Matrix Games Forums

Scenario: Duel
Players: Freek Schepers (Soviet), Herman Hum (NATO)
Database: PlayerDB
Server: Tony's server (thanks!)

We're in the 3rd session of this large and long scenario.

A Soviet SAG supported by SSN/SSGN submarines has to find and damage a NATO SAG supported by submarines, which forms the last defense of Iceland (1983). Scenario duration is 5 days! Both parties have a viccond of killing 4 ships.

For the first day or so I moved my Soviet SAG around in the Barentz Sea, and brought one of my SSNs - a Sierra - in close to support my less than perfect passive sensors. I also set up several layers of sonobuoy's in the formation edition. My Ka-27 helicopters only had passive buoy's, and I was not sure I could detect a NATO sub with those, so I positioned my Sierra up front and performed regular zig-zags in the hope of forcing an enemy sub to speed up and be detected.
My Hormone Reccon helicopters were meanwhile scouting for the enemy surface force, but though they carried superb radar they had tiny range and never detected an enemy. Likewise I did not detect any enemy helo's or ESM tracks, and suspected the enemy SAG was far away.

Just after a course change, one of my sonobuoy lines reported an unknown submerged contact. I reacted instinctively (and possibly not too well), by moving my formation away from the contact and speeding up, while firing torpedo carrying missiles to the localised targets. Next I heard the unmistakable sounds of torpedo launches, 5 torpedo's were fired in my direction. Helo's swarmed around the contact in short order and one of the torps hit and sank her. I never got a classification but the fact that 5 torpedos were fired at me indicated she might have been Brittish.
The 5 torpedo's came in at 35 knots while my formation ran away at 30-32, and after 20nm the scope was clear.

Shortly afterwards, my Oscar-submarine, creeping at 2-5 knots about 200nm to the West of my SAG, got a bearing on a 2nd submarine. Although the Oscar has the best sonar in the fleet, I was concerned that the nemy might be very close and might have detected me already. I prepared a torpedo volley (including a 200 knots skval-torpedo!) but held my fire when I got a blade count indicating the enemy was doing 12-15 knots and I had a bearing-change. A TMA confirmed she was not close (maybe 10nm off) and I decided to hold fire; shortly afterwards the contact was lost.
Clearly the San Juan-class SSN was on its way to my SAG. KA-27s dropped multiple lines of buoys but did not reacquire the San Juan. However the TMA and speed allowed me to roughly predict the time it would reach my SAG. I oriented the SAG to the West, drifted the group to maximise sonar performance, set up multiple sonobuoy lines, and at the calculated time (hours later) switched on active sonar. The submarine was immediately detected and rocket-assisted torpedoes fired. Helo's moved to intercept.
Herman fired no less that 10 50-knot Mk48s at my formation, which again turned and ran. Two Mk48s caught an Udaloy ASW destroyer which I had disengaged and drifted to try to keep track of the US sub. The San Juan was hit, reducing its speed to 24 knots, and finally cornered and sunk by Ka-27s. The group raced another 20nm before the enemy torpedos ran out of steam.

Now that the submarine threat was neutralised/reduced, I could dedicate more of my long range Ka-27s to searching for the US-SAG. Given that 2 days had passed, she might be anywhere and I scrutinised the inlets around Iceland, the Shetlands, Orkney and even sent some helo's to check the East. No luck.
By this time I started occasionally encountering enemy helo's, from whose course I deduced the enemy *might* be SW. I had opened the range between my SAG and my submarines in the hope of getting a sonar contact, and eventually, sonar gave me a bearing to the SAG, located somewhere south of Iceland. This must have been a VERY good freak sonar conditions (5th CZ or so!). An hour-long 35-knot sprint gave me a baseline, fixing the approximate location of the SAG, and one of my helo's travelling down this bearing was shot down right about the same location. The US-SAG was still out of range of my long range missiles on the SAG and I changed course to close the range, and speeded up my subs to intercept. At this time an enemy Sea Hawk started to get close to my formation and I decided to avange my shot down pilot by shooting down it with long range SAMs. At least that gave me a bargaining chip for the prisoner exchange.

KA-27 helo's finally fixed the enemy (now with radar on) and counted 11-12 targets. I selected 4 for the huge shipwreck missiles on board my battlecruisers and Oscar. In a peacefull mood, I refrained from firing my nuclear Shipwrecks!

