Northern Fury 22 - Vagar Vengeance 25/2/94

[fitzpatv]

It would seem that, despite our successful defence of the Faroes in Plug the Gap, the Soviets had since managed to capture them, so an Anglo-French operation is mounted to retake the islands.

To do this, you have two carrier groups, centred on the British Invincible and the French Clemenceau. The former has all of four Sea Harrier fighters with a miserable two AMRAAMs each for air defence, plus seven more with a variety of strike loadouts and some ASW, AEW and SAR choppers. The French task force is obsolete in almost every sense and relies on antique US-made Crusaders with 8nm ranged (not-so) MAGIC missiles for fighter cover and Super Etendards for strikes.

At RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, you have a squadron each of Tornado, Jaguar and Buccaneer attack planes, with elderly Phantoms for escort. The latter have a mix of Sky Flash SARH and Sidewinder missiles and, as I found to my cost, no reloads. There are three Nimrods for ASW and ELINT and a pair each of VC.10 tankers, Sentries and Compass Call EW planes.

As for ordnance, you possess some Martel A.37 and ALARM ARMs with ranges up to 40nm, but nothing else stretches beyond 15nm and most aircraft are stuck with Paveways, bombs and rockets. The briefing warns that the Lossiemouth planes will struggle to operate at night and must therefore attack near the start and the end of the 21-hour scenario.

Elsewhere, you have a convoy of amphibious ships, lightly escorted by a few British destroyers and frigates, which will deliver troops by chopper or boat. Sweeping ahead of them are two more surface forces, one comprising three weak British frigates and the French destroyer Primauguet with almost no air defence worthy of the name and the De Ruyter Group, consisting of five European destroyers and frigates – some with slightly more encouraging capabilities. Rather too many ASW aircraft lack sonobuoys and choppers are in limited supply away from the carriers.

Two diesel subs are near the Faroes, with the British Upholder tasked with inserting SBS teams in the W of the chain and the Danish Narhvalen given a watching brief to the SE.

Several teams of Special Forces are already ashore to provide some intel and targetting.

Against this, the Russians can muster a sobering amount of firepower. They have no less than three SSGNs (an Oscar II, Echo II and Charlie) with 40 anti-shipping missiles between them. A squadron each of MiG-27s and Frogfoots are at Vagar airport for close-range strikes, escorted by another of Flogger Ks. Also on the islands are a number of ASW, AEW and strike choppers. Lurking in Norway are Badgers with Kingfish anti-shipping missiles, potentially escorted by Foxhounds and EW planes and supported by tankers. Needless to say, there are robust SAM defences around Vagar, centred on a Gladiator site with a theoretical range of 45nm and an estimated 36 shots. In the surrounding ocean, there are several ASW patrol craft, a Sierra SSN and at least two diesel subs.

My preliminary analysis of the scenario gave me little confidence that I could win it. There are no victory thresholds set and with good reason. Matters are made worse by an inflexible schedule of AI-controlled Hercules transports flying in towards Vagar to deliver paratroops and 105mm guns. You are warned that losing any of these will cost lots of points.

I opted to keep radars dark wherever possible to delay being detected as far as I could, though this seemed hopeless when there was no choice but to approach the islands. I created ASW Missions for each task group and sent my one initially available Nimrod to screen the convoy first, then help the Invincible group once enough buoys were in place. Balancing the need for speed with the submarine threat, I had my ships move as fast as they could without cavitating. Recon of ground targets was hard without much in the way of suitable aircraft and Soviet CAP needed to be cleared away first in any case.

25/2/94 15:00 : Quickly located a Grisha and three Pauk patrol boats off the S and W coasts of the Faroes, plus three radars (all off) and an HQ bunker ashore. I sent my two Sea Eagle-equipped Harriers after the former, with two fighters for escort, while a pair of Buccaneers with 15nm ranged Martel A.168s and a Tornado with ALARMs went for the radars. Two Phantoms, a VC.10 and a Compass Call provided support.

The Russians launched large numbers of Frogfoots, MiG-27s, Floggers and some choppers and mounted strikes against the Primauguet and De Ruyter groups. The resultant air battle saw us lose two Harriers, one to a 9% shot from the Gladiator site at extreme range, but we downed two Floggers, 11 MiG-27s and 6 Frogfoots, at least half falling to the escorts’ SAMs. NATO air losses mostly score 5VP, while Soviet ones are worth 3. In the course of this, the Grisha and a Pauk thwarted the Sea Eagle strike with their Gecko SAMs.

