New Scenario for testing Mediterranean Fury 3 Casbah Crunch

[AndrewJ]

The helicopter issue is because all the French helicopters which are airborne at the start have the DeGrasse as their base, meaning there is no room to land.

[AndrewJ]

A few more quick items.

No munitions at Rota or Sigonella for the P-3s based there.
The Clemenceau group Lynxes on ASW are not on Quick turnaround, unlike others.
There seem to be two ships named SS Haje/
Typo: 'areas west of Create'
Some of the Oran patrol boat groups come to a halt, citing slowing down to change formation.

[Gunner98]

Ok

Will fix the Helo issue.

You're quite right on the lack of SSN's and I'll put a note in the brief, looking through my notes there are 3 RN and 5 USN boat in the area. Four of the US are accounted for at Rota plus 1 in the Eastern Med. For the RN boats, I'll mention one in the Aegean guarding the exit to the Bosporus, and the one in the eastern Med. I'll put a Churchill class up near Southern France, out of the way but present.

B

[Gunner98]

Thanks Andrew, will fix those points.

B

[Primarchx]

War's gone hot with Libya. Raids heading toward the Italian radar picket destroyer and the Brit CVBG. Have strong air cover over the MM ship but probably not enough to save it. First couple of flights of Libyans were Fishbeds with iron bombs, dropped several but two dropped their bombs and missed.

The RN situation is more tenuous. Two ready pairs of AAM Sea Harriers have gone Winchester and one more flight is on deck as a last ditch. The ships are spread out too much for those with Seawolf SAMs to offer any overlapping protection. The Type 42s are in good spots but have such limited SAM capacity. There are 3 pairs of Phantoms inbound for top cover but they've got AIM-7E and AIM-9N so their air-to-air is somewhat weak.

The US CSG is still about 300nm from Malta and I'm not forward deploying fighters to cover the MM destroyer at this point since the Libyan airstrikes will be over before I can get anything in the air and on station that far away. It's waaay to far to assist the Brits, too.

Contemplating airstrikes on the eastern Libyan airfields with aircraft in Greece. No SEAD capability, though, and there are plenty of SA-2 and SA-3s defending. Probably not worth the risk. Perhaps a TLAM strike to soften up those air defenses? TLAMs look fruitless against Tripoli, there are just so many SAMs there that HARM and bombing in that zone seems the more effective strategy. There's probably some SA-10s hidden in there, too.

ETA - Heavy Libyan raids have crippled the Italian destroyer Ardito with some AS-9 hits and will likely sink her before the battle is over. However they've lost 50 a/c thus far in the attack to no NATO fast jets shot down in return.

[alghblag]

I lost the Ardito and the whole UK task force. I enjoy your big scenarios, they're complex and challenging. I hope one day you tackle Germany!

[Gunner98]

Thanks

Germany! Gad-zuks! [:D] Have thought about everything around the globe but have not really considered building the central front - massive. Hmmmmm...

The Illustrious may be a tad too close to the Libyan coast, will see how you guys fare with her.

Thanks for the updates.

B

[Primarchx]

Argh! Had a system crash but I had lost the Ardito and all other strike aircraft were homing in on the Illustrious group. Lost one of the UK Frigates to bombs and it looked like more were to sink based on the volume of strike a/c inbound vs the SAMs and fighters I had on hand. Hope to get this back and running soon.

[Gunner98]

Anything else on this one guys?

B

[Excroat3]

Now that the stutter issue is fixed, I think I'm going to give this one a try.

[alghblag]

Just one minor thing, the Close ASW markers for the French and US carriers aren't attached to their respective groups, so they remain stationary as the TFs sail away. You might consider moving the British carrier north a bit - unless you count on sinking it, in which case it's good where it is. Many of the F-104s aren't at all helpful that far south, you might consider putting some F-104 munitions on Pantelleria.

Well done man. I look forward to more big scenarios!

[Gunner98]

OK will fix the RPs.

I think I'll move the UK Task Group further North, about 50 miles should do it. There should be a bunch of munitions for the 104's at Pantelleria and Trapani already.