50-odd (I think) missiles streaked from two directions towards the US SAG; basically timed to arrive together although some ships could not fire their missiles fast enough.
Herman detected them maybe 20nm out and started firing SAMS. Through the datalinks on the missiles I could see the intercepts moving to the group, and could see that some missiles reached their targets, only to be defeated by point defense. It was pretty maddening to see all my missiles intercepted - this was what three days of play had led up to!

We saved the game (for the third day) at this point. Clearly the SAMs were extremely effective (especially for 1983!), caused by a little known 'Targetting bug' in ANW which basically ensures that if two SAMs are fired on one AShM, and the first SAM hits, the second will find a new target to engage. 3.6 did not have this sophistication. Anyway I could see the results! Definitely worth upgrading the importance of this bug!

---to be continued --

Freek

Game's not even over and you're already claiming victory? [;)]

Let me add a few details from the submarine's perspective.



SSN Splendid did make contact with a group of ships. She took awhile to run a TMA [Target Motion Analysis] in order to find their heading and speed. The enemy's ziz-zap pattern did not help.



Once she determined their course, she tried to slip in perpendicular to their PIM [Path of Intended Movement]. She was doing very well and had managed to slip in behind the screen of dipping helos and was moving in for the prize. Then the Russian group decided to Zag. [:(]

She was only making 5kts, but I thought that she need to move a little faster to make the intercept so I increased speed to 7kts. Either bad luck or the additional noise generated by the increased speed rose to detection levels and a sonobuoy. Immediately, the Russians responded violently and filled the water with rocket torpedoes. I replied in kind, but the Tigerfish could only make 35kts at maximum speed. Splendid evaded two torpedoes with decoys, but there was no way she could escape since the ships were all faster than she was. Eventually, a torpedo caught her a sank her. None of her Tigerfish found a target.



Not long afterward, my SSN Albany got the chance to make her approach. She also made a beautiful approach past the ASW helo screen and was going in for the heavies. Unfortunately, her luck did not hold, either. A Udaloy-class destroyer that was heading away from her suddenly turned around and was heading right for her. She was just pulling into firing range when the SAG turned away and her firing solutions went out the window. In desperation, she fired her torpedo salvoes on Bearing-Only-Launch, but there was no hope of a hit.



One torpedo damaged her, but there was no way she could attack or evade. Her doom was foretold. Luckily, she managed to kill the nosy destroyer who had initially fingered her for destruction.

With no chance for an easy (sneaky) win from the subs, I had to commit my BB SAG to the attack. She detected a perfectly executed SSM attack consisting of nearly 50 SS-N-10 Shipwreck and SS-N-12 Sandbox missiles. I thought that I was a goner, but one Antietam-class, one California-class, and one Leahy-class cruiser, together, held nearly 300 potent SAMs. The attack was defeated, but came so close with every weapon from CIWS to chaff decoys being employed. Phew.

Now, we are moving into the final stage of the battle.

Freek and I met up to carry on our epic battle. With both my subs destroyed, it was time for Freek to use his 3 submarines. Each of them was armed with the deadly Type 65-76 torpedo with 50nm range.

SSGN Oscar was detected as she tried to creep in from the fore. She salvoed her torpedoes from maximum range, but the game did not permit them to accelerate to their maximum speed of 50kts so they missed. However, he decided to escalate past the nuclear threshold. Two SS-N-19 Shipwrecks were fired. One ended in a mushroom cloud above a British frigate. Retailiation was quick as the SSGN was swarmed by a cloud of ASW torpedoes.



The Akula and Sierra boats had managed to position themselves in front and on the flank of my group and they executed a beautiful coordinated attack. This time, they waited until the torpedoes were in range so as not to be forced on BOL attack and it paid dividends. the torpedoes accelerated to 50kts and selected targets. The ASW helos quickly localized and killed the attackers, but there were 8 live fish in the water that they could do nothing about.



One detonated against the Nixie decoy trailed by FF Sims to send a geyser 50 feet into the air. Two more tracked down the CG Leyte Gulf. One was quite sufficient to send her to the bottom.



The other four were launched on BOL so they could not accelerate to maximum speed. However, Freek had done well to attack with my ships cornered by the coast of Iceland. He launched his attack within 50nm of the shore so that I could not simply run in the opposite direction. They had a chance to catch my ships. They ran out of fuel within 2nm of their targets. Another close call.

Now, we will finish this battle with steel, Cold Steel.

Ok, where was I?