Meanwhile, a Sierra I was detected by the French destroyer Montcalm and sunk by ASW planes for 10VP.

The Oscar and Echo then opened-up on the De Ruyter group from NE of the islands…

16:00 : Used a Tornado with ALARMs to tease the Gladiator site into wasting ammo, edging in and out of its maximum range, but had to withdraw when more Floggers arrived. It was impossible to get close enough to fire back without taking silly risks.

Meanwhile, a Buccaneer tried a low-level approach from the W and got into range to launch 3 A.168s at a Pauk, radar and Gauntlet site, but all were intercepted by SAMs and the bomber was destroyed on the way out.

The SSGN attack sank the Danish frigate Niels Juel and the Dutch Karel Doorman. This cost me 20VP per ship, plus 10 more for two ASW choppers.

A Flogger made a deep raid into our airspace before being shot down by the destroyer Birmingham, escorting the convoy.

A lone Frogfoot attacked the Primauguet group and sank the frigate Arrow and its chopper before being terminated.

A late-arriving Shipwreck from the Oscar failed to harm De Ruyter, but two more struck telling blows, sinking the British frigate Amazon and the Portuguese corvette Afonso Cerqueira in the Primauguet group. It was proving very hard to attack when being forced to defend all the time.

With the lack of reloads for the Phantoms, I was now left with three of these (one already aloft), three lightly-armed Harriers and the makeweight French Crusaders for air cover, the latter being way off to the W.

17:00 : The airborne Phantom was then hit by a 30% shot from the Gladiator when I was sure it was over 45nm S of the Faroes. I probed the SAM site with another ALARM Tornado and this tended to confirm this impression. The Gladiator was definitely being economical with the rules and, to make things worse, hit the Tornado on a 23% chance. I’ve seen this kind of thing before in other scenarios and it seems there’s a bug here that needs addressing. Maybe the AI works on the basis of the SAM site being an imprecise target from the player’s perspective and takes its best case, but that’s just a guess.

Two Buccaneers attacked the patrol boats with Sea Eagles. The first missile was downed by a Gecko on a 46% shot, the second was jammed on 8% and the third and fourth also failed to get through.

While I was watching this, the Echo fired its last six Sandboxes at the De Ruyter group, thankfully failing to score any hits. Just the Charlie and the Badger strike left.

I then received a warning that the first high-level paradrops were due at 18:30 and 19:00. Fairly sure they’d start from Leuchars instead of just appearing, I put-up two re-armed Harriers in support. On cue, four more Floggers launched. All three Harriers got drawn-in, splashing three MiGs for one of Primauguet’s choppers, which got in the way. The last Flogger was missed by my final pair of AMRAAMs on 56 and 78%, so I had to lure it onto the Invincible group’s SAMs. Even then, it needed two shots to kill.

18:00 : A Hercules duly lifted-off from Leuchars, preceded by one of my two remaining Phantom sorties.

Upholder reached her debarkation zone W of Vagar, which left her needing to wait 10-15 minutes at periscope depth and turn-off her Dive When Threat is Detected setting. She managed to survive, despite the proximity of a couple of Helixes and patrol boats and the SBS men went ashore for 25VP. I moved two of the three human-controlled teams inland to do some damage to radars and SAMs. Upholder, her escape route to the W hazarded by the Grisha and Pauk, aimed instead to slip away to the S.

To help, Primauguet tore-in at Flank and fired four single Exocet shots at the Grisha. Two were downed by SAMs, the third malfunctioned and the last one fell foul of two more Floggers which took-off at the wrong moment. Out of missiles, the destroyer attempted to close with the coast and bombard some SAM sites.

19:00 : Primauguet’s boldness earned her the attention of the Charlie, which sank her with six of its eight Siren missiles. Harshly and without justification, she was classified as a Medium-Value ship and, with her remaining chopper, cost me 45VP. Again, you only find out these things the hard way.

The Phantom running interference for the Hercules disposed of one of the two Floggers currently on patrol, but was left with Sidewinders.

Another ALARM Tornado had been taunting the Gladiator site, but eventually fell to another probably illegal shot and on a 17% chance at that. The SAM site still had 12 of its 36 missiles – more than enough for any Hercules drops. To make it worse, even had I been able to risk getting close enough to fire my ALARMs, the Gladiator was an imprecise target.

