Northern Fury 29 - Something's Fishy 9/3/94

[fitzpatv]

Situation and Forces

A week after Scenario 28, an enterprising Soviet Motor Rifle Regiment commander puts together a makeshift flotilla of captured fishing boats and tries to improvise an amphibious crossing of the Trondheimsfjorden. The scenario is playable from the Soviet side only (the first specifically Northern Fury one where this is so).

Norway is known to have its 3rd Brigade in the Trondheim area and the 6th Brigade further East. Some Leopard tanks and M113 mechanised infantry are in reserve, with a battalion each of towed and self-propelled 155mm guns.

Fort Hysnes still stands, but barely, the Soviets having taken the torpedo battery and marina. Its fall would open the fjord to naval traffic.

The Norwegians have some converted trawlers and motor yachts patrolling the fjord.

The USSR badly needs Trondheim, as there is no decent port available to them South of Narvik, 900km away. Raids by PCFGs, aircraft and guerrillas are giving them serious re-supply problems.

Objectives for the Russians are to destroy and capture Hysnes; move the flotilla to an Unloading Area off Hommelvik, on the South shore of the fjord East of Trondheim; establish a secure Landing Zone there and then clear Trondheim, the Vaernes airbase to the East and the Norwegian command post at Lundamo to the South, while destroying enemy forces encountered.

Note that the Cargo rules do not apply in this scenario and all unloads happen via Lua.

The Hommelvik Unloading Zone is small and the Briefing recommends that only one trawler, tugboat or landing craft disgorges cargo there at a time. Trawlers carry infantry squads of about 25 men and need ten minutes to unload, tugs tow barges with BTR APCs and require 15 minutes, while each Ondatra LCM contains a single tank and can put it ashore in seven minutes. It is recommended that units get moved inland smartly once offloaded to avoid a risk of them being overwritten by subsequent unloads (I think that was what the Briefing meant, anyway).

Transports can RTB to anchorages across the fjord and pick-up a second load of passengers BUT the Soviets don’t want to risk too many troops on this venture and each vessel unloaded COSTS you 5VP, so there’s an incentive to do the job with minimal force.

Near Hommelvik is a potential landing zone (LZ) which can be used by Hip choppers bringing-in supplies. A chopper needs to spend five minutes over this zone (at any height and speed) to score VP for this. Hips can RTB and then ready for further supply runs.

Artillery ammo is limited, due to the aforesaid supply problems.

The Russians have a Pauk II corvette, escorting six Ondatras, just outside the mouth of the fjord. Hysnes has to fall before these units can sail safely to Hommelvik.

Spread between five anchorages on the North shore of the fjord, there are 24 unarmed trawlers (which stink of fish, hence the scenario’s name) and 8 tugboats. Seven RHIBs with RPGs and machine guns provide an escort, along with the large trawler Treska, which has 57mm guns. Two small pilot boats can be used for recon.

At Orland airbase, you have six Hip transport choppers to carry supplies and a Hip J electronic warfare helicopter. There are also six Hind ground attack choppers and a recon model, but these are all useless because they are day-only and the scenario takes place at night. Chances are that you could use them anyway, but I prefer to stay within the spirit of things and kept them grounded.

On land, a BTR platoon and three infantry platoons stand ready to advance on Fort Hysnes, with a battery of 152mm guns in support. A 203mm battery sits further back, while six more 152mm and two Grad rocket batteries line the North shore but lack the range to hit the South side. An infantry platoon on an island is of some use for spotting.

So are five Spetsnaz squads behind Norwegian lines on the South shore, with one near Trondheim, two at Hommelvik and one each at Vaernes and Lundamo. All of these are AI-controlled.

Assessment

There are no NATO warships as such, just the armed trawlers and motor yachts and the enemy have no air units whatsoever. Despite my fears at the outset, there are no naval mines.

Hysnes has its 105mm guns and 81mm mortars and is best neutralised by artillery, as these could quickly chew-up the BTR and infantry units.

Across the fjord, there are foot and mechanised infantry, AA guns, MANPADS, Leopard tanks, 155mm guns, TOW anti-tank missiles, bunkers, radars and recon units.

Reaching Lundamo, in particular, in the ten-hour time-limit seemed a stretch, even without the enemy getting in the way.

The Action

9/3/94 19:30L: Any thoughts of slipping stealthily across the fjord were short-lived!. The Norwegians were awake and probably had advanced warning of what was afoot.

We immediately detected two armed trawlers and four armed yachts in mid-fjord.

Hysnes wasted not a moment in opening fire on Orland airbase, but did little damage and probably ran out of ammo after a few shots. The Soviet 152mm battery replied, damaging the fort but then itself running out of ammo. The 203mm guns had to weigh-in and eliminated the defences (12 step losses) for 50VP.

The Norwegians responded with a tornado of fire from what proved to be six batteries of 155s which (legitimately, judging from the database) had effectively limitless ammunition. They fired 222 rounds in the first 15 minutes. With the Soviet coastal batteries attacking the NATO small craft, the fjord became a deadly place for anything afloat. We quickly lost a pilot boat and four RHIBs and sustained damage to more than one trawler, while the 155s also silenced one of our 152mm batteries. It seemed best to leave ships in port until the artillery was dealt-with – until the Norwegians began bombarding the anchorages, too. There was nowhere to hide and no defence beyond taking-out the 155s, which were not easy to detect. One was located early-on and the 203 destroyed it for 3VP.

