda and Araxos to help plug the gap. We haven't noticed any concerted surge from the Turks yet, so I'm not sending up huge swarms of aircraft, but it's only a matter of time.
In order to deal with the Gabya class Frigate to the south I'm scrambling another HARM strike - callsigns Schnee 1, 2 and 3 - this time from Trapani.
The bombing run against the MEKO went worse than I expected but better than I hoped. Out of the 4 Paveways that were dropped, 1 hit causing the MEKO's speed to reduce satisfyingly to 0 and after a couple of minutes vanish completely as she presumably sunk beneath the waves. The Bozcaada is my next issue.
The rest of the hour passed with yet more Meteors and AIM-2000s wanging across the sky, netting me more points as the Turkish aircraft went down.

1000z
I've found one of their tanker patterns! While looking at ways that I could thread the needle and attempt to get close to some of their facilities on land I noticed a group of aircraft clustered together heading north and south. I see now that those are several Phantoms (and I assume F16s) and crucially: 2 KC-135R Stratotankers! It looks like my engagements at the front there weren't small fry after all now, and it seems that I have a nice beeline to a crucial piece of infrastructure. I'm scrambling a few Eurofighters now to probe the gap and see what damage I can do.
Aquila 1 - 4, split into 2 groups, get the honours. The plan is for them to dash in, throw some Meteors at the tankers, and fall back ready to throw a few more missiles at any retaliation alongside my standby CAP.
Even better: one of the contacts that I'd mistaken for a neutral has been type classified as an AEW aircraft! An E7 Wedgetail is a very tempting target indeed!
With my aircraft now feet dry they unleash six missiles in total against the two tankers and the E7. The priority targets were dashed for the air and a parting shot was fired at a nearby MPA transiting out to sea to search for my submarines as my Eurofighters turned for home with a horde of angry F16s and F4Es behind them.
Completely neglected by me are my two strike packages. Schnee Strike - armed with HARMs fired all six against the Gabya class frigate to the south, and my Black Knights descended to 3000 feet to conduct their bombing run on the Bozcaada.
Of the six HARMs, three hit We aren't sure of the damage dealt yet, but it's sure to be significant as its speed has just cut from 15 knots to 2.
The Bozcaada didn't stand a chance and was split in two by the Paveways.
Schwartz Flight report they are being jammed from somewhere, but I can't see anything obvious right now. I wonder if it's the mystery ship sailing ahead of the Frigate to the south.

1100z
I've decided that as I have some MQ9s I may as well use them. I launch two from Amendola and send them on a long, slow journey east to take a look at some of the Turkish facilities in the area. If I can shut down some of their front line air bases then I'll set my self up for a much stronger position later on in the war.
With two of my MQ9s now in the air, I can see that they have around 7 hours of endurance before they reach Bingo state, and the journey over to the Turkish mainland is 6 hours 40 minutes. With that in mind, the two already in flight will do what they can, and the remaining 4 will rebase to Greece where they will be more effective.
An aircraft without emitters has been detected close to the previously discovered tanker pattern. The fact that F16s are swarming around it makes me think that they've just sent out a replacement plane, so my Eurofighters are going to go back into the fray. I'm also going to have to send up my own tankers before too long to sustain my CAP now that targets aren't presenting themselves as readily.
I'm also going to launch a decisive HARM strike against the remaining Turkish surface groups to the north. It'll be better for me to take those assets out now and then endure a 3 hour ready time than keep them in reserve the whole way and let those units get within Harpoon range of me.
The Turks have fired their first missiles and have hit their first plane. As Schwarz 5 and 6 moved to engage some F4Es with AIM-2000s, one of the Phantoms got a shot off and the Sidewinder struck one of my jets causing some damage. They've been ordered to RTB for repairs. It wasn't for nothing though, as the replacement fighters got away their missiles and downed the two Stratotankers and an F4E that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
While falling back, an F16 was suddenly spotted directly behind the Eurofighters! At 5 nm it launched two missiles. One damaging a plane and the other outright destroying it! A follow up missile destroyed my other jet, and I learned a hard lesson in checking the picture and not under-estimating my enemy... That cost me 40 points - 20 for each plane.
Two strength two groups have just taken off from Balikesir Air Base. We've not seen anything take off from there yet. Is this the first offensive action from Türkiye? Eventually we type classify them as F4Es which can be armed with SOM A cruise missiles with a nasty 130 nm range.
And now another two aircraft out of Bandirma. I've already scrambled some CAP to cover my northern flank and possibly attempt to sweep in and engage them before they can do anything.
I've also detected another AEW aircraft which is almost certainly another E7. It's instantly put on the priority targets list, but as I had to move my shooter aircraft out of the way of some Falcons the Meteor shot went wide and the E7 lived to detect another day.
The majority of the possible strike by the Phantoms has been destroyed by my CAP, but they're now RTB and out of missiles. A replacement flight is 5 minutes away. Meanwhile, I can't ignore the Suspect ship to the south any longer. It's doing 15 knots and headed towards Crete. I'm hesitant about this, but I'm sending one of my CAP flights to take a look at it... and praying that they don't get shot down. they identify it as an Ada class corvette, and due to its lack of weapons I send some harriers from the Cavour strike group to bomb it with Paveways.

