New Scenario for Testing NF #41 Tour de Force

[AndrewJ]

Was there a specific role for the Fort Austin? It doesn't have fuel or munitions. Was it intended to go to one of the new bases?

[Gunner98]

Good question...

I see she has a munitions storage facility which I didn't load but no replenish points - which she should have. Her main role is Dry & refrigerated goods but that's no play in the game. So right now she's a floating Helo platform.

I think the DB needs a fix for the RAS points and I need to add some Brit ammo to her - but I don't think that is a problem for you at the moment.

Well spotted.

[AndrewJ]

Good grief, that's a nasty surface group! [X(]

There's an typo in the Intrep from March 19 1800 Z. It says "a" Kirov. [:D]

[Gunner98]

It says "a"

you can never believe those Int guys [:D]

[AndrewJ]

DAY 4 (MARCH 21 1994)


Ship Movements throughout the day

Replenishment activities are ongoing, as Day 4 begins, and more groups arrive in theatre. The Kennedy group tops up its tanks from the T-AOs south of Phase Line Alpha, and then advances to take up station in the patrol zone between Iceland and the Faroes. This frees up the Invincible, which tops up and heads west across the top of Iceland at high speed, to start patrolling between Greenland and Iceland. The Enterprise completes a pair of replenishments south of Phase Line Bravo, and starts heading to a patrol station north of a line between my two new helicopter bases, where it will provide air cover for both of them. The Foch is still coming up through the North Atlantic, but by the end of the day it has refuelled and is poised to enter the zone between the Faroes and the Norwegian mainland. Both TLAM freighters make it to base, at Reykjavik and Faslane, and I only have two other oilers still far out at sea, one on each coast. One has a Spruance escort, so it should be okay, and the other is relying on intermittent P-3 patrols as it comes up the European coast. Hopefully that will be enough.


Soviet Submarine Activity

The Soviet subs are still hunting for us. One of the Vinson group's S-3s finds and sinks a Victor III ENE of the carrier. The Vinson is in my most north-easterly patrol zone, and this makes me wonder if I should have ASW screening a lot closer to the coast of occupied Norway. My Norwegian SS has been patrolling off the 'corner' of Norway, but so far hasn't heard anything passing through, and I've not sent my ASW aircraft in close to the coast for fear of SAMs and fighters. Maybe I should? The P-3s are doing a good job in other places, however, and they find and sink another Akula in the Greenland-Iceland gap.

The most alarming encounter comes early in the day, as my TLAM freighter is headed into Reykjavik, and it finds another Soviet diesel sub lying in wait. This time my freighter has an escort, however, and the three ships of TG Algonquin are patrolling in the lead. The Kilo opens fire at the Algonquin itself, which immediately counter-fires and turns to run, while scrambling its ASW helicopters. The helicopters get to the sub and sink it first, but the Algonquin is much too slow to outrun the wake-homers at this range, and they bore in relentlessly. It's only the Nixie which saves my ship, decoying the torps before they can impact.

The area outside Reykjavik had extensive P-3 patrols, but they had found nothing, and the Kilo was literally only a couple hundred meters away from a passive sonobuoy, yet remained undetected until it fired. This leads to another change in policy. Up to this point I'd been restricting myself to passive sonar, hoping to avoid alerting subs to my presence, but no more. I revert to my normal practice, and the order goes out for active sonar use on ships with powerful hull sonars. Let's blast away! Even if that draws them in, at least I'll see them in advance.
(After their alarming experience, TG Algonquin docks alongside their freighter, refuels hastily, then heads out again to escort a pair of oiler and ammo ships around the west side of Iceland, and up to join the other refuellers at PL Bravo.)


Actions in the North - AM

The Tromso airbase is the next target on the strike list. Last night's heavy SEAD activity in the Bardufoss area destroyed or damaged most of the heavy SAMs, so this attack doesn't need to be so elaborate. High level attacks with Mavericks and HARMs clean out the four (not the three I had expected) SHORADS in the immediate area, and then LGBs shut the runway. Some aircraft are also detailed to hit the damaged remains of the nearby SA-10, SA-11, and SA-4 that were struck by HARMs last night. The attack aircraft can see numerous planes (mostly MiG-23s) parked in revetments, and presumably the hardened shelters are full too. ESM picks up Foxbat radars from Rogachevo during the strike, so some fighters are sent to go skirmishing in that direction, and another SA-12 opens fire on the passing planes from about 50 miles east of Tromso.

Recce activity up into the Barents confirms that the Murmansk group is still holding position in the same location, and the radar operators on the ES-3 are confident they also picked up a tiny moving contact which had to be a surfaced or snorkelling sub headed into port. They also find the two escorts left over from yesterday's convoy, still headed west. By now the radar operators know the drill: For all your anti-shipping needs, call the Clemenceau! More Etendards make the flight, and although it takes a few more missiles (it's a daylight attack, so the ships can see the missiles incoming and shoot back), the results are the same, and the last of the convoy is sunk.


Rogachevo

I'm getting concerned about the Foxbats operating out of Rogachevo. They're not exceptionally dangerous, two at a time, but they can certainly interfere with things, and if they ever surge more (or have something nastier they haven't shown yet), then they could be a significant problem. Therefore, a modest sweep (six F-14s, tanker, and ESM support) is sent to draw their teeth a little. And nothing happens. No planes come up to fight. So, after hours on station, and multiple trips to the tanker, the fighter pilots sadly turn for home with aching butts and bursting piddle packs. Of course, that's when another pair of Foxbats comes up. Those get shot down, but, overall, the results are not great. Rogachevo is still very much a question-mark. It's a long way to reach for a strike. Are TLAMs warranted? It's something to consider.


ASW group

Around noon radar operators report the sudden appearance of a group Soviet ships in the Barents, off northern Norway. They can't explain where it came from, or why they didn't spot it before, and keep mumbling about "atmospherics" and "anomalous propagation". In any case, this group's got its radars on, so it's quickly identified as an ASW group, and it's headed west. It's not a threat at the moment (my submarines are forbidden to operate there), but it does act like a radar picket, which I would prefer to avoid.

