AAR MATCHPLAY #4 FOR HARPOON ANW 3.7

[FransKoenz]

[center][font="Tahoma"][/font]SPOILER ALERT[/center]

[right][/right]AFTER ACTION REPORT

[right][/right]MATCHPLAY #4 for Harpoon ANW 3.7.0
Scenario designed by Freek Schepers
Reporter: Taitennek.

Side: Netherlands.

I have only limited aircraft under my command. 86 fighter/attack, 12 of them are armed with AMRAAM. My orders are to establish local air-superiority over NL and central UK, destroy Luton EW System, 10 ground targets, 100 aircraft, and sink 2 ships. I must prevent more than 15 NL facilities from being hit.

[For comprehensive orders visit PlayersDB Depot].

Date : 29 september 2004.
Time : 04:00:00 Zulu Time.

First I plotted course for my frigates and submarines. Stanfornz and TF38 will group together west of Den Helder [not on map], The HMS Dolfijn, cruising in the English Channel, will try to destroy English warships in their homeport Portsmouth, the HMS Bruinvis will do the same off coast central UK. The two other frigates will patrol west of The Hague.

Game on:

2 F-16 are ready in 5 minutes, as well as a P-3 Orion. Soon, Radar picked up airborne contacts from the British Island, as well as many ship movements in the Channel and on the North Sea. After 15 minutes I launched 6 more F-16. The KC-10 Extender is in position for aerial refuelling of fighters heading southwards.

My biggest handicap is that only few AMRAAM-missiles are available. I must engage the enemy in the first stage of this battle with Sidewinders only.

I directed immediately 2 F-16 to fly south with maximum speed for refuel and managed to reach the UK. The hunt for the AEW-aircraft began. The Luton AEW system was destroyed by canon fire, as well as 4 Sentry-AEW units with Sidewinders. The English are now more or less blind……If I survive the first 2-3 hours, I give myself a good chance to learn the Brits a lesson they not will forget.

05:00:00 Zulu Time.

I have to deal with 2 problems: first of all the lack of medium range air-to-air missiles [AMRAAM], the limited ammo available on my ships [Group North], and the number of F-16’s left that can carry out defensive/offensive operations.
The second problem is the number of SAM’s fired during the first stage of this battle;
The Patriot Batteries at the Dutch coast are about out of ammo. I only can rely on short range AAA-facilities and only few F-16 left for self defence of NL-ground facilities.
I have, however, over 30 F-16 available for offensive ground-attack actions against the UK.
The loss of UK AEW capability after the successful action of only 2 F-16 fighters, armed with Sidewinder missiles [!!!!!!!] against the Luton Battle Management System [destroyed by cannon fire] and airborne AEW units, and the absence of defence systems in the southern part of UK between Portsmouth-NB and Wattingham-AB, gives me the possibility to carry out a deep strike mission on English bases.

I realise that I can’t attack the bases in the Northern part of the UK without tanker capability [only 1 tanker, positioned in the south to provide refuel-capability for an attack from there, due to my decision to fly in at low attitude at high speed from the south], so I focus for an attack on the British bases in the central and southern part of the UK.

I Launched 12 aircraft [load out: MK82, MK84 bombs and AGM-65 Maverick], escorted with 6 F-16 armed with AMRAAM. Targets: Wattingham, Wittering, Cottismore, Marham, Cottishall, and Waddington airbase. A second wave is planned 45 minutes later.

05:30:00 Zulu Time:

All aircraft are on their way to their targets.
Again, British fighters are inflicting loss to my aircraft, but the bombers were able to attack the airfields. Wittering, Cottismore, Marham, Cottishall and Wattingham were destroyed completely and 2 other bases were severely damaged.
Meanwhile British aircraft attacked the naval Taskforce near Den Helder. They managed to sink 1 frigate and damaged two other ships. I managed to take out 1 British frigate with bombs.

06:45:00 Zulu Time:

Both nations were hit hard by each other. I have only few aircraft [6] left, destroyed almost 280 enemy aircraft and 28 ground facilities, but I am not able to go on. The Taskforce near Den Helder could attack the British ships east of England, but it cannot defend herself against incoming anti-ship missiles. It would be suicide to go on with only two ships and one submarine left [the ships are cruising west of The Hague and the remaining submarine is positioned east of UK].

I could not reach VC, I only managed to sink one ship instead of two.

Thanks Freek for this exiting but very difficult scenario![;)]

Results:

English Losses:
276 planes and helicopters
1 ship
28 facilities

Dutch losses:
88 aircraft and helicopters
1 ship
1 submarine
6 facilities

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[mikmykWS]

Yes Franz,

Great job! Sounds like you had a great time playing the game and you gave some great feedback to the editor.