Northern Fury 35 - Shoulder to Shoulder 11/3/94

[fitzpatv]

Balance of Forces

This one is a total epic!. NATO counterattacks in Norway, aiming to hold in the South while hitting the Soviets hard in the Western flank. A huge force has been assembled for Operation Thor’s Hammer, but the Russians have been busy, too. You can only play as NATO.

The objectives are to halt the Soviet thrust on Oslo by gaining air superiority and degrading their IADS; carry-out carrier strikes on the Trondheim area; gain sea superiority and attack the Warsaw Pact’s maritime communications and to close the Greenland-Iceland-Faroes region to enemy submarine movement.

In all, you have four American, one French and two British carrier groups, plus plenty of land-based air. Some 200nm SE of Jan Mayen, Enterprise and Theodore Roosevelt have combined their groups as TG20.1, escorted by four cruisers, three destroyers and three frigates. While part of their brief is to attack targets in Northern Norway, their main concern is to screen everything else against the kind of massive Backfire/Badger onslaught that sank the Eisenhower.

A little over 80nm E of the Faroes, Nimitz is accompanied by two cruisers, three destroyers and two frigates. Nearer Norway to the SE cruises Carl Vinson, with two cruisers, two destroyers and a frigate. Between them, these CVBGs are to face-off against the defences around Trondheim.

Thirty nm NW of the Shetlands, the British carrier Invincible sails with two destroyers and three frigates. Like the Ark Royal, 87nm W of the islands with two destroyers and two frigates, her main job is ASW.

In harm’s way, 112nm NW of Bergen, the cruiser Virginia leads a destroyer and four frigates, presumably to interdict enemy shipping movements and maybe undertake shore bombardments.

A separate set of task forces is moving from the vicinity of Iceland towards Jan Mayen to suppress what’s left of the Soviet presence there and hunt for subs. The French carrier Clemenceau has four destroyers and a frigate with some useful ASW abilities. To her NW, the cruiser Normandy and destroyer Scott are to act as back-up and maybe as a bombardment force. Ahead of the latter, the Canadian destroyer Algonquin leads four British, US and Canadian frigates N of Jan Mayen. Moving to the S of the cold and lonely island are four Dutch, German and Norwegian frigates, led by the De Ruyter.

The armada is screened by three American SSNs and the British Trafalgar.

At Keflavik, there are some Orions, tankers and spare Prowlers, with a U-2 aloft and plotted to sweep across North Norway to detect land installations.

Some Hercules tankers and more Orions are based in the Shetlands. At the main airbase on Shetland Mainland, Sumburgh, there are 42 F/A-18s with a variety of loadouts, some of which are suicidally short-ranged and need to be re-armed, as well as four SEAD Prowlers. These aircraft are conveniently placed to support the defence of Southern Norway.

Kinloss in Northern Scotland houses some support aircraft and MPAs, while nearby Lossiemouth has 15 F-15 fighters, 9 Tornado and 6 Phantom fighters, 6 SEAD Tornadoes, 7 Buccaneers with various stand-off munitions and some limited and under-equipped Jaguars.

Further South at Leuchars, 20 F-15s are readying with Sparrows as potential support for Oslo or defence for the UK.
Large numbers of US Phantoms and Corsairs, scraped together from storage, are readying at Coningsby in Lincolnshire. Pre-set loadouts are a very mixed bag, but it is possible to arm them all as fighters with Sparrows or as attack planes with GBU-15s or old Shrike ARMs.

There are some tankers at Mildenhall, which is host to a Joint STARS ELINT plane which, like a lot of other aircraft, starts aloft.

There are four main bases available in Southern Norway. At Flesland, Bergen, 14 F-15s and 15 F-16s brace themselves for the likely storm, with a few Jaguars and recon choppers. Stavanger’s Sola airport has another 25 F-16s and a few F-5s and choppers.

The remnants of the Norwegian Air Force are mostly at Oslo Gardermoen, mustering 32 F-16s, not all of which are ready and most of which are armed with Sidewinders, as well as a handful of F-5s and choppers. Fourteen A-10s are at Oslo Fornebu with short-ranged, day-only AGM-65s.