"Call the Clemenc - er - no? Reloading, you say?" Unfortunately, the Etendards on the Clemenceau are not available to hit the group, so the call goes all the way south the the Foch, which hasn't even crossed PL Alpha yet. A pair of Etendards (the only ones currently loaded with Exocets) head north with a VC-10 tanker in attendance, and manage to sink one of the Pauks.


Central Cleanup

Shortly after mid-day, a TARPs bird is sent to make a recce run of all the enemy airbases west of Banak, reporting numerous aircraft on the ground at Tromso, some at Bardufoss, and a few at Andoya. There's nothing at Evenes, but a SA-8 gunner there reminds us that some of the defences are still active. The TARPs bird also makes a gesture towards Bodo, but there are a pair of active Ganefs and a big surveillance radar still active in the region, so the pilot waves it off and heads back to the carrier.

Meanwhile, the F-18s on the distant Enterprise have spent the morning loading up with a pair of 500 lb LGBs each, and the entire force of them launches and heads west. Confident that they are free to operate at high altitude, without SAM or fighter interference, they begin a deliberate hunt for parked aircraft and other targets, reminiscent of the 'tank plinking' of ODS. All exposed aircraft are destroyed at Tromso, Bardufoss, and Andoya, as well as the remaining SHORADS at Evenes. The score of destroyed airframes is probably up over two dozen by the time they are complete. I may need to make another follow-up to engage the hardened shelters (particularly the big underground ones at Bodo and Bardufoss), but that gets expensive in terms of large ordnance, and even though I've resupplied the carriers, my number of penetrator warheads is limited.


Evening Briefing

The evening intel briefing brings good news, in that the Russians seem to be withdrawing from southern Norway. Apparently their southern Su-24s have pulled out, back to the Leningrad area, which would put them some 900 miles from my closest carriers, and generally far from my theatre of operations. (Unless they've actually gone elsewhere, of course. Or have tankers.)

The not-so-good news is that they're sending 3 or 4 new battalions of modern heavy SAMs into the Bardufoss region. I just cleaned out Bardufoss! Hopefully they won't pop up just as I'm making operations in that area. Even with resupply, my HARM stocks are not endless, and these new forces may be tough to counter.


Night Shipping Strike

Once darkness has fallen, the remaining ten Etendards on the Foch finish loading Exocets and take off to head north. Tanking en-route, they head for the location of the ASW group, which is still heading west towards my forces. Four of them peel off and make a run on the small ships, sinking all of them, before turning back to their carrier. The remaining six turn east, drop to low level, and fly towards a riskier appointment near Murmansk.

Their job is to sting the big task group stationed there, and provoke it to respond, so the loitering ES-3 lurking in the darkness can get a read on what's out there. The Etendards swing in and approach from the north, popping up just long enough for their radars to get a contact on the enemy. Three missiles are launched at each of the closest two enemy ships, BOL, with missile activation timed to happen only moments before impact. Then the Etendards drop down to the waves again, and escape westwards, while their missiles close with the enemy. Despite the radar-off, sea-skimming approach, the Russians spot the missiles 4 to 5 miles out, and instantly light off every radar they have and start shooting. None of my missiles reach their targets (no surprise), but the rich ELINT haul is well worth it, and the delighted crew on the ES-3 heads back to the carrier to report.

The task group is powerful. Really powerful. I had expected a Kirov, of course, probably a Slava, some older cruisers, and an assortment of the remaining destroyers and frigates that made it back to base. You know, the rag-tag remnants of their surface fleet. Instead, I've got five assorted Udaloys and Sovremennys, two Slavas, not one, but two Kirovs (when was the last time you saw that?), and, to my astonishment, the Kusnetsov! I thought she had sunk weeks ago.


The Plan

As we speak, strike aircraft of all sorts are converging off NW Norway, loaded with Harpoons, SLAMs, Exocets, and HARMs. They'll refuel as best they can from the tankers, before moving on the Murmansk group. I had intended to lead the attack with SLAMs, hoping their discrete no-radar approach would let me take the outer ring of escorts by surprise, but the Soviets' ability to spot the radar-off Exocets five miles out puts this plan in some doubt. (I can't come in overland - there's at least one SA-10 on the island there, and the concentration of airbases and the port will certainly be well defended.) I don't expect to destroy many (possibly none) of the high value targets, but I should be able to wreck a number of the escorts, and consume a very large number of the enemy SAMs. That way, when they do sortie, my subsequent attacks will be more likely to succeed.

I can see that there's a pair of MiG-25s up from Rogachevo. I'm going to leave them alone for the moment, rather than provoke a scramble, and hope that I can get in discretely without being spotted. I've got essentially all my tanker support tied up with my strike aircraft, so there is little left to bring extra fighters along. The AMRAAMs on the HARM-carrying F-18s will have to be my primary defence. I could be in real trouble if the enemy spots the raid in advance, particularly if the Kuznetzov gets her AEW helicopter up. Fortunately, there's been no sign of her air-wing yet, and I really want to get this strike in before that becomes active. The flight in will be tense...

Other upcoming operations include plans to finish off the air defences near Bodo, and an attempt to knock out some of the major hardened shelters at Bodo and Bardufoss.

We shall see...

[Gunner98]

Should be an interesting night with all sorts of Northern Lights! Timing is everything and you may be a bit earlier than I anticipated - this should be good....

[AndrewJ]

Hello. It looks like the 222300Z ISTAR briefing accidentally has the same two recce missions as the day before. Do you happen to recall what they were supposed to be?

[Gunner98]

Must have slipped a day:

- Maritime Patrol area Svalbard Island to locate and maintain contact with Convoy AZ-11
• Daylight TARPS run area Recon Marker 3 (69*40’E 20*40’N) between 240800 and 241000

[AndrewJ]

DAY 5 (MARCH 22 1994)


Murmansk Strike

The day begins with swarms of strike aircraft converging in the midnight skies NW of Norway. Some, from the more distant carriers like the Enterprise, Clemenceau, and Kennedy, pause for refuelling, while the others from the Nimitz, Vinson, and Roosevelt proceed without waiting. The force heads east out into the open Barents, far from land, and then (leaving tankers, ESM, and a fighter screen behind) curves south and drops to low altitude, heading for Murmansk.