B

[Gunner98]

give this one a try

Excroat3 - would you mind trying it with the HMS Illustrious moved about 50 miles north of its current location? Its a tad vulnerable at the moment.

b

[Excroat3]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

give this one a try

Excroat3 - would you mind trying it with the HMS Illustrious moved about 50 miles north of its current location? Its a tad vulnerable at the moment.

b

Sounds good. I got a full day to play this Wednesday, so expect a report a day or 2 after that.

EDIT: Maybe not, I'm just going around placing missions and my PC is really struggling with the size. Nothing against your scenario of course, this massive scale is my FAVORITE type of scenario, but my poor old PC just can't run it .

[AndrewJ]

I'm only part way through at the moment, currently in the first night, but will try and get further tonight.

[Primarchx]

Mine crashed and the autosaves were overwritten before I realized how old my last true save was.

[JPFisher55]

I'm in the beginning of this excellent scenario. It's different from the usual USN 6th fleet versus the Soviet Med and Black Sea fleet. Back in the mid-1970's, my first board wargame was called "Sixth Fleet." It featured this match up.

I too had the Libyans sink the UK carrier task force. Those small carriers are not worth much because they can't really defend themselves. The land based air was too far away. However, the French are handling the Algerians.

Overall, it is a really fun scenario. Thanks Gunner.

[AndrewJ]

So I'm still only a few hours into this one, but I have to say I'm really enjoying the environment. It feels 'live', as if you're surrounded by a real world with fishing fleets (full of spies), passing freighters (full of spies), and a high command that keeps trying to divert your resources. (They're probably full of spies too...) The power balance is nice as well. You don't have a big enough qualitative advantage to simply beat up on the Africans and force your way in with technological might. I find myself feeling stymied, and really having to look carefully at what I can do, which is definitely a good thing.


Playthrough

My initial situation is dangerously spread out, and the first commands which go out are to turn and run away from tattletales, then tighten up formations, hurry isolated ships towards each other to make task groups, and get clearance from the south coast. The carrier groups are much too dispersed to give effective AAW support to each other, particularly the Brits who are spread out as if they are hunting subs in the empty North Atlantic. (Just like the other Brit task groups up in Scandanavia in Northern Fury.) Their Sea Wolf missiles are effective, but very short ranged, so I move them in very tight to provide mutual support.

MPA go out to look around. The American CVBG is directed to head south at modest speed. The French are sent between Corsica and Sardinia, with plans to cut down between Sicily and the toe of Italy. I see no need for them to snuggle up to the enemy coast before they reach their duty station. The Italians come south at good speed, eyeing the suspicious Tunisian freighter who has more surveillance radars than I would normally expect. I glare at them. They wave innocently at me. Hmmmm.... The Orangeleaf, all alone, heads for the Greek airbases and anchors under the flightpath, waiting to join the Italians as they pass south. I don't want her out there all alone.

The ASW environment on the south coast is probably reasonably benign (particularly in the east), so my subs turn and start snorkelling in the direction of Tripoli and Oran. I'm pinning a lot of my hopes on the Marconi, which starts heading along the coast towards the Soviet ships. If she can get in and torpedo the big guys this will remove a major obstacle. When she gets closer she'll hug the bottom and creep, but at the moment she stays masts up and provides ESM information.

I take the first offensive move, by sneaking in some F-14s towards Tripoli at wavetop level, with jammers fuzzing things up in the background. The F-14s take long-range Phoenix shots at the Russian AEW helicopters while keeping their radars off, thus remaining covert, and the slow-moving helicopters don't get far enough to elude the active seekers on the Phoenixes. The Libyans never see my planes, so they can't be sure where the missiles came from, and this allows us to remain at peace for the moment. Our ambassador expresses concern about the unfortunate maintenance failures on the Russian helicopters, and hopes no Libyans were harmed by the Russian negligence. Both AEW helicopters are destroyed, which is a genuinely Good Thing.