At Rygge on the Oslofjord, you have 16 American F-15s with a variety of loadouts that are best re-equipped to AMRAAMs only, even if this takes three hours to do. There are also 14 Phantoms with HARMs, plus more F-5s, choppers and a Norwegian jamming plane.

Despite fears that their Arctic Fleet might sortie, the Soviets have only Tarantul PCFGs and supply ships on the surface. Below the waves, it’s a different story, as you face numerous SSNs of all types and at least one Oscar II, Charlie and Kilo.

The USSR fields a full range of aircraft in formidable numbers. A particular potential threat is posed by an estimated 150 Backfires and Badgers in the Kola, supported by recon types.

All of the usual SAM suspects (Guidelines apart) are present on the ground in a dense integrated network, with most radars dark by default.

Despite what the Briefing infers, there is no threat from Scud SSMs, nor is any land fighting featured in this scenario.

Assessment and Planning

Despite the size of the NATO force, the task is a daunting one in what the Briefing makes clear is a fulcral point in the war. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was really expected to achieve and, as usual, had to work-out the VP schedule as I went along.

The naval armada has lots of TLAMs and there are adequate stocks of ARMs, but the air groups are otherwise direly short of stand-off munitions, being set-up for air-to-air combat in the main.

The defences around Oslo look badly-frayed and will clearly need a lot of help from the other Norwegian and British bases.

TG20.1 has to feel distinctly nervous about the Backfire threat after what happened to the Eisenhower and has to put defence solidly first. I aimed to maintain a ‘Remote CAP’ off Northern Norway, supported by a Sentry AEW plane to intercept the bombers before they got into launch range of the fleet. As it wasn’t practical to keep large numbers of fighters on duty like this all the time, it had to be placed at a distance where reinforcements could arrive in strength before it was too late, while also keeping clear of Russian CAP. Happily, this is a workable strategy.

A bonus was that there was no threat from the direction of Denmark and the Baltic. Apparently, other forces were monitoring this sector.

The extent of the Soviet presence on Jan Mayen was not immediately apparent, but seemed likely to be minor. The task groups in this area needed to focus on ASW and make careful use of the limited numbers of Orions, which would have to operate some way from the nearest base at Keflavik.

As far as possible, I ordered the aircraft with useless bomb loadouts to re-arm, accepting that this would take time. In some cases, though, there was nothing better available.

Far too many aircraft (especially ASW choppers and the U-2) were airborne at the start and I felt obliged to RTB at least half of them, with the risk that this would leave me short of ASW sooner rather than later-on. I also had to pull-back the fighters close to the front-line in Norway, as their pre-set patrol areas were likely to take them over enemy SAMs.

All of the pre-set Missions were removed and replaced with settings that better reflected my style of play and all aircraft groups were split into individual aircraft. Nevertheless, I could see little alternative to having A2A Missions, given the impossibility of micro-managing combats on the scale that seemed likely to develop.

Given the current CMO bug situation, every plane that took off without being assigned to a Mission (or was Unassigned from one) had to have its Doctrine amended to ensure that it didn’t try to Auto-Evade, didn’t Crank if it had SARH missiles, always ignored its plotted course while attacking and never tried to do in-flight re-fuelling (which is entirely unnecessary in this scenario – all tankers returned to and stayed at base throughout).

All non-fighter aircraft at Gardermoen (likely to be the main Soviet target) were immediately sent back to an dispersal base at Torp on the South Coast, which served to keep them alive.

The Epic Action

11/3/94 14:00Z: Experience of the series warned me that any attempt to attack at the start would be interrupted and disrupted by enemy strikes, making it impossible to concentrate. In any event, I lacked the necessary information to plan attacks on the mostly hidden SAM sites. So I sat tight, moved vulnerable units out of the way and waited for the blow to fall.

Initially, we detected numerous recon and OECM Badgers in the Far North, thankfully too far away to detect TG20.1. It appeared that the Russians were expecting us to advance towards the North Cape, at which point they would unleash Hell. I resolved to disappoint them and kept back, sensors passive.

