Pac-22 Submitted to CSP

[Gunner98]

OK guys here is the last in the series of current events scenarios Pac-22

You are the Commander of ABECSG (USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) Carrier Strike Group) working the the Western Pacific. The area is part of 7th Fleet's area but since the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) is undergoing an annual refit in its forward deployed homeport of Yokosuka Japan, the Abe Strike Group, based in San Diego is patrolling the area instead. If war in Europe breaks out your task is to prevent any Russian naval units from breaking out into the Pacific and to neutralize any military facilities on the Kuril Islands. Although not a NATO area of responsibility, your operations will be coordinated with actions in Europe, particularly as the US's major allies in the area, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, will not participate in any conflict with Russia.


As always I look forward to your comments, critiques and suggestions.

Enjoy

Version 2.1 loaded - final

[HalfLifeExpert]

Sweet! I've been waiting for this one!

Unfortunately I won't be tackling it this evening because i'm recovering from a cold and don't have the mental energy to properly play Command.

But I will print out the Briefing and study the initial setup!

[Gunner98]

That should sort it right out!

Get better soon.

[HalfLifeExpert]

I've loaded this up and I've started the clock. Nothing has really happened yet but I have a couple things to bring up:

1) I guess you built this scenario out of the Mediterranean one, because all of the pre-made missions for that scenario are still listed in the Mission Editor

2) I remember hearing about some Russian Amphibious assets departing the Far East to join operations in Ukraine last month, was that before or after the date this scenario takes place?

If it happened around the same time, might make a neat side objective for this scenario (or it's own mini-scenario) to find and sink those assets on the high seas.

[Gunner98]

Bugger, missed that.

This is after the Varyag (Slava class) and other ships left and were in the Med. The only amphibious ships that left were some months ago I believe, before the Varyag left, I think they did an exercise in the Med and then went into the Black sea before the war. If there were some others, I might have missed them.

B

[Gunner98]

Any thoughts on this one guys?

[kgambit]

Just started this one and I'm about 6 hours in. Russians are hostile (no surprise). Lost 1 Lightning so far but have shot down 12 Su-35s and 6 Mig-31s in exchange. Sunk 2 frigates, 1 Udaloy and 1 Sev and an SSV is about to meet some MMTs up close and personal. No sign of the Russian subs yet.

No issues so far.

[Gunner98]

Thanks, not meeting the subs is disappointing. Will have to tighten that up, they can really lay a number on you...

Thanks for the update

[maverick3320]

Bart,

Tough scenario. I have 16 hours left to go and just lost the bulk of my carrier group.

A few hours ago 70+ missiles were fired at the CVBG from a range of 100 miles from the east; thankfully, I had my AWACs out there, expecting an Oscar strike given the scenario intel. A combination of SAMs and the CAP take them all out. A few minutes after most of my theater CAP was drawn off to intercept a strike of 20+ Fullbacks going after my SAG in the Tshushima straight; thankfully, the strike was broken up with no damage.

Immediately after that (Man, Russians have apparently become extremely good at coordinating theater wide strikes!) 12 Backfires fire off 48 Kinzals at the CVBG from the vicinity of Iturup air base.

As soon as the Kinzhals are fired, the CVBG fires SM-3s, many of which go flying all over the map after we lose radar coverage. Once they are re-spotted, there aren't enough to stop the Kinzhals. The CVBG then runs out of SM-6s; The Mobile Bay is struck first, and then the rest of the escorts start to fall, and finally the Lincoln is hit. I saw the Backfires coming, but after 8 hours into the scenario I haven't been able to destroy all of the 24 Su-35s at Iturup yet, let alone degrade the associated SAM net. So with targeting data, and with the subs starting right next to the CVBG, and with no good way to intercept the Backfires before firing, it comes down to the CVBG SAMs versus the Kinzhals. The SM-3 Blk IBs never fired which left 30 SM-3 Blk IIAs versus 48 Kinzhals, most of which as mentioned went wonky as soon as the Kinzhals were launched. The SM-6s did okay, but without a perfect intercept vector, their 1700 kt speed couldn't do much to the 4000+ kt ballistic missiles, and eventually we ran out of those too.

