South China Clash 2015

[fitzpatv]

In this one, China encroaches on Scarborough Shoal (aka the Huangyan Islands), to the W of Luzon (Philippines) in a dispute over fishing rights. Matters escalate and Chinese and Filipino patrol boats come to blows, drawing-in the US. It's possible to play as either side, but I chose the Americans for my first playthrough.

US forces are stretched thin. You have the Arleigh Burke AEGIS destroyer Halsey, a couple of Littoral Combat Ships (Freedom and Fort Worth), the SSN Hawaii and a selection of aircraft and UAVs spread from Okinawa to Guam to Singapore. A couple of Filipino patrol boats and a Fokker Friendship recon plane can assist, after a fashion, under AI control. Ranged against you are five Chinese destroyers, frigates and corvettes with long-ranged missiles, a diesel-electric sub with more of the same, plus aircraft based relatively nearby in the Paracels and Hainan.

The Halsey is a useful asset, but is essentially defensive in a naval action and lacks the means to take-down enemy ships. The best that can be said for the LCSs is that they have some SAMs and can run fast. Hawaii has only torpedoes to use against surface targets and stands little chance of getting near enough against the Chinese ASW choppers and Jiangkai-class frigates with 70nm sonar and 30nm ASROCs. The Filipinos are lightweight, exposed and almost certain to be destroyed.

Things look better in the air, if you can just hang on long enough to bring your planes to bear. The UAVs are recon-only. You have one serviceable ASW chopper on the Halsey, plus a trio each of Orions on Okinawa and Poseidons at Singapore. The latter can also attack ships with Harpoons, but those on the Orions can't outrange the 80nm HQ9A SAMs on the Chinese flagship, a powerful Luyang-class destroyer. Also at Singapore are eight Super Hornets, which have AMRAAMs for air-to-air combat and a split of HARMs and long-ranged AGM84K Harpoons for use against ships. Vitally, you also have an abundance of Stratotankers to help them into and out of the combat zone.

Starting at zero, the US needs +2,000 VP to win, but you are going to lose 600 when the Chinese take-out the Filipinos.

Began by launching a Triton UAV from Guam to back-up the one already off Luzon. These birds have excellent endurance and surface search capability. I also put-up a Fire Scout from an LCS to supplement these and scrambled an Orion from Okinawa to enhance my ASW ability. One of the two Stratotankers already on station looked too close to the Chinese base in the Paracels, so I moved it away. Steered Halsey towards the Shoal at Creep with radars on and moved the LCSs closer under her SAM umbrella. Hawaii started just above the layer at Creep. Expecting the Chinese Jiangnu Coast Guard frigate reported near the Shoal to attack the Filipinos, I also launched Halsey's Hellfire-toting Seahawk to engage her, as she carried no SAMs.

Presently, numerous Chinese fishing boats were detected near the Shoal, followed by the Jiangnu. This promptly attacked the Filipino patrol boat Artemio Ricarte, overwhelming her with her heavier guns, but failing to maintain stand-off and taking damage in return. Before sinking, Ricarte lost comms, which oddly meant I could get no info on her status, even though I had a Triton UAV watching the action. The Seahawk closed and crippled the frigate with her Hellfires, enabling the second Filipino vessel, the Emilio Jacinto, to finish the job. Unfortunately, Jacinto was then blown apart by a ship-killing missile fired by undetected enemy vessels (the Luyang's YJ-62 weapons outrange US shipboard radar). Overall, a net loss of 100 VP.

The Chinese then sent six leading-edge Vigorous Dragon fighters on a crazy attack run against the US ships. Halsey slaughtered them with her SAMs for 600 VP. Terrible waste of good aircraft, especially as it turned-out they didn't have any more.

Various long-range missile attacks then came-in against the US squadron, but they were uncoordinated, with just 2-3 to a batch. Fort Worth did well to stop a pair fired at her, while Halsey was able to cope with the rest. However, she only had so many SAMs and one pair of missiles needed EIGHT shots to destroy at chances of 58% and better. With that kind of luck, it was clear that I couldn't chance prolonging the engagement. Being faster than the Chinese ships, I fled S towards Palawan.

As I did so, I hurled Tom Cruise missiles from Halsey and Hawaii at the enemy radar and SIGINT stations on Woody Island in the Paracels, rubbing them out for 300 useful VP. Shame these models of Tomahawks are no use against ships. This had the further beneficial effect of distracting a wave of Flounder attack planes, some of which hared-off in vain pursuit of the Tomahawks. The two that didn't died (200 more VP), but this further depleted my SAMs. Another two were used-up bringing down a stupid Cub recon plane that wandered into my umbrella. Another 200 VP, 16 SAMs left.