On its way back to Keflavik, the U-2 took a look at Jan Mayen and spotted a couple of possible SAM sites, hanging around to spot them for Normandy’s TLAMs.

As expected, the Soviets made a massive fighter sweep towards Bergen and Oslo, with attack planes following-on behind. It was impossible to micro-manage this, but I had to defend my bases, so I committed the Bergen, Stavanger and Oslo area fighters and accepted that I was going to take heavy losses. Twelve F-16s and the same number of F-15s were quickly lost (3VP each) for 10 Flogger Ks, 15 Flankers, eight Fulcrum attack planes and five MiG-27s (2VP each), numbers and superior weapon range telling in the enemy’s favour. We also lost one of our under-performing Patriot batteries for another VP, leaving us 3VP up overall. There were also some Nike Hercules batteries which, though inaccurate, proved useful by firing at range and forcing multiple enemy fighters to go Engaged Defensive.

Off Northern Norway, carrier F-14s began to take a toll of the enemy support aircraft, downing three Foxbat recon types, a Fencer F, six assorted Badgers and a Backfire recon (all of which scored 4VP as High-Value Aircraft), plus a Flanker that tried to intervene.

15:00Z: Things were not going well!. The strikes on Oslo and Bergen continued in overwhelming force with hundreds of aircraft and, despite inflicting losses, the defenders were swamped. After two hours, NATO was down to ten fighters at Flesland and 15 at Sola while, at Gardermoen, there were nine F-16s of all types left and the base had taken a battering. Many of the F-15s at Rygge were still readying, but were mercifully left alone to do so.

In the region of TG20.1, there was some skirmishing with intrusive Soviet fighters. So far, NATO had lost 70 fighters of all types for 69 Soviet fighters, 33 attack planes and 12 support aircraft.

Acting on the U-2’s data, Normandy fired seven TLAMs at Jan Mayen but, instead of SAMs, the targets turned-out to be a howitzer battery and some AA guns, which scored all of 2VP between them. The only other installations on the island required penetrator warheads to destroy, which we did not have in readiness, so we henceforth left the place alone. It was apparent that no aircraft were based there any longer.

16:00Z: The USSR had achieved air superiority over Southern Norway and yet more aircraft were incoming. There were, however, fewer than before and they suffered from a lack of targets, many aimlessly stooging around getting shot at by Patriots and Nikes when they got close enough. The NATO SAMs belatedly discovered how to shoot straight and did some execution.

Some TLAMs from Virginia woke-up the SAMs around the forward airfield at Sandane in the Western fjords, allowing nine F-16s from Sumburgh to destroy some, along with a few radars. However, at 1VP for a complete SAM site, it wasn’t very cost-effective.

There were continued incursions toward TG20.1 by Flankers from Bodo, several being shot down for one F-14. With the usual Fury Series quota of enemy ‘operational losses’, the score was up to +109 and Average, so there was hope.

The Sandane strike had spotted four Tarantuls lurking in nearby fjords, so Virginia reversed course to avoid being ambushed by them...just as a wave of Fencers emerged from the ruck of Soviet aircraft and came for her.

Aircraft losses were 147-71 in our favour.

17:00Z: The Fencers initially had their radars off, delaying their attack on TG Virginia and allowing some help to arrive from Vinson. A ‘Fencer Party’ ensued, with a score or more of the attack planes shot down by fighters and SAMs. Them with just a few left and our naval SAMs far from depleted, a couple of missiles (presumably loosed before their bearers were destroyed) managed to sink the cruiser and HMS Birmingham. The latter cost us 25VP but a broken VP trigger meant we lost nothing for Virginia (I would have guessed 50). It was evidently a search-strike, as the Fencers were spread-out in a line and some continued towards Vinson and Invincible, being knocked-down by CAP from those sources. Only one escaped. The four survivors of TG Virginia withdrew W at Flank and should probably have done so earlier.

