Desert Storm 1 - Invasion 1/8/90

[fitzpatv]

Though it has a few silly features to create some ‘action’, the opening scenario of Desert Storm is primarily about logistics. The player has to transport a variety of aircraft to Saudi Arabia and Incirlik airbase in SE Turkey, thereby establishing the basis for the upcoming air war against Saddam’s Iraq.

You don’t start with much in-theatre. There are a couple of tankers at Al-Banteen in the UAE (which you don’t really need) and 9 F-15s, 3 recon Phantoms, 2 tankers and 3 Sentries at Incirlik. There’s also a naval task force in the Gulf, with the command ship La Salle escorted by two destroyers and four frigates.

In Spain, there are 4 B-52s (one armed with nuclear weapons!) which play no necessary part, plus 3 tankers.
Three German airbases house 15 tankers, 6 C-130 cargo planes and troop transports, 10 F-15s and 10 F-16s (the latter being split between 7 fighter and 3 SEAD loadouts).

At bases in Southern England, there are 9 F-111s (carrying bombs), 10 A-10 Warthogs (on ferry loadouts) 2 Compass Call EW Hercules and a pair of Dragon Lady high-altitude recon planes.

Everything else is scattered across the Continental USA. You have 9 tankers at Loring, Maine, two transports at Dover, Delaware (?), 6 more F-15s (on ferry loadouts) at Langley, Virginia, a Joint STARS at Tinker, Oklahoma and 2 SR-71 Blackbird recon planes and 2 transports at Californian bases.

You have 48 hours to get this lot to where they are needed, which is plenty of time. There are easily enough tankers to support the operation and some of them aren’t really necessary. A number of airports are available as interim stops when crossing the Atlantic, notably at Thule, Greenland, Iceland, the Azores and Bermuda.

Of the Middle Eastern bases, only Incirlik starts with munitions and it is required to get a cargo plane to each of the three Saudi airports (King Faisal in the NW, Prince Sultan at Riyadh and Dhahran in the NE) to plug this gap.

Iraq starts Unfriendly and is on the point of attacking Kuwait, which starts Neutral. Israel and Saudi Arabia are Allied and can supply AEW planes and, in the former case, fighters. The Israelis also do photo-recon along the border and are generally more active than it was deemed wise for them to be in reality.

Events

There was a lack of guidance in one of the shortest Command Briefings I’ve seen, so I planned the whole operation out in advance of the start.

1/8/90 23:00Z: Five KC-10s from Ramstein moved to support the F-15/F-16 move to Incirlik. Fighters would move in batches of four, with refuelling stations over Italy. It seemed wise to move fighters first, so that they could ready and then support the vulnerable attack and transport planes later, should unexpected difficulties arise.

A Hercules was ordered from Rhein-Main to Incirlik and another to King Faisal, a Compass Call headed from RAF Alconbury to Incirlik, as did a Dragon Lady. A Galaxy was routed from Dover (USA) to Torrejon (Madrid) and a Starlifter to Lajes in the Azores. The 6 Langley F-15s had the legs to reach Lajes, while the Joint STARS initially flew from Tinker to Bermuda. As for the Californian planes, the first SR-71 made an initial hop to Oklahoma, a Galaxy made for Keflavik and a Starlifter for Thule.

With plans set, I immediately got a message, inviting me to opt for ‘Extreme Difficulty’, which would entail ‘more and better Hostile units’. There was I, thinking that this would be a ‘milk run’. I decided to be careful and stick with standard difficulty. Probably a wise move.

Another message then told me to move everything to Incirlik in the first instance, with onward deployment to be notified on arrival. However, the Langley F-15s were to fly straight to Dhahran. I was also ordered to move the Ramstein KC-10s to co-ordinates NW of Ireland and over Romania, while those at Loring were to go over Hudson Bay and Greenland. The KC-135Q tankers were to be reserved to support the SR-71s (as these are the only tankers equipped to do so). Accordingly, I diverted the C-130E bound for Faisal to Incirlik and sent a tanker each to the suggested co-ordinates, in case it mattered.

We then detected some fast-moving patrol boats of the Nyryat type used by the Iraqi Navy, heading for the La Salle task force. They were 84nm away, so we refrained from action for now, as we didn’t want to start the war prematurely.