By now, the cavalry were arriving. My advance Orion engaged a Jiangdao corvette that was unwisely pushing ahead of the rest of the Chinese squadron without the SAM cover to get away with it indefinitely. It stopped this attack, but was then demolished by a trio of Poseidons coming-up from Singapore (300 VP). Better still, the patrol planes also found the enemy Yuan-class sub lurking nearby (having launched missiles at me). As usual, a detected sub rapidly became a dead one (300 more VP).

Meanwhile, the Filipino Fokker Friendship had been stooging around under AI control and, inevitably, committed suicide by getting too close to the SAMs on the main Chinese force, now located to the NW. This cost me 200 VP.

By now, my tanker-supported Super Hornets were on the case. They quickly cleared a second Cub and the deceased Jiangdao's Helix chopper from the skies (300 VP total).

I didn't think I had much chance of success, but felt I had to try to attack the Chinese with the long-ranged Harpoons on four of the Super Hornets. This involved a lot of pain. First, the attack didn't happen because I hadn't realised my planes' radars were off, then they went Bingo fuel and needed to find a tanker. By the time they'd done this, a third Cub had turned-up and began randomly wandering around inside the enemy SAM umbrella, dodging the one AMRAAM I got off at it before it reached this cover. The wretch then messed-up my second attempt to attack the ships by causing my Super Hornets to go Engaged Offensive against it and ignore my orders. Unassigned them in time to prevent them becoming SAM-fodder. When the Cub eventually got out of the way, I was finally able to attack. The Chinese ships had their radars off, reacted too slowly and lost the flagship and one Jiangkai frigate, much to my astonished delight.

The remaining Jiangkai was now exposed and I launched a pincer attack with two Orions, backed-up by a quartet of Super Hornets with HARMs in case she turned her radars on. She did, but it availed her not, as the Orions proved sufficient. Indeed, the Chinese SAMs launched too late to save the ship, but in time to knock down some of the HARMs!!

With the annoying Cub duly dispatched and points added for choppers that went down with the ships, this took the score on to 3,200 and a Major Victory. With no further Chinese moves, it remained to shepherd all my planes home with tanker support and endure a blizzard of irritating 'civilian' contacts as I ran down the clock. Put Hawaii over the Shoal, just to make a point. She hadn't been much use for anything else!.

I was surprised to win that easily, to be honest. The AI didn't perform very well at all, throwing away air superiority early-on and failing either to coordinate its attacks properly or protect its ships. I'll see if I can do any better and post again with an account from the Chinese perspective. A tutorial apart, this will be the first time I've run a Chinese force in CMO, which should be interesting.

[Eboreg]

Interesting...

When I played this scenario, I deliberately flew Tomahawks over the PLAN task force to get them to waste their SAMs. That left them completely defenseless when the aircraft came in for the attack. Also, if you're having problems with aircraft trying to hit the tankers before they attack, you can go to their doctrines and temporarily tell them that they're not allowed to refuel or RTB when Bingo Fuel.

[fitzpatv]

Thanks as always. I actually thought of the ploy with the Tomahawks, but in the context of firing them at the Woody Island or Hainan airfields and routing them over the Chinese ships. When I found I couldn't target the single-unit airfields, I scrapped the plan. Guess I could have sent them on a flight to nowhere instead?.

[fitzpatv]

Anyway, I've now played it again as the Chinese. Not easy.

There are pluses and minuses to playing this side. On the upside, the AI isn't capable of organising the Super Hornet/tanker strike from Singapore. It will just send-out Poseidons and Orions singly. Also, it won't launch Tomahawks at your shore facilities. Finally, you get a generous number of aircraft sorties (three each for the Flounders and apparently unlimited for the Vigorous Dragons).

On the downside, the Coast Guard frigate Changsha is under AI control and very hard to keep afloat. Worse, the victory conditions penalise you severely for any losses and are quite mean about enemy losses, too. Your ASW is limited, with the Helix having no suitable weapons (or change loadout), the two Dauphin choppers just one torpedo each and the Jiangkai frigates actually having no ASROCs mounted. You need a lot of patience to win.

Started by putting-up a Cub for recon, a Dauphin for ASW patrol and two Vigorous Dragons for CAP (one NW and one SE of Woody Island), being careful to keep planes out of the Halsey's 130nm SAM radius (of which more later). Decided to have radars ON to avoid what had happened to the Chinese in my first game. Also put all my ships on Weapons Hold for surface combat to stop them wasting missiles.

The Emilio Jacinto opened hostilities by firing on the Changsha, so we had the moral high ground. The Jiangnu corvette Qingyuan (hastening under the main squadron's SAM cover), put the Filipino away with a YJ-83, then did the same to the Artemio Ricarte before either had done much damage. This scored 200VP total. Qingyuan tried-out the LCS Fort Worth with her remaining two missiles, but these fell to SAMs. I then evacuated Qingyuan away to the N and she played no further role.

