New Scenario for testing - Mediterranean Fury 5, Serbia-right!

[AndrewJ]

I enjoy writing them! So it all works out. [:D]

Second Day - Romanian Dawn Attack

Shortly before dawn my ships adjust their positions around Split, and the minesweepers find a few more isolated explosives among the islands. My fighters deal with a few wandering Floggers, and an AMX is sent out in the dark to discretely reconnoiter the Kotor naval base using its night vision equipment.

Then AWACS reports a pair of MiG-23s launching out of Timisoara. Just a patrol? Possibly, although all the previous patrols have been MiG-29s out of Belgrade. A minute later a second pair launch, then a third, and MiG-21 radars are detected in Romania near Craiova. This is a raid, not a patrol! Could it be that Sarajevo is about to get bombed for a fourth time, and the command staff still hasn't managed to mount a useful defence? Heck no! Tornadoes are taking off and hurtling across the Adriatic on afterburner, followed by Mirages and F-104s, tankers are hurrying to the area to support homeward bound planes if necessary, and ECM planes are moving up to support positions. This time we're going to get there first!

Elsewhere, the sudden screaming of the SAM warning makes Captain Ceasare Italiano jerk his head up in alarm from the balky navigation display in the cockpit of his AMX. In a moment of brown-pantsed terror he realizes that he's flying directly over the Kotor naval base at low altitude, and SAMs are inbound! Command couldn't have let him get so far astray, could they? (Sure they could... I was staring so hard at the incoming raid I completely forgot my recce AMX!) He wrenches the stick violently, boots the rudder, dumps his Mk.82s on the first thing in front of him, and heads for the deck. The bombs explode and start a string of violent secondaries that destroy an SA-3 site, as tracers streak past him from all sides. The captain just clears a ridgeline, his RWR screaming in his ears, and dives to the water of the harbour beyond as an SA-6, suddenly blind, goes hurtling overhead. He's across the harbour in a moment, then up into a mountain valley and away, white-faced and shaking.

(It's little moments like these that make Command so enjoyable for me. Theater-wide scope, and local action, all in one.)

The enraged captain has a 'frank discussion' with his controllers when he gets back to base, but a review of the recorder for his night-vision sensors has valuable information. The Serbian sub is still in port, which is excellent news, along with a number of patrol boats, and yet another of those darned Konis. It'll be worth a morning strike if I can catch all of those at the dock.

Meanwhile, my fighters have reached Sarajevo ahead of the enemy, and they get a good look at the incoming raid in the light of dawn. There's 27 of them in total, mostly MiG-21s, with some MiG-23s further back, and a couple of packs of Oraos, and then two MiG-21 recce planes trailing far behind. Most importantly, there are no MiG-29s to interfere, and my fighters pile into the fray, gleefully massacreing the enemy with frontal aspect missiles, while the enemy cannot reply. Only one escapes, and they never get within sight of Sarajevo. Honour is restored! Most of my fighters head home, but it turns out the fight is not quite over, and in the course of the next hour a dozen each of light attack planes and Mig-21s try making low-level approaches. Without fighter escort they are soon headed off and destroyed.


Second Day - Morning Strikes

Now it's my turn to take the offensive, and planes launched in northern Italy head south to strike at the Kotor naval base, pausing to tank over the ocean west of Split. The earlier AMX reconaissance flight had revealed that there was plenty of flack and MANPADS in the area, so the plan was for the majority of the strike to be done by LGBs, keeping safely above the air defence envelope. However, this still left the heavy SAMs to deal with. Tornados carrying HARMs quickly destroyed the surveillance radar, and then veteran F-16s come in extremely low, less than a hundred feet above the waves, before popping up briefly to launch Mavericks at the SA-6. This turns out to be two SA-6s, not one, but my pilots still manage to do enough damage to each of them, combined with HARM shots, to put them out of action, while SAMs go streaking overhead. The remaining SA-2 and SA-3 radars are also put out of commission by HARMs, and then the Mirages and Jaguars are able to move in with LGBs and pummel the naval base and surrounding infrastructure and forces. By the time they are done the area is a burning ruin, and only the hotel and a scattering of light anti-aircraft units remain intact. All the ships and the sub in port are destroyed, and the attackers fly home in good order.

