Operation Broken Shield 300 - 13/2/20

[fitzpatv]

Situation

Russia has supplied the Assad regime in Syria with an uncertain number of S-300 Gargoyle SAMs to bolster its air defences. Meanwhile, the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani by US/Israeli forces raised tensions with Iran. Hardliners in Soleimani’s Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) lobbied and planned for a strike against Israel, using proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq such as Hezbollah and the Quds Force. Covert moves were put in motion to reinforce these and Israel responded with surgical air strikes. One of these downed a cargo 747 from Bandar Abbas to Damascus that was carrying S-300 components. The existing S-300s in Syria tried to prevent this, engaging Israeli aircraft in Israeli airspace (in the game, they can’t actually do this the way they are positioned). Israel declared that this had crossed a red line. Russia sought to mediate and, as the scenario begins, a conference is due to start in Moscow, involving Putin, Netanyahu, Assad and maybe Iran’s Rouhani. The game can be played as either side, but Israel is the default.

Israel has little faith that the talks will be productive and has prepared Operation Broken Shield 300 for use should they fail. The intention is to destroy the S-300s and as many Iranian proxy facilities as possible near Damascus and also the T4 facility in Northern Syria. It musn’t be launched until the talks fail (expected to be after 17:00L) and will probably need to be completed within eight hours before the UN Security Council demand a ceasefire and Russia imposes a No Fly Zone over Syria, using its forces near Latakia. Hezbollah is expected to cause trouble and many Israeli units are being held-back to deal with this contingency.

Syria is thought to have two or three Gargoyles, supported by Grizzlies, Gadflies, Greyhounds, Gammons, Goas, Geckoes and Guidelines. All of their mobile SAMs have been moved recently and Mossad has yet to pinpoint their current locations, so the early part of the scenario will be largely about reconnaissance. Opposition can be expected from the Syrian Air Force, which has Fulcrums, Flogger Gs, Fishbeds and Fitter and Albatros attack planes. Ballistic missile strikes are mentioned as a threat in the Briefing but, in actuality, the Syrians don’t have any in the game.

Units should not violate Syrian airspace during the conference, so recon will have to be done from Israeli or international airspace. Overflying Lebanese or Jordanian territory is discouraged, as it might alert the Syrians. Though there is nothing to prevent the latter options, I decided to play within the spirit of this restriction.

This is an air game, with no naval units. Israel has a lot of aircraft available and many more in Maintenance mode, some of which will be released later. Most planes are in the Central and Southern parts of the country to reduce vulnerability to cross-border attacks by land or air. Without going into too much detail, the IAF mainly fields a variety of F-16s, F-15s and one squadron of F-35s, with a range of fighter and attack loadouts. Most fighters use C-7 AMRAAMs, but the F-35s have the AMRAAM D and one F-15A squadron is stuck with Sparrows.

Stand-off strike weapons include HARMs, supersonic Rampage missiles with a 90nm range and Delilahs, which have a 150nm reach but fly low and relatively slow and do modest amounts of damage. Otherwise, there are lots of GBU-39s (60nm) and shorter ranged GBU-31s (13nm), as well as some Paveways and Griffins which are best not used anywhere near unsuppressed SAMs.

Supporting this force are Boeing 707-320 and Hercules tankers, Gulfstream AEW planes, Hermes drones and Sea Stallions with OECM capabilities and lots of recon drones. There are also some Apache attack choppers in the S, facing Hamas in Gaza.

It was the first time I’d had a look at Israel’s famed Iron Dome IADS in the game. The Iron Dome itself is just one component of this, designed to intercept aircraft and subsonic missiles and rockets below 25k’. It is supplemented by Patriots, David’s Slings and Arrows with ABM abilities and an American THAAD battery.

In the Golan region, Israel has an M270 MLRS battery which can hit targets up to 45nm away, along with two short-ranged Lynx MLRS units and three Harop batteries, which can release up to 27 slow but long-ranged attack drones each against pre-determined targets (once they are launched, you have no further control over them, in the game at least).