Left with three Harriers, all needing to land and re-arm if they weren’t to risk fighting with Sidewinders, plus one Phantom and the Crusaders in reserve, I could see no way to win the scenario. The incoming Hercules was doomed. Going on invited further punishment, so I took an executive decision and aborted the mission.

Maybe I missed something. Maybe NATO isn’t meant to win this scenario. Maybe a bad workman blames his tools. Regardless, I can’t see any way to do better here. Like other scenarios in this series, it may have been designed at a point where jamming and SEAD were a lot more effective than they are now (except for Fencer Fs) and has been unbalanced by rules changes. As it stands, you need lots of weapons that outrange the SAMs or you aren’t going to break them. Low flying was of limited value here, as most loadouts didn’t support it. My inescapable conclusion is that the NATO force simply doesn’t have the wherewithal to do the job.

[AndrewJ]

When I tried this one, six years ago if you can believe it, I found that it was essential to make use of the SBS to sneak around and use their demolition charges to destroy radars, SAM sites, and parked aircraft. I also had to make extensive use of low flying and careful plotting of radar shadows to try and get in close and eliminate airborne search radars and make a concentrated pop-up ARM attack.

Sounds like you're having rotten luck with the SAMs. What altitude are you being engaged at by the SA-12s? I find that at anything beyond medium range, I can usually turn and do an afterburner dive to get below the radar horizon, and thus break lock. Are your planes staying high?

I don't recall the Phantoms being without reloads. Perhaps something didn't translate properly in the conversion from CMANO to CMO?

[fitzpatv]

The SBS had only just made it ashore at the end of the AAR. I'd started moving the two teams on Vagar to attack installations, but they hadn't yet gotten in range. The ones already ashore were under AI control.

I tried low-flying with a Buccaneer equipped with my longest-ranged weapons and it did manage to make an attack, but all three A.168s were stopped by SAMs and, even at 1,000', the plane was lost on the way out. Not sure if this was done by SAMs or two pursuing Floggers.

The aircraft lost to the cheating Gladiator were at 36,000'. I was deliberately moving them into its radius, then scramming at Military to Afterburner speed as soon as they fired. Inevitably, you lose a couple of seconds to your own personal OODA llop each time. Each time I lost a plane, I was certain I was over 45nm from the Faroese coast, so the SAMs were defintely out-of-range. My altitude shouldn't have mattered. As the idea was to get shot-at, evading detection would have been counter-productive.

There simply aren't enough NATO fighters to cope with everything they have to do in this scenario. Perhaps I should have left the De Ruyter group to fend for itself instead of using Phantoms to screen them from the Shipwrecks, but each ship lost costs 20VP or more.

Having three AMRAAMs fail to lock onto their targets and sail wide really hurt when you only have two Surge sorties with a total of eight of the things each, but this is what happened in the duels with the Floggers.

[Gunner98]

Thanks for the report. I'll check the Phantom ammo, from memory I think they should have reloads.

This one is certainly a shoe-string scenario but it should be beatable. It is very possible that changes to the game engine may have impacted the mechanics. I'll give it a look.

B

[fitzpatv]

Gave the scenario another go. This time, I decided that one can’t make this particular omelette without breaking a few eggs and took more risks than I usually do with my units. The exception was the Primauguet Group, which had cost me a lot of points last time for little return and was ordered to fall back on the convoy at the start. For whatever reason, most of the Phantoms DID have reloads this time???

15:00 : The Sierra did no better than last time and was quickly sunk by French ASW planes. Again, the Russians mounted an immediate airstrike with their Faroes-based assets and, in the resultant melee, lost a Flogger, 10 MiG-27s and 7 Frogfoots for one Harrier. As before, the Soviet strike aircraft were too busy going Engaged Defensive to press home their attacks and got nowhere. On the other hand, SSGN attacks cost us the Karel Doorman and her two Lynxes.

NATO counterattacked, with SEAD aircraft going aggressively after the SAMs, while I tried getting some use out of the Crusaders by sending them against the Soviet AEW and ASW choppers. An ALARM Tornado was lost to a Gladiator, which again exceeded its maximum range and two Crusaders were lost, one to SAMs and the other to a Flogger, which it did, at least, manage to take with it. A Super Etendard sank the most Westerly Pauk patrol craft with an Exocet, scoring 5VP.

16:00 : SSGNs sank the Niels Juel at the expense of using-up all of the Echo’s Sandboxes. In retaliation, Buccaneers sank another Pauk and hit the Grisha corvette, which later joined its flotilla-mate on the bottom. In aerial duels, I downed another Flogger, but lost a Phantom in return.