As the strike approaches its launch point the distant ES-3 turns on its radar to illuminate the scene, only to find the ships have shuffled around some. They're not emitting, at the moment, so I'm no longer certain exactly who's who! There does seem to be a big contact in the exact same place the carrier was, and another pair of big contacts nearby, but the number of escorts seems to have diminished. Perhaps they've gone into port? )(Actually, it looks like some were lost in clutter in the island channel to the east of Murmansk, or had gone right up against the shore.) Orders are issued, and the strikers lift up a bit and launch a densely packed swarm of Harpoons and SLAMs at the enemy. Roughly two thirds are fired towards the pair of big contacts (and the one escort that happens to be in the flightpath), and one third towards what may be the carrier, and then the missile carriers descend and turn away north.

As the missiles calmly fly through the night, the Etendards follow behind them, staying as low as they can, each carrying its single Exocet closer to the target. Then the distant HARM carriers begin launching, firing two barrages bearing only, without lock-ons, timing them to (hopefully) arrive around the same time as the Harpoons. There's a moment more of calm, but then the Russians spot the missiles, and the entire task group and the SAMs on the neighbouring island light up, and start flinging missiles in all directions. The last of the HARMs get fired, the ES-3 yells out confirmation that the suspect carrier contact really is the Kuznetsov, the Etendards salvo their 10 Exocets at it, and then dive to flee north. After that it's all down to the missiles.

There are a colossal number of SAMs in the air, and the orbiting ESM planes can see the light on the horizon flickering like a furious thunderstorm as missiles get knocked down in rapid succession. The destroyer in the path of the main missile stream gets run over and smashed, and the bulk of the missiles home in on the two big adjacent contacts - one of the Kirovs and a Slava. Their potent close defences knock down many of my missiles, but they each take multiple hits, and when their big ASMs explode they tear the entire ship apart in an instant. Spillover missiles continue onwards, causing confusion in the fleet, and two more escorts get hit and damaged. Almost all the missiles headed for the Kusnetsov are shot down, but, by the sound of excited voice chatter, at least two of the trailing Exocets hit the carrier, and maybe one of the Harpoons too.

My planes continue to egress northwards at low level, before angling east again and rising to tank up for the trip back to the carriers. As they head out a pair of MiG-25s comes sniffing in from Rogachevo, but my few F-14s are able to intercept them before they find any of my attack planes. While the flights disperse and head back to their carriers, staff analyze the data, and are pleased with the result. Confirmed kills on a Kirov, a Slava, and a destroyer; one more destroyer heavily damaged and in imminent danger of sinking, and one lightly damaged by a single hit; the carrier lightly damaged, but apparently not significantly impeded. They've lost about 40% of the task group sunk, their offensive ASM power has dropped in about the same proportion, and they've used copious quantities of SAMs. (Surviving postwar records reveal the expenditure of a colossal 451 SAMs from ship and shore batteries, plus 64 bursts of gunfire of various types.)

The trouble is, I’ve also fired an enormous quantity of missiles. Sinking those four ships took the expenditure of 68 Harpoons, 24 SLAMs, 58 HARMs, and 12 Exocets. I can do this again once, possibly twice, but that would essentially strip me of anti-shipping weapons. However, I really have to watch HARM and SLAM expenditure. If I'm tasked with extensive ground attacks (such as against those new SAMs intel says are arriving at Bardufoss, the triple SA-10 around Banak, or the SA-10/10/20 combo at Murmansk), then I'll have problems if I’ve used all my munitions up against ships. So I may need to cut back on those.


Bodo Area Attacks

Further south, the Kennedy prepares for a follow-on attack on the Bodo area, loading an assortment of munitions on its F-18s. The strike doesn't launch immediately, since it is waiting for tankers to return from the Murmansk attack, but it eventually gets underway and arrives in the target area shortly before dawn.

Low level attacks find and kill the pair of Ganefs there, cluster-bombing them without too much difficulty, as well as engaging the surveillance radar further inland. However, as the F-18s pull out from their Snakeye attack on the radar site, they spot an SA-6 a short distance away, and decide to rush it at low level. This turns out to be a bad decision. The SA-6 has an SA-15 in attendance, which opens fire, and, as I react to that, three other SA-6 batteries reveal themselves in succession. It looks like the entire east end of the Skjerstad Fjord is a nest of medium-level SAMs, and I've flown right into it. The F-18s twist and dodge as best they can amongst the hills, managing (with the help of a loitering SEAD flight) to kill two of the batteries and wound a third, but it's dawn now, and my planes no longer have the cover of darkness. Chastened, they flee the scene as best they can, although not all of them come home again. Lesson: stay the heck out of Soviet Army tactical air defences.

Once the Ganefs are knocked down, the other F-18s come in to bomb the big mountain shelter at Bodo using Walleyes, hoping their linear shaped-charge warheads will be useful against the heavily protected target. The results are indifferent, and I'm not even sure if anything important is in the bunker, so I'm not confident it was worth the munitions. One side-effect of the strike is that my passing planes spot a Styx missile battery on the tip of the long narrow peninsula NW of Bodo, and bomb that. HQ seems to think this was significant, so TARPS birds are sent in to make low-level runs along the coast, looking for more, but nothing turns up.


Daytime Activity

Most of the day is spent on admin and logistical activities; re-organizing ASW zone boundaries, checking fuel levels, despatching tankers, etc. The Clemenceau group is low on fuel, so she heads south mid-morning, out of the line and towards the tankers waiting near Jan Mayan at PL Bravo. Unfortunately she won't be getting any new munitions, because her dedicated replenishers are over near the Foch, far to the SE. She's got her last loadout of Exocets mounted on her Etendards, but after that she'll only have conventional bombs. I'm bringing up another French supply ship out of Brest, which is joining up with British supply ships out of Portsmouth, but it'll be days before they reach the area.