2/8/90 00:00Z: It transpired that the approaching ships belonged to a mysterious ‘Unknown’ faction and, automatically marked as Hostile, were apparently fair game. What nonsense was this?!. Their number included an Osa II with four Styx missiles, so I sent a Lynx with Sea Skuas after it.

It turned-out that the Dragon Lady could reach Incirlik without re-fuelling, so I directed her onward.

The Lynx sank the Osa for 2VP. La Salle’s escort then used Harpoons on the two gun-armed Nyryats. Crazy bad luck intervened!. Of five weapons fired, two malfunctioned, one failed to lock-on, another hit a passing merchant ship (thankfully without sinking her or incurring a penalty) and only one sank its intended target – you couldn’t make it up!. We waited until the appallingly-positioned merchantman got out of the way, whereupon a sixth Harpoon finally got the job done. There was a second Osa and a Zhuk patrol boat further up the Gulf but, as they weren’t trying to close, we left them alone for now.

Israeli recon Phantoms had found two batches of Guidelines and numerous Iraqi ground troops along the border.

01:00Z: Getting tankers to the specified stations scores nothing, so I re-positioned them and carried-on with my original plan. There really is no need to put any tankers over Hudson Bay, Greenland or NW of Ireland.

At 01:45Z, the Iraqis invaded Kuwait. Supply aircraft were ordered to deliver munitions to the three Saudi bases, so the C-130 was re-directed back to Faisal.

A Foxbat, belonging to the Unknowns, then popped-up over the Red Sea (where next, mid-Atlantic?!). The Israelis (who had already lost several aircraft to ditchings which, mercifully, cost nothing) engaged it and eventually shot it down. Apparently, it was an unmarked plane flown by an ‘Iraqi sympathiser’. Hmmmm…

02:00Z: the first SR-71 reached Tinker and, with a quick turnround time, continued to Loring.

An Iraqi Bison tanker and Mainstay AEW plane were over the Baghdad area and so were not supporting Unknown incursions, which was a relief.

Having done their job, the Israeli recon F-4s were ordered back to base by the AI.

The first batch of 4 F-15s reached Incirlik, though one had to be restrained from flying across the Eastern Mediterranean to re-fuel from an Israeli tanker when almost there. I created a new Ferry mission to Incirlik with no re-fuelling allowed. Planes could be switched to it from the existing Incirlik Ferry mission once off the Greek coast.

The Israelis downed a second rogue Foxbat which did, at least, appear to originate in Iraq. The things seemed to fly SW to the Red Sea with radars off, engage anything Coalition or Israeli that they detect, then vanish over Egypt if they got that far.

The Joint STARS reached Bermuda.

03:00Z: More F-15s, F-16s and a Dragon Lady reached Incirlik. F-15s from Langley were landing in the Azores. There was some fighting in Kuwait, with surprisingly few losses on either side – it scored nothing either way.

04:00Z: Given a turnround time of just 30 minutes, I moved the Langley F-15s onward to Madrid. A Starlifter required four hours on the ground at Lajes.

We were awarded 10VP for completing the initial deployment to Incirlik (even though we hadn’t, really) and were ordered to move fighters and attack planes on to the Saudi bases.

05:00Z: The Israelis downed another Foxbat.

Ideally, we needed to move the fighters from Incirlik to Dhahran and Prince Sultan and the supply aircraft to King Faisal and could start doing so around 06:00Z. As the Langley F-15s were Dhahran-bound, the other fighters could go to Prince Sultan, as could the attack planes.

10VP were scored for getting a Hercules cargo plane to King Faisal, making the score +26 and Average.

With the A-10s en route for Incirlik in one go, the F-111s travelled in three trios, re-fuelling from three KC-10s where Romania’s Western tip met Hungary.

06:00Z: Having finished supporting the F-15/F-16 move to Incirlik, four KC-10s re-deployed E of Sicily to help the F-15s from Langley cross the Med.

The first SR-71 was by now at Loring and could start across the Atlantic at 08:30, with a KC-135Q for company. The other would be ready at Beale, California at 07:00Z.