A few more Fencers headed for TG20.1 and were downed by CAP, which continued to take a toll of enemy support aircraft and interloping Flankers for a couple of losses.

There were then renewed attacks on Gardermoen by escorted Frogfeet. The last few Nordic Wing fighters managed to down a few and retreat safely to Torp, while SAMs knocked-down some pursuing fighters.

The Tarantuls issued from the fjords, so a couple of Intruders were sent after them with Skippers and Trafalgar altered course to intercept.

Air losses were now 209-80 in our favour. Being able to micro-manage combats again did much to reduce the casualty rate. Basically, if a NATO fighter manages to fire before the longer-ranged Russian SARH missiles reach it, the Soviet goes Engaged Defensive and misses. This depends on your own fighters not Auto-Evading themselves and, if equipped with Sparrows or Phoenixes, refraining from Cranking and following the missile straight-in. Of course, things don’t always work-out that conveniently and losses can then happen. Getting too close also leads to a Sidewinder vs Archer dogfight situation which is pretty deadly for both parties. Numbers help, too and had been skewing things in the Russians’ favour earlier.

18:00Z: Unfortunately, the Intruders were detected and had to RTB. Once the fighters had gone, another pair tried their luck but, with just one Harpoon per plane, sank only one PCFG for 5VP.

Frogfeet struck at Torp, so the F-15s now ready at Rygge sortied and inflicted heavy losses.

The Vinson CVBG began attacking the Trondheim area with TLAMs and one salvo of ten wrecked one of the Gammon sites visible to the NE, scoring a miserable 1VP.

Air losses now stood at 245-82 and the score was +283 – a Minor Victory, but this could easily change.

19:00Z: More Frogfeet were shot-down near Oslo and the Soviet mass strikes finally abated.

I had lots of frustration trying to sink Tarantuls with Skipper-armed Intruders, due to buddy illumination problems and intervening fighters. Confusing Buddy Store loadouts (actually used for in-flight refuelling, I learned) with buddy illumination didn’t help…

Vinson’s escorts destroyed the second Gammon site near Trondheim with TLAMs. This encouraged a massive TLAM strike that plastered and, we hoped, neutralised the Orland air base, wrecking large numbers of parked planes. Destroying aircraft was clearly the way to score in this scenario. The low-flying missiles managed to hit before the Russians could react in time and turn their SAMs on.

Air losses were now 290-82 and, at +381, it was now a Major Victory.

20:00Z; More TLAM strikes were initiated. The first successfully hit Sandane, eliminating a decent haul of aircraft. The hit on nearby Sogndal was similarly successful. At Bodo, significant opposition was met from SAMs, but a fair amount of damage was still done. At Vaernes, E of Trondheim, the many TLAMs had to run the gauntlet (literally, in some cases) of alerted SAMs and fighters but their numbers ensured some destruction.

A salvo was aimed at the Foxhound lair of Bardufoss in the far North but, due to an oversight on my part, overflew the ASW base of Andoya on the way, got a double dose of attention and hit nothing.

The score was up to +483, with +400 being a Triumph, so even the 50 I should have lost for Virginia didn’t matter much anymore. Air losses were now 338-82.

21:00Z: In response to the Bodo and Bardufoss strikes, the enemy put-up a massive CAP, which was in position to foil TG20.1’s follow-up TLAM salvo at the latter base, despite my taking the trouble to plot waypoints for each missile. Two Flankers headed out to sea and were mobbed and downed by F-14s.

Russian aircraft again headed into Southern Norway, albeit in much-reduced numbers, a few attack planes with escorts striking Gardermoen and costing us a few VP.

Nimitz retaliated by bombarding Roros, near the Swedish border behind the front-line, with yet more TLAMs, bagging another decent haul of aircraft.

A Buccaneer with A.168 Martels proved the solution to the Tarantul problem, sinking the remaining three that had sortied.