I took a peek under the hood. The Russians start with 5 subs within 200 miles of the CVBG to start the scenario, including two Oscars within firing range, which is tough given the CVBG is somewhat locked into a path given the 24 hour scenario duration and the mission being due north. Russians appear to have exact targeting data on the CVBG (and other ships) throughout the scenario; I've kept my CVBG under total EMCON but it looks like it's satellite targeting data anyway, so not much we can do there. I'm not an expert on the US advanced SAMs, so I kept most of them on auto-fire, but adjusted ranges down to 75%.

I'm fairly new to this era of scenarios, as I'm still working through the -Fury series. Should I be trying to "juke out" the satellites? Should I change some of the US SAM settings?

Any tips on this one?

[Gunner98]

Thanks for the report - I see that in your case the sub ambush worked. I am not an expert on the newer SAMs either so I'll be glad to take advice on that. From your comments, I think switching out the SM-3 IBs for IIAs would help, not sure why they wouldn't fire. I could also reduce the number of Backfires, was being generous there I think.

Do you ever get a targeting solution on a satellite? One of the SAMs is ASAT capable, but that would be pretty escalatory.

Any idea why you lost radar coverage of the Kinzhals? Perhaps there is something I could add in that would keep tracking them throughout flight - I put Cobra Dane in to do just that but I guess it didn't work.

Thanks again

B

[AndrewJ]

"Hypersonic contacts inbound, sir!"

"Shoot! SHOOT!"

[AndrewJ]

SITUATION

We’re a few hours away from imposition of a no-fly zone in Ukraine, and the Russian’s aren’t expected to take it well. Here, in the waters around Japan, we’ve been ordered to prepare for strikes against Russian forces in and around the Kuriles, and to defend ourselves against any offensive actions they might take. Targets on the Russian mainland are off limits, and I’m quite content to keep it that way.

The Japanese are sitting this one out, so we’ve only got our own forces on hand. Our biggest stick is the Lincoln carrier group, south of Honshu. We’ve got 7 warships in the Sea of Japan; two pairs (TG 70.1, and 70.3), mostly Burkes, are operating in the Tsushima straits, another pair of Burkes (TG 70.2) are up near the north end of Honshu, and there’s a lone little Floreal helplessly in the middle. We’ve got land-based air at Misawa (F-16s), a pile of F-15s down at Kadena, and some P-8s at Atsugi, plus a scattering of support aircraft here and there. Best of all, we’ve got a bunch of F-22s and tankers up at Eareckson on Shemya, and they will be quite welcome. On the sneaky side, we’ve got four subs, and one of them’s an SSGN packed to the gills with TLAMs, which should make a useful contribution.



The Russian forces have one main airbase in the Kuriles, on Iturup, with heavy SAM defences there and on several other islands, plus multiple airbases on the mainland, particularly in the Vladivostok and Kamchatka areas. We’re expecting numerous high-end Sukhois in Vladivostok and Iturup, plus MiG-31s at Vladivostock and Kamchatka. Their airborne strike potential is based around Su-34s (maybe targeting bases on Japan?) and Tu-22s from the mainland, and MiG-31Ks with nasty Kinzhal ballistic missiles up in Kamchatka. We can probably expect cruise-missile attacks from land-based SSM units too.

At sea, they have no warships bigger than a destroyer, although some of the frigates pack a mean punch from their Sizzler missiles. Intel suggests four warships around Vladivostok, and another two or three up near the Kuriles. More worryingly, there’s three Kilos lurking out there in various choke points, an Akula east of Japan, and a pair of Oscars out in the Pacific somewhere. The unexpected arrival of a combined salvo from them could be very difficult.


PLAN

I see no need to bring the carrier group north, through the enemy subs and towards the MiG-31Ks and forces on Iturup. I have tankers to give me long legs, and I intend to use them! The carrier group is ordered to turn north-west and head towards Japan. That should give me a solid wall of radars and political obstacles on the west side, and allow me to bias my E-2s east, towards potential Oscar strikes, while at the same time letting me cover my southern TGs and strike enemy ships in the Vladivostok area.