LZ Baby Ice (the ASW helicopter base on Jan Mayan) is fully set up now, so the Jeanne d'Arc gathers her task group and steams south for Reykjavik. She'll refuel, and then come back with more supplies later in the week. LZ Wolf Dance (the base on Greenland) is partly set up, and the Raleigh is also ordered to Reykjavik immediately, while the other cargo ships stay behind to continue unloading. There's no way I'm sending her out alone in sub-infested waters, so the USS Caron (a Spruance) goes with her as ASW escort. Unfortunately this leaves the remaining cargo ships only defended by a Perry, a second feeble gun frigate of some sort, and the feebler little Biscuit-Tin (the Beskytteren), which is cheerfully sailing around showing off its shiny new (and operationally irrelevant) patrol helicopter. Of course, the Groton is lurking under the ice immediately to the north, and the Enterprise is keeping a CAP overhead, so maybe things aren't so bad.

ES-3s make a couple of radar reconnaissance runs towards Murmansk during the day. They usually spot four or five radar contacts near the harbour, but the enemy have their radars off, and my planes certainly don't get close enough to try and ID them visually. We're loading Harpoons for another big strike after dark, and hopefully that one will be enough to neutralize their fleet. My F-14s are also operating in the area, making a series of sweeps towards Rogachevo, where they manage to shoot down some more of the MiG-25s.


SLCMs!

Around noon, the AEW helicopter from the Ark Royal gets a vampire contact coming in from the north, seak-skimming at 500 knots, on a bearing for the new airbase at Jan Mayan. Cruise missile! Scramble orders immediately go out across the fleet, and AEW aircraft are pushed northward, trying to get a better look at potential launch zones. Radar operators search intently for the swarm of missiles following the first one, but they don't find any. Just one missile. Can it be a nuke?

The Harriers swoop in and shoot it down easily enough, before climbing to wait for orders. It's not long before there's another missile contact, but this one is much farther to the east, north of the Vinson's patrol area. AWACs operators track the missile flying west, before it eventually turns south again towards Jan Mayan. It gets shot down too, while the orbiting fighter pilots elsewhere wonder what's going on.

As this is happening, F-14s and S-3s from the Vinson are closing in on the area where the missiles were spotted, and they detect the next missile being launched. This lets the S-3 immediately head for the exact location of what must be the Yankee Notch intel warned us about. The F-14s dive in to shoot down the missiles as they are launched, until the slower S-3 localizes the sub with a sonobuouy, and batters it to death with a succession of three torpedoes.

(I added a Yankee Notch to my side and took a look at the default WRA. WRA for the SS-21b is currently set for 1 missile per target, just like the nuclear version. By comparison, the default setting for TLAMs is 2 missiles per target. If you want a massed salvo against the base you would probably need to set the WRA to 'use all'. I think in my case I had enough fighters up to catch all the missiles if they were salvoed, but I probably would not have been able to find the sub.)


Intel Report

The dinner-time intel report comes in, detailing more of the Warpac's moves to firm up their defences in Norway. Most of it doesn't have an immediate effect on my operations, but HQ is still discussing Russian convoy operations, headed for Svalbard or possibly the other islands in the Barents. I'm pretty sure this is the same convoy I sunk already, but what if I'm wrong? Additional MPA are sent to complete a full radar sweep around Svalbard and the islands further NE (staying away from the Rogachevo MiGs), but nothing turns up.


Murmansk II, the Re-hittening

As evening comes, my aircraft monitoring the Murmansk TG continue to report intermittent radar contact with four ships, but we're not certain exactly which ones they are. Has the Kuznetsov docked for repairs, or is she still at sea? Are the big air-defence ships deployed nearby, or am I just looking at a collection of destroyers? Do I launch a major strike or not?

Therefore, my ES-3 is sent on a low altitude night reconaissance run, alone, defenceless, and radar off, hoping nothing decides to come patrolling their way. Thirty miles out they gently climb until they just clear the optical horizon, and start scanning with their FLIR. The carrier's still there, along with a Udaloy II and Sovremenny together near the island, and a second Sovremenny (the damaged one?) further away near the mainland shore. There's no sign of the other ships; the second Kirov, and the second Slava are missing, which means they're probaly either docked, or possibly hidden behind the island.

It's definitely worth a strike on the carrier, so the sequence begins again: tankers and support planes underway, strike aircraft up, refuelling complete, and then the attack. I'm not bringing the French this time. I only have one shot of Exocets left, so I'll reserve those for the Kirov, when it reappears. This one's all Harpoons and HARMs. The planes make it in without detection, find that there are now five targets on radar, release their missiles and swing away.

The results are entirely satisfactory. With some of their major air-defence ships destroyed, and some presumably away in dock, they have fewer SAMs to hurl my way. Two Sovremennys, and two Udaloys are sunk, and, fighting bravely but futilely against the flood, the Kuznetsov succumbs to the barrage and sinks beneath the waves. There are still two major combatants unaccounted for (the other Kirov and the other Slava), and they do have a significant long-range anti-shipping punch, but they will have to sortie to get to me, and I should be able to detect them in advance if I maintain periodic radar patrols.


Recce tasks

As the day draws to a close, TARPS birds are sent out on recce missions to Tromso and Bardufoss. Nothing new shows up at Tromso, but as the pilot flies past the airbase he spots another radar in the hills about 20 miles to the SW. Turning to investigate, he’s fired on by a hidden SA-6, but manages to dive away on burner and break LOS. Radioing the warning back to HQ, he gets asked to recce the next fjord over, where the Harrier was shot down two days ago.

Booming down the fjord at supersonic speed, he spots the hidden SA-6, and blows past it before it can react. A minute later he catches a glimpse of a concentration of vehicles on the east bank, but he’s gone before he can recognize them. Back at base, analysis of the tapes shows them to be bridging equipment, and thus well worth hitting. The F-18s on the distant Enterprise are brought in, and once again use small LGBs from the safety of high altitude to wreck the engineering truck park.