1200z
After tanking a frankly heroic number of missiles, the E7 finally goes down and I can give my guys a bit of breathing room as they fall back to friendly lines to re-arm.
Exactly what I was concerned would happen but underestimated the chances of happened: As my Harriers were bombing the Ada class a lucky RIM-116B shot managed to hit a plane during its attack run. The other got its bombs away and managed to sink the vessel, but that's one Harrier not going home.
The rest of the hour passed with several air to air engagements which solidified my current air superiority.

1300z
At the very top of the hour my HARM strike arrived and launched their missiles at the Turkish SAG. I believe I spread the missile a little too thinly when it comes to the corvettes, but the 7 missiles aimed squarely at the Gayba frigate sank it outright. The two corvettes took some damage, but I believe that I can take them out with bombs based on past form. To this end, I launch one harrier from the Cavour with two Paveways to take out the Bozcaada. It's moving at 5 knots towards the larger corvette with RIM missiles and I estimate it will take around 40 minutes for it to get under the SAM umbrella.
With the southern SAG now suppressed, I'm going to launch my remaining 5 HARM aircraft from Grosseto to hit the northern SAG.
My Harrier gets there before it makes it and two Paveways smash into the ship causing it to explode and sink. The Ada class remains afloat and sailing at 6 knots.
Two Falcons have just taken off from Cigli Air Base and are acting oddly. One remained at 300 feet while the other moved up to 36000. They were both doing 350 knots and moved back to their base once my Harrier started to RTB. My CAP is investigating, but if they want to scramble their planes and then leave them on the ground for a few hours while they reset then I won't waste the missiles. As my CAP gets closer however, the Falcons turn back and approach. They're clearly the QRF and will now need to be dealt with.
One of my UAVs is now approaching it's target air base. There's an IHAWK covering it with a 22 nm range and a minimum altitude of 200 feet. I'm wondering if it's worth me putting the drone down to 150 so it can avoid those missiles and - while it will almost certainly be shot down - possibly find some smaller AD units.

1400z
I order the drone to turn of its RADAR and do indeed tell it to descend. I'm also scrambling some more CAP to keep my hand ready to fend off a rather large number of Falcons that seem to have taken off recently. I want more missiles in the air just in case.
The sheer number of enemy fighters told, however, and one of my drones was downed by a Sidewinder from a Falcon. My CAP has been doing a sterling job, but faced with the huge number of bad guys that took off there was only so much they could do. A punitive Meteor already in flight splashed it soon after. Happily - and as one should expect in wartime because it's exactly what these units are for - loosing my drone didn't cost me any points.
My other drone however, has made it to it's target and has descended down to a nice low altitude. It's about to overfly Cigli Air Base and Adnan Menderes Airport. I've not seen anything launch out of there that I can recall, so this might be a slight waste of time, but at least it will tell me where I should be focussing more of my attention. It only sees one Falcon in Cigli, so I send it north to look at Balikesir and Bandirma Air Bases. That - and Bandirma in particular - is where I've seen the most air activity recently.
My HARM strike is nearing the northern SAG and with 10 missiles ready I've decided to fire six at the MEKO, and two each at the patrol boats with it. My reasoning being that the previous MEKO was able to tank 2 HARMs and remain afloat before and was able to shoot one of those down. The patrol boats only have their guns to bring to the party so they should be fairly easy fodder. It feels a bit criminal to use HARMs against them, really...
As the Tornadoes fire I'm made aware of the sneakiness of the Turkish air force, and two aircraft take off from Cigli Airbase. They also turn out to be Phantoms, so I have no idea what my drone operators were doing when they conducted their overflight.
The HARMs hit the group of ships, but frustratingly none of them are destroyed outright. I'm satisfied that there were lots of hits, with only two missiles missing the patrols boats after the first missile that hit each one blew out the RADAR it was aiming for. I'm now waiting semi-patiently to see if any of them flounder and sink.
One patrol boat slips beneath the waves.

1500z
The second patrol boat flounders and rolls over, her crew piling into life rafts. The MEKO has also reached a dead stop now, so she can't be much longer for this world.
A good natured game of Mouse / Cat / Dog is being played now. The two Phantoms that took off were chasing two of my Eurofighters that were heading off to refuel. Rather than wasting Meteors on some aircraft that certainly didn't possess the weapons that needed to be outranged, I told another two of my fighters to pursue them in turn with a view to firing some AIM-2000s at them. After chasing them across the sky for about 10 minutes, we managed to down both F4Es. It did get to squeaky-bottom o'clock when one of the Phantoms was able to get off a Sidewinder at one of the attackers, but fancy flying saved the day and my CAP retook their station again.
While the ITS Gazzana Priaroggia submarine was sneaking its way towards the wounded Gabya class to the south it detected an underwater contact. Could this be yet another fish, or something more sinister trying to get close to my own ships?
...It was a fish... But in brighter news, the MEKO to the north finally succumbed to her wounds and sank.