The two TGs in the Tsushima Straits are ordered to hurry towards each other and form up in missile-defence configuration, which should be fairly robust. They’ll get an F-15 CAP too, for some added protection. The lone little Floreal is ordered to head SSW towards the Japanese coast, as fast as its little engines can push it. TG 70.2, up near the north end of Honshu, is in an awkward place. They’re 500 miles away from the other task groups, and well within range of Russian land-based air. Going SW towards the other ships feels rather risky. Instead, they are ordered to dash NE, into the straits between Honshu and Hokkaido, and take up positions inside Mutsu Bay. From there they will provide SAM cover for nearby Misawa airbase, and get fighter cover in return.



I am quite concerned by the Kinzhal-bearing MiG-31Ks in Kamchatka, so the F-22s on Shemya are ordered to set up an ambush. By the time the NFZ is announced they will be loitering over the Pacific south of Kamchatka, with tankers in attendance. If any MiGs come south, the Raptors will be poised to pounce on them before they can get within range of our carrier.

Staff are also working on details of the main strike. This is intended to be a heavy cruise-missile barrage, aimed at Iturup airbase and the major SAM sites in the Kuriles, arriving in the early hours of the night to take advantage of the darkness. Follow-up strikes will happen next morning, if necessary. Anti-shipping activity is considered a secondary priority, and coordinated anti-shipping strikes are unlikely to happen before the next day.

[AndrewJ]

INITIAL OPERATIONS

AEW and recce planes start spreading out, as ships turn to their new courses, and within a few minutes we get an alarming bit of news. One of the P-8s radios in that the Floreal is headed straight towards a Udaloy that’s in the middle of the Sea of Japan. It’s bigger, nastier, and faster than we are. Our little ship immediately changes course, turning east away from the enemy, and hoping that they haven’t spotted us. Fortunately, the Udaloy seems to be headed north towards Vladivostok, and it doesn’t follow our fleeing frigate, which continues to head for Japan. (It eventually reaches the coast a few hours later, and hides there for the rest of the scenario.)

Meanwhile, the P-8s start hunting subs. One sets up a zone in the Tsushima straits, which are full of floating trash of all sorts, but so far there’s no sign of the Kilo which is reportedly in the area. The other sets up a series of sonobuoy barrier lines east of Japan. This is the area where another one of the Kilos and probably the Akula are said to be operating, and maybe an unknown Oscar too? Once the buoys are deployed it loiters at high altitude to monitor the situation.

Assorted reports start coming in about enemy activity. It looks like there are a few MiG-31s patrolling over the Russian mainland, and some Su-35s offshore near Vladivostok, where we’re also getting a few ship contacts, as expected. It looks like some ASW Bears are patrolling over the Sea of Okhotsk, where we won’t be allowed to engage them, and we get ESM reports of three more warships operating west of the Kuriles.

Our best recce comes from an F-35, which goes flying up Japan and along the Kuriles, using its excellent sensor suite to pinpoint air defenses on Kunashir and Iturup. The area is crawling with AAA, and SAMs, just like intel predicted. We’re not being particularly stealthy (radar on, medium altitude, clear sunny day, not far offshore), so they spot us easily, and a pair of Su-35s come up to glare at our shiny new F-35. I would like to push on for a look at Matua, but time’s running out and hostilities are imminent. The F-35 turns and heads out to sea, looking for those tankers which are out there somewhere, while the Su-35s turn back and resume their patrols.


HOSTILITIES OPEN

The No Fly Zone goes into effect at 0600Z, and shortly after that we start seeing swarms of MiG-31s lifting off from their Kamchatka airbase. The war order comes a few minutes later, and the four F-22s and the F-35 (which was sharing their tanker) go tearing into the pack of them, exploiting their stealth to the fullest. They manage to rack up a very impressive kill count, claiming a dozen or so of the heavy planes, but their victims all seem to be fighters, and our pilots don’t spot any MiG-31K Kinzhal carriers. Did we miss them in the confusion, or are they still in reserve?