Tomorrow?

Plans for tomorrow are uncertain, and will probably consist mainly of monitoring the situation at sea (HQ still insists there’s a convoy out there), and maintaining barrier patrols against subs. The next major land target would be Banak, which doesn’t seem to have much air activity at the moment. It’s got at least three SA-10 surrounding it, so it might be a tough target for little reward. Time will tell.

[Gunner98]

Wow!

I am certainly going to have to adjust the timings a bit. And thanks for the catch on the WRA, I'll fix that

The messages and reports from HQ are going to start slowing down now - I need to work on the end game a bit more.

Is you're middle name Nimitz? [:D] It's tough staying ahead of you, for sure.

[KnightHawk75]

ReadAndrewJ - Man fantastic narrative of events thus far, just wanted to say thanks. Still 3 days behind you lol so i'm cheating a bit by reading them haha but they're too good not too.

[Schr75]

ORIGINAL: KnightHawk75

ReadAndrewJ - Man fantastic narrative of events thus far, just wanted to say thanks. Still 3 days behind you lol so i'm cheating a bit by reading them haha but they're too good not too.

Just ending day 1 so I´m cheating even more[:D]
That being said, I´m loving it.

The attention to detail you have to do is impressive.
Just making sure your tanker carry the relevant fuel for a TG is no trivial task.

Looking forward to Andrew "Nimitz" J´s next post[:D]

This is almost like reading Airbornerifles AAR´s before he and Gunner98 went into the book writing business together.

I can´t wait for the next episode.
That also goes for you two Gunner98 and Airbornerifles.[;)]
When can we expect a sequel to Northern Fury?

The writing is just excellent. Reading Northern Fury brought me back to the first time I read RSR back in the days.

Søren

[Gunner98]

That also goes for you two Gunner98 and Airbornerifles. When can we expect a sequel to Northern Fury?

We're not going firm on a release date for 'Fire & Ice' but we are also working on another project. We announced it on Kushan's Podcast but things are coming together and we'll revel the cover in the next little while.

[Schr75]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

We're not going firm on a release date for 'Fire & Ice' but we are also working on another project. We announced it on Kushan's Podcast but things are coming together and we'll revel the cover in the next little while.

Fair enough, but please hurry up. I can´t wait[:D]

But seriously though.
I´m sure it´ll be worth the wait, so I´ll just have to learn to be patient[;)]

Søren

[AndrewJ]

Wohoo! I've been wondering if this guy would show up in NF at some point. Fastest sub ever, in real life, though not in the game, alas.

Must find! Must sink!

[AndrewJ]

A quick question: are the A-6s, F-18s, and F-14s coming in from the States intended to be dispersed throughout the fleet as replacements, or was there a specific role for them?

[AndrewJ]

DAY 6 (March 23 1994)


Activity at Murmansk

The day starts with the last of my strike aircraft returning to the carriers, and the assembled tankers dispersing and heading back to their bases. A TARPs bird has just completed its run of the Bardufoss area, planning teams are debating what to load for the day's activity, and things are generally quiet.

That's when my forward AWACS gets an extreme-range bogey contact over the Murmansk area, and it's not acting like the occasional ELINT Badgers that I've been ignoring. Then there's a second one. And a third. And a fourth. They're not headed out to a patrol area. Instead they're orbiting tightly over the airbase. This looks very much like a bomber strike forming up. Oh heck.

If these are bombers, I want to meet them as far out as possible, so my closest carriers (Vinson and Nimitz) launch three flights of Sparrow-armed F-14s and send some of them overland across Finland, and others along the coast (skirting the Banak SAMs), to cut off the enemy as soon as possible. I'm going to need fuel, but I've only got one half-empty tanker nearby, and all the other ones are well on their way home, and will take hours to recycle once they get there. Orders go out for the UK-bound tankers to turn around, and start heading north again, with the KC-135s offloading their remaining fuel to the VC-10s, and the VC-10s pressing on to meet my carriers. Those two tankers, now 85% full, will be all I'll get for the next few hours. Meanwhile, the count of orbiting planes continues to rise.

The F-14s continue to head east, radars off, hoping to ID the orbiting bombers with their nose-mounted cameras before they are spotted themselves. They approach nervously, all too aware that there’s an SA-20 lurking out there somewhere, until they finally resolve their targets. They're not bombers at all! It's a tight wagon-wheel of Su-27s, orbiting the Murmansk airbases. This is a bit of a conundrum. I'm outnumbered, they have better long-range missiles than I do, they're fuel-rich over their airbases, and I know there's at least one SA-20 and SA-10 in the region. Charging in is out of the question.

What are they doing? They're awfully close-in for an effective CAP. Could they be waiting to escort some bombers I haven't spotted yet? Were they supposed to have gone to the carrier? (Can't be - they're the wrong model, I think.) Or ferried to one of the airbases I've bombed? It's perplexing. My piqued pilots start to pull back, shooting down a couple of Badgers on the way out to make themselves feel better. Meanwhile the planning staff starts trying to figure out how to get the Flankers out of there. They certainly have the potential to make a mess out of my operations over the Barents.


New Plan

My intention of having an ‘easy day’, idly hunting convoys and maybe wondering about considering thinking of Banak goes out the window. If the Soviets are bringing in new units of high-quality aircraft, or getting their bombers ready to go, then the last thing I need is something new in Banak. Banak must go, and it must go soon. Unfortunately, that means a daylight attack, against a heavily defended airbase. The orders go out.

The Roosevelt will immediately conduct an SEAD strike on the concentration of SA-6s deployed around the south end of the Lyngen fjord, and the SA-12 that’s up in the mountains to the NE. Kennedy will immediately conduct follow-on SEAD strikes on the SA-6s near Bodo. While that’s underway, A-6 units will reload for heavy SEAD work, with a combination of HARMs and SLAMs, except for those carrying heavy LGBs for use against the Banak runways. F-18s will load for high-altitude anti-SHORADS work (Mavericks, LGBs), on the assumption the A-6s will be able to knock back the SA-10s around the airbase before they arrive, and they can tackle the SA-15s that are sure to be there. If all goes to plan, the Banak strike will arrive in two waves (SEAD, then bombing) a few hours after dawn.