A few hours in the Libyans make their move, and massive strikes are launched towards my ships south of Italy. Fortunately, with my ships now over the horizon from the tattletales, the Libyans have bad targeting information, and at first they don't proceed directly to the actual positions of my ships. My F-104s prove their high-speed dash makes them very useful for hurtling down from Italy in time to interfere with the western branch of the attack before they can get to my ships there, and some fighters from the American carriers arrive to help too. The eastern branch untangles itself after some confusion, and when the Blinders manage to get a fresh radar hit on the British carrier group the planes turn and attack. Fortunately they don't all arrive at once, so there is time for a combination of Harriers, every single Greek F-4 with an AAW loadout, and a number of carefully allocated SAMs to defeat the attack.

My shooting at the Libyan strike causes the Algerians to go hostile, and they start trying to hunt my P-3s, so I'm forced to shoot down a Mig-29 with my cruiser, earning me some more diplomatic bad-boy points.

In the general engagement which follows large numbers of Mig-25s and Mig-23s emerge from Libya. The Foxbats are more spread out, and many are handled by AMRAAM equipped Harriers (consequently I now have only 4 AMRAAMs in the entire fleet). The Mig-23s are in a tighter cluster, and they head north as I'm about to bring my fleet of AMXs into Pantelleria. My heavy Phoenix reserve deals with that very nicely, and the AMXs make a safe landing. (I have to admit I'm quite nervous about all those planes at Pantelleria, which is quite vulnerable, and I'm worried about air strikes or even naval raids there. I'm also surprised there's been no attack on my radar station at Lampedusa yet, which continues to give me very useful information.)

The Libyan navy also starts heading north, and some of my ships around Sicily have to dodge incoming ASMs. Fortunately these seem to have been fired at obsolete target information, so they pass harmlessly by, too distant to pick me up. I'm currently out of the range of the Krivak's OTH radars and they've got no radars airborne, so I suspect there's something else submarine-shaped out there listening for me. (An Atlantique has sunk a Tango west of Sicily, but so far no other sub contacts in my area.) My airborne radar is effective, however, so a combination of Harrier strikes and Otomats deal with the isolated ships on the leading edge of the enemy flotilla. There's a lot of more capable missile boats further south, but for the moment they're out of range of my missiles, I don't have a good fix on them, and I'm not sure I want to send aircraft deeply into SAM cover (SA-5 and SA-N-6) to engage them. I may wait until daylight and send the AMXs after them when they can actually see again.

I've been given orders to engage Libyan land targets, but with the dense SAM belt around Tripoli and the dratted task group parked in the harbour with their advanced missiles, I don't think I've got a good way in yet. I definitely don't want to send iron bombers (or even LGBs) in on it without ARM support, because casualties will be apalling. I think I'll have to wait until the navy is down before dealing with the land attack. Fortunately I've still got a day and a half left.

In the east there's been some skirmishing with Mig-23s south of Crete. I used my last few TLAMs to engage the surveillance radars near Benghazi, in advance of strikes there, but an attempt to hit the radars for the Tobruk area did not succeed, and the missiles were shot down by enemy fighters. I know there are a few missile boats in the area, which I will tackle soon with Harpoons under cover of darkness. The trick will be getting a precise location on them without losing my observer. I've also flown in some more of my Greek F-4s to provide cover for the ferrying aircraft, which are starting to come through. So far nobody has interfered with the first few F-15s, although I wonder if there will be a determined effort when the transports come through.

Out west, my submarine heading for Oran gets into a pack of Algerian missile boats, which are completely blind to submarine threats, and begins to systematically execute them. F-18s from Spain, Etendards off the French carrier, and missiles from the Spanish ships destroy most of the others, and at the moment I believe I've gotten rid of all but two of them (unless more are in port). I need them gone before the Rota task group enters the Med, and the progress is heartening.

In the air, the Algerian Mig-29s prove to be a real problem to handle, and it takes coordinated pack tactics using F-18s and Mirages to deal with them and the Mig-25s. After darkness falls the A-7s head south to bomb the airfield near Oran, but despite dropping scores of 500 lb bombs on the runways the damage is modest. They have better luck bombing hangars and strafing tarmac spaces, which destroys most of the remaining aircraft on the field, but occasional Mig-29s still pop up during the night. The Algerians launch an anti-shipping attack in the east, but this is costly with the American carrier so close nearby.