A worrying consequence of the strike was the unexpected intervention of Albania. Up to this point I had no interaction with Albanian forces, keeping my ships on the far side of the Adriatic, and my aircraft away from their shores. Now my Kotor attack has drawn their attention, and two of their old MiG-21 clones crossed the border into Serbia on afterburner, heading for my strike aircraft. I wish there was some way to say 'turn back or else', but there isn't, and the obsolescent Albanian fighters are swiftly shot down when it's clear they won't turn back. This leaves me with a hostile Albania on my flank. I know they don't have modern combat forces, but they are very close to my southern Italian bases, and a sudden swarm attack of light attackers could be a problem. Now I must keep sufficient fighters ready in case of an attack from that direction.

In the meantime, more skirmishing followed while the attackers headed home, with occasional MiG-29s venturing out of Kiskunlachaza in Hungary, and MiG-23s trying to intercept me out of Timisoara in Romania, whenever I ventured into Serbian airspace to chase the ELINT planes. These are usually in ones or twos, so they're not a major problem. However, my attempt to send a recce Mirage to examine the next set of Hungarian airbases was interrupted and driven away before it could complete its mission. The Papa airbase appears to be empty (except for whatever's lurking in shelters), but I still don't know whether anything significant's on the pad at Buda-West.

The next attack of mine comes mid-morning, when a strike is launched on the next two Hungarian bases, Papa, and Buda West. It follows a similar pattern to my first airfield attack, although it's not quite as big. The major difference is that this is a daylight strike, and I'm reluctant to run my Tornadoes through the airfield flack when they can see me coming. Therefore the runways are tackled by F-15Es dropping BLU-109 LGBs from medium altitude instead. All goes well, despite the incredible missile-dodging MiG-29s that try to interfere from Kiskunlachaza (13 shots for 2 hits...), and when it's done the second Hungarian SAM line is gone and both airfields are shut.

As the strike planes head home, my HARM-carrying Tornadoes on SEAD duty head further east, and fire speculative bearing-only HARM shots towards the next Hungarian airbases, Kiskunlachaza and Tokol. A hidden SA-10 at Tokol takes the bait, and lights up to engage, and promptly gets a salvo of HARMs in return, which destroy its radars. The Tornadoes then sweep south towards Serbia, killing the Spoon Rest which has been radiating there for most of the game. Speculative shots towards Belgrade don't cause any SAM response, but the MiG-29s based there launch quickly and my Tornadoes prudently decide its time to withdraw to Italy.


Second day - late morning

The situation at this point looks good. The four frontal Hungarian bases have had their runways cratered, and the SA-2s, SA-3s, and SA-5s that made up the two Hungarian SAM lines have been destroyed, along with two SA-10 sites. The Kotor naval base has been destroyed, along with the last of the Serbian ships. My merchants are safely docked at Split with heavy naval SAM cover, most of the mines are gone (except for the fourth minefield, which I'm keeping for the moment), and the Hansa Carrier is under tow back to Italy. UNPROFOR HQ at Sarajevo is battered, but repairs are underway, the UNPROFOR base at Split is essentially undamaged, and IFOR HQ at Zagreb was never attacked.

My missile stocks are definitely getting low now. Two of my Italian bases are out of Aspides for the F-104s, Aviano has no more AMRAAMs in its bunkers, and my Tornado ADVs have no more spare SkyFlash missiles either. While the F-104s can fly to other bases for missiles, the F-16s and Tornado ADVs can't. About 75% of those planes still have long range missiles, but once they use them there will be no more. As a result, I'm starting to transition more of my CAP responsibilities to the F-18s and Mirages.

Fortunately, enemy air activity is greatly reduced at the moment. I am still seeing pairs of MiG-29s flying intercept missions from Kiskunlachaza in Hungary and Belgrade in Serbia, as well as MiG-23s coming from Timisoara in Romania, but I'm not seeing large standing CAPs or extensive ELINT/AWACS patrols. Enemy attack plane losses have been ruinous. I may start seeing damaged planes coming back into play as damage is repaired, but I doubt they can field large coordinated strike packages.

I think I've accomplished most of my given objectives at this point. In the absence of further target taskings from high command, I may try fighter sweeps to draw out the remaining interceptors, and then possibly attack further airbases, although the distances are starting to get quite large. It's now 10:40 hrs local time. We shall see!