Lyngen Fjord and related SEAD

The Lyngen Fjord attack goes well; much better than the SA-6s I stumbled into down near Bodo. This time I already know where all three SA-6s and the SA-12 are, so my pilots can plot low-level routes through the dark valleys, popping up over ridgelines, and dashing into minimum range before the batteries can react. The SA-12 dies in a rain of cluster-bombs, and the three SA-6s suffer similar fates to Snakeye impacts. The fourth SA-6, tucked into the deep valley near the village of Birtavarre is an unwelcome surprise, but the SAM gunner’s hasty shot misses, and the last of the batteries there is destroyed moments later.

The attacks are so rapid that the escorting HARMs never have a chance to fire, so they are vectored NE towards Banak. One plane fires a speculative BOL shot towards the nearest SA-10, and when it fires back, the remaining HARMs are salvoed towards it. As far as we can tell, some of them came close enough to damage the battery, so the upcoming Banak attack may go more smoothly than anticipated.

Further south, the F-18s from the Kennedy make a similar attack on the remaining SA-6s around Bodo. They arrive later, when it’s already light, and don’t do quite as well, expending a lot more ordnance to accomplish the same thing. The discovery of an additional SA-15 doesn’t help, but they manage to kill it as well.


Flankers from Murmansk

While preparations for the Banak strike get underway on the distant carriers, one of the ES-3s is sent along the Barents coast again, checking for any Russian naval activity, particularly a sortie by the two powerful cruisers in Murmansk. The waters are clear, but the ESM operators are suddenly alarmed when they pick up fighter radars launching out of Murmansk. The new Flankers there are active again.

While the ES-3 dives for the deck and hurries out to sea, the orbiting AWACs starts to get a better picture of the enemy activity. There’s only two Flankers, and they don’t seem to be interested in my planes. They’re on a straight-line course for Bardufoss. Could they be ferrying there to reinforce? But Bardufoss’ runways are cratered. Aren’t they?

A returning TARPS bird is hastily vectored to a tanker, and then makes a burner dash into Bardufoss, arriving a few minutes before the incoming Soviet fighters. It hurtles across the airfield, just above the ceiling of the 57mm AAA which infests the area – but not above the 100mm guns which are mixed in among them! Thick black flack bursts envelop the aircraft, and fragments rattle against the fuselage, but luckily the damage is minor, and the pilot makes it out with the news that yes, the runways are still wrecked.

F-14s advance to deal with the pair of fighters, and manage to take them down without loss, although it takes 2:1 numerical superiority and a lot of running away to pull it off. It’s not long before AWACS reports another pair launching from Murmansk and headed this way.


Banak Strike

The Flankers’ timing is rotten, because my Banak strike is forming up over the ocean near Tromso now, and readying to advance on Banak. Flankers headed from Murmansk to Bardufoss will almost certainly spot them and attack. I have no choice but to feed most of my Sparrow-carrying Tomcats from Vinson and Nimitz into the fray, in a protracted battle in Finland to protect the SE flank of my assault.

I’m expecting the eight Flankers I saw flying before, but in the end I have to fight sixteen of them, and although I typically have two or three times as many fighters engaged as they do, plus a pair of jammers, they still manage to extract their pound of flesh. Their missiles out-range mine, their countermeasures are comprehensive, and their maneuverability is excellent. Most of all, I hate their long-ranged IR-guided missiles. The ‘no Phoenix’ limit is really making it tough to deal with these guys.

The strike itself finds modest SAM resistance at Banak; certainly less than I had anticipated. There are two SA-10s still active, and a pair of SA-8s at the base itself, but that is all. No SA-6s or SA-11s, no SA-4s lurking in the background, and no nasty SA-15s to guard the others. The strike stays high, using HARMs to cripple the SA-10s, and a combination of SLAMs, Mavericks, and LGBs to destroy the remains of the defences. Then the A-6s are able to advance and reliably deliver their penetrating LGBs to crater the runway and taxiway, and destroy the hangar. One MiG-25 is spotted in the open and destroyed, but that is the only plane seen on the site.


Back to Svalbard

Every morning, for the last few days, I’ve gotten a contact report from Svalbard at dawn, telling me about the AAA defences spotted at the end of the runway. This is a sitrep from one of the two Harrier pilots who survived being shot down in the initial attacks. These two airmen, code-named ‘Beagle’ and ‘Vigdis’, have been sneaking into town to swipe potatoes and borscht from the apathetic Soviet garrison, in the hopes that they can evade capture until the war is over.

I’d essentially given them up as lost, until, five-days later, I finally realize that I have the means to get to them. The two SAR Sea Kings on the Arc Royal have an exceptionally long range, and they can actually reach Svalbard (barely) if the carrier is at the very north edge of its patrol zone. The destination is still infested with AAA, so they need some help, and the Enterprise, with it’s F-18s already loaded with small LGBs, is perfect for the job.

While the Enterprise and the Arc Royal steam north towards Svalbard, a tanker, a Canberra, and a U-2 take off from southern bases. I’ve tried to use the Canberras over Norway, with limited success, and I haven’t used the U-2 yet at all, because it’s simply too vulnerable to risk with heavy SAMs around. However, Svalbard is a more permissive environment, and the recce planes arrive and begin to provide useful overwatch.

By mid-afternoon the tanker is there, dragging in the Enterprise’s F-18s, which begin to pummel the remaining AAA, some trapped aircraft and airfield facilities, as well as some dispersed units which seem to be part of some sort of ELINT / COMINT formation. The SAR helicopters arrive an hour later, under the watchful eye of more Maverick-toting F-18s, and make the extraction in good time. They keep the doors open as they fly home. After five days in the field, the rescued airmen add a lot to the atmosphere…


Afternoon Activity

Other than the Svalbard rescue, there are also some low priority attack activities in the afternoon.