1600z
I'm going to launch another HARM strike of 4 missiles against the Ada class hanging around the centre of the AO. It's not exactly a threat to us in any major way, but the missiles it has can still be fired and I want then out of the picture. After what happened before I don't want to risk the Harriers doing another bombing run.
Meanwhile, my submarine reached torpedo range of the Gabya class to the south and launched a couple of torpedoes. One hits and the other misses, but as it's wire guided I'm hoping that it's able to re-attack and finish the job. The torpedo didn't reattack the target, but when the sub went to pericope depth and the ship reached a stand still it was determined that it was in the process of being going down and being abandoned.
As my drone was flying to it's next target (Eskisehir) a Sidewinder from a passing Falcon took it out. The message log also says that before this it was attacked by the aircraft's guns but this missed.

1700z
I need to capitalise on my aerial superiority at the moment and launch a strike of sorts against the Turkish air bases. My priorities for now are probably Cengiz Topel NAS, Eskisehir Air Base, and Konya Air Base.
Two Phantoms were spotted flying around away from their lines and two of my Eurofighters were able to intercept them and ambush them from behind with some AIM-2000s. 3 missiles hit, downing one aircraft and damaging the other, but then my pilots excelled themselves and Geruda 3 claimed a guns kill against the wounded airframe.
Disaster! One of my submarines - ITS Salvatore Pelosi - has just detected two torpedoes in the water coming right for it! Worse still, it seems I can't launch a torpedo of my own via Bearing Only Launch to try and throw the attacking sub off its game! The fate of the crew is in the lap of the gods, but I can't help but feel that this is something of a foregone conclusion. Still, its gone deep to try and avoid the weapons so they're out of communications until they resurface.

1800z
Offline, I've been having some practice with the Strike Planner to try and co-ordinate my attacks on Incirlik Airbase and the associated I-HAWK site. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get it to work so I'll need to seek some more guidance on its use. Until then, I'm going to launch some strikes against the 4 I-HAWK sites closest to the front line. In my testing it looks like 6 HARMs are sufficient to destroy the battery - or at least the RADARs that actually guide the launchers - and remove the threat. Once these defences have been taken out I'll be able to send in my aircraft to over-fly the bases and pin point where the Turkish jets are parked for follow up bombing raids.
While my aircraft are taking off, I'm surprised to suddenly see a submarine contact: MY submarine contact! The Salvatore Pelosi has defied the odds and evaded the enemy torpedoes and now - almost an hour on from when she dived she has made contact again at last! I just need to figure out the best thing to do now. I still don't have a contact for the enemy submarine so I'll need to figure out quickly what I do about that. I'm going to launch a helicopter from the ITS Cavour around 120 nm away and fly it over there with a couple of torpedoes. It's dipping sonar will hopefully help us locate and engage the Turks.
While looking for that contact, my AEW aircraft ("Thunderhead" - a Gulfstream G550) has somehow detected a goblin via its ESM sensor. There's no track for it, just a message in the log. A few seconds later and it's type classified as an SSK! It's also localised to 92 nm away from it, so now I can send another helo over there to try and give it some good news. I've also sent my nearby submarine - ITS Gazzana Priaroggia - to attempt to destroy it. I'll choose to believe it's the most recent and therefore possibly the most advanced sub with the detected ESM: a Type 290-1400 class.
While all this is going on, another unknown sub-surface contact has been detected fairly close to the Cavour task group. Immediately I order the group to alter away from the contact and her escorts start screening the carrier. Naturally, it's quickly determined to be a fish...
As we approach the top of the hour there are a lot of Turkish jets taking off. Is this just the end of their refuelling period, or something more sinister? My CAP is placed on alert and those in the air already are ordered to tank in turn to maintain their endurance.