22:00Z: Enemy fighters thwarted a TLAM strike on the Nordberg airstrip, W of Roros and E of Sogndal, despite careful waypointing. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Just as I was wondering what had happened to the Soviet submarines, two were detected in quick succession. An Akula appeared ahead of the Nimitz CVBG and got-off two torpedoes at the frigate Stephen Groves, which detached from the group and escaped at Flank after I switched her Auto-Evasion off. Everything else stopped to maintain the range to the SSN. We’d been warned that the surviving Russian submarines were their best and this one, the Vepr, lived up to this, twisting and turning to avoid several torpedoes from the Vikings and choppers. I wasn’t helped by the AI repeatedly sending my aircraft to 2,000’, above their attack height, because this was their ‘Station Altitude’ on the ASW Mission. Once I amended this to 1,000’, the Akula’s fate was sealed though, as I discovered, the VP triggers for sinking enemy subs were all broken in this scenario (assuming that this wasn’t by design, which would have made no sense at all).

Meanwhile, an Alfa was encountered by the Clemenceau group. Alfas are nasty critters that can dive below the depth limit of NATO’s shipborne and aerial ASW torpedoes while hurtling around ad infinitum at 42 knots – you need another SSN with Mk48 torpedoes to kill one at depth. Thankfully, their own torpedoes don’t work below 300’ and, having been rumbled, the Alfa was primarily concerned with self-preservation, anyway. A stand-off ensued, with TG Clemenceau keeping the Alfa pinned-down with torpedoes (mostly stand-off Malafons from the escorts) while altering course out of the way.

23:00Z: Eventually, the Alfa considered it safe to return to attack depth, which proved a fatal mistake on its part.

Meanwhile, I tried to reclaim the airspace over Southern Norway. F-15s from Rygge downed five Flankers for three losses, but the Soviet fighters seemed inexhaustible. A Wild Weasel Phantom took advantage of the situation to nail a SAM and radar for 2VP.

12/3/94 00:00Z: There were continued aerial skirmishes over Southern Norway, with losses on both sides. Two Flankers made a sweep at TG20.1 and shot-down two F-14s before being destroyed. Air losses were now 380-89.

USS Albuquerque ran into a Sierra SSN and was lucky that its Starfish torpedo launcher dropped the payload short and it failed to lock-on. An answering volley of five Mk48s sent the Russian to the bottom.

TG20.1 used its remaining TLAMs in a third attempt to hose-down Bardufoss. There was no CAP this time, but the SAM defences were strong and those TLAMs that got through destroyed no aircraft.

01:00Z: I began reinforcing Bergen and Stavanger with F-15s from Lossiemouth, sending four to each air base.

Given Albuquerque’s experience, I decided not to risk the SSNs anymore and had them all pull back cautiously to support the carrier groups. USS Phoenix, the furthest North, launched some TLAMs at the Foxbat base at Banak on the way.

Some F-16s made a SEAD attack on Sogndal, destroying a radar and disabling two SAM sites.

02:00Z: The handful of TLAMs loosed at Banak merely proved that SAMs were present.

Vinson began sending fighters to lurk off the Southern bulge of Norway and engage Russian aircraft. The first quartet bagged two Flankers and a Fencer E. Meanwhile, two more Flankers intruded near Oslo and an F-15 actually got them both with its first two shots – a rare event indeed!.

A sub was detected off Jan Mayen (oddly, by TG20.1’s Hawkeye) and an Orion winged to the hunt.

03:00Z: I expected a surfaced Kilo but, bizarrely, it was an Akula. Perhaps the captain fancied taking an Orion on with his Gremlin MANPADs?. Unfortunately for him, this Orion had four Harpoons and, even though the first two sailed maddeningly over the conning tower, his luck ran out and the third one blew him apart.

An F-16 from Flesland did some damage to SAMs and radars at Sandane with HARMs.

Two more pairs of Flankers triggered simultaneous fights in the Oslo and Sandane areas. It was tricky to manage, but three Su-27s were destroyed without loss. The incursion disrupted an attempted Phantom SEAD strike from Rygge. A total of 78 Flankers had been eliminated so far.

04:00Z: Further skirmishes over Oslo and the Western fjords saw more Soviet aircraft destroyed without loss. The score was now +682 and air losses 416-89.