My long range Soviet SSM attack had been defeated by the 300SAM-carrying USN-SAG.

I had 3 subs left; Akula, Sierra and Oscar. Akula, which had been patrolling the Greenland-Iceland gap made a 26 knot speed run to join up with Sierra and then I moved them all to the South of Iceland at 15 knots.

I kept shuttling helicopters SW towards the US SAG to keep an eye on them, and decided that I'd go to creep speed (5 knots) when around 100nm distance. After all, I was up against the Varsity in ASW (I thought) and had seen Sea Hawks and Sea Sprites flying long patrols.

Hermans SAG came East along the South Coast of Iceland at about 12 knots, stable course and speed which gave me the opportunity to pick my fight in an area with deep water close to the coast, just in case I needed to manoeuvre.

I placed Oscar to the North, and decided to try to fire my 6 Nuclear Shipwreck missiles from just outside their 7.5nm minimum range, followed up by my 650mm torpedo's. Yes Nuclear missiles, I hoped to finish the game!

The first missile left the VLS tubes and killed the lead ship of the escort; a Cornwall-class destroyer. That where my luck ended. No other ships seemed to be caught in the blast. In fact I did not even see the nuclear shockwave and hypothesised the missile was a dud and the ship went down due to the unspent fuel. Moreover, the interval between the VLS firings was long enough for the now alerted escorts to shoot them down. Finally, as I was just outside minimum Shipwreck range, when I fired the 650mm Wake-homing long range torpedos (Bearing-only because they were just out of range), they only made 30 knots, and never speeded up even after they acquired a target.

Hermans SAG turned and ran, for 50nm to outrun the torpedoes. I had also fired 3 UUSET torpedoes, which are wire-guided and which I could thus speed to 48 knots, but all torpedo's ran out of fuel. Oscar was quickly sunk by multiple torpedo hits from helicopters or ASROC.


The USN-SAG then came back at 12 knots again along the same track. I still kept an eye on him with helicopters, and drifted Akula ahead of the formation, and moved Sierra around her to be able to attack from behind.
At about 7nm range, Herman detected Akula, turned and ran East. Akula was just close enough to fire my 4 650mm Wire-guided antiship torpedos at precise located targets, thereby ensuring they ran at 50 knots! Akula then turned to clear datum at 20 knots to the West.
Sierra was not yet in position but fired one of her 650mm torpedos North at a precisely localised escort, however the other ships were out of range and I decded to sprint in at 35 knots to try to close.
Minutes later an ASROC delivered torpedo hit Sierra, I fired (BOL) all tubes (but therefore the 650mm torpedoes travelled at 30 knots only), and turned South. In the next minutes both Akula and Sierra were hit and sank.
Hermans group now raced NE, towards the coast of Iceland with 5 50 knot monsters in pursuit. One hit a Nixie on Simms, and one hit a cruiser. All other torpedos ran out of fuel.

So I'd now killed two ships at the cost of 3 subs. The two-sub attack was close to perfect, given I was detected before being able to penetrate the formation. In the Oscar attack, I hoped to force a quick finish with Shiwrecks fired from close range, but the air defence was still excellent.

So now we have two SAGs, one 10 ship and one 12 ships, with remaining medium range SSMs, SAMs, and of course Guns (and Herman has a BB in his!)

-- to be continued --

Act IV, The Duel - Conclusion

Having survived a near disastrous submarine attack, we were now moving into the final phase of the battle. The Russians were mostly out of long-ranged munitions. I knew that he had a few Sunburn / Styx salvoes left up his sleeve, but had already expended his more potent Shipwreck and Sandbox.



I kept my ships close together for mutual support since the AEgis cruiser could no longer provide area protection. One CGN Virginia and one CG Leahy still afforded a great defense, though. Since I had longer-ranged weapons, I let loose with a full volley of 80 Harpoons once in range. Unfortunately, there were 2 Slava cruisers and BCGN Frunze in the formation. This meant that there at nearly 200 potent SA-N-6 SAMs alone! I just hoped that they Harpoons would drain his SAMs meaning fewer to engage my ships. As suspected, they were easily swatted aside.



We closed the range so that my SAMs could be used in Anti-Surface mode. I let loose as soon as possible to further drain his SAM inventory. A number of his ships also carried the very effective SA-N-9 Grinch and few of my missiles struck home. Meanwhile, Freek had ordered his gun cruisers off in another direction. While I was focused on delivering my SAM attack on the main body, he had ordered them to sprint towards my main body. With a combined closing speed of nearly 60 knots, a simple moment of inattention was sufficient for them to reach gun range and start delivering fire on my little frigates.