1900z
Two Falcons are continuing to push out into my airspace so I'm going to send my CAP out to try and ambush them with AIM-2000s. Although as soon as I started that intercept they turned away and headed back for Türkiye. There's another two near to them as well and I can't keep letting them encroach my airspace. We'll close to engage the nearest with AIMs and shoot the further ones with Meteors. The ambush didn't go as planned, and after taking out all 4 of the Turkish aircraft they used all 8 Meteors and 4 AIM-2000s!
My helicopter has reached the southern submarine contact and launched two torpedoes. One hit and one has missed and reattacked, then hit! One enemy submarine down! Annoyingly, it only gives me a measly 20 points, but it's 20 points that helps to push me further into the "Average" victory score.
At half past the hour my first DEAD strike started and 6 HARMs were launched against the northern most I-HAWK site. This didn't go the same way as my test strikes, though. Out of the 6 missiles that were fired, only 1 hit - and even then it was a near miss! Luckily it's not one of the systems close to an airfield and it's somewhat out of the way so I can easily avoid it, but it doesn't fill me with confidence for the next three attacks...
The second strike wasn't much better. This time two HARMs near-missed their targets, and this time it's very close to two airfields. I'll need to monitor this site carefully to see if I can scout the bases.
The third strike made me cautiously optimistic for the fourth as 3 HARMs slammed into the target with only 1 near miss.
My optimism was well warranted it seems! The final strike launched 6 HARMs at the top of the hour, and 5 of them slammed into the battery! Shame it's not near an airfield, though... However, the result of my strikes seems to be that three of the four batteries have had their RADARs disabled as I'm not detecting any more emissions from them, and even the remaining one that is radiating seems to be the search and not the fire control RADAR, so I should be able to get in there and give it a damn good seeing to.
Priority for the next hour is going to be sending over recon flights and then hitting any aircraft that I see on the ground. I'll also be attempting to repeat this set of strikes when my jets are re-armed in about 7 - 8 hours time, but that will require a significant surge of my jets to ensure that the air remains clear for the strikers to fly in given how deep into Türkiye they'll need to go.

2000z
My MPAs in Sigonella aren't able to do a great deal where they are - especially as my strategic objective is to clear the way to Cyprus - so I'm currently re-arming three of them with torpedoes and sonar buoys (not sure why I didn't do this earlier), sending the remaining one to assist with the sub search using it's MAD, and then all of them will be rebased to Souda. From there I'll be able to use them to scour the waters to the east and also use them in the main OA to find and fix the Turkish submarines that remain.
Yet another example at my sub-surface deficiencies: another two torpedoes have been detected by the Salvatore Pelosi. Will we be as lucky this time as the last? I scramble another ASW helo from the Cavour, but they won't reach the area until significantly after any torpedoes have done their work. The best they can hope is that they have to detangle two separate contacts. At worst, they'll have to enact a punitive strike. The submarine is ordered to go deep again in an attempt to evade. It seems that my sub has managed to evade the first two torpedoes - the sonarbuoys I dropped earlier have detected them turning around looking for targets - but now two more have been detected! And another two! Six torpedoes in the water against my sub - or are these counterfires from my own? We won't know for a while.
In the air environment, I'm noticing four Falcons in two groups flying around the South of Türkiye. My CAP is going to go and get rid of them.
I'm suddenly overwhelmed with contact balloons declaring damage. It seems that my submarine has been hit badly. She's conducting an emergency rise which will at least let her crew get out if the worst happens.
After minutes of detecting weaving torpedoes and an unnaturally large number of evasions and dodges if the message log is to be believed, the Salvatore Pelosi succumbs to her wounds. It's a little like cheating, but there's no message about a hit in the log, just that she has been lost. The sailor in me hopes that the majority were able to get out quickly before the fires and floods engulfed them. Even worse, however, is that destroying a Turkish sub nets me 20 points. Loosing one of my own costs me 150!
In order to start scouting out the airbases I'm going to launch another drone to overfly the sites before sending any fighters there. I want to be certain that there are no MANPADs in the area.
Just as the hour was ending, my ASW helo reached the location of the sub fight. I deployed its dipping SONAR and set them to work. Vengeance must be had.

2100z
A fairly boring hour in which my drone was not shot down by any smaller SAMs and we shot down a few fighters that came to take a look. I routed one of my CAP that's now WINCHESTER to overfly the airfield before RTBing while their fellows watch their backs.

2200z
My jets overfly the base and I'm wondering why they're not seeing anything, then I double check the time and realise I've told them to look at a base at night from 1000 feet up in the air. I'll be back in the morning...
In other news, my search of the area where my submarine was destroyed as found nothing. I've had an MPA out there and saturated the area with sonarbuoys to no avail. The Turkish sub may have escaped, but they will have to evade me for another two days, and I intend to find and sink them.
I've just noticed something unpleasant: I'm running very low on HARMs. While I do have enough to launch my next strike against the eastern line of I-HAWKs I won't be able to reload those aircraft when they return, so I'll need to find somewhere to divert them to in order to re-arm with something useful. Maybe a massed Storm Shadow strike is in the near future?
My MPAs are also ready to depart Sigonella and rebase to Souda as well, so I start them on that journey but detail one of them to help with the sub search. The current MPA is about to go off task and I want that mission completing.

2300z
My AEW aircraft is about 30 minutes from BINGO so I launch the other aircraft so the time without an airborne RADAR is minimal. It's been a massive help for me and taking out the E7s earlier really seems to have hampered the Turkish defence, so I don't want the same to be done on my side. In order to make sure that it stays on station long enough for my other aircraft to arrive I've ordered the AEW aircraft to rebase to Araxos which means they are closer to the front line and therefore able to stay on station that little bit longer.
We've also shot down a great deal more Falcons and the score is now 2150 (but still Average).

