Northern Fury 40 - Tongs 16/3/94

[fitzpatv]

Situation

The Roosevelt and Enterprise CVBGs (TF20.1) aim to interdict Soviet command and communications infrastructure in Norway. It transpired that the Hammer strikes hit a decoy instead of the Archangel Corps HQ, while Anvil damaged, but did not destroy the IADS. The Soviets have been using ferries to maintain limited traffic Southwards, despite the loss of the Skjomen Bridge.

NATO’s target list is headed by the elusive Corps HQ and its associated comms hub and mast. The HQ itself is an underground bunker and will need to be hit with penetrator warheads, but the other installations are more exposed. An SSM storage site has been discovered nearby – this is also underground and may or may not contain nuclear munitions. If it does, the consequences of a hit could be drastic, so orders are to seal the entrances instead. Otherwise, there are four ferry piers and four road tunnels to destroy. Finally, it is intended to lay naval mines by Intruder across the ferry route S to Bognes.

No TLAMs are authorised for this operation!. High penalties can be expected for losses. TF20.1 needs to remain at least 200nm from the coast. Supplies of Phoenix missiles are running low globally and their use has been restricted, so that only Foxhounds, multi-engined support and bomber aircraft and (somewhat ambiguously) missiles over 200nm from NATO carriers and oilers are now valid targets for them (Bart based this on careful study of info available on stockpiles in 1993).

The two carriers are escorted by four cruisers, two destroyers and three frigates. Three SSNs (two US and the British Trafalgar, which only has Tigerfish short-ranged torpedoes) and a Norwegian diesel sub are on-station off the coast.

Carrier wings have the usual mix of aircraft, but ground attack loadouts are limited to toothpick Mavericks and GBU-10, 16 and 24 glide bombs. All these are short-ranged and, apart from the Mavericks, require buddy illumination. The 24s and 10Js have penetrator warheads. Four Intruders carry naval mines (two each with general-purpose Mk62 Quickstrikes and CAPTORs, which carry torpedoes to be released when an enemy sub comes close – they can tell friend from foe).

At Keflavik and Kinloss, there are tankers, Sentries, Orions and other support aircraft. The Orions are mostly lumbered with endurance-reducing Harpoons and too many have been launched before the scenario starts (the carriers also have too many ASW choppers up to begin-with).

As for the Soviets, they have no surface warships and subs are limited to the torpedo-only varieties. Intelligence estimates that they have 8-12 Foxhounds, no more than nine Flankers, 48-80 Floggers and maybe 5-7 Foxbats and believes that the Flankers have pulled-back from Bodo to Bardufoss. There is no risk (this time) from enemy airstrikes and the only threat to TF20.1 comes from subs. As usual, the Russians have plenty of support aircraft and a range of SAMs (Grumbles, Gladiators, Gadflies, Gauntlets, Gainfuls, Ganefs and Geckoes) but no MANPADs or AA.

Assessment/Planning

NATO can muster 16 HARMs per strike, against a lot of SAMs.

Strikes have a 6-hour turnround time.

We can deploy a maximum of 48 penetrator warheads, 8 other heavy warheads and 8 Mavericks per strike. Nothing has a range of over 8nm (mostly 4) and only the Mavericks don’t need buddy illumination, which will force attack planes to work in pairs.

It is unwise to mount strikes until enemy fighters and SAMs have been suppressed, so I decided to be patient and try to wear these down first, before going for the targets late in the game.

We did have some TALD decoys, but experience is that SAMs generally ignore them (fighters often don’t).

As in Anvil, our planes would be attacking at the end of a lengthy fuel umbilical, whereas the enemy interceptors would be able to go for them at Afterburner, no doubt loaded to the teeth with missiles which mostly outranged ours.

It seemed best to ‘Safe’ all Phoenixes via WRA, authorising their use on a case-by-case basis, as the game provides no easy way to distinguish Foxhounds from Foxbats or Floggers for these purposes.

The mining of the ferry lane was going to be a bit of an experiment and the Mk62 mines were the only ones that could affect surface vessels.

All of our tankers were on Quick Turnround and it seemed advisable to use them to support our fighters and attack planes from a station roughly a third to a half the distance from the Norwegian coast. Not doing this might or might not have hindered me during Anvil (but might also have saved some tankers, given the numbers and aggressive behaviour of the Soviet CAP in that scenario). Once fuelled on the outbound leg, fighters could then be put on a Patrol mission off the coast with Refuelling set to Never, then sent to refuel manually as needed.

We had 21 fighters that could actually take part in this operation, once the F-14s with Phoenixes were excluded. Not many against the estimated hundred or so Russians...

Our Orions were somewhat constrained by loadout and distance and couldn’t remain on-station for long, but TG20.1 had enough Vikings and choppers that this wasn’t a major concern. The P-3s’ Harpoons could theoretically have been used against coastal supply vessels, maybe waking-up hostile SAMs for SEAD strikes in the process. In practice, we didn’t find any such ships all game.