Assessment and Planning

All Israeli SAMs started on a pre-set mission, but I took them off this and assigned specific instructions to each (radars on, 50% range for engagement, one shot per target).

The M270 had some potential for hitting Syrian SAM sites, especially two hulking Gammons which dominated the pathway to the likely Gargoyle sites around Damascus. It was a close call whether they would be able to fire at these from within Israeli territory. While there was nothing in the game to stop me sending them over the border, I decided not to take advantage of the absence of Hezbollah and Syrian ground units and made a house rule to keep them in our own territory.

The Harop sites could be useful for soaking-up enemy SAMs and persuading reluctant sites to illuminate.

Clearly, we needed as many ARMs as possible, so I loaded aircraft on Reserve with as many as I could within the constraints of availability, giving me 18 SEAD strikers with 36 weapons plus any that might be released later. Rampages were even better than HARMs, given their equivalent speed, superior range and ability to attack non-radiating targets and we had ten planes with 20 of these.

Otherwise, it would be a case of overwhelming the defences with lots of stand-off weapons. Against SAMs, numbers and strike range count for more than hitting power, so the 18 planes with eight GBU-39 or SPICE 250 munitions were going to be useful, with a decent chance of keeping out of trouble.

Everything else had to be seen as either a last throw of the dice or a mopping-up force, depending on how things went.

I was unsure what to expect from Hamas and Hezbollah. They are a separate side in the game, but Platforms lists no units for them at the outset. In practice, they spawn during the game. The Apaches and a couple of F-16s at Ovda in the far South seemed best for facing-off against Hamas in Gaza.

As for recon, the F-35s were our best scouts, with 200nm-ranged ground search radar (I wonder how realistic this is?), followed by F-15Cs and Ds. Of course, locating the SAMs was one thing and maintaining contact another. Heron UAVs were on-hand to probe along the Northern and Gaza borders and maybe along the Lebanese coast.

The Waiting

13/2/20 08:00L: An F-15D launched from Tel Nof airbase, keeping to our side of the border and its sensors soon began to find SAM sites across Syria, some of which were in MLRS range. It lacked the radar range to properly check-out T4. No Gargoyles were immediately identified, though there were several candidates, based on component numbers.

Mossad reported that the Damascus North and Damascus East sectors of the Syrian IADS were fully-operational and confirmed an Iranian UAV hangar at T4 airbase (which I’d already noticed) as a target. Other Iranian proxy targets included a Quds Force base NW of Damascus, a comms bunker and some weapons facilities and ammo shelters.

In due course, we managed to pin-down the Damascus North and Damascus East Gargoyle locations, with satellite passes supplementing the F-16’s data. In all, there were a lot of SAM sites providing cover over most of the country.

At 08:38, a message arrived concerning two new Hezbollah tunnels on the Lebanese border, which could be used to infiltrate guerrillas into Israel. The Cabinet was debating whether to authorise an attack on them.

It became apparent that several of the possible Gargoyle and Grizzly or Gadfly sites were actually decoys.

At 08:56L, authorisation arrived to attack the Hezbollah tunnels.

09:00L: Two F-16s struck at the tunnels with two GBU-31s each. It was no more than a training exercise, but one weapon malfunctioned and neither target was destroyed. A second pair of Falcons got the job done, scoring 25VP per tunnel. A score of +50 was Average. There were enough fuel issues for me to authorise all planes in the Southerly bases to use tankers.

At 09:29L, Mossad pinpointed the third Gargoyle site at T4, making it more necessary and harder to attack that area. We could only plan to neutralise the two sites nearer Damascus and then re-evaluate what was feasible then.

10:13L: Israeli Aman special forces were tracking a notorious Hamas terrorist operative in Gaza. While they were trying to capture him, they wanted an airstrike on standby in case this proved impossible. At 10:47, we got the green light to attack, the target being at a meeting in a building which was conveniently empty of civilians. An F-35 got the job done with GBU-31s within an undisclosed time limit for 25VP and I then sent it North to take a better look at T4, where it was able to analyse the defences.