(Gunner98, is there more significant action to come, or is it safe to take a look at the other side now?)

[Gunner98]

Andrew

I think that's about it. There is probably about 18 hours left in the scenario and a few more smugglers but you've done enough damage I think. There may be a few more raids and probably the only big one that will cause any concern is with the remaining Su-24s. I think I may truncate the scenario about last light on day 2.

B

[AndrewJ]

I let the game run another hour or so, but nothing else special happened, so I wrapped it up. Many assorted observations follow. (I should learn to be more concise.)


OVERALL. This is an interesting scenario, particularly the transition from the little parochial concerns (smugglers and the like) to the overwhelming scale of the massive attacks of a total war. The ominous news updates of things gradually going wrong in the Balkans worked nicely to elevate tension as the opening stages of the scenario progressed. The 'double-ended' attack worked well, and although I managed to hold the line in the north, I was caught somewhat off-balance in the south, and couldn't bring in northern resources to help, so Sarajevo was bombed several times before I got fully on top of the situation. Having to look in both places at once is an interesting challenge.


INITIAL BRIEFING. I have to admit, at the start of the scenario I hadn't even considered the UNPROFOR or IFOR bases and forces as something specific to be taken into account of during the fighting. My focus was entirely on Italy, and Split harbour. It was only after the enemy strikes started coming in that I realised there were other allied facilities (other than empty airbases) that I should defend across the Adriatic, or that there might be evacuation flights that I should protect. Perhaps a line or two could be added to the briefing, describing the main bases, and mentioning the evacuation, just to put it in the player's mind that those places exist? An intelligence report on the Serbian navy OOB, and the air-forces of Serbia and Romania might also be helpful.


SMUGGLERS. The smugglers were an interesting touch. At first, I thought they might be a serious concern, then when I saw the scope of the attack I thought they would be utterly insignificant in the greater scheme of things and wouldn’t show up at all, and then they really did appear. A nice back-and-forth. AN-2s are always cool, and the SA-7 on the boats (which I had assumed would be defenceless) was a nice surprise too. I think you may have given us too much warning about the boats. Getting an immediate message about every one the moment it hits the water seems optimistic. Maybe one reminder warning in the evening, an hour or so in advance, would suffice for all of them? (“Sir, agents report smugglers have been given go codes”, etc.) That way it’s up to the player to be alert and monitor their coastal traffic. A few ‘new contacts’ that are actually fishing boats, not smugglers, might be fun confusion too. I suspect the smuggler boats wouldn’t have their radars on, since that’s a perfect way to say ‘here I am’, and they would probably operate with radars off.


UNPROFOR FLIGHTS. Currently, the UNPROFOR evacuation flights are under AI control, and the ferry mission will launch the vulnerable cargo planes despite the presence of swarms of MiG-29s overhead, which can be suicidal. Having them come cruising into an active air combat zone is a recipe for death. It seems very unlikely that they would launch under such circumstances, particularly as NATO AWACS flights would give ample warning of the enemy warplanes. Perhaps those flights would be better handled from the player side, allowing the player to make the tradeoffs to run the evacuation, provide escorts, etc.? Or, if they are to be kept on the allied side, then maybe changing the flights to low altitude and high speed might give them a better chance to avoid interception? (Personally, I switched sides and turned the missions off until the air situation improved.)


HANSA CARRIER AND TUG. Was there supposed to be some event (other than scoring) associated with the tug's arrival at the Hansa Carrier? (Engine repair, or the like?) There's a lot of emphasis on landing Carabinieri on the ship itself, and on the adjacent islands, and then getting the tug there, but nothing seems to happen after that. The trigger zone around the ship is also very small, and players could send the tug to a point nearby that seems close enough, without realizing they have actually missed.


SCORING. Is the scoring complete for this version of the scenario? Currently, the scoring seems to be out of step with the activities the player is performing. The player is awarded 100 points for parking a tug beside a damaged freighter (which has almost no war benefit), 25 points for each freighter landed at Split, and 5 points for destroying a smuggler/agent. However, despite their orders to attack airbases and naval bases, they are awarded no points for successfully achieving these war objectives, and no points for destroying hundreds of attacking enemy aircraft and a dozen or more ships and subs. The scoring thresholds are very high in relation to the available pool of points ('average' starts at 750, for example), and it is not be possible to achieve any of the victory levels.