Events

16/3/94 18:00Z: To begin-with, I sent two F-14s with Sparrows and two Hornets to test the defences. There were plenty of Floggers on CAP near the enemy airbases, with a Flanker over Bardufoss and some Fencer Fs jamming in support. Breaking with their ultra-aggressive tactics in Anvil, however, the Russians didn’t come Burnering at us and we were able to take-up station offshore. Soviet SAMs appeared to be clustered around their airbases, with nothing visible to the F/A-18s’ ground search radars around the tunnels and ferry piers. Perhaps the SAMs destroyed during Hammer had stayed that way?.

Once it probed over the Lofotens, a Hornet triggered the Bodo CAP and had to outrun two Floggers. An F-14 intervened and downed one MiG-23 with a Sparrow, to reveal that enemy aircraft losses score NOTHING in this scenario!.

Several NATO support aircraft had been defaulted to flying at 300’ and I only realised this about an hour in, which reduced their total time on-station, even after I’d corrected it. Not what you expect, after all…

19:00Z: Two Flankers (still at Bodo, despite what we’d been told) pursued the F-14, but his wingman stepped-in and did well to bag the pair of them.

20:00Z: Four USN fighters maintained an A2A zone off the Lofotens. Two Floggers attacked and were downed, but one damaged a Hornet, which had to RTB. Two more followed and we shot them down, too.

21:00Z: Two more Flankers rose from Bodo and challenged our fighters. Both were eliminated, but one damaged an AMRAAM Hornet, which had to withdraw.

22:00Z: Another pair of Floggers engaged, then another. None survived, but one managed to down a Hornet so, with air losses standing at 15-1, we were 0-5 down on VP…

23:00Z: The Bodo CAP then went quiet and it transpired that there were no more Flankers there. Two strike Hornets therefore went after the apparently undefended road tunnels with GBU-16s (the idea being to start there and then work through the targets, nearest first). I thought I’d be able to use buddy illumination weapons by manually switching on my laser designators on the Sensors window (as advised on this Forum) and using aircraft in pairs, accepting that I could only attack one target per pair (as the first plane would not easily be able to support its partner after firing due to game mechanics). However, though the F/A-18s were flying by day, with designators and radars on and both within range of the targets and pointing the right way, it was still impossible to get a firing solution while using manual control. Using AutoEngage, one plane somehow succeeded in firing, but bad luck meant that two hits with 303DP weapons failed to destroy a 400DP tunnel entrance. As soon as the plane fired, it lost all interest in supporting its ‘buddy’ and we had already spent too much time stooging around…

17/3/94 00:00Z: Both strike planes and two escorting Hornets were then lost to a pair of Foxhounds. You can’t outrun them, especially when fuel is a consideration and engaging them is risky, given their accurate, long-ranged Amos missiles. Our other two patrol fighters took revenge on the MiG-31s, but even they scored us nothing, whereas we lost 20VP.

Being sensible, we needed to neutralise the remaining 6-10 Foxhounds before resuming strikes, but how?!. They were based back at Bardufoss behind SAMs and could engage us when and how they pleased. Clearly, we had to grin and bear it and take some losses.

Two more Hornets attacked with GBU-10Es. Again, I could only attack a single tunnel with one plane but did, at least, destroy it to score a welcome 100VP. Clearly, it was was worth taking some losses to hit targets, but how many did we need to win?.

01:00Z: Two Foxhounds pursued the retiring strike planes, tangled with our escorts and each side lost a fighter. The attack planes got away.

The next pair of F/A-18s carried GBU-24s, which have a slightly better range. Again, only one could attack and, appallingly, both weapons malfunctioned. To add to the disaster, another Foxhound duo intervened and got both strikers and three escorts for one loss, leaving me another 25VP down.

02:00Z: The next pair of Hornets took-out a tunnel, taking the score to +145, which is still a Major Defeat. This time, we got two Foxhounds for one strike plane. That was seven down and one readying, so they should have been running-out of the things.

03:00Z: Two more Hornets destroyed the Kjopsvik ferry pier after wild horses wouldn’t make them attack the tunnels. Two more Foxhounds arrived and cost us both strike planes and a fighter before being destroyed. It was now +220 and down to a Minor Defeat.

04:00Z: Despite more chaos with targeting, the next Hornet pair destroyed the Skarberget pier, which was defended by a Gadfly. By now, the Russians had indeed run out of deployable Foxhounds and two equally fast but less capable Foxbats stood-in. Both were nailed without loss by our escort.

Two Floggers pursued the strike planes and were likewise downed by the escort. Another pair of Foxbats followed and got incredibly lucky, being missed repeatedly before costing us a striker and two escorts at no cost to the USSR.

05:00Z: I tried using two Intruders against the remaining two piers, but they simply couldn’t acquire targets for love nor money. Hanging around too long in efforts to resolve this, they eventually took a loss to a Gadfly, so the survivor had to RTB.

Two Hornets with Mavericks then tried to finish-off the damaged tunnel. Again, nothing would give them a firing solution despite it being clear daylight, having radars on and trying to dive on the tunnel to overcome horizontal boresight problems. Escorts destroyed two Foxbats without loss before I RTB’d the Maverick planes in disgust.