FF Sims was the first to notice shell splashes and turned to flee. Unfortunately, she could only make turns for 29kts and could not even outrun her 32kt attackers. To make matters worse, several hits further reduced her speed. The BB Wisconsin was quick to react; throwing her salvoes towards the Sverdlov-class cruisers. Although her rate of fire was far slower than the cruisers, her 406mm shells were much more powerful. One salvo hit and reduced one target's flotation by 1/3. However, the cruisers continue to pound the frigate mercilessly in hopes of sinking four ships to achieve their Victory Conditions.

The battleship managed to sink the cruisers before they finished their job. I had two frigates sinking quickly, but not yet sunk. At this point, Freek conceded. A really epic battle spanning four days that could have gone either way in a matter of minutes. Thanks for the great game.

It was a fun game!

After my torpedo attack by the wolf pack of three subs I had moved my surface group under EMCON from NE of Iceland to the Faroe Islands.

My intention was to get behind the USN, avoid his Recce helo's and get in close. However at this time suddenly one of my Sovremenny-class destroyers ran out of fuel! With 8 Sunburns on the destroyer I needed her so I switched on my radar to advertise my position.

I then arranged my formation around the stricken Sovremenny for the final fight, heavies up front, thin hulled escorts behind. The treasonous captain of the Sovremenny was loaded on a helicoter and flown to report on Hermans group with a pair of binoculars.

Herman came in and fired his Harpoon/TASMs, which were easily repulsed. My last SSMs left the tube and one hit a Frigate, shich slowly started to flood.

I needed to kill 2 more ships but do it with the 406mm guns of BB Iowa in the enemy SAG!

I detached my two Sverdlovs and as Herman described pounded another his frigates. I saw at least 20 hits out of 152 rounds fired before both cruisers sank.

I had now lost three ships and a fourth was out of fuel waiting to be killed, Herman had lost two with 2 more seriously damaged and flooding.

I conceded defeat, and we discussed the mediocre performance of my Cruiser-shells. It turned out there was a rare error in PDB; the shells were set to 1 dp each, while similar guns on similar ships had 7-13dp! With better 'quality control' in the Soviet shell production I therefore would have likely sank 2 or 3 of the ships that were in range of my cruiser guns. Thus was the realism of the game!

So yes it was VERY close!

Tony for the use of the Server, and Herman for a great game!

Herman, Freek, thanks for an entertaining and informative AAR.

ORIGINAL: Kip

Herman, Freek, thanks for an entertaining and informative AAR.

Yes, indeed! I'm late to responding to this, but it was a fun read.

Let's have some more of these?!

In my (old) version of Harpoon, the Soviet SAG has about 25 nuke-tipped Grumbles. Flying at 3500 nmph, with a 30 nm range, they are unstoppable and outrange the guns on the Iowa. In principle, these missiles should lay waste to the entire NATO SAG. The computer did that to me when I played NATO. When I tried to return the favor, it didn't work; when approaching the NATO SAG, my Soviet fleet was sunk at long range because my air defence didn't shoot (it did shoot the nuclear Grumbles at helicopters, though).

Anyway, it seems to me that NATO will have no chance in this scenario if the Soviets have nuclear release.

This MP match was actually played with the nuclear option enabled and FreekS did fire his nuclear-tipped SS-N-19s at me. One got through and sank a destroyer, IIRC. However, at this time, the PlayersDB does not have a nuclear-tipped SA-N-6 Grumble.

We could set it up for you to test or use, if you are considering making a variant of this scenario.

If you mean that Russia could fire nuclear SAMs in SSM mode, then my experience is that even at fairly short range, NATO jamming prevents the launch of SAMs in SSM-mode. I think the SAM-launching ship has to burn through jamming (in spite of the fact that the enemy is perfectly localised by other units), and that often simply does not happen with NATO ECM. NATO on the other hand did fire SAMs at Russian ships as her radars did burn through the jamming.
 
Freek

I believe, as Herman points out, that I have an older (< 1990) version of the game. In that version, the Grumble SAM does have a nuclear option, and the 3 main Soviet ships carry about 8 each, and they can be fired at surface targets, and there is no ECM that I can control, so they kill things.

Anyway, I won't say more about this, because I do have an earlier version of the game.