Down south, our other F-35s are trying to provoke the MiG-31s in the Vladivostok area to come out and play, but with limited initial success, and the MiGs remain aloof. Fuel starts dwindling, and our planes will have to go home soon, so they’re vectored towards the Su-35s which are CAPing just offshore. Killing the pair of Sukhois gets a reaction, and the F-35s shoot down the four Foxhounds that come charging in to avenge them. More Sukhois scramble, and our retiring F-35s damage one before they turn for home. Our F-15s from Kadena insist on getting into the action too, and they try and engage, but without stealth they face immediate counterfire, and can’t press an effective attack. They think they wounded one, but then there’s an urgent report of four more MiG-31 radars going airborne, and the F-15s know they don’t dare stay. They turn and flee for the Japanese coast on full burner, and manage to get far enough away to escape from the MiGs. The F-15s decide they’ll stick to CAP over the TG for now.

On the other side of Japan, the sonobuoy lines laid by the P-8 detect a passive sonar contact ENE of the retiring carrier. The signature is unequivocally an SSN, and as the P-8 flies over it resolves into an Akula. A pair of air-launched weapons are released to glide towards the target, soon followed by the pleasing sound of an explosion and breakup noises.

Our own subs, patrolling discretely, are doing their best to remain undetected for the moment. One of them, the Jefferson City, is far out in the Pacific near our SSGN the Ohio, when it gets a CZ contact. Uh-oh. Sonar operators listen intently, and the contact turns out to be biological, but it gets people thinking. Is there an enemy sub out here somewhere? The Jefferson City comes to periscope depth, and requests permission to escort the Ohio more closely.


TSUSHIMA STRAITS

It’s 1013Z when AWACS radar operators start reporting airborne contacts inbound towards Tsushima, where our two southern task groups have combined into one group of four ships. There’s at least six planes, but the count keeps growing, and growing, until there are two dozen of them inbound. Naturally, my F-15s are off-station, heading away towards the tankers which are loitering over southern Japan. The AWACS orders them to turn back and fight, promising that they’ll send the tankers out to sea after them. Fuel won’t be a problem, honest!

The F-15s close in, reluctant to use fuel-hungry afterburners, and they start to engage the enemy to good effect, but there’s so many of them that they can’t possibly stop them all. The foe turn out to be Fullbacks, and they prove they’re quite capable of shooting back if the F-15s try closing to Sidewinder range. The enemy presses on towards our task group, taking grievous casualties, past the missile-less F-15s, and into range of our task group, which lights up its radars and starts to shoot. Extreme-range SM-6 shots hit the last of the survivors, but there are a dozen vampires inbound already. Fortunately, they’re slow-movers, and our ESSMs prove quite capable of hitting them before they make it to the ships.

There’s general relief all round, particularly among the F-15 pilots, who find the promised tankers waiting for them just behind the task group.


BOMBERS

It’s not even an hour later when we start getting radar contacts on big fast-movers coming from the direction of Monghotko. These have to be the Backfires. The F-22s are away refuelling, of course (again!!), and much too far away to make it back in time, so controllers start scrambling F-16s out of Misawa. There’s probably no hope of them interfering when the bombers head south.

But then the bombers start heading ESE, on a course that takes them across the southern end of Sakhalin Island and along the north coast of Japan! Where they’re going, we have no idea, but this puts them in reach, and the light fighters hit their burners and dash north at top speed. Eight bombers are coming in (four already seem to have turned back), and our pilots open fire as soon as they can, only to yell in frustration as the bombers start releasing missiles. Six of the massive weapons go soaring up into the stratosphere, but then our own AAMRAMs arrive. It sometimes takes multiple hits, and repeated bursts of cannon fire, but the big bombers eventually stumble and go down. None of the eight escape.

That leaves ten Kinzhals (for that is what the Backfires were toting, not AS-4s or the like) heading south, arcing up over Japan, and plunging down towards our distant carrier group. Four missiles, released by the first four bombers that we never saw, come blazing in first, and our ships start to engage with salvos of SM-6s, four at each missile. A couple get destroyed, and a couple more only get nudged by the blast, so our ships fire salvos again, finally downing the RVs before they can hit. The next six arrive a few minutes later, and are treated the same way. It works, but we’ve used 67 SAMs to shoot down a mere 10 RVs. We’ve only got 68 effective missiles left. If the Russians can generate another salvo, we may be in trouble!

[AndrewJ]

Planning staff have been industrious throughout the fighting. Night falls, and finally it’s time for our own attacks to commence.