05:00Z: Vinson’s fighters provoked the residual Orland CAP into a fight, downing five Flankers and Floggers for two losses. Meanwhile, more raiders headed for Oslo, where F-15s shot down four MiG-27s.

Two Buccaneers were coming-in to attack another group of four Tarantuls in the fjords when four Floggers took-off from Sandane, which we thought we’d neutralised. However, the Soviets headed NE, suggesting that some kind of strategic withdrawal might be in progress. On the other hand, some kind of a surge was happening near Vaernes and a swarm of Foxbats in the far North reacted to our downing yet another suicidal Badger recon.

Nimitz steered E to support Vinson, whose aircraft were starting to run low on ammo.

06:00Z: The Buccaneers sank three of the Tarantuls, the other benefitting from a double malfunction and shooting-down a third Martel.

The enemy surge from Vaernes manifested as four fighters and four attack Fulcrums raiding Bergen. Six were disposed-of by two F-15s and the surviving pair of Floggers withdrew.

The score was now +714 and air losses stood at 439-93.

07:00Z: Another Buccaneer went after the remaining Tarantul but, somehow, all four Martels missed, perhaps due to the fjord or malfunctions. It meant that the PCFG had survived seven missiles fired at it. We had another search for it later, but it had vanished and did not reappear.

I tried a SEAD strike with four Phantoms in the Nordberg/Roros area. A radar was destroyed, but the enemy otherwise refused to illuminate. Two Frogfeet interrupted proceedings and were shot down, making 42 so far.

08:00Z: Vinson attempted a SEAD strike on Orland, first sending-in a lone Hornet to test the defences. Only a radar was radiating, the HARMs fired at it were intercepted by SAMs and two Floggers scrambled. Followed-up with five more Hornets, four Intruders and two escorts. These took-out two lesser SAMs and disabled a Ganef, but a Gargoyle parried the dozen or so missiles aimed at it and the radar led a charmed life, benefitting from two malfunctions. The SAMs were reluctant to light-up and would switch-off soon afterwards, but we learned that there were three Gargoyle sites in the area of the Trondheimsfjorden. The MiG-23s flew around like headless chickens chasing the HARMs, but an Intruder was lost to what was probably a stray Gargoyle that had been aimed at an ARM. The loss happened beyond the Gargoyle’s normal 50% range engagement limit, but SAMs typically fire to maximum range against other missiles. All-in-all, with just 1VP for each complete SAM site or radar and nothing for disabling fire control radars, we finished a point down and I concluded that such operations were simply not cost-effective.

09:00Z: Things were winding-down and, with over a day left, the scenario had effectively been decided. However, I couldn’t exclude the possibility of a devastating attack from the Kola or the threat of a sub slipping through to torpedo a carrier, so I felt obliged to play-on to the end.

13:00Z: We had air and sea superiority over Southern and Central Norway and the Soviets were bunkering-down. At 12:50, an SSN was detected a safe distance S of TG Normandy.

14:00Z: An Orion and Seahawk combined to sink the SSN, which was a Victor III. The Russians were still sending the occasional unescorted Badger into our profitable Remote CAP Zone off the North Cape and an F-14 killed the latest. This elicited a furious response from the Foxbats at Banak, but the Tomcats and Sentry turned their radars off and withdrew, leaving the Soviets to bite thin air.

16:00Z: De Ruyter, on point ahead of her group, picked-up a sonobuoy contact between her and Jan Mayen, to her NW. She guided-in an Orion which, as usual, needed two torpedo hits to do the job, sinking a third Akula.

A Norwegian Orion with MPA-only loadout had made a run up the coast at a safe distance to look for shipping and found two supply vessels off the Lofoten Islands. TG20.1 sent-in two Intruders with Harpoons.

17:00Z: Not helped by the game crashing twice, each Intruder hit a supply ship with four Harpoons. Neither immediately sank, but one went dead in the water. The A-6s didn’t hang about as SAMs lit-up, but went dark and pulled away. One ship, a dry-bulk carrier, died of its wounds for 5VP.