11:00L: It turned-out that the F-35’s sensors were far superior to those of the F-16 and it quickly gave us a comprehensive picture of the many Syrian SAMs and other facilities. It seemed that there were indeed only three non-decoy Gargoyles.

At 11:05L, Netanyahu arrived in Moscow for the conference, which was due to start at noon.

At 11:30, we heard that Rouhani would be unable to attend, which was not a good sign for peace.

12:16L: The conference began.

13:22L: Word arrived that the Aman team in Gaza had been tracked and cornered by Hamas, so a helicopter evacuation was needed. Thankfully, I hadn’t altered the Troop loadout of a Sea Stallion at Tel Nof, having suspected that it might have this kind of purpose. To be careful, I sent an Apache with Hellfire missiles in support. This was just as well, since there were three Hamas ZU-23 technicals with AAMGs in the area of the trapped special forces. The Apache sorted these out easily enough for 25VP each and the Stallion was then able to effect the rescue (despite what you are told, you only need to get the chopper close at Loiter speed and minimum altitude and there is no need to hover). This scored 500VP, but +650 was still Average and the scale ran to +6,000.

14:33L: Word arrived that the talks were going badly.

15:08L: Special forces warned that Hamas was setting-up some Qassam rocket launchers in Gaza to retaliate for our recent activities. We needed to act quickly before they fired. They were supposed to be in Jabalia, but the map doesn’t show this location and I had to look it up on Google Earth to be sure. It is in the NE corner of Gaza and we could see two civilian cars (neutral) at that location, presumably to punish inaccurate shooting. In the end, I deployed a Heron UAV, an F-16, two Apaches and, when all else failed, an F-35 to search for the launchers, but to no avail. At 15:39, I was told that the Qassams had launched (without being seen) and that I had lost 200VP. Neither the Qassams nor the cars were then listed on Platforms anymore. It was completely out of character with the other easy missions to-date and chances are that there was a bug that prevented the Qassams appearing on the map. Annoying!. I will concede that this could have happened in reality.

16:00L: Mossad now told us that all five Syrian IADS sectors (unspecified) were now operational, which implied that there were FIVE Gargoyle sites. I could only see three, but had to allow for some of the decoys being real SAMs. I was also told that the Protvinik radar near Damascus North (which we had located) could detect stealthed F-35s.

16:42L: Mossad found a warehouse in Beirut where Hezbollah were storing a consignment of MANPADs. The weapons were due to be moved very soon, so we had to give high priority to taking the place out within half an hour. I had two F-16s with Paveways at the nearest base (Ramat David, near Nazareth) and sent these at Military speed, keeping within the spirit of the scenario by flying off the Lebanese coast and loosing at the target while still over the water. Some Russian Flankers took an interest, but did not attack and the planned overkill got the job done. I was disappointed, given the supposed priority, to get just 25VP.

17:19L: Surprise, surprise, the negotiations were not going well!. Off-duty IAF personnel were being recalled, so we would be receiving some extra aircraft soon.

18:37L: A number of additional aircraft were made available, which gave me the headache of assessing this and prescribing Doctrine in mid-game, made worse by the AI overwriting some of my existing loadouts. Lengthy readying times for these planes at the outset would have been preferable.

As matters stood, we only knew where three of a potential five Gargoyle sites were. Especially given the distance and intervening SAM sites and fighters between us and T4, it didn’t look feasible to take-out all of them, or even more than one in a single strike. There was also the issue of the double Gammon site and its covering Greyhound and Goa, which would need to be neutralised first. As the current score was Average, I felt that we would be well-advised to concentrate on avoiding defeat by striking from distance, keeping aircraft out of harm’s way (though within HARM range!) and just destroying what we could.

If we did intrude deep into Syria, we could potentially fly higher than Geckoes, Greyhounds, Gainfuls and even Gadflies could reach and still strike, though the so-far absent Syrian Air Force might have something to say about this.

18:48L: Mossad identified a Syrian air defence HQ near Damascus. Destroying this would degrade enemy EW capabilities and ‘cut fixed SAMs out of the IAD network’, though exactly what this would amount to was uncertain. The facility was in an underground bunker and would therefore take some digging-out with our short-ranged penetrator warheads. Its covering Greyhound was within M270 range.