MIG-25 WILD WEASEL. The MiG-25 Wild Weasels are coming in with their distinctive radars on, which is an immediate giveaway about their role. The radars wouldn’t help them in their task, and if the radars were off the player may confuse the planes with other recce Foxbats and ignore them. (Or if they were set to ‘normal’ high altitude, like most other planes, then they would just be one more jet contact.) As it was, I was able to recognize them immediately and took special steps to intercept them before they could reach launch range.


HOW THE HECK… did I manage to not get overwhelmed by the massive air raids? The one and only reason is that in this scenario I finally figured out how to use OECM. In the past, I have usually flown my OECM planes to their loiter points, turned on the jammers, and left them alone. Having them in the background cuts down the range at which the enemy can use SARH missiles, which is helpful. It gives me a few more miles in which I can shoot while the enemy cannot. However, eventually the enemy gets close enough to burn through the jamming, and then the engagement proceeds as normal.

It turns out what I should have been doing is keeping the jammers off, and letting the enemy fire at normal range. Then immediately turn the jammers on, dropping the range at which the enemy can illuminate the target to less than the current range. The missiles go blind, and five seconds later they self destruct. Then turn the jammers off again. Now the enemy can illuminate once more, and they will fire again. Turn the jammers back on, the second set of missiles goes blind, and 5 seconds later they self destruct. Repeat as necessary… You have to be careful to keep your distance while doing this, and it helps to drop your RCS by turning tail when you’re illuminated, and raise your RCS by turning broadside when you’re not, but if you can pull it off it’s a very reliable way of defeating SARH missiles.

This alone would not have been enough to defeat the enemy, if they had been able to press in and attack with their excellent AA-11s. However, if their WRA is set for BVR attacks only, then they will turn away and RTB once their long-range missiles are gone. That’s what was happening here, as I was able to repeatedly send home enemy fighters by using up their BVR missiles, particularly MiG-29s, which only have two AA-10s. Once the fighters turned away I could attack them from behind as they retired, and I had a much better chance against the undefended attack planes they left behind.

This sort of jam-listen-jam procedure is real, and is applied both in communications jamming and countermeasures jamming. Apparently, always-on barrage jamming isn't always the best tactic, and it is often better to jam only when there is something specific to jam. The trouble is, the AI can't recognise the tactic, and 'falls for it' every time. While human pilots might lose some missiles this way, they'd probably recognize what was happening and hold fire until they could burn through at closer range. The AI can't make that decision.

AI countermeasures to this could be changing the fighter WRA to allow them to take WVR shots (so they don't immediately fly home), or dropping the range at which they will fire to less than the burn-through range. The newer Russian fighters, carrying high-off-boresight AA-11s, are better than the NATO fighters at close range, so they would probably benefit from being in close. The MiG-29s, which have only two AA-10s, but four AA-11s, would definitely excel in this arena.

You might be able to execute this tactic against the player, sort of, by using Lua to flash your jammers on and off at 15 second intervals. You'd probably need to have your jammers closer in behind a raid to do this, and I'm not sure if it could be coordinated effectively purely using missions.

In a way, I'm sorry I figured this tactic out. While it let me hold off the horde, it feels somewhat asymmetric. I think Andrea G's playthrough is probably a more realistic outcome than mine, and allowed for a lot of interesting play (clever use of mobile SAMs, etc.), which I missed out on.


F-104s I have to admit, the F-104s aren't as bad as I had feared. Although they are obsolescent, their extremely high-speed afterburner dash can make sudden intercepts, is superb for running down retiring foes, and gets a plane out of trouble too. They can take an Aspide shot, watch their foe dive to evade, and if (when...) they miss they point their nose up and hurtle into the stratosphere like a rocket, before the enemy can climb to catch them. Just don't get them in close to anything with an AA-11, or they're meat on the table.


GARIBALDI In my playthrough the Garibaldi group didn't make any contributions. I didn't use the Garibaldi in the previous scenario, so I used it here for storyline continuity, but it was so far away I had the naval situation under control before it got into the Adriatic, and I was reluctant to use its slow-moving Harriers to face off against the MiGs and SAMs. By the time the SAMs were dealt with Kotor was bombed anyway, so there was little to do.