Fighters began moving from Incirlik to Prince Sultan, with a tanker station established off the Israeli coast and covered by Israeli fighters. Our tankers had Refuel Allies set to No (which didn’t stop them doing it). In practice, I didn’t need them.

The Langley F-15s landed at Madrid.

07:00Z: A-10s began arriving at Incirlik, while the second SR-71 got underway from Beale to Tinker.

08:00Z: The Langley F-15s were now on their way to the re-fuelling station E of Sicily. A report was received about the Iraqi advance into Kuwait City. At 08:10, we were notified that Iraq had conquered Kuwait though, in practice, Kuwaiti units continued to resist. Saudi Arabia requested Western support.

The first SR-71 left Loring for Iceland with its escorting tanker.

The first quartet of F-15s reached Prince Sultan.

09:00Z: Casualty reports from the ongoing struggle in Kuwait kept interrupting play without stopping the game, which was annoying. I was also getting a few Fuse errors (I thought this had been fixed).

10:00Z: The Langley F-15s re-fuelled off Sicily and had the gas to fly straight on to Dhahran. All F-111s were now at Incirlik.

12:00Z: All A-10s were now on their way to Prince Sultan, travelling in pairs to spread the risk from interloping Foxbats. We now had fighters at Prince Sultan to provide escort.

A cargo plane arrived at Prince Sultan for 10VP and supplied the base with munitions for the aforesaid fighters.
Wrongly, we were getting a VP for each Iraqi unit destroyed by the Kuwaitis, while losing nothing for Kuwaiti losses. The score of +51 was apparently enough to progress to the next scenario if playing a Campaign game, but I wanted to complete the deployment and continued.

Another Foxbat threatened to wade into the stream of A-10s heading for Prince Sultan but an Israeli fighter shot it down.

13:00Z: The Langley F-15s began landing at Dhahran, scoring 5VP to make it a Major Victory.

15:00Z: A Hercules arrived at Dhahran with munitions for the base, scoring another 10VP to make it a Triumph. The A-10s were landing at Prince Sultan.

18:00Z: The Aardvarks began landing at Prince Sultan and the second SR-71 got underway from Loring to Keflavik. The SR-71s don’t actually need tankers, as there is enough time to use the intervening bases.

19:00Z: Now that I had the time, I sent the Lynx to destroy the second Osa, which was getting closer to the task force.
21:00Z: We’d noticed several suspicious aircraft apparently landing in the desert N of Riyadh, so I sent a Dragon Lady to check the area out. It found nothing and duly returned to Incirlik.

The Israelis downed another Foxbat over the Gulf of Aqaba.

The first SR-71 reached Incirlik and the other was now in Iceland.

23:00Z: The last cargo plane arrived at King Faisal.

USS Knox sank the Zhuk with a Harpoon – bit of a waste, really…

3/8/90 02:00Z: Another Foxbat flew across the border with Iraq into Saudi Arabia. An Israeli F-16 made to engage it but, in a farcical piece of AI behaviour, went Bingo, flew past it towards a tanker without bothering to fire and was then shot down as the rogue plane spun around and hit it with Acrids. At least it cost nothing…

07:00Z: The second SR-71 made it to Incirlik, completing the deployment.

There were nearly 16 hours remaining, but I saw no point in continuing further. So, a Triumph, with a score of +72.

There were no Coalition losses, though the Israelis had managed to lose a tanker and 12 fighters. Kuwait lost 27 fighters and attack planes, 3 transport aircraft, 27 ground elements, 3 oil wells and a government building.

The daft Unknown faction lost 5 Foxbats, 2 PCFGs and 3 patrol boats, while Iraq lost a Mainstay, tanker (somehow), 9 fighters, 6 transport planes, 32 ground elements and 7 oil wells.

Overall, it made a change managing the strategic deployment and the Unknown distraction had little real effect. We’ll see what happens when we get down to some actual fighting next time.

[Eboreg]

Yeah... the Invasion scenario kind of stretches the definition of the term "game".

I should also note that the Desert Storm campaign set has extremely generous scoring requirements in general and you'll have a lot more fun if you ignore the scoring requirement and instead try to the get the various victory messages. Well... except for "Reviving a Giant", their is way too much time spent doing nothing at the start and I wouldn't blame you if just end the scenario due to sheer boredom.