19:10L: The talks were expected to fail within the hour. We began to prepare the strikes, with an F-35 with a fighter loadout going to Nazareth to optimise recon. All aircraft would stay S of here to keep out of Gammon range once the balloon went up, though there was the concern that the AI might fire SAMs to maximum range, rather than 50% range, as is its wont. Five Boeing tankers were sent just N of Tel Aviv.

As is the case in this part of the game world, the white map text was almost invisible against the bright white glare of desert terrain and this was an ongoing pain!. I tried using coloured datablocks (Game Options, Map Display) but this has no effect.

19:37L: Operations were authorised, but we weren’t to enter Syrian airspace or fire until we got express permission. Four Stallions at Tel Nof were made available with search and rescue loadouts (actually three, as I’d already assigned one from Reserve to an OECM loadout). It was made clear that losses, especially rescue chopper losses, were unacceptable, so I resolved to keep planes over Israel as much as possible and certainly out of enemy SAM range.

Four Hermes drones and five Stallion OECM choppers were launched and took-up station S of Nazareth. As usual, I was far from sure how much use this would actually be…

19:53: I was given the option to use an advanced AI virus to disable one of the three Gargoyle sites at Damascus N, Damascus E or T4. However, doing so would reveal the existence of the virus to the Syrians and Russians and would, therefore, cost 500VP. I decided to keep this one up my sleeve for use at the optimum time, if at all.

The Action

20:00L: The codeword ‘David’s Spear’ was given, authorising the attacks. We were also offered the options of requesting extra resources for a prohibitive 3,000VP or violating Jordanian airspace for 500. As so often, these Special Actions cost more than they were worth.

The M270, even right on the border, was fractionally out of range of the nearer Gammon site, so I fired a Harop battery’s drones at it instead, with some aimed at the second Gammon and the Greyhound.

The M270 fired a series of salvoes at the Greyhound protecting the Syrian air defence HQ, but some of the rockets were intercepted by SAMs and the rest simply missed (despite having a CEP of 2m). The Greyhound didn’t even have to fire back.

As the Harops made their slow way towards the Gammons, the HARM strikers assembled over Nazareth. Three F-16s then moved forward and succeeeded in disabling all four Square Pair fire control radars on the Gammons, putting them out of commission. The other 16 then flew over to the Syrian side of the Sea of Galilee and went after the Damascus N Gargoyle which, unlike the Damascus E one, was radiating. Infuriatingly, it stopped doing so…

The first wave of Harops failed to finish-off the Gammons, being stopped by Greyhounds and cannon. Another shoal headed-off to provoke Damascus N.

The F-16s with Rampage missiles then arrived over the Sea of Galilee and all launched at Damascus E, obliterating it for 850VP.

Damascus N may not have been radiating, but the nearby Protvinik radar was, so an F-16 fired two HARMs at it. Though these failed to destroy their target, they woke-up the Gargoyle and the rest of the strike gave it 38 more HARMs, which did the job. At +2,175 (and despite a spate of operating system updates kicking-off at that moment and crippling game performance), it was now a Minor Victory.

20:45L: In the words of my current favourite band, ‘Here Comes the Killer!’. As I was contemplating what to hit with the Delilah strike and how to eliminate T4, a message arrived accusing me of attacking without orders and relieving me of my command!!!. This ended the game but, as I was still given a Minor Victory, this softened the blow. Unbelievable… Operation Broken Scenario?!

It was a terrible shame as, despite a few bugs and issues, it had been an absorbing and atmospheric game to that point, with the developing international situation represented well.

Out of curiosity, I had a look at the Syrian side briefing, to find that it was recommended to play as Israel as the scenario wasn’t properly balanced.

I also noted that the ‘Syria.’ side, which covered the decoy SAM sites, had actually expended quite a few Gargoyles and Gadflies during the game, which suggests that there were either more than three Gargoyles or, more likely, that there is another serious bug here, not that it’s ever likely to get fixed.

No Syrian aircraft were seen all game, which is probably another bug.