04 0000z
We've detected another under water contact near to one of my submarines. Not willing to risk loosing another sub, I'm going to scramble one of my helos from a nearby SAG to help locate and identify it. 20 minutes later it's identified as a fish, but at the same time a new sub-surface contact is detected to the north around the location of the sub battle. My MPA is sent over the top of it in order to drop a metric f-tonne of sonarbuoys around it to try and locate it. Although as soon as I give that order it's identified as yet another fish. I've expanded the search area. It's now a point of pride for me to find and destroy this sub.

0100z
The Harrier's arrived and dropped their bombs to very satisfying effect. The first plane destroyed two of the launchers, and the second flew over and took out the remaining one and the RADAR. With the I-HAWK site utterly destroyed I've gained an extra 35 points taking me to 2325. Confusingly, the message log says that I've lost 20 points because one of my aircraft was lost but there's nothing in the message log about me loosing a bird and there's nothing in the Losses and Expenditures Log.
A few more aircraft have been shot down and I'm planning my next strike against another I-HAWK site now I know how lucrative they are.
After destroying a few more aircraft I've now been tipped over into the threshold of Minor Victory at a score of 2365.
The Harriers have returned to the ship and the second strike has taken off to go and destroy the southern I-HAWK site. There's still 5 platforms left in the site, however, so I've got my ships poised and ready to destroy any sites that remain.

0200z
As well as the strike against the southern most I-HAWK site (which is due to hit in about 10 minutes) I'm about to launch some AMX Ghibli jets outfitted with JDAMs to hit one of the northern sites. They'll need to tank on the way to the target, and to that end I've set up a tanker between Italy and Greece to get them to the brim ahead of the inbound leg.
When the Harriers arrived at the southern I-HAWK, however, the strike went better than I could have hoped! The first jet dropped their stick on MK82s and - with only 4 bombs - destroyed all 5 remaining units in the battery. Another 35 points have been earned - but there's another record in the log about me loosing an aircraft. I think that this event is bugged now, but I'll take a look and confirm that when the next battery is destroyed.

0300z
It's been a fairly tame hour with some limited A2A engagements and the JDAM strike slowly approaching, but things suddenly took a turn for the dark. One of my MPAs didn't get my order to rebase themselves and started to return to Sigonella. I gave them their new base (Souda) so they had more endurance and then unassigned them in order to overrule their current intentions to RTB. I then, in the previous hour, instructed them to RTB when I was taking a look around noticed them at BINGO again but their AI hadn't got them to start their return journey because I had previously overruled it. They had about 90 miles of fuel and a 70 mile journey back to Souda. At 0335z I received the unwelcome message that Surveyor 2 had crashed 3.5 nm short of the runway. Perhaps insultingly to the families of the crew onboard, loosing that plane didn't cost me any points.
More Turkish fighters are heading down to the south of the country so I'm routing my CAP there to take them out. I have loads of fighters I haven't touched yet at Kasteli - I was earmarking those for when we start conducting strikes in the east of Türkiye - but this might be the time to start using them to shore up my flank.
Right at the end of the hour the JDAMs arrived and obliterated the I-HAWK site, and just as predicted we lost another 20 points for a plane supposedly going down.
As the Ghiblis go home I sent the Eurofighters that were covering them - now that they only have 1 Meteor left - to overfly Balikesir Air Base now it's dawn to gather some targeting data.

0400z
The fighters did several laps over the airfield at minimum altitude and saw the square root of bugger all. Maybe I'll need to try again later on when it's brighter? Alternatively, I'll need to get a helo from one of my ships to take a look, but that involves running the possible gauntlet of Turkish subs. I could launch from where they are right now, but that doesn't give them a huge amount of endurance if anything was to happen to them.
I nearly lost another two Eurofighters to a similar fate as the MPA. I caught one of my CAPs merrily flying out over the Ionian Sea instead of heading home despite being at BINGO. I've turned them around and sent them home and it looks like I'll have them on the deck before they crash, but at this stage you never know.