KURILE STRIKE – FIRST STEPS TO KUNASHIR

At 1146Z, the SSN Missouri, patrolling off the Kurile Isles, opens fire on outlying radar sites with a series of TLAM shots. Hits are scored on two isolated radars in the small southern isles, one on central Kunashir, and one on the north tip of Urup. A pair of TLAMs are also fired at the radar on the north end of Iturup, but those are easily spotted by the Su-35 CAP and shot down.

At 1316Z, our northern TG of two Burkes, now sheltering in Mutsu Bay, give the people in the surrounding towns a fireworks show, as they salvo 60 TLAMs towards the Russian SAM installation on Kunashir. The missiles come in from the SW, taking advantage of the radar shadow to pop over the hills and strike with little warning. The Su-35s over Iturup try coming south to interfere, and my F-22s get sucked in to try and prevent that, which I would have preferred to avoid, but it does net me a couple more air-to-air kills. The SAMs and AAA take a pounding, wrecking most of the major units, although I think there’s still a section of SA-22s lurking down there somewhere.




KURILE STRIKE – ITURUP AIRBASE

The second phase starts at 1400Z, when attack planes start lifting off from our carrier to hit the airbase on Iturup. Or, that’s what the simple press reports will say. Tankers have been moving up from Kadena and Shemya and Guam for some time now, and a heavy TLAM strike is already underway from the distant SSGN and southern task group.

My intention is for F-22s to menace the island from the north, drawing the CAP away in that direction, while the TLAMs hook around to cross the spine of the island from the W, leaving the carrier planes and F-16s from Misawa to strike with guided weapons (AARGMs, HARMs, JSOWS, SDBs) from the SSE. It all goes to pot when the Su-35s refuse to take the bait, and instead come south to investigate and engage the cloud of jamming MALDs that are coming in to surround the area.

A messy furball develops, with F-35s struggling to deal with Su-35s, and keep them off the attack planes and out of the TLAM stream. Guided ordnance is flying in all directions, SAMs start erupting from around the airfield and adjacent bay, and tracer fire from the SA-22s and heavy AAA lights up the night. The two big SAM sites around the bay go down in reasonable time, but the dense mass of SA-22s around the airfield eats the incoming TLAMs like popcorn, chewing them up with their laser-like accuracy and bottomless autocannon magazines. But, gradually, the hits move closer and closer to the target, and the SA-22s start going down. Impacts spread across the airbase, the hangars are wrecked, planes in the open are hit by collateral damage, ammo pads and fuel are set ablaze, and the final salvo of TLAMs hits the runway and shuts it for the foreseeable future.

I wouldn’t call it a clean success, and there was some doubt about hitting everything, but in the end the base and heavy SAMs are destroyed. But now MiG-31s from the mainland have flown in from the west, and are threatening our retiring strike planes. This means the loitering F-22s finally have a chance to engage, and they manage to snipe two of them before retiring to their tankers, while the rest of the strike retires safely.


KURILE STRIKE - MATUA

The final strike of the night comes at 1830Z, when the last TLAM strike, this time from the VLSs on our two nearby SSNs the Missouri and Alexandria, arrives at Matua. Once again, the missiles hook in through the radar shadow, and take the base by surprise. The SAMs, SSMs, and radars are gone within moments, with very little counter-fire.


NEXT STEPS

Dawn is only an hour away, and we have a little over nine hours left to complete our initial objectives. This includes the destruction of the two groups of warships, one near the Kuriles, and the other in more heavily defended waters near Vladivostok, and the hunt for any of the Russian submarines we can find.

[Gunner98]

Well that sounds like a busy night was had by all!

~250 TLAMs... not bad!

[AndrewJ]

And the final episode...


RUSSIAN SUBS

It’s around this time that a few of the Russian subs start to make their appearance.

It’s still dark when the P-8 loitering east of Japan picks up another passive contact on one of the sonobuoy lines. The unique sound signature suggests it’s one of the Oscars, which gets everyone’s attention. Fortunately, it is out of range of our carrier group, and the P-8 goes hurrying over to pay it a visit before the contact is lost. Two torpedoes put an end to this very dangerous foe. The question that’s left is ‘where’s the other one?’