18:00Z: The Orion found a third supply ship but, as we had nothing on-hand to attack it with, I mildly regretted withdrawing my SSNs.

13/3/94 02:00Z: A reloaded Intruder caught-up with the third supply ship (a converted factory trawler) off the North Cape and put it away, provoking another manic and futile reaction from the Banak Foxbats. The A-6 escaped by diving below the engagement floor of the enemy’s Acrid missiles.

06:00Z: The other Intruder returned and finished the crippled tanker off the Lofotens.

08:00Z: To alleviate the tedium, I tried to destroy the last two Floggers over Orland, sending four F-14s with two Sparrows each. Predictably, the MiGs were reluctant to engage and, when I pushed too far, the Sparrows all missed and a Gargoyle lit-up and shot three Tomcats down with four shots at over 40nm range. Sometimes, boring is best…

13:00Z: Sent a lone F-15 from Rygge over Sweden to hunt a Mainstay that was cruising back and forth E of Bodo. It succeeded in destroying the AEW plane and two Midas tankers, despite missing the former once and the latter twice with AMRAAMs. Sidewinders were more effective. Oddly the tankers only scored 2VP each.

14:00Z: It ended in a Triumph, with a score of +805. This should have been higher still once the Virginia and the six sunken Soviet SSNs were taken into account.

NATO lost a cruiser, destroyer, 92 fighters, four attack planes, a chopper and 33 ground elements.

The USSR lost 6 SSNs, 7 PCFGs, 3 supply ships, 3 Mainstays, 2 tanker planes, 196 fighters, 191 attack planes, 33 smaller recon planes, 29 Badgers and Backfires and 98 ground elements.

The feared attack from the Kola failed to materialise, either because the enemy failed to detect our carriers or because it was never intended to happen. Similarly, I saw no sign of enemy SSGNs and presume that they were kept well back to screen the Kola.

Air and naval superiority had unquestionably been attained, though it would seem that this was not enough, in itself, to halt the push on Oslo.

Overall, this was an excellent, epic scenario – Northern Fury at its best. It was bug-free apart from a few broken VP triggers.

It was arguably too long at two days, as it was basically over after one.

Maybe there should have been more incentive for the player to go after the enemy SAMs, as the 1VP per site award wasn’t worth the risk and effort.

As so often in the Fury series, the Pact suffered outlandish ‘operational losses’ of aircraft. At least half of the 35 Foxhounds destroyed went this way, with just a couple in the initial aerial melee and the rest succumbing to TLAMs.

The next scenario looks like an attempt to use Command to simulate a land battle – something it doesn’t do at all well. I’ll play it, but expectations aren’t high.

[Gunner98]

Thanks Vince

I really like this scenario, glad you enjoyed it. The cruisers and the subs are usually scored the same, and 50 is a good bet, so you should be up by 250.

The low score for AD units is due to them not being the real target. The main target is what they are protecting, and as you saw, once you got through the defences, the airbases held a lot of targets and points. Where the SAMS were still in place, your attacks did not get through.

There was indeed a major anti-shipping strike ready, but you prevented it by destroying all the searchers first. Strategically, this is a Soviet own-goal, because they started the anti-satellite war on day 1 of the fight. They spend the rest of the war struggling to find targets, because as you demonstrated, airborne recon and submarines are very vulnerable.

This battle is a major milestone in the war and allows several of the next scenarios to occur. The next big one is #41 Tour de Force, a 10-day marathon with even more forces, where you need to keep the pressure on without taking many casualties.

Bart

[Schr75]

Hi Gunner98

I just finished this scen again, and it is indeed a great one.
I also evaded the large Soviet carrier strike, but afterwards I looked the Soviet side over and found a pretty big error.
All Backfires are loaded with land attack Kitchens (INS+TERCOM) instead of the anti ship version, so even if they launched, they would never have fired at my carriers.
This should probably be fixed

Keep up the amazing work.

Søren

[Gunner98]

Thanks Søren

Nice catch, on my list

Bart