The Roosevelt’s F-18s start bashing away at the AAA around Bardufoss with 2,000lb iron bombs. There’s a set of POW barracks nearby, and I may need a clear field of operation if I need to mount a rescue. The Mk 84s actually work quite well, as any reasonably close hit will smash a gun, and they’re considerably cheaper than guided weapons.

The distant Kennedy launches another follow-up attack on Bodo, in the south, using much more expensive Walleye glide bombs to finish destroying the mountain-side shelter, and a few of the hardened aircraft shelters. It’s a slow and costly process, usually taking two or three hits to eliminate a single HAS, and I may call it off as not worth the effort.

The Raleigh and Caron make it back to Reykjavik and dock for refuelling, while the Caron starts filling her VLS with TLAMs. The Jeanne d’Arc and Argus are almost back too, and should dock around midnight. The CP-140s have just arrived from Canada, and are now setting up their ASW patrol zone. I’ve also got some replacement fighters flying in from Stateside, to be forwarded to the carriers tonight.

On the other side of the theatre, coastal convoys along the west side of the UK are consolidating and moving north, preceded by the Trafalgar, which has finished its resupply and is headed back to the fight. I’ve actually got a lot of high-value shipping here; 3 T-AOs, 2 Durances, and a pair of Rovers, and they only have one ASW frigate to guard them. Fortunately, HMS Cornwall has excellent sonar, and I’ll be able to give them lots of MPA support. TG de Ruyter is also coming south to meet them, and take some of them north to PL Beta.


Submarine Activity

My subs continue to patrol quietly. None of them have seen any sign of the enemy, above or below the layer. I’m starting to think the Russians are slowing their submarine activity too, with no sightings all day, but that thought changes mid-afternoon, when a fast-moving SSN is detected by direct-path contact, only 18 miles N of the Nimitz, and headed our way. Most of the Nimitz’s S-3s are away guarding TG Whitney, but fortunately there’s still one ready on deck. It’s shot off immediately, and firewalls the throttles to get to the closing sub as soon as possible. It takes all four torpedoes to sink what turns out to be a Sierra II. It’s never a good thing to have a modern sub that close to a carrier, but fortunately it doesn’t seem to have called any friends.

When the evening intel briefing arrives, we get word that we can expect more visitors. There’s a Charile coming home west of Iceland, and a number of subs have been spotted coming out of the Kola inlet, including the unique Papa SSGN. Planning staff are considering whether to redeploy some of our ASW assets in light of this news, when the Nimitz’s S-3s pick up and sink another SSN cruising in at 15 kts from the ENE. That’s two in the same area, coming around the top of Norway. Looks like the intel boys have the sub surge correct, and the planning staff continue to move more assets to the area.

(Postwar analysis shows that the S-3’s sonar operator had misidentified the unfamiliar evening contact as an SSN. It was actually the Papa, sunk before we knew exactly what it was.)

The next SSN shows up only 15 miles NE of the Nimitz, around 23:00 hrs, obligingly right next to an S-3 headed out for its turn on patrol. I’m getting a little worried that all these are direct path contacts. I had high hopes for creeping along with my towed arrays, and getting lots of warning, but so far CZ contacts just aren’t happening. As the S-3 is sinking the Victor, another Goblin is spotted in the Denmark strait, right where the intel boys predicted the Charlie to be. Are they psychic? Not this time. It’s just another whale…



Plans

The intel briefing has a few other points of interest. The Soviet withdrawal in southern Norway is ongoing, which is good. As part of this, it sounds like they’ve been minelaying off Narvik – fortunately that’s somebody else’s problem. HQ confirms that the Svalbard convoy they’ve been talking about is indeed the one we’ve already met, so things are going well there.

My intention for tonight is to stand down and have no major strikes. Although, in theory, we could maintain multiple strikes per day, in practice the men need time to rest. Reconnaissance and ASW will continue, of course, but, unless there is an operational emergency, the strike planes will not fly.

The Soviet airbases in Norway and Svalbard have been cratered, and the fighters in Murmansk seem to have calmed down. I haven’t had any recent indications of fighter activity out of Rogachevo either. Next strikes could conceivably be the airfield complex around Murmansk, but an assault into a heavily defended part of Russia would be a massive undertaking, and possibly a bit premature. Rogachevo would be a very long haul with tankers, but it’s looking interesting. It’s definitely a thorn in the flank of any move on Murmansk, it gives the Russians air cover over a good part of the Barents, and its small enough that I might be able to tackle it. Planning staff are asked to conduct a feasibility study.

We shall see…

[Gunner98]

intended to be dispersed throughout the fleet as replacements

Dispersed as you see fit

[Gunner98]

Thanks for the report again Andrew - giving me lots of grist for the mill.

B

[AndrewJ]

A little more time to play, so here's another day's worth of 'Tour de Force'.


DAY 7 (Mar 24 1994)


Southern Theatre

It's a calm night in the southern part of my theatre, as the aircrew get a much needed rest. ASW patrols continue uneventfully, and radar reconnaissance into the Barents finds no shipping. The Jeanne d'Arc and friends finish replenishing at Reykjavik, and head back north to take a new load of supplies to the helicopter bases on Greenland and Jan Mayan. The Arc Royal is heading south to refuel, and should complete the operation shortly after noon. Way down south, the cruiser Worden is nearly ready to dock in America.

Operations resume at dawn, as 'airfield cleanup' attacks recommence. A-6s and F-18s bombard the AAA defences at Andoya and Bardufoss with heavy iron bombs, and even try cracking some of the hardened aircraft shelters, with limited success, F-18s from the Kennedy visit Bodo with another load of Walleyes, and succeed in wrecking more of the shelters there. It's expensive, but the captain has the munitions, and dammit, he's determined to use them! Interestingly, I find I'm keeping a large proportion of my A-6s loaded for anti-shipping duty. Those two heavy cruisers in Murmansk are having a distinct "fleet in being" effect on my operations.


