I've been given a flotilla of minesweepers, and tasked with clearing and re-opening the approaches to Split, removing a mine-damaged ship, and escorting in four more cargo ships with military supplies. My chiefs also want me to undertake strikes against the Warpac airfields, and evaluate the possibility of strikes against potentially hostile naval forces based on the Balkan coast.
Forces
My naval forces are spread out, from the Garibaldi group approaching the heel of Italy in the south, through a range of frigates and destroyers scattered along the length of the Adriatic nearly as far north as Venice. None of the ships are exceptionally powerful, but the Italian ones do have a long range Otomat missiles, whose 100 nm range should give me a comfortable range advantage over the enemy ships. Although NATO made the case for deploying the Garibaldi to the eastern Med, the Italians have decided it will stay in home waters, and its aircraft may be helpful against lesser foes in the south. Four Sparviero hydrofoils give me a welcome strength boost in that area too.
My fighter aircraft are in reasonable strength, including F-16s with AMRAAM up in Aviano, a pack of Tornado ADVs in southern Italy, and smaller numbers of Spanish and French aircraft to back them up. I also have a large number of aging F-104s, which may be obsolescent, but I think the combination of their high-speed dash and decent SARH missiles (Aspides) may make them useful against lesser foes.
I have a surprising number of attack planes, including swarms of Tornado IDS in northern Italy, and numerous G.91 light attack planes, as well as some F-15Es and A-10s. I should have no troubles mustering large numbers of bombers, provided I can keep the enemy (and any saboteurs) away from them.
The Plan
Initial steps call for force consolidation and reconnaissance.
Most of the ships in the Adriatic will converge to cover the minesweepers and cargo vessels approaching Split, while helicopters hurry to put liaison teams on the civilian ships. The Garibaldi group will tighten up and head north, picking up their oiler en-route, before cautiously entering the strait between Italy and Albania. This would be a great place for an enemy sub to lurk, which is why one of mine will lurk there too, teaming up with an Atlantique, and hoping to out-ambush the ambushers.
My other sub will close on the naval base at Kotor, to keep an eye on the area and hopefully forestall any enemy concentrations putting to sea. I'm also ordering a French Mirage with recce pods to make a dash down the coast to see what's in the base, and the Sparviero hydrofoils, on the other side of the Adriatic, are being put on alert to handle emerging threats.
This takes most of my ships away from anti-smuggling duty, other than the northern-most one near Venice. It's being assigned patrol duties there, where I hope fighter cover from local airbases can keep it safe. For the rest of my coast, I'm relying on good airborne radar coverage and air attack to deal with any small-boat incursions. (Edit: which may not help much if they're infiltrating by sub.)
My air-forces are ordered to push CAP further west into the former Yugoslavia, to cover UN forces there, and to see what response we can provoke from the Warpac forces in Hungary. Hopefully we can begin attriting enemy patrols in the area.
While this is ongoing, planning will commence for a dusk attack on the two western-most Hungarian airbases. The initial concept is for a powerful HARM barrage from the Tornadoes, followed by low-level Tornado strikes dashing in to sever runway access points and ruin SAM sites with their cluster munitions, leaving the way open for the F-15Es to shut the runways with heavy LGBs. No doubt plans will change, depending on what we find earlier in the day.
So, time to press 'Play'!
(All through my impressionable late-Cold War youth, you couldn't open an aviation book without seeing spectacular pictures of the Tornado spewing submunitions out of its enormous MW-1 dispenser.
These planes, we were told, would swoop in at ultra-low level and savage enemy ground forces and runways in an unstoppable hailstorm of bomblets. Finally, I have my chance to try it out. My prediction? Disaster... If I'm up against MANPADS and the Soviet low-level air-defence net the casualties wil be ruinous. But I can't resist. I have to try!