WARSAW PACT

Eight of the Fencers at Debrecen, carrying AS-18 Kazoos, are not assigned to any mission. Those 60 nm range missiles would definitely have been a problem if they got deep enough into Slovenia to attack the Italian bases, although that might have been tough to do. They could easily have gotten to launch positions on IFOR HQ at Zagreb and probably the two UNPROFOR bases as well, coming in from the north where my defences were weakest.

The Su-24s carrying KAB-1500s at Debrecen have the range to get to Aviano, but they don't have a lot to spare, so if they are forced to low level to dodge missiles they may consume too much fuel and have to turn back. I saw a few drop out of the stream this way. Perhaps they could be based a little further forward?

I reran the Aviano attack and let it proceed unopposed, just to see how it all worked. The HAS strike did very well, and the Parking strike was okay, getting about half the aircraft in the parking line. The ammo strike got a lot of hits, but in the end only killed two bunkers despite numerous impacts. Those bunkers are tough! The runway strike did half damage to the taxiway and nothing to the runway.

The recce Su-17s at Kunmadaras have no mission.

By the end of my game there were 14 Su-27s in reserve at Zvolen, because the base had run out of AA-10-Cs. Is this an intentional missile limitation, like NATO's limited number of AMRAAMs?

There are 40 MiG-29s at Tokol with no mission! Good god. Even my dirtiest micromanager tricks would have been overwhelmed by that many more planes, by simple ammo exhaustion alone if nothing else.

The ECM and ELINT Su-24s at Limanskoye have no mission. Were they supposed to have been on jamming missions along the Romanian west border?

I never did spot the Kilo. My course towards the italian coast, to avoid provoking Albania, happened to take me too far away to encounter it.

The Pact considers UNPROFOR unfriendly, rather than hostile, so it won't engage transport flights. (Then again, there's no chance it will go after UNPROFOR bases by accident either.)


HUNGARY

Four recce MiG-21s at Taszar have no mission.

There are 40 Frogfoots at Buda West with no loadouts or missions. They're out of range of the Italian bases, although they could hit IFOR at Zagreb.


ALBANIA

Albanian subs will leave their patrol zones to investigate contacts half-way up the Adriatic.(Possibly intentional?)

Albanian sub S422 is not assigned to its mission.


SERBIA

The Serbian sub missions are duplicated. There is both an inactive Janak Ptl and an active Janak Ptl, and similarly an inactive and active Sava Ptl. The subs are each assigned to the inactive patrols, and as a result they do not move or attack. One patrol (Janak) will allow subs to leave the patrol area, the other will not.

Seven of the Serbian vessels at Kotor have activation times that are beyond the length of the scenario, and they are not assigned to a mission. I assume this intentionally represents ships at low readiness?

The spies on the island have no night vision gear, and thus cannot detect ships working the minefields or transiting the straits during the dark. As a result they probably did not see my line of merchants going through. (This may be quite realistic if they are supposed to be sympathetic civilians, rather than regular military units.)

The Serbs have no runway access points at Pristina / Slatina AB, which seems to be why my warships and minelayers were never attacked by the Serb Ship Strike mission (even though the spy at Split has spotted me). The planes are trying to take off, but are stuck continuously waiting. The planes at Sjenica and Usice-Ponikve, which are on the same mission, are not taking off either, even though they are closer, and do have runway access points. This is probably because the max number of flights is set at 6, and the stuck planes at Pristina are already filling that limit. I got away easy here - there were 32 attackers (plus escorts) that should have been headed my way.

I wonder if there's a Lua way to release escort planes from a mission if there are no longer enough attack planes to make it worthwhile? For example, there are 8 MiG-23 escorts ready at Kraljevo, but they cannot fight because they are waiting for the few surviving attackers on the Mig Ship Strike mission to be repaired. Similarly for the Romanian UNPROFOR Log Strike mission, etc.


ROMANIA

Romania considers UNPROFOR to be unfriendly, rather than hostile. It's planes on the UNPROFOR HQ (Land Strike) mission will arrive at Sarajevo and orbit overhead, but will not drop weapons as a result. Ditto for their other strike missions.

Five MiG-21Rs ar Bucharest have no mission.