06:00Z: Another four Floggers were dispatched by the escorts. Meanwhile, two more Intruders tried to take-out the remaining tunnels and piers but simply couldn’t, even flying at 4,000’ AGL. It seemed that Intruders just weren’t capable of attacking with the weapons they’d been given…

07:00Z: Given the fact that Intruders and Maverick Hornets didn’t work, period, we were now down to three strike planes which would not be ready again for 2 to 4.5 hours. We also had SEAD planes and the option of mining the ferry channel, assuming that we could get rid of the Gadfly first.

Sod this!!. The only other option was to look for alternative loadouts. The redundant Phoenix Tomcats had none to call upon, but it was possible to switch five Intruders and some Hornets to use AGM-84Es. These didn’t have that much punch, but were at least usable and being stand-off weapons, without that much risk. Making the change required six hours.

In the meantime, there was no let-up, as two more Foxbats chased the returning strikers, just as every escort was getting low on fuel. The Intruders dove to minimum altitude to immunise themselves from the MiGs’ Acrids, while two fighters deferred refuelling and eventually shot the Soviets down without loss.

The plan now was to neutralise the Gadfly, try to mine the ferry channel, keep-up the pressure on the enemy CAP, then use Intruders with AGM-84s to get as many targets as possible.

08:00Z: Four SEAD Hornets provoked the Gadfly with a Bearing Only Launch aimed right at it (as advised to me in this Forum), then blasted it with HARMs. Needless to say, it scored nothing.

09:00Z: I set-up a Mining mission over the ferry channel, then sent-in an Intruder with Quickstrike mines, with radars off and flying at 1,000’ AGL over the prosecution area. Happily, laying just one mine was enough to satisfy the scoring system and gain 100VP. There was no Soviet reaction and the Intruder got away safely.

10:00Z: To fill-in time until the strike planes were ready again, I sent a Hornet past the targets, where it downed a Fencer E and Fencer F, not that it scored anything.

11:00Z: Another Hornet intruded and bagged two recon Foxbats and a second Fencer F as the Russians once again demonstrated their abundant resources and lack of sense. I then sent-in another one as part of winding-down the escort and this got another Fencer E but, with all escorts on RTB, two Floggers chose that moment to intervene (the first fighters for a while), catching the F/A-18 with no ammo and insufficient fuel to escape. So the whole exercise cost me 5VP, which might have been significant in the final scoring, as it took the total from +400 to +395. I shouldn’t have bothered.

13:00Z: Four Intruders attacked with AGM-84s, destroying the damaged tunnel and hitting the other, as well as both piers. The score was now +495 and Average, before the Drag pier burned-out and scored 100 more.

14:00Z: Another Intruder and three Hornets caved-in the final tunnel, wrecked the Bognes pier, then took-out the Comms Hub and Mast around the Corps HQ. There were no SAMs at the latter, as the Russians were presumably relying on camouflage and maskirovka. The score was now +995 and a Minor Victory (would 1,000 have been a Major?). What a joy to use weapons that actually work!!

18:00Z: The only remaining danger was a submarine attack, but none materialised as I stepped-up ASW. So it finished as a Minor Victory.

NATO lost 2 F-14s, 18 Hornets and an Intruder (21 planes in all).

The USSR lost 10 designated targets (out of 12, or 11 of 13 counting the mining), 9 Foxhounds, 4 Flankers, 6 fighter Foxbats, 17 Floggers (36 fighters in total), 6 support aircraft and 3 SAM elements.

Have to admit that I was wondering until quite late in the game when I would ever win a Northern Fury scenario again, but switching to AGM-84s proved decisive. The problems with buddy illumination weapons in the game remain baffling. Fact is that the pilots would know how to use them, so perhaps the rules governing them should be simplified, taking the onus off the player?.

Next comes Tour de Force which is not, I now see, the amphibious invasion (which was deferred) but a ten-day ‘holding operation’. Regardless, I will probably split it over up to ten instalments. There are four more scenarios after that (for now, at least).

Chances are that I’ll be taking Eboreg’s advice and starting Desert Storm next time, unless someone wants to persuade me otherwise.

[RSMC]

05:00Z: I tried using two Intruders against the remaining two piers, but they simply couldn’t acquire targets for love nor money.

These targets appear to be under water - no chance to get at them at their current locations.

The editor is fairly intuitive for a problem like this. Open the scenario in editor mode by hitting "edit scenario" rather than "start new game". Click on the target you want to move, and drag it to the new location. Save the result. Then you can treat the new save as the starting point.

[fitzpatv]

Sounds like a way of fixing the underwater bug. However, I had no trouble hitting the piers with AGM-84s. On the other hand (and this was the problem), there just doesn't seem to be a way of using buddy illumination weapons reliably. When they did work in this playthrough, it was when I ordered the aircraft to Auto Engage the targets but even this only did the trick some of the time and I couldn't do it at all with Intruders.