The Hellfire Seahawk attacked Changsha, doing 48% damage. Could do nothing about this, as you can't give the frigate any orders. Meanwhile, my fighters found and destroyed a Triton (50VP)and an incautious Stratotanker (200VP), which was flying up the coast of Vietnam for some reason.

Sent my four YJ-83 and two Krypton HARM Flounders to attack the Fort Worth, which was recklessly powering ahead. Thought 12 missiles would do the trick but, despite having a range of just 10nm, the target's SAMs kept her from harm.

The LCS Freedom then closed with the Changsha, taking advantage of her damage to sink her, though she took damage in return and lost a hosted Fire Scout. This cost me a painful net 550VP, which was harsh, considering that I had no control over the frigate.

One of my fighters shot down an Orion near Luzon for 200VP and another accounted for a Poseidon approaching from the SW for similar reward. However, this was cancelled-out when Halsey shot-down my Cub, which I was sure was out of its effective range. This left the score negative and in Defeat territory.

A stalemate ensued, with neither side able to lay a glove on the other. Eventually got the score positive by downing a second Orion, the fighter having to finish the job with cannon after four missiles had failed.

A Poseidon then got close enough to the squadron to launch Harpoons at us, having come-in under Halsey's shield. All missiles were shot-down. As the Poseidon withdrew, I caught it with a fighter. Missed twice with PL-12 missiles. A civilian aircraft then confused matters by appearing right next to the target. I cursed, waited, then finished the job with a short-range PL-8.

Meanwhile, there were several submarine contacts and one was moving fast enough to be the Hawaii. It was at this point that I realised that I had no ASROCs and, as fate would have it, no choppers available either (it had been the Helix's turn on patrol). No choice but to have the squadron alter course away N at speed. As I did so, I lost patience and fired 24 missiles at the Halsey. None got through. The log showed 24 hits with 25 SAMs at 79% chances, which was pretty damned impressive, as was the defensive rate-of-fire. Down to 100mm guns, the squadron had to disengage.

The Hellfire Seahawk tried to pursue and paid the price for its folly (100VP). A third Poseidon then appeared and was knocked-down by CAP. A third Orion proved much more trouble, coming-in under AEGIS cover and somehow avoiding giving my SAMs a clear enough target until she'd loosed her outranged Harpoons. None got through. The Orion then started searching worryingly close to my Yuan-class sub, which had been trying hard to sneak out of a very exposed situation. Went after it with my CAP, but it took two Vigorous Dragons and a lot of pain to eliminate it after it survived a direct missile hit. CAP also got rid of a second Triton.

With the Flounders now available again, I sent the YJ-83 types at the Halsey, but to no avail. Freed of the Orion, the sub followed-up with four YJ-82s, but Halsey stopped these as well (note that the missiles start on magazines and have to be loaded). She then took another out-of-range shot at a Cub, but fortunately missed this time (I'd earlier had to get a fighter away from a similarly dodgy shot on afterburner - I've seen this kind of thing happen before in other scenarios). Had mild consolation by nailing the third and last Triton.

After a bit of a wait, I mounted a third YJ-83 Flounder strike on the Halsey. Ironically, she again fired when out of range, but I escaped and these proved to be her last SAMs (56 total). Eight missiles blew her out of the water for 850VP, including her ASW Seahawk. This made the score 1750, which was still Average.

Improved this a bit when my CAP, now given the run of the map, put away the Filipino recon Fokker, which had not committed suicide and stayed well within Halsey's protection hitherto. Still needed to find another 150 points from somewhere.

I had two Krypton Flounders available, so I sent them against the Fort Worth (the Freedom had vanished some time ago). One of my four missiles scored a hit, probably because the target had run out of SAMs. This left her down to 4 knots and the Yuan was able to close at speed (fighters riding shotgun in case of the fourth Poseidon) and sink her with torpedoes. This made the score 2,250 (allowing for two Fire Scouts destroyed with the ship) and I even got another 50 when Freedom's second UAV crashed for some reason, possibly damage done by Changsha. So, a Minor Victory. A Major would be very difficult to achieve.

Overall, a good hard contest, which showed how difficult AEGIS ships are to sink. It was also an illustration of the stealth qualities of the LCS vessels, which proved very hard to find with radar after their own sensors had been switched-off or destroyed. The scenario also suggested that, in 2015 at least, the PLAN still had work to do on ASW defence.

[Eboreg]

Nice AAR, it really had me on the edge of my seat.

I spent part of it thinking you weren't going to pull it off.