Many of the EO-pod carrying recce MiG-21s are on escort duty for this and other strike missions, but they did not seem to press on to fly over the target when the mission is executed. I generally saw them form up early, recognizing them by their radars, but then they would stay at the rear of the pack, so I don't think they were providing effective target spotting, if that is what you had intended them to do. The MiG-25 RBS recce planes were acting the same way.

The Kog Intercept mission only has a range of 120 nm, which is barely enough to get to Bucharest. While the player is rather unlikely to be making attacks this far into Romania, it might be useful to cover the capital with good fighers.



Assorted Typos, etc.

Side briefing - campaign to sew unrest (sow)

Side briefing - should the Red Hord attack (horde)

Side briefing - Comd NTFA: Good day Geneal (General)

Side briefing - Forth, if the Serbian navy (Fourth)

Smuggling Brief - {role with it – you may not have asked but play along } (roll)

Smuggling Brief - Fuel is their Achilles Heal (heel)

Smuggling Brief - usually within 5-10 minuets (minutes)

Smuggling Brief - the real target is to sew political unrest (sow)

Side - "Hugary" (Hungary)

Event - "UNPRAFOR" casualties (UNPROFOR)

[AndrewJ]

Forgot to add...

ASPIDES The three main F-104 bases have 72/72/42 Aspides in their magazines, plus the ones on their planes, but the forward deployment base at Rivolto has 400 of them. Were there supposed to be so many? (They're certainly welcome, but it does seem a lot in comparison.)

[Gunner98]

Thank you Andrew - a lot of good points and food for thought.

The shortage of missiles and the low readiness of the ships is intentional, as are the idle Frogfoots (Frogfeet?). The Su-25s are there to support the ground offensive and act as targets - plus they will deploy forward to the Slovenian base for the next scenario. I need to simulate the ground war somehow as you pointed out.

I'll chew on this for a bit and get out an update shortly.

Cheers and do not concern yourself about conciseness - these reports are golden!

B

[Ancalagon451]

The runway strike did half damage to the taxiway and nothing to the runway.

That one was to be expected, I'm not sure if it's a realistic modelling of the weapon or there is some bug at play, but BetAB anti-runway bombs are unable to inflict any damage at all against targets with heavy armor. If memory doesn't fail me, those are any runway of 2000m or longer.

Against any target with medium armor or lower on the other hand, they work without any fuss. So they must always be targeted against short runways, taxiways and access points.

Ancalagon

[magi]

While I have not played this scenario through.. I have been scrutinizing it and giving it a considerable amount of thought .....
There are the two features for me.. I find bewildering and I believe you would have to give some explanation for ....

First... Why as the Soviets and WP have been so offensively aggressive on all other fronts.. brilliantly.. successfully creating shock and awe and confusion... and even as it appears red force has a partial corridor to the northern Italian airbase where the vast majority of NATO’s offensive and defense combat power is in the region... Yet they are taking no action with this favorable position..... Giving NATO reprieve and allowing them to plan and execute offense/defensive operations.....
There could be very real reasons why this is not happening .... however given how thorough and professional the Russians have been planning and prosecuting the opening moves of this global war.... I would need to know something to explain this ......

Second... On opening this scenario and studying the disposition of forces I mediately perceived.. there was going to be heavy air assaults from the east directed at the northern bases... where NATO and the Italians have concentrated the maturity of their combat air power....
It is always been my understanding that NATO and the Italian Air Force have contingency plans for operations in their theaters for multiple different situations that they periodically modify.... however here we are on day three of a global confrontation with the Soviet Union and their allies ... and all of NATO’s best fighters have strike munitions or are in the state of unreadiness.... while their powerful force of strikers are sitting empty on the ground....

Looking at so many of your scenarios over the past several years I will admit there are occasionally a few things that I ponder about.. that I now consider are possibly plot driven..... However in your book everything is so completely plausible that there’s even only one little thing that I would question...... So in this scenario I just cannot understand how we are in this situation ...

[magi]

Deleted

[magi]

Delet

[Gunner98]

magi

Your two questions are related and interlinked.

The Soviets have left this front quiet for four main reasons:

1) Their allies are not prepared, in the rapid assaults of the first three days it has been largely Soviet force or proxies that are caught almost as flat-footed as NATO - Cuba, Libya, Syria, Iran, Sudan etc. The Hungarians and Romanians however are more deliberate in their approach and want (demand) mobilization to occur to a certain degree before they launch. Soviet forces are not nearly strong enough to conduct operations alone on this front.