17:00 : Four Floggers made a deep sweep towards the fleet and were all destroyed by fighters and SAMs. My continued use of volleys of ALARMs (aimed at the radiating Back Net radar) was causing the Gladiator batteries (and there are TWO of them) to expend lots of ammo, even if it achieved nothing else. One of the missiles shot down a Tornado.

18:00 : Two Buccaneers were lost to the Gladiators which, by my calculation, now had 10 shots left. Meanwhile, helped by the removal of the patrol craft, barring one, the Upholder landed her SBS teams and slipped away to the West.

19:00 : Coming in low from the West, a Buccaneer finally succeeded in destroying the Back Net, for a WHOLE VP, before being shot down by the penultimate Gladiator. I then used a Phantom to tease out the last shot and it survived to tell the tale. With the most dangerous SAMs out of ammo, the airspace was now a lot safer, but most of my ground attack weapons were only effective close-in and at low altitude.

A Phantom took advantage to get rid of two Helixes. Another then bagged another, plus a Hormone, but then paid the penalty for getting too near a hidden SAM site. By now, the SBS were about their business and one team wrecked a Gauntlet site at the expense of most of its ammo. It was then blasted by Soviet artillery, but ground losses cost no points (each Soviet ground unit destroyed scores one). Hercules transports were now flying in and they succeeded in executing the HAHO parachute insertion for 25VP.

20:00 : An SBS team made a hash of attacking a radar site and fell victim to the naggingly-accurate artillery. More teams arrived by HAHO and three were able to attack, one soon destroying a second dangerous Gauntlet site. Figuring that bombing raids would distract the SAMs from the C-130s, I threw in my Super Etendards with bombs and rockets and Buccaneers with A.168 Martels. One of the latter badly damaged a third Gauntlet site, but the SAMs took down three of the French strike planes. SAS teams eliminated one of the troublesome mortar batteries, but two more were lost to Soviet ground forces. It was very much a case of feeding my infantry into the meat grinder as they became available, as there was no other reliable way of spotting targets.

21:00 : Five more Super Etendards were lost making low-level strikes, but they did maul the parked Soviet planes on the airfield, taking-down 6 Floggers and MiG-27s as well as a radar, BTR-60 and ZSU-23. By now, the Soviets were out of helicopters, as they were picked-off by fighters or smashed on the ground.

The Charlie fired her eight Sirens at the De Ruyter Group, but none got through.

More Hercules landed reinforcements in the Eastern Faroes. For the most part, the sturdy transports were able to absorb hits from MANPADs and ZSU-23s, but one was lost for 10VP. Between them, they landed six batteries of towed 105mm guns, which had to move to get into effective range.

26/2/94 00:00 : The 105s wore away at the Soviet ground forces as far as spotting restrictions permitted. They weren’t immune to being ambushed by hidden Russians as they moved forward and, in the end, only one battery survived the battle.

I eventually readied some more anti-shipping aircraft and, after two Super Etendards made a mess of it, a pair of Buccaneers sank the remaining Pauk (which had made a pain of itself by bombarding my ground forces) and the supply ship Riga, which scored 10VP.

Upholder detected a Tango diesel sub W of the islands, tracked it and called-in a Nimrod, which did the necessary for 10 more VP.

02:00 : Fierce fighting continued ashore, with the well-camouflaged Soviets repeatedly popping-up and trading losses with the advancing British troops. As it was now well into the night, air support was hard to provide.

05:00 : A large force of British paras landed and, with artillery support, broke the back of the Soviet ground resistance around Vagar, though more enemy would continue to surface for a few hours yet. One Hercules was lost to ground fire during the landings.

06:00 : Up to now, things had been going reasonably well and the liberation of the Faroes looked assured. Unfortunately, disaster now struck!. The Oscar woke-up and, attacking simultaneously with a Kilo (which had probably provided it with targetting and had avoided a Nimrod search of its patrol area), wrought havoc amongst the Fearless and Intrepid amphibious groups, now approaching their objectives of Torshavn and Runavik in the East of the archipelago. I did not get the usual Goblin contact warning message and, after a Shipwreck had sunk the frigate Ambuscade, put the loss of the Broadsword down to the same cause. It was, however, the Kilo, which took advantage to get in close and sink Fearless, which cost 120VP. Meanwhile, the Oscar’s Shipwrecks sank Intrepid (120), the amphibs Sir Galahad, Sir Lancelot and Sir Tristram (40 each) the frigates Arrow and Avenger and the Portuguese corvette Baptiste de Andrade (20 each), plus sundry helicopters. I did, at least, belatedly clobber the Kilo with a Nimrod for 10VP.

