New Scenario - The V-Bombers, 1962

[.Sirius]

ORIGINAL: Randomizer

The V-Bombers scenario has been removed by the author as the Thor missile bug and insufficient fuel issue for the Valiant tankers have not been fixed in the last CWDB updates.

-C

Latest CWDB is in test at the present time with all the amends for V Bombers and Thornton Missiles

[stolypin]

ORIGINAL: .Sirius

ORIGINAL: Randomizer

The V-Bombers scenario has been removed by the author as the Thor missile bug and insufficient fuel issue for the Valiant tankers have not been fixed in the last CWDB updates.

-C

Latest CWDB is in test at the present time with all the amends for V Bombers and Thornton Missiles

Good news. I'm ready to give this one a play.

[LaughingBuccaneer]

Please can we have Royal Observer Corps above ground Orlit Posts images and below ground
( surface images ) of their 3 man nuclear bunker monitoring posts. The Mark 1 Eyeballs in
action !!
Particularly as so many were built ( 1563 in all ) at various out of the way places &
locations throughout the British Isles.

Although in 1962 they were maybe less than half way through establishing their bunkers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Obs ... oring_Post

[Randomizer]

Thanks to the Developers Team for fixing the issues with the Valiant tankers and PGM-17 Thor re-entry vehicles in Build 1009.27.14. The scenario should now work as intended. The zip file contains two versions of the scenario, one with A/C damage enabled for owners of Chains of War and the other without. a Delta and another general *.ini files and the RAF target list for the northwest Soviet Union.

The following changes have been made to the scenario:

- Moscow's air defences have been completely re-worked and now feature concentric rings of SA-1 Guild batteries and SA-2 Guideline battalions with the associated radars.

- There are now a huge number of KS-19 100mm AAA gun batteries protecting everything for all of you wanna-be low-flyers.

- The Player briefing includes an intelligence summery of the expected air defences.

- A no-fly zone has been created south of 53* latitude. This prevents player cheating by approaching the targets from Ukraine where there are no Soviet defences. The premise is that RAF and NATO air assets can get limited number of Bomber Command planes through DDR and Polish airspace but only in a corridor between the Baltic Sea and 53* North.

- Thor missile readiness has been restored to 100% probability but the player can still expect that CMANO will provide between 20 and 30% failures after launch. There are more details on this in the Designer's Notes section of the Scenario Description.

- I have retained the WM.177 gravity bombs to simulate the US-supplied Mk.28 staged thermonuclear weapons.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

The V-Bombers has been withdrawn again for some major tweaking. Thanks for your patience.

[Ancalagon451]

OK, gave it a try and while I'm less than three hours in play I already found some Issues.

First: for some motive the neutral missile launchers are being countinuously lost and re-detected several times per second While not game-breaking, this is very annoying and blocks you fron using the log to see relevant information. Not sure if this is something related to scenario configuration or a game bug.

Second: there seems to be some mislabeling in the target package, I've found two AZ4501 and one Marker (target) not relabeled. I've also been unable to locate AZ4202/AZ4508.

Related to this, locating a specific target on the map is quite time consuming, it would be a big help if you put the coordinates in the "RAF target list" document.

Not sure if third: With half of the Thor force expended, the reliability has been 20% of SUCCESSFUL detonations. Tomorrow will restart to see if it's been a case of "statistical outliers" AKA: lucky SOBs but anyone who is playing this scenario, please share your data about Thor reliability to help confirm/disprove that the damned THOR bug is still alive.

No more issues, this is a consultation: What are the nukes at the dispersal bases for? Other than a pair of bombers at Conigsby, which remained at home due to not being enough bombs for them, the only use I see is for rearming returning bombers and make a second go. If that the case then those pilots had balls of adamantium, being the Apocalypse horsemen not once but twice .

Tomorrow will restart and see what happens, thank you for such an impressive work.

Ancalagon

[Randomizer]

Thanks for the feedback. You're running Build 1009.27.14? The warhead issue was still present in 1009.27.13, I posted unsatisfactory test data from this build (.13) in the Tech Support thread but after the latest build was released another series of tests with the 1009.27.14 yielded 39 out of 48 successful Thor sorties so I figured that the problem was solved. Will run another series of tests.

The continual re-spotting of the Thor launchers can be tiresome. Will try setting all to auto-located and see if that fixes the irritant.

I think that the final version will just display the targets on the list as auto-located and I will scrap the entire target list scheme.

As near as I could determine there were no strategic weapons stored in advance at any of the dispersal bases so it became necessary to send some. To me it is doubtful that the National Command Authority would see Bomber Command as a one-shot weapon and the scheme existed to preserve the bomber force, presumably to carry out further strikes. The nucs at the dispersal bases are there in case you want to send follow on sorties. Fortunately nobody really knows whether the surviving bomber crews would fly again; I think that most probably would, if only because some might have no home to go back to but it's fine if you think not. Adamantium balls are a feature of CMANO's virtual crews and not a bug...

-C

[Ancalagon451]

Second try, good news is that this time I got 15 successful detonations from 23 launched missiles. So it seems that I really was unlucky last time.

Bad news: Events for 218sq missiles do not reasign the associated launchers to the player's side, perhaps there is some grammar problem with their script.

I thought this one would be less of a monster than Wargasm but that's hardly so. The enemy ORBAT is mindblowing. Will continue playing at a future date but right now I'm literally expended, the extremly grimmness of the narrative also doesn't help.

Amazing work what you did here.

Ancalagon

EDIT: Yes, both runs were made with 1009.27.14, also I think you should leave the target as is, having to blind fire and then perform BDA It's an added layer of realism, just putting the coordinates in the list is enough.