The next sub to show up is a much more immediate danger. The USS Milius, proceeding with the combined TG in the Tsushima straits, suddenly gets a hard contact on active sonar, off the port bow at a distance of five miles, travelling deep at 3 knots. No time is wasted trying to ID it fully, or determine whether it’s a fish or a whale. A VLA goes roaring down range moments later, and there’s a very satisfying thump as the Milius sends a Kilo to the seabed.

The task group’s actually having an exciting few minutes, because at the same time AWACS is tracking planes inbound towards the group. It looks like these might be survivors of the earlier Su-34 raid, coming back for another try. Fortunately, there’s only a few of them, and the F-15 CAP heads out and shoots them down without much issue.


KURILE ANTI-SHIPPING

By now our passing strike aircraft and patrolling P-8s have identified three warships operating just west of the Kuriles (a Udaloy and two modern frigates), plus one of their big missile-tracking ships operating further away in the Sea of Okhotsk. The warships seem to be patrolling alertly but independently, with radars on, and they can probably withstand small missile attacks without much difficulty.

Our closest asset is the SSN Missouri, which has just finished engaging ground targets with its TLAMs. The captain is ordered to turn west, pass through the Iturup/Kunashir strait, and engage the enemy warships. He’ll have to move fairly quickly to get there in time, but there’s a complication. We know a Kilo passed into this area a few days ago, and this would be the perfect place for it to be lurking about. So, the transit will be a nervous series of sprints and short drifts, hoping we don’t bump into a lurking SSK. (And, in fact, we don’t. It turns out the Kilo is far away, having passed through en-route to the east coast of Japan.)

Our P-8s aren’t content to wait for a sub to transit and engage, so they’ve arranged a coordinated strike with some of the HARM-carrying F-16s at Misawa, and the southern task group way down at Tsushima. Three P-8s launch a dozen stealthy SLAMs at the southern-most frigate, while the F-16s shoot four HARMs into the fray. The frigate easily spots the SLAMs on radar and downs 11 of them and one of the HARMs, but the other three HARMs get through and wreck its radar systems, allowing the last SLAM to hit the frigate amidships, breaking it open and sinking it. The southern task group contributes eight Tomahawk MMTs (timed to arrive simultaneously with the SLAMs), aimed at the Udaloy which is operating near the other frigate. This doesn’t go as well, and the two ships manage to shoot down all the incoming HARMs and most of the MMTs. The last one almost makes it to the Udaloy, but it’s gunned down by the CIWs before it can impact.

But, conjectures the Admiral, they must all be low on SAMs now, so the SSN Alexandria is ordered to fire its four MMTs at the Udaloy. Well, the frigate may be out, but the Udaloy actually has plenty of SAMs left, and it treats the feeble attack with the contempt it deserves, swatting down three more MMTs with SAMs and gunning down the last one – again. The admiral retires to his cabin to sulk.

Dawn is quiet, and the first few hours of the morning are peaceful too. The two enemy warships have sailed south, and are now right down near the Japanese coast, which is very convenient since the rest of the F-16s at Misawa are waiting to strike them. This may be a little risky, since they don’t really have heavy standoff weapons, and the plan is for a massive HARM barrage, followed by direct attack with 2,000 lb. iron bombs! In fact, the HARM barrage is so intense that the ships succumb to the battering and are little more than hulks by the time the bombers arrive. Both are sunk, and some F-16s fly on to engage the Marshal Krylov. In a way, it’s a shame to sink this big and essentially harmless ship. I’ve always found them to be impressive looking, with good hull lines under those imposing antenna farms. But orders are orders, and the ship is hard to miss. It is broken and sunk by the heavy bombs.



The Russians do try and react to this final insult, and some MiG-31s head towards our planes from the mainland. (There seem to be eight of them up now – rather a lot!) Fortunately, we’re close enough to Japan that we’re back in the safety of friendly airspace before any of them can arrive.


VLADIVOSTOK ANTI-SHIPPING

Our final focus is on the enemy ships near Vladivostok. One of our carrier-based F-35s goes sneaking into the area, and confirms that there are two modern frigates operating near each other, and one Sovremenny independently off to the side. The Udaloy, which scared the Floreal at the start of the operation, has reached the Russian coast near its port, and is now effectively out of reach.