Morning Submarines

My submarines finally get into the action when the sonar operator on the Turbulent, just south of PL Delta, gets a CZ contact on a moving sub. It's fairly noisy too, and they rapidly identify it as a Yankee Notch. They could spend a few hours closing in and hunting it down, but that's risky with a long-range cruise missile carrier, which could launch a barrage at any time. So, with a resigned sigh, the captain orders the masts up, and sends a call to the carriers. Soon F-14s are orbiting overhead (to catch any missile launches), while the S-3s close in and localize and sink the sub. The Turbulent monitors it all on sonar, sending occasional position updates, until the Americans have finished stealing his kill.

The Brits get a kill of their own, later in the morning, when a Nimrod suddenly gets a radar contact in the open waters between Iceland and Norway. Somebody's snorkelling! It turns out to be an old Whiskey, and she comes to a sudden end when the Stingray hits home. (This is the first snorkeller in six days - I had expected to see more.)


Rogachevo - initial operations

Phase 1 of the Rogachevo begins with a fighter sweep deep into the Barents. Two flights of F-14s precede an S-3, which checks out Murmansk (nothing there, although one of the cruisers' helicopters is up), and then goes further east, well within range of the two known surveillance radars on Rogachevo. They find a Stenka ASW patrol boat, waiting motionless in the mouth of the Kola inlet, but nothing else is about. As the S-3 sweeps north up the coast of Novaya Zemlya, the F-14s approach Rogachevo, and fly ostentatiously back and forth outside of SA-2 range, radars blaring. Nothing comes up to challenge them. Is it possible enemy fighter operations there have been curtailed?

Satisfied that the area is reasonably safe, the F-14s fall back to refuel, and this time they return with the U-2 far overhead, and a pair of SLAM-carrying A-6s. The intention is for the U-2 to take a quick look, and then for the A-6s to split north and south of Rogachevo, and engage the pair of surveillance radars there. However, what the U-2 finds calls for a hasty change of plans. Rogachevo is packed with enemy planes! There are twenty of them, most of them look like MiG-25s, and ramp space is so limited that they're jammed in three or four to a tarmac space. Oh, and there's an SA-10 (or better) parked in the open about 15 miles W of the airbase.

Hitting the radars was a sensible plan, but these new targets are too rich to ignore. The A-6s fire their missiles, bringing them in from the north and the south, behind terrain where the SA-10 can't see them, and direct them into the densest concentration of fighters. The missiles get spotted a few miles out, and two Foxbats scramble immediately, but they're too late to be in position, and the SLAMs are below SA-2 height. Four impacts rock the base, blasting flaming chunks of MiG in all directions, and starting secondary fires amongst adjacent aircraft. Later photo reconnaissance will record 13 wrecked airframes scattered around the airfield, which is a very satisfactory result.

The remaining MiGs don't take this offence lightly, but the waiting F-14s shoot down the first two while the A-6s complete their escape. A few minutes later they have to turn back and fight again when another two Foxbats make a Mach 2+ afterburner dash to try and catch my retiring planes. Radars from two more are also detected briefly, but they don't pursue, and my planes retire to tank and return home.


Svalbard Port

HQ has issued an alpha-strike request for Svalbard, and we’ve already visited it twice, to shut the runways and recover our crewmen. However, in all of those strikes we’ve left the naval facilities alone, presuming they’d be useful in recapturing the island. However, this time HQ has specifically asked for the target to be Longyearbyen Port, so the Enterprise dispatches some more F-18s, which destroy the facilities with LGBs.


Afternoon Admin

Afternoon brings some reconnaissance, some patrolling out towards Rogachevo, the shootdown of another pair of MiG-25s out there, and the polite cough of the Vinson’s liaison officer inquiring “By the way, sir, did you realize our magazines are completely out of Sparrows?” It seems all the heavy fighting with Su-27s and MiG-25s has used them up! The admiral heaves a heavy sigh, and proceeds to the next re-organization. Enterprise, the ‘spare’ carrier, is ordered to come back east and relieve Vinson. She’s been guarding the ASW bases from air attack, but with two Yankee Notch subs claimed killed, the threat is probably reduced enough to let her go. When she gets to Vinson’s patrol area, Vinson will head south for a fresh load of missiles.

In the meantime, the replacement fighters from the States (2 F-14s, 3 F-18s) are ordered to fly to the Roosevelt, pick up loads of missiles, and bring them back to Reykjavik. They will then operate out of Iceland, and take over the CAP mission for the Greenland ASW base from the departing Enterprise.

Ongoing airfield bombardment cracks a few more shelters at Bodo and Andoya, and the U-2 comes in for a recce survey of Norway. It finds a few damaged air defence elements, including what looks like an SA-10-sized unit east of Bodo, which is a bit of a surprise. I thought everything there was dead.


Evening Attack

The Rogachevo attack follows a similar pattern to the morning strike, except with more planes involved. HARMs do the usual suppression of the surveillance radars and SA-10 site, while low-flying F-18s with cluster bombs ruin the SA-2s from the north and south. A-6s with iron bombs contribute to the general mayhem, polishing off surviving SAM sites, and working over some communications vans the U-2 has spotted scattered around the area. One MiG-25 is spotted on the tarmac, and quickly destroyed, and then high-altitude A-6s use their heavy LGBs to crater the runway and taxiway.

There don’t seem to be any Russian aircraft operating in the region, so it seems safe for some of the A-6s to be diverted to sink the ASW patrol boat which was spotted earlier. That done, the entire package is on the way home shortly after midnight.


Plans for tomorrow

At the moment, I don’t have any major strikes planned, aside from ongoing airfield cleanup and destruction of residual air defences. I will continue to guard resupply groups, replenish my ships, and conduct ASW patrols. The possibility of bomber strikes still exists, as does a sortie of the Murmansk group (which the U-2 confirms includes the Kirov, Slava, and a Sovremenny – so a very potent surface punch), but I think if I am vigilant I should be able to meet them at range, where I should have the advantage. It is not my intention to strike Murmansk itself, unless ordered by HQ. All subject to change, of course. Tomorrow is another day.