Desert Storm 91 revised

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the opening game positions of the two forces at the start. This situation just cries out for a flanking maneuvor to head north on
the west end of the front lines and outflank and isolate the Iraq dudes. I have upped the values of the supply points and my main
objective is to see if this thing is playable still. It's one of the classic scenario's designed by Wild Bill Wilder and there's only 10 turns in
the entire scenario. These are jam packed turns though. I thought I'd document my discoveries as I find them.

The first thing to do is take a look around to see what weapons the Iraq dudes must be divested of in turn 1. Shumway suggested that
the scuds might be a good first turn target since they are in range of the Allied B-52's on Diego Garcia. Let's see what else we find.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the Carrier Action Group America. There are three squadrons aboard and the situation is similar w/ the other two carrier action
groups in this off-map area. I'm planning on using the Tomcats against Iraq's fighters and the intruders will go after high value targets
where ever they are. One thing the coalition has is boucou planes. And tanks, we got tanks.

[larryfulkerson]

Also in the lower left of the map are six squadrons of Allied planes. One of the squadrons is mislabeled saying it's F-111's and really
has F-10's in the unit. I wonder if that's enough of a bug to fix it. I'd probably break something else if I tried to fix the name.

[larryfulkerson]

And a little further to the east we have the Sea Harriers and the Wild Weasels (F-4G). I'm not real sure how I can use the Harriers
but they are Marine Air and I have to use them somewhere. They don't want to be left out of the party.

[larryfulkerson]

And the lower right corner of the map holds the off-map area that contains an assortment of various kinds of planes. This looks like that
drawer you have in your kitchen that you throw all kinds of stuff into. I'm sure we can find a mission for each of the planes. I'm thinking
of devoting several rounds of the first turn to do nothing but air strikes.

[larryfulkerson]

So I started looking through all the Allied units and I've come to the VII Corps HQ unit. Look at all the stuff is crammed into this HQ. It's a
far cry from the simple HQ's we used in, say, FITE. This HQ even has Hawk missles for the air threats. MP's, engineers, this HQ
does it all. I'm impressed.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the formation that the VII Corps is in charge of. Lot's of Cavalry, engineers, field artillery, and the helicopters to move all that
stuff. The kinds of things you would find in your typical Corps HQ is here in abundance. Somebody did their homework to get the OOB
correct.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the 101st Airmobile Division. It's got stuff that I need to really step out there into the hinterlands of Iraq. I'm not sure what the
supply situation will be w/ no LOC to the target destination. I'm guessing I'll need to invade and capture one of the supply points way
out there in Iraq. Anybody have an opinion of what to do w/ them?

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the British 1st Armoured Division, which is in Reserve status and becomes active on turn 2. I'm going to use them as the 2nd
wave that heads north and into the mass of the Iraq dudes. I'm hoping to be able to carve LOC's in the mass of Iraq soilders and isolate
them from Iraq before I destroy them.

[larryfulkerson]

The French have sent to the Coalition the 6th Lt Division. They look to be mechanized and so I'm going to use them to see if they
can't open a path to the north around the left side of the Iraq positions.

[larryfulkerson]

But that's enough looking through the Allied inventory. Let's look at some Iraq stuff. This is the 45th Division and I assume this is the
typical Division w/ some arty, a tank unit, and 9 batallions of troops. I was thinking of maybe doing air strikes on the HQ unit of the
Iraq divisions to drive them into Reorg but I see the ZSU-37 and ZSU-57 and I'm thinking maybe I'll let the rocket arty take them on.
The idea is not to lose any people in this exercise.

[larryfulkerson]

I've found an Iraq Division that has a Scud detachment. These are the guys I need to take out on turn 1 so that they can't be used on
my ships or planes off-map. I've got B-52's at Diego Garcia which is indeed within range of Iraq Scuds. Taking out all the scuds is a
must.

[larryfulkerson]

There was two points I wanted to make about this view of the Iraq inventory. There's less than 7K squads total and I'll have to destroy
about 30 per turn to keep up w/ his production of them. I'm guessing that's possible and I'm going to try to do it. The second thing was
the 18 Scuds that are assigned. I don't want to look through all those Iraq stacks looking for the scuds and as soon as I find the 18th
one I'll know I can quit looking for them. You might think this is gamey of me to know how many there are before the game starts but I'm
thinking that our intelligence service has found and plotted all of them during the 6 months of Desert Shield relative inactivity.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the entire Iraqi Air Force. I'm pretty sure that air strikes on these bases will evaporate the planes but I've not performed an air
strike in this scenario yet so we'll see won't we? The idea is to take out these jet planes on turn 1 and keep monitoring the base to see
if there's ever an Iraqi air plane spawn at the base.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm posting this to document where the scud detachments are so I can find them when I attack them. Now you know where they are too.

[larryfulkerson]

So I'm through screwing around and I'm actually looking for units to move in a meaningful way. Give 'em a mission. I'm going through the
OOB moving units ( I haven't moved anybody yet however ) and I've come to some helicopters ( Longbow's ) and I think I should take out
the Iraqi Air Force before I try flying the helicopters, and I may as well give all the other planes their missions while I'm at it and hopefully
there won't be much turn burn by these air strikes. The good thing about taking out the Iraqi Air Force early is that nobody will have to
be on air superiority missions and I can put the fighter-bombers on combat support or interdiction or both.

[larryfulkerson]

I was looking at the B-52's on Diego Garcia and on a whim decided to check the supply there and D'oh, there's no supply. So I'll have to
fly those B-52's to some other area and forget about using Diego Garcia. Something else to fix about the scenario before I play it again.
Come to think of it.....I haven't moved anybody yet, I'll go fix it and use the updated version and not have to move the B-52's.

[larryfulkerson]

Okay, I've fixed the scenario's supply problem at Diego Garcia.

This is a list of the coalition air assets. The helicopters are lumped in on this list making it convienient to be able to find them. I'm
going to use the B-52's on the Iraqi Air Force bases but I'm going to escort them w/ some F-15E's to make the mission survivable.
After the Iraqi Air Force is no longer an issue then I'll unleash the helicopters on the armoured columns specifically the tanks. And
all the misc. aircraft can target the arty.

[sPzAbt653]

Nice work Mr. Fulkerson ! I used to play this one a lot back in the day, and I had a modified version but that is long lost.

I just checked and Diego Garcia is 4500 km from Kuwait, so you could put a distance of 199 on those air bases, which should prevent the Scuds from reaching them.

[larryfulkerson]

I've just discovered that there's also some F-117's in the inventory. It's got an impressive defensive strength and I'm thinking I can use
the F-117's to take out one of the Iraqi Air bases. Or see what happens when I try.