0500z
Yup, exactly what I was nervous about happened. I caught the fighters as they flew OVER their home base instead of landing there and had to - again - tell them to RTB.
It's also at the stage where I'm going to need to launch another strike against the remaining I-HAWK site on their front line. It's another easy 35 points (modified to 15 after the faux plane downing) and it will be a pleasing way to completely degrade that section of the OA.
I've done some testing and realised how stupid I've been... My units can't see anything in the airfields because there are shed loads of hangars that the aircraft will no doubt be hidden in, and as I haven't got Superman in my ORBAT I can't utilise his X-Ray vision to see what's inside. I guess I'm not going to be bombing any airfields any time soon. I still have those Tornadoes with anti-runway bombs though, and I really really want to use them...
Another sub-surface contact to the south near the Cavour. My helos are already investigating it and the capital ship has turned away to make some room. The contact isn't moving, which is not something I'd expect from a biological contact, so I've classed it as Suspect for now. I'm debating on dropping a torpedo on it immediately based on this interesting aspect alone.
As I was trying to ambush some F16s they turned around - not realising my jets were there, I'm sure - and started flying straight towards them. In order to preserve the precious Meteors I want to take this flight with AIM-2000s, so I've routed another CAP to try and sneak up on them. After they continued their turn and started going outbound I rerouted my original pair to continue their ambush. They managed to sneak to within about 10 nm and then the Falcons somehow realised my Typhoons were there and started turning towards them. 4 AIM-2000s flashed through the sky and all tracked towards the same target. One Falcon was destroyed, and my fighters were already on afterburner and headed outbound by the time the remaining Falcon fired a sidewinder. My CAP evaded the enemy missile, and I got my standby CAP to launch a Meteor at the firer, but the furball manoeuvred in such a way that my remaining Typhoon was able to get another AIM-2000 shot away which downed the Turkish bandit. One Meteor wasted is a shame, but I'd rather waste one BVR missile than loose a plane stocked with 4 of them.
While all this was going on I had ordered my helos to dip in the area and they localised the stationary underwater contact as one that is biological. Must be a sleepy whale or something.
Ghibli has just got back home so I'm going to have them tag in another pair of bombers to drop some JDAMs on that northern most site. If they take off now then it will be destroyed in the next hour.
As another pair of Falcons go down, a sub-surface contact is detected inside the search area where I lost my submarine a few hours ago - and it's inside the furthest on circle! My MPA is investigating, but I'm getting ready to launch a helo from the Alpino patrol group to assist as it doesn't have any sonarbouys - just its MAD. It's all very "gaming the system" but I do notice that it seems to be at -249 feet, and I have another biological contact I the area at the exact same depth. My worries were borne out, and it was indeed identified as a biologic contact.

0600z
For the past few hours I've had the Margottini Patrol Group steaming east along the southern coast of Türkiye in order to fulfil the bit of my brief that says we're going to attempt to conduct landings in Cyprus. They're my advanced scouting party, as it were, and will let me know if there are any more Turkish SAGs in that area making their way towards us. In order to make sure that they aren't sitting ducks for an attack - and now that I have air superiority along the west of Türkiye - I'm aggressively stationing my CAP over Türkiye itself in order to wipe away any enemy fighters that take off as soon as possible while allowing myself the ability to fall back in good order to QRF lines. In order to support this effort all my support units have been moved closer as well. This does mean I'm going to have to have one CAP dedicated to watching over them to ensure they don't get downed my a lucky shot from a Falcon, but I think they'll do a good job.
As another 4 Falcons are splashed my score hits 2735 and a Major Victory. I still have another 2 days left in the scenario, so I'm not sure what else is going to happen but it must be something suitably impressive from the Turkish side.

0700z
I wasn't exactly right, but I was damned close. The second Ghibli strike arrived at the I-HAWK site and dropped the first bombs at 0704z. As there were 7 units left in the group and only 4 bombs being dropped I think they did well in destroying 5 of the remainers, but I will need to send in a follow up strike to clear it completely. However, they achieved the desired effect and the search RADAR there has ceased operating. To get rid of the last two units I've launched two Harriers from the Cavour with bog-standard iron bombs to finish it. They'll be flying for a while but I have the tankers available to support them. They should arrive in an hour or so.
I've also been organising all my CAP stations manually by ordering my units to fly to an area and just wait. In order to try and make this less intensive I've set up some CAP station missions to assign my jets to.

0800z
The Harriers arrived about 5 minutes after the hour and bropped their bombs to great effect. A single stick took out the last two units of the battery. Theere are some hostile air contacts flying towards them though, so I'll need to cover their withdrawl with my CAP. This was done easily enough, but one Falcon did manage to evade my Meteors so I stuck a few AIM-2000s up its proverbial to help things along a bit.
My MPAs aren't finding anything in their search box, so I think I'm going to have to admit defeat in that zone for now. I'll stick to screening my carrier group and see if I can catch it as it starts to move south as it undoubtably will. My sailors will be avenged!
More so I have something to do than because I really need to, I'm launching some more HARM strikes to target the remaining I-HAW sites. There's going to be a lot of tanking involved, but it will mean some more points and less risk to my units as the mission goes on.

0900z
Another sub-surface contact near to the Cavour, and again the helos do their due diligence in checking it out as the ships move out of the way. Yes, it's probably a fish. No, I'm not going to risk it.
And yes, it was a fish.
The HARM strikes have taken off and are now en route. It'll take them a few hours to get there, but it will be worth it. Pity the Tornado pilots and weapon control officers for their lack of leg room.
Two contacts have just surprised me to the north. It looks like they've flown out of Bulgaria, but that can't be a thing! They're flying in close formation and headed to Türkiye, so my Typhoons are going to have a look. They quickly identify the contacts as two more F-16s, and ready some Meteors to engage them. The Eurofighters make quick work of the Falcons and return to their CAP station, and my score gets a healthy bump up to 2830.