[Ancalagon451]

Disregard the 218sq Issue, revising the losses log, I found that the soviets blasted a full squadron before any of it's missiles were activated.

Checking the ORBATs in the save file, I confirmed that the only absent one is the 218. So the events are working as intended and giving me the missile ready message, but such missile doesn't exist anymore.

No idea how can this be avoided without heavy Lua scripting or another truckload of events, so it's probably better that you just put a warning message in the briefing and call it a day.

Ancalagon

[Randomizer]

Just to be clear, you had none of 218 Squadron's missiles ready? According to the triggers, missile 218-A should ready by time 21:34:00 but the B missile will not be liable for readiness for hours and missile C may not ready until the following day.

I found no error in the triggers or scripts but missile readiness was randomized by individual missile rather than squadron.

Thank you for the kind words. If you think it grim to play, building The V-Bombers has been an emotional roller coaster throughout its over-long gestation period.

-C

[Ancalagon451]

I have 3 missile launchers as losses for the QRA-forces side, I have none in bomber command side side but I do have a control building loss.

So It seems to me that a soviet nuke hit a squadron before any of it's missiles where active.

Checking the ORBATs of both sides I managed to locate all launchers but 218's. If you also say that the grammar for their events it's correct, then I think the more probably outcome is that 218 is the squadron blasted away.

If 218sq has some fast readiness events, then I suppose they got unlucky and one of the first soviet missiles took them out.

Ancalagon

[Randomizer]

I will look at the 218 Squadron issue and perhaps re-target the incoming. As far as I have been able to determine the Soviets never practised counterforce targeting so the destruction of 218 might be incidental and due to a near-hit of nearby infrastructure.

Collateral damage is not a term used much in the nuclear targeting lexicon where instead it is referred to as "incidental damage".

-C

[baboeska]

Brilliant scenario, I love it.
The feeling of somewhat confidence slowly shattered by incoming missiles and the futility of the entire situation really ring home, one of the best and most educational scenarios of the year imo, and obv. what you have shown us must have been inspiration for Threads and the other black and white BBC thingamebob.
Really, well done, hopefully it'll serve your intended purpose.

[Randomizer]

Thank you for the kind words. I watched Threads on the CBC in 1984 (had been promoted to Sergeant that week) but it really did not have a conscious hand in The V-Bombers. Rather the scenario demonstrates the decline of the RAF compared to the USAF by this time. In my scenario Wargasm '62 the alert forces of the 93rd Strategic Wing pack more firepower (measured in megatons) than entire strategic element of Bomber Command could deliver in a single strike. There were another 20+ combat wings in SAC during 1962.

But it doesn't matter, everybody still loses and one of the goals of my CMANO apocalypse collection is to illustrate exactly that.

I have temporarily withdrawn the scenario to make some major changes; the PGM-17 Thor missiles will now spawn via Lua script when ready so the Player will no longer be spammed with false sighting reports in the log plus some other improvements and fixes.

Should ready by the weekend or next week some time but no guarantees are offered.

-C

[Ancalagon451]

Just a little heads up, the tally of Thor detonations currently stands at 27 from 39 launched missiles (69.5%) so it seems that I simply was unlucky the first time.

Ancalagon

[Dragnaath]

Where is the scenario file download link?

Thx

[Ancalagon451]

Temporally unavailable while it is upgraded to the new version, you can read it three posts over this one.

Also new issue found: RAF Llanbedr is still without munitions after it's assigned event has triggered. It's the only one, all the other dispersal bases received them.

Ancalagon

[Randomizer]

OK, many thanks. Easy fix for RAE Lanbedr, I had the wrong GUID so the ammo was going to the pad at Prestwick. Will probably have the final version uploaded Thursday 2 May sometime PDT. The Thor bases are no longer primary targets but some are close to such targets and there may be losses. 1 MT warheads are hardly precision weapons.

Really appreciate the feedback, have spent most of the last two days tinkering and tweaking but now have the Thors appearing via script when ready to eliminate the tiresome messages in the log.

Thanks.

-C

[Randomizer]

Thanks for the feedback and patience.

Final Changes:

- Target lists (one arrives during the game by event) now include target coordinates

- Thor missiles now spawn when ready so no more sighting spam in the log

- Fixed and rationalized targets visible to the Player

- Reworked Soviet RSVN mission packages with more counter-value and fewer counter-force targets

- Fixed errors in Special Weapons delivery event

Unzip wherever your Community scenarios live and over write as needed.

-C

Edit - Fixed the 77-C missile action not firing.

[Ancalagon451]

OK, I'm not going to play this monster for a third time (I stopped the second one after razing Moscow to the ground), but I made a dry run (leting the clock run doing nothing and see what happens).

The end on the detection spam is god's blessing, not only regained use of the log but I think that even scenario performace has slighty improved.

All events trigger correctly but the one that generates the 77-C missile it's not working, I received the message but the missile launcher didn't appear. All other events of any type worked fine, including the soviet ones for the follow on strikes.

I also fired a pair of (almost) full salvoes with the Thor missiles and consistently obtained 65-67% reliability, a little low but in the ballpark, so it can be left as is.

Other than that, I found nothing obviously wrong so I think that, once 77-C is fixed, this grimm monster of yours will be ready for the community.

Now I'll go to see something to lift my spiritis, like photos from the funeral of my grandpa [:'(].

Ancalagon

[Randomizer]

@ Ancalagon,

Thanks for the feedback and error finding. The thing is posted and done and I'm going to fuss my Cat.

-C