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Hi Herman talked Eds and me into trying our hand with scen#1 of Hugo's Folly.
This scen is made by Herman, tested by me for the PlayersDB. So I did have an unfair advantage of knowing the scen.
I played Netherlands. Intel said an invasion by Venezuela of the Dutch ABC-islands was imminent but I was not authorised to fire first. My mission was to bring my fleet to St Maarten and to extract the Governor and millitary staff by Fokker plane and helo's.
Thinking it over I decided the politicians in The Hague were dreaming if they thought I could defend the islands with one FFG, 2 coast guard cutters and one F16s armed for photo-recon. The force was there to deter Hugo and if that had failed it was time to get OUT.
So I had the group form up and race at 23 knots to St Maarten in a straight line. I launched the helo when it became ready after an hour and landed it on Mearsk. Three hours into the game Eds had started moving his fleet to the islands but I had not seen his fearsome Flankers.
Strongly worded diplomatic notices did not deter Eds fleet from entering my territorial waters, but no shots were fired.
After 4 hours, with Eds fleet close, both my Fokkers took off escorted by the F16 and reached St Maarten hours later. A few Flankers were detected but did not come close.
Then I ran into a sub, detected about 10nm in front of my formation and drifting. I fired a torp from 10nm away to chase the sub away (which it did at 5 knots!). I stationed a helo on top of her and boxed the group around the sub.
Dutch pilots are known for their initiative, and in a moment of communication loss, my helo pilot dropped a torp on the sub and killed her. The Commodore decided to publicise this event as deterrent.
Hours later a second sub was detected as well, and the helo was more disciplined and just maitained station. Still no threat from Flankers. Maybe the deterrent worked.
However then the Venezuelan fleet, now fully assembled started bombarding the islands and building after building were lost. Panic sat in and the Fokkers were ordered to take off from St Maarten, return to Aruba and rescue more marines. The flight to Aruba was uneventfull.
Having landed, they took off 30 minutes later and used their radars to avade the fleet, though one did decide to identify the Venezuelan fleet for a future 'gesture' by my reloading F16.
For the second time the Fokkers flew towards St Maarten, now on a more northerly track. Several passenger planes evecuating refugees flew further South.
One of these 737s was intercepted by a Flanker but with Latin flair the pilot let the plane full with women and children pass and RTB-d. The Fokkers landed a second time. Finally y F16 took off from Aruba, last man out, shot down an orbiting helo and made its escape.
Mission accomplished.
With two players with fast connections the game ran pretty fast and we finished the 12 hour gametime game in about 2 hours running 15:1 seconds. Eds took the islands but did not prevent my units from escaping - probably due to the large number of cluttering neutral planes and ships and controlling his large number of units. I' sure he'll play different next time!