20:00L: Two more 155 batteries were eliminated by the godlike 203 as soon as imprecise targeting issues could be resolved, the EW Hip being of some use in this regard, insofar as its limited endurance would allow.

All of the Norwegian trawlers and yachts were sunk though, like our small craft, they weren’t worth any VP.

Meanwhile, the Soviet infantry had occupied the Hysnes site, but what else needed doing there wasn’t at all clear. The remaining installation was an underground bunker and (though I tried) the Russian infantry weapons couldn’t scratch it. Unwilling to use more artillery, I let things lie here.

The Russian coastal batteries seemed to have less than their official levels of ammo and mostly fell silent.

21:00L: With three 155 batteries not positively located, the Russian shipping was getting slaughtered. In the end, I found two more of the enemy artillery and the 203 again exercised the Hand of God, also taking-out an 81mm battery that opened-up on such ships as were nearing Hommelvik.

The tank landing force (or, rather, the Pauk, which had gotten ahead of the LCMs) was engaged by another 81mm mortar unit on the South side of the fjord where it widened. This barely nicked the corvette, which responded and destroyed it.

Helped again by the Hip (on its second sortie), the 203 put paid to the last 155 and also a 40mm Bofors that began firing on the trawlers from Vaernes. All Norwegian ground units score 3VP if they are vehicular and 1VP if not.

22:00L: So far, 13 trawlers, 4 tugs, both pilot boats and all seven RHIBs had been lost and some more trawlers left dead in the water, which didn’t augur well for a successful landing. The whole plan was basically crazy!.

At least it was now possible to organise the landings from the surviving vessels. The Ondatras were still some way away from the Unloading Zone and had become confused by the convoluted coastline, so I detached them all from their Group and gave them individual orders.

The first infantry unit eventually landed and scored a one-off 100VP, less five for the unloading event (as described above). I moved it inland to the helicoper landing zone. By now, the score was +168 and a Minor Victory.

My next problem was that the tugs would not unload so, after giving the first one 30 minutes, I had to accept that I would be getting no BTRs and had them sheer-off. All subsequent attempts to unload them were similarly futile.

Another Bofors at Vaernes attacked a retiring tug, so the 203 dealt with it.

10/3/94 00:00L: A detachment of infantry, pushing West towards Trondheim, encountered a 20mm AA unit, which reacted first and destroyed the Russian platoon, which had just one step loss to its four. The 203’s big finger descended from the sky and ground the offenders into the hillside.

A detachment sent to Vaernes had better luck and arrived in one piece, scoring 50VP for entering the designated area.

01:00L: It was far from clear whether I had to wait for some event or notification before sending any Hips to the LZ, so I tried it anyway. The chopper arrived and unloaded just fine for 3VP and then RTB’d, so I began sending the others at five-minute intervals. As it turned-out, it was possible to have multiple choppers unloading at once and the supply run was completed successfully.

Another 50VP was scored for ‘securing’ Vaernes, after the lone infantry unit stayed there at the airbase for the required amount of time. The Norwegians had evacuated the place. A score of +237 was now a Major Victory.

The first three Ondatras managed to unload and their combined efforts created a tank platoon for 3VP. A Battalion HQ also appeared in the LZ.

02:00L: The other Ondatras duly delivered the second tank platoon. A crippled trawler then limped-in and offloaded the last available infantry detachment, the crew deserving a medal for their efforts. We now had six squads in the LZ with the tanks and HQ and the one squad at Vaernes.

A number of trawlers had re-readied at their anchorages and I sent them out for a second run. Mindful of the unloading penalty, though, I planned to have them do so only if circumstances so warranted.

03:00L: A second wave of helicopter flights began.

04:00L: Some Norwegian units began appearing near Vaernes and the 203 got to play God again, with the Pauk and Treska standing-by in support as its ammo dwindled.

The second supply run was completed, scoring another 18VP in total.

05:00L: A few more Norwegian units pitched-up at Vaernes but were destroyed by the 203 and Treska’s 57mm guns. Nothing actually attacked the Hommelvik bridgehead, so I could have spared some more units to move on Trondheim, but I wasn’t to know.

So, it ended in a Major Victory, with a score of +259.

The USSR lost 14 trawlers, 4 tugs, 2 pilot boats, 7 RHIBs, 6 152mm guns and 4 infantry elements plus, no doubt, many more on the sunken vessels.

Norway lost 2 trawlers, 4 motor yachts, 36 155mm guns, the 12 Hysnes elements and 32 other ground elements. Their 155s fired 2,529 rounds, compared with 576 expended by the Soviet 203 and 152s.

This experimental scenario was Command, but not as we know it!. Much of it was a glorified artillery duel over which I had little real control beyond assigning the fire of the Soviet batteries. I won in the end, but only because losses didn’t seem to matter. The Hommelvik bridgehead was fragile, hard to reinforce and would not have withstood any serious counterattack in the morning, especially as the 203, which had held things together, was down to about five rounds by the end.

There were also some nasty performance problems (my laptop’s clock stopped for about 20 minutes at one point). These mainly seemed to be due to Microsoft running a clutch of updates in the afternoons, which can tolerate most games programs I use, but not something as memory-hungry as Command. These issues do seem to be worse whenever artillery or other gunfire is involved, even though I took Knightpawn’s advice and excluded firing calculations, damage, etc from the Message Log. It probably helped, but not enough.

The next one returns to more conventional territory.

[Gunner98]

I was doing a lot of Lua experimentation with this one.

Thanks for the report