I also try some attacks on the Algerian's eastern and western surveillance radars, which prove to be guarded by SA-6s, and it takes some terrain masking and dodging to try and find a way in. The radars go down, but I'm not sure it will make a significant difference, since SAM radars and Tunisian radars will fill the gap.


Miscellaneous observations (Sorry if some are duplicates)

My SSKs are sooo slooooow. Can I wait for the sub to get to Tripoli? I'll lose most of a day. Should I try an ASM strike first? The Russians have great ASM defences. Although an SSN would be awesome for zooming into Tripoli, the scenario is much better balanced with the SSK. An excellent way to inflict some decision-making agony on the player!

Should the ships at Rota have helicopters on them?

For the ferry operation coming through, maybe mention explicitly in the warning message that the planes will be flying in from England, so there is no confusion.

'Msg - Algeria Hostile' event typo: "and no mater what actually"

Should there be any Maverick reloads for the AMXs? So far they only have the one set which is on the aircraft.

A number of the Harriers are carrying stores which require buddy illumination, but the only illuminators they have available are on the Greek F-4s which are some distance off, and not necessarily available for use.

Is there a port for the Spanish subs in the Med itself (not just Rota), where they might be able to retire to re-arm after using their torps? (Although only the eastern one would have a hope of getting there.)

The Sparrow loadout in the carrier magazines has a very small number of Ms (29, IIRC), and a large number of Ps. However, three of the squadrons (2 F-18, 1 F-14) use the Ms, and only one use the Ps. As a result you quickly run out of Ms, and this means you soon cannot make any air-to-air loadouts with these fighters (Sparrows are mandatory weapons in all those loadouts), even if you have plenty of Phoenixes and Sidewinders left. Should the quantities have been reversed?

(Is the AO up in Toulon supposed to be heading south to the carrier group to solve this problem? Or can the Orangeleaf fill up the Brits?)

The Algerian Beida strike mission will launch on passing Civilian ships, and although they do not attack them they orbit defencelessly and can be easily engaged and destroyed.


The opening Libyan anti-shipping strikes had some problems dealing with obsolete target information. As far as I can tell they will head for their starting IPs (based on last known position), and they will not redirect to other targets until they clear that IP. This means that if they are heading for an old contact up near Sicily they will sometimes bypass other closer ships with good contact information (such as the British carrier group) en-route to a patch of empty ocean. In some cases I needed to switch sides, disengage units, and try to get them to engage a more sensible NATO target. (I think some of this has been tweaked already, so it may not be so bad now.)

I did a few runs of the attack on the Brits using different setups to see what would happen. If the Brits are in a known position (so the attack goes in as intended) in their starting formation, then they get eaten alive. If the Brits are put in a concentrated formation on weapons free then they can handle much of the strike on their own until the Su-24s start launching PGMs, at which point they lose some ships but may escape with the carrier. Once Harriers or other aircraft start to interfere then the chances of survival start increasing rapidly (especially if you manage your SAMs carefully).


So once again, this is a really good one, with lots to do, good operational tension, and enough surprises and uncertainty to keep the player guessing. Thanks for writing it.

[Gunner98]

Andrew

Glad you're enjoying it. It was quite fun to build as well - the Med is so so small!

Most of you're points will get fixed, thanks for picking that stuff up. Couple of comments:

-There should be Helo's at the Rota NAS for the ships that originate from there.
-The Sparrow issue will be fixed - the Detroit has a reload but it might be configured the same way. The Durance has a reload for the Clemenceau and the Brit AOR up by Toulon has a reload for the Illustrious.
-No SSNs is deliberate as mentioned earlier but I will put something way up in the NW somewhere
-That Libyan airstrike on the Illustrious group can be very deadly as you point out, but can be avoided with some effort. I've asked Excroat3 to try it with the group 50miles north, that should give them a better chance of getting the Greek F-4's into play.

MF 5 is a second strike on Libya with the Ike, and some USAF forces, MF 7 is the Nimitz coming in to clean it up - tried to make this one a tough nut to crack. Just can't get too distracted from Northern Fury...[:D]

Cheers

[AndrewJ]

Aha! I wondered what that lone Seasprite was all about.

I assigned it to patrol the straits and then forgot about it. [:D]