To stop this sudden onslaught, I had the ships’ inadequate SAMs and three on-hand Harriers and this simply wasn’t enough. Maybe moving the De Ruyter and Birmingham groups closer to the amphibs might have mitigated things somewhat, but I was keeping them to the NE as a picket shield against a Badger strike. The fact is that the amphibious landing (of which more below) is not necessary to liberate the Faroes and my final score would have been MUCH healthier had I simply turned the Fearless and Intrepid groups around and sent them South at the outset – but hindsight is a fine thing and that wouldn’t have been in the spirit of the scenario. It is, however, the way to ‘win’ this.

There was more consolation when a Nimrod, searching for the SSGNs NE of the islands, found and sank the Charlie for 20VP.

07:00 : Continued to mop-up Soviet ground units as they emerged from hiding, fanning my paras out across Vagar. The amphib Sir Percival was still afloat, with the destroyer Bristol for escort, so I tried to get her to Runavik as ordered, only to be frustrated when the approach to the landing zone, though marked as water on the map, proved to be classified as forest!!. The ships couldn’t get through…

09:00 : All organised ground resistance on the Faroes ceased with the destruction of the last BTR-60 unit. There was still a Spetsnaz team somewhere but, with Hercules continuing to bring-in supplies in relays, the islands were back in NATO hands.

10:00 : A Frogfoot absurdly scrambled from Vagar airfield, which was rationally in British hands and got far enough to be shot down by a Sea Dart. For some time, a Sentry had been observing a gaggle of Badgers SW of Bodo in Norway but, for whatever reason, they didn’t attack. Perhaps they were meant to go after Fearless and Intrepid or maybe they simply lacked targetting data?.

So it ended with an abject score of minus 380 (no victory thresholds set), mainly due to the losses to the Shipwrecks and Kilo. Despite this, there was no question that the Faroes had been liberated – at a steep price.

NATO losses came to 7 frigates and corvettes, two landing ships, 3 other amphibs, 9 fighters, 13 bombers, 14 choppers, two Hercules and 59 ground elements. The USSR lost an SSGN, SSN, two diesel subs, a merchant ship, 4 patrol craft, 11 fighters, 20 bombers, 16 choppers, a bunker, 5 radars, a jamming vehicle, 40 SAM elements and 94 other ground elements.

[Gunner98]

Wow, thanks for the second report. I'll have to check that landing area. The scenario was built in CMANO and CMO uses different maps so that is probably the issue.

Although you won't appreciate it, I'm glad that the Oscar ambush worked. The Bombers are supposed to attack either the amphibs or the carriers but probably didn't have good enough targeting data.

Thanks again.

B

[fitzpatv]

Being a glutton for punishment, I played it again just to prove that I could beat it. This time, I moved the amphibs and SAGs away to the S and relied entirely on the paradrop to take the islands. The Oscar and Echo duly emptied their magazines at the De Ruyter group, but they weathered the storm reasonably well and only lost the Doorman and Niels Juel.

I then went in hard on the SAMs as before and quickly exhausted the Gladiators by firing ALARMs and AS.37s at the Back Net. Strikes with A.168s and French carrier planes then softened-up the other defences, at a price, so that the paras and SAS got ashore intact, with no Hercules losses. It was then a methodical process of hunting-down the hidden Russian ground forces on the island, which was eventually accomplished.

At sea, airstrikes accounted for all of the enemy surface ships and I tracked-down and sank the Tango and Charlie, as well as the hapless Sierra at the start. The Kilo is extremely elusive and I never managed to find it - does it have an Ace crew?.

As before, the Badgers had nothing to aim at and never appeared.

Final score this time was +187, with slightly lower air and ground losses, much lower shipping losses and much the same damage as before inflicted on the Soviets.

Overall, it's one of those scenarios where a little foreknowledge goes a long way and it is correspondingly difficult to win 'sight unseen'. Given the approach detailed above, it is very winnable. Obeying orders and sticking to the prescribed plan can land you in a world of trouble.

Anyway, time to move on - at last.

[Gunner98]

Thanks for the persistence Vince.

I think I need to go back and adjust the scoring a little.

Cheers