2) The Soviets know what NATOs contingencies are likely to be, and they are concerned that the force balance on this front is precarious if NATO is allowed to built up according to their plans. So be leaving the pressure off in this area the vacuum of combat is drawing off all of the major reinforcements that could possibly be earmarked for Italy (the wing of 3x F-16 Sqns that has been drawn into Italy/Syria/Turkey for instance, USS Eisenhower is another example). No one can be strong everywhere, they are giving NATO a chance to weaken this front to strengthen others.

3) Serbia - not a big force but the Soviets want to bring them into the fold, and that takes a bit of diplomatic time.

4) UNPROFOR - I won't go into detail on this but there are cards in play that will show themselves in later books.


From a NATO perspective - they have thee fights on their hands just in the Med - Libya, Syria, Turkey. Why would they stick their hand in another hornets nest which has so far been quiet?

Anyway those are the thoughts that left this area calm for a few days.

B

[Ancalagon451]

Their allies are not prepared, in the rapid assaults of the first three days it has been largely Soviet force or proxies that are caught almost as flat-footed as NATO

What the hell?

So the Libian (plus Argelian) strikes in "The Crunch of the Kashba" where made by unprepared forces?

Just what would have been able to do if they had the time to prepare beforehand?

Ancalagon

[Gunner98]

So the Libian (plus Argelian) strikes in "The Crunch of the Kashba" where made by unprepared forces?

Well sort of. They had recalled their forces to readiness when war broke out in Europe the day before, and in the Libyan case they had known something was afoot about 3 days earlier when the Soviet task group arrived.

The deployment of Soviet AC and SAMs off the ships had been pre-arranged but under a false cover story - it was the same with the Syrians. Both just wanted to piss off the west and neither had any idea they were being roped into WW3.

So their forces were at full strength but their activities are uncoordinated. They had a lot of combat power though...

[Ancalagon451]

They had a lot of combat power though

That and a damn knack for going against the ships just out of range of air cover, I still haven't managed to beat that one.

Still, good to know they were coming at full strenght, makes me a little less embarrased.

Ancalagon

EDIT: Also since we are talking about pre-war movements in that particular scenario, I've wondered for a long time how where the Soviets able to smuggle a dozen armed heavy bombers in Argelia wihtout NATO taking notice. I'm sure there must be an history here.

[magi]

Thank you sir that pretty much works for me ..... except maybe the last line.....

PM   

[Gunner98]

how where the Soviets able to smuggle a dozen armed heavy bombers in Argelia wihtout NATO taking notice.

Yeah I should probably put a line in the brief about them. NATO has been tracking them (they're in Tamanrasset, got there just as war starts), they've been in Africa for about a week and have moved around a bit (Syria, Sudan, Libya and then Algeria). There are also some support Bears that turn up in another scenario. There is an elaborate cover story which no one really believes - but then no one in the west believes that war is about to start either.

A Squadron (from 198th Gds TBAP) of them cannot hope to sink a US carrier but they are meant to keep a viable threat to anything else as long as possible and tie down a carrier in the Med.

Have not worked out the full backstory to them, but it will likely show up in our Med Fury book a few years from now.

[Gunner98]

Guys

Still working on the update - should be out before this coming weekend. Quite a few changes and tweaks.

Tx

B

[ZoroastroBR]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

Guys

Still working on the update - should be out before this coming weekend. Quite a few changes and tweaks.

Tx

B

[:D][:D][:D][:D][&o][&o][&o]

[Andrea G]

Having just returned from my holydays in Uzbekistan I will wait for the updated version to give it a second test.

[Gunner98]

OK here is the update at long last.

Quite a few changes, the big ones are:
-Ammo resupply options - this has a few twists and turns that I hope you find interesting
-AC damage is on
-The Hansa Carrier will now be repaired enough to move to Split and is hopefully out of the way of all the mines you will blow up
-The initial WP airstrikes are a bit more surgical and less repetitive
-The ground war is replicated a bit - a few reports (probably need more) and a re-assignment of AC option
-Scoring should be fixed
-Some cosmetic changes and a few more options

I look forward to your feedback

[ZoroastroBR]

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