By mid-day our carrier planes are ready again, and the pilots are eager to attack. F-18s with SLAMs and AARGMs head for the lone Sovremenny, while F-18s with AARGMs and JSOWs, and F-35s with SDBs attend to the pair of frigates. The ships fight hard, but they’re up against an entire carrier airwing, and they’re overwhelmed by the force of the attack.

Fortunately, the nearest MiG-31s don’t interfere, because they’re in the process of landing, but the next four come hurtling in to chase our retiring planes, along with some of the Su-35s, but our F-35s are well positioned to cut them off before they can interfere. AWACS reports that more are launching, but by then we’re a dot on the horizon, with everyone burnering back home to the safety of the tankers loitering in Japanese airspace.



And with that, this phase of the operation comes to an end. Thanks very much for writing another interesting scenario.

[Gunner98]

Thanks again for another great report Andrew.

This one was tricky to make challenging as the force ratios are way in favour of the US, but if you get on the wrong end of those Oscars, BMs and hypersonic ASMs at the same time it can bite hard.

B

[AndrewJ]

Definitely! There's plenty of potential for nasty results, particularly if you use up good SAMs defending from the Oscars, and then get walloped by the Kinzhals.
Assorted observations follow:



IMPRESSIONS

I had a lot of fun with this one, trying to dodge fierce enemy strikes from advanced weapons, yet still bring my forces to bear. My inherent timidity saved the carrier from the submarine ambush, when I went scuttling away in a different direction, and my northern TG hiding out in Japanese waters in Mutsu bay turned out to be safe for political reasons (the no-nav zone).

I got saved from the full force of the Kinzhal attack by a combination of AI and WRA problems (see below), and I have to admit I didn’t even clue in to the actual nature of the bomber threat. I’m so steeped in the Cold-War period that when I hear “Backfire” I think AS-4, not Kinzhal!

The alert enemy ships with their radars on meant I couldn’t snipe them with a few cheap missile shots in the dark, which was great, and I had to mount full-scale attacks on them despite their relatively isolated situation and small numbers.

Stealth (and tankers) proved to be the great equalizer in the air. If it hadn’t been for the F-22s and F-35s, I would have had tremendous difficulty with the MiG-31s and their AA-13s. As it was, I was able to shoot at comfortable ranges, and when the MiG-31s did shoot I had a much better chance of avoiding the edges of their missiles’ active seeker cones. I was able to keep the F-16s entirely out of the melee, and F-15s and F-18s played only a minor role against the enemy fighters.

The player’s got a lot of TLAMs, and they might be able to simply saturate the Kurile SAM batteries with overwhelming force. I chose not to commit all my missiles, reserving 40 on the SSGN, 40 in the carrier group, and another 40 (short-ranged Cs and Ds) in the southern ships. I also kept all my anti-ship capable MMTs for anti-shipping only, and still had another 24 in reserve at the end of the scenario. That should be a credible strike if I have to hit a Russian mainland target.

I never did spot the second Oscar, even though it was in essentially the same place as the first one, and of course the two Kilos in the Pacific remained completely undetected. I suppose I could have made a better P-8 search, but half of the P-8s were tied up with SLAM strikes, some were monitoring ship positions, and the potential search area was huge, so I let it slide. Not always a good move… (I didn’t have a clue that other AGI was out there either.)


MISSIONS

The Carrier Strike mission is really being kicked in the chin by a combination of the AI pathfinder and the WRA settings.

I was saved because the Kinzhals are set with a WRA of 1 missile per target. The first flight of four bombers launched one missile each, then turned around and took the other twelve missiles home. While those were en-route the other two flights of bombers kept flying, pathfinding their way around the top of the Japan no-nav zone, in a direction that put them out-of-boresight to engage the carrier. This gave my F-16s time to dash in and shoot some of them down, before the first Kinzhals were destroyed and the bombers were eligible to fire again. Those bombers which survived long enough to shoot were actually still out of boresight while travelling SE along the edge of the no-nav zone, and could only shoot when they accidentally pointed south while dodging missiles.

Given all this, if you want the mission to work to its maximum effectiveness, you would probably need a timed event prior to the satellite pass at ~ 1045Z, to have the aircraft already airborne at launch altitude (7620m) north of the base in