1000z
My strike aircraft are in the process of refuelling, but they'll need careful babysitting to get to their targets and back. They almost ran out of fuel because they burned fast and loud on the initial leg of their journey to the tankers. I've now confirmed that they are supposed to be flying at maximum altitude and at loiter speed to get the most out of their fuel.
We've just detected a submarine that's come up to periscope depth to - probably - snort. I've scrambled one of my NH90s from the Alpino patrol group to fly the 80 nm to the contact to take it out, but by the time it was halfway to the contact my MPA had clearly got bored of searching for its assigned target and took it upon itself to drop a torpedo of its own. After a few spoofs on the part of the submarine, the torpedo eventually hit but didn't destroy its target. The MPA banked around to re-attack, dropped a torpedo, and as the enemy sub was attempting to surface it was struck again. Monitoring the nearby sonarbuoys they reported the noises of large underwater explosion and a contact breaking apart as it sank to the sea bed. My NH90 - a mere 25 nm away - was retasked to assist in the search box nearby, but there is a chance that that very sub is the one we had been searching for all this time.
I've noticed a couple of times now that if my aircraft are RTB and I manually tell them to fly at loiter speed, sometimes it only affects one of the group and the other rockets away at 750 odd knots. I've just caught one of my Typhoons with 3 minutes of fuel left and miles away from its home base, and had to go into unit view and give him the speed order himself. This pushed his endurance up to the heady heights of 16 minutes, but I don't like to think what might have happened if I hadn't caught it. I'm still not really sure if it'll get back safely. His flight leader is quite happy pootling along at 350 knots with over an hour of endurance left.

1100z
The first of my strike packages - imaginatively named Strike 2 - has reached their target I-HAWK battery but frustratingly it's not radiating. They're going to loiter in the area as Strike 1 is about to launch their missiles at the nearby northern site which will hopefully cause their one to activate. Unfortunately the other site didn't need to turn on, as the I-HAWKs shot down each and every HARM heading for it. On the upside, Strike 2 is in position to re-engage and I intend to manually get them to do this form 3 different directions. Something I really should have ensured each and every previous HARM strike did before this.
This proved much more successful and each and every HARM hit its target. There are 2 units left in the battery for me to engage - probably with Storm Shadow due to range - and the RADARs are off. That last point being said, the RADARs are also off on Strike 2's original target. Maybe I need to Wild Weasel them?
The third and last strike went well also with the new tactic. Only 1 HARM was hit and the other 5 destroyed the RADARs on the battery and left it with 4 units left. I'm launching the Storm Shadow strikes now. They're taking off from Northern Italy so it will take them a while to arrive - and just like the HARM strikes they'll need at least one fueling stop - but with the 215nm range of the cruise missiles they won't need to be up in the air for nearly as long.
Another underwater contact gets classified as a fish in the northern ASW search box.

1200z
Nothing much happened in this hour. Just the Storm Shadow strike packages tanking on their outbound journey and the HARM strike packages fueling enough to get home. I haven't had a sniff of any Turkish aircraft for a few hours now. I have complete control of the skies, it seems.
My patrol group is also 35nm (as the crow flies) away from Ottomat strike range for the furthest I-HAWK battery, so I'm looking forward to lobbing a few of those their way in about 2 or 3 hours.

1300z
Partly to give me something to do and because it's the realistic thing, I'm going to swap out my CAP aircraft with some fresh ones. Those pilots have been burning holes in the sky for hours now and deserve a break.
While in the dip, one of my AW.101 Merlins from the Cavour group heard an underwater contact. It's far enough away that I'm happy not to turn the group, but I'll be monitoring it with interest. It's not moving, and the last time we saw that it was biological, and after a while it's proven that it is indeed another sleepy shark.
My replacement aircraft have taken off from Kasteli and are now en-route. As soon as they arrive on station (or get suitably close) I'll send my weary fighters to RTB and get some rest.
The first Storm Shadow carrier has reached firing range and launched their missiles. Two cruise missiles ignite and drop gracefully like bricks to 300 feet as they lazily dawdle towards their hapless target. Interestingly, I note, they're going to fly directly over Bandirma air base and give everyone there a nice scare on the way.
The other two strike packages fire their weapons shortly afterwards, and I sit back as the first two missiles reach and destroy their target. This bodes well for the other two.

1400z
Completely by accident, I seem to have coordinated the other two Storm Shadow strikes to arrive at more or less the same time. The southern strike with 4 units remaining was obliterated, but the northern one got lucky with 2 Storm Shadows missing their target. One unit remained operational, even if the RADARs that they flicked on far too late were destroyed outright. In order to destroy that remaining unit at the best possible price for the tax payer, I'm sending up a single Harrier with those nice cheap bog-standard bombs to take it out. It'll have plenty of air cover from our CAP stations, and plenty of tanker support to get it to and from the objective.

1500z
The Harrier called PICKLE at 1522z and destroyed the final unit in the battery. There has still been no further sign of the Turkish air force, and I can only assume that they have capitulated control of the skies to me.
Just as I was fast forwarding time to get through another hour of nothing happening (I think I'm about to end the scenario - there's another day and a half to go and I don't see anything intriguing happening) we had another sub-surface contact, which turned out to be a loud tuna.

1600z
My patrol group is now close enough to launch their Ottomats against the final I-HAWK site. I'm going to co-ordinate with another couple of Storm Shadow carriers in order to ensure it actually goes down. Just 2 cruise missiles should suffice as the site does not appear to be radiating so they won't be able to do anything about it until it's too late. Luckily, I have some Tornadoes at Aktion already armed with them, so I'll launch one now and I reckon the site will be destroyed within the hour, or very early into the next.
Who needs MPAs when you have Eurofighters? My Northern most CAP has just detected a submarine going through the <NAME> Strait as if on the way to Istanbul. Frustratingly, my last torpedo armed MPA aircraft is headed back to Souda as its at Bingo and its relief is the MPA without an ASW fit (I didn't plan ahead when I rebased them all). Therefore, I'm going to have to do this in a fairly unconventional way: Two Tornadoes from Aktion armed with Paveways have just been launched to bomb it. It's on the surface and doing 4 knots, so they shouldn't have too much trouble.

1700z
The Storm Shadows are fired at 1722z and will take around 31 minutes to reach their target. The Ottomats will take 23 minutes to reach their taregts, so they're getting fired 8 minutes later. Yes, I can automate all this in the Strike Planner. No, I'm not going to, and I can't think of a good reason to explain to you why I'm not...
Meanwhile, the Tornadoes have reached the strait and like a scene out of a World War II U-Boat film, they turn towards their target and ready their bombs. They're dropped at 1731z, more or less the same time that the Ottomats are launched. They smash into the submarine and easily turn it into a distant memory.
The missiles arrive at the I-HAWK site at 1745z, and we spent way too much money on that strike. The entire battery was destroyed after the first 3 or 4 Ottomats, let alone the following 4 and 2 Storm Shadows. At least it's another crater in the ground though.
Again, to try and give myself something to do, I'm rotating out my CAP again.

1800z
As I'm fast forwarding (and not watching the time to take the hour screenshot) my fighters detect another submarine that's come to the surface just to the East of Crete. The NH90 that launched off the Alpino Patrol Group not too long ago is sent South instead of North to destroy it.

1900z
The helicopter reaches the sub, hovers almost directly over the top of it, descends to the launch altitude for the torpedoes and releases them essentially down the periscope. The submarine is no more.

I decided to call the scenario there and switched to Editor Mode to take a look at what was left to do in the scenario. I felt that, no matter what was left, I'd won at this point.
Türkiye had nothing but a few token aircraft scattered around their air bases and they weren't taking off. All their surface and sub-surface units were sunk, and they had no more land units that could threaten me. I also took a look at the events to see if there was anything coming up, and there wasn't. I did see the End Scenario event, however, and that required a score of 3000 points to trigger it. Seeing as I'm sitting on 2970 right now, if we factor in all the times that I lost 20 points for an I-HAWK site getting destroyed I'd have reached and surpassed that threshold.

The way is open to Cyprus. Veni, Vidi, Vici.

Over the course of the one sided thrashing masquerading as war Italy lost 1 Harrier, 2 Eurofighters, 2 MQ9B Reapers, and the Sauro III class submarine to enemy action. We also lost 1 MPA due to the BINGO fuel SNAFU.

After expending 74 HARMs, 70 AIM-2000s, a whopping 403 Meteors, 18 Storm Shadows, 8 Ottomat MK 2 Mod 4s, 12 Paveway IIIs, 4 Paveway IIs, 8 JDAMs, 14 1000lb bombs, 6 helicopter dropped torpedoes, 3 submarine launched torpedoes, and 5 bursts from my fighters guns Türkiye lost:

1 AB.212 helo while in flight (no idea how many went down with their ships), 2 MPAs, 2 E7 Wedgetails, 4 Stratotankers, 38 F-4E Phantoms, 78 F-16D Falcons, 153 F-16C Falcons, 10 ships of various classes, 4 submarines, and 8 I-HAWK sites consisting in total of 72 units.

Oh, and one of my SAM battery commanders is awaiting court martial for downing 2 civilian airliners...

[fitzpatv]

Thanks for your kind words and I'm glad you enjoyed writing an AAR of your own. Some impressive firepower - 403 Meteors, Wow!!

[Bashkire]

Cheers mate. You helped to kill some time yourself during the quieter night watches when nothing was going on and I couldn't stomach the admin. I'd do some report writing and then skip over here to read a bit more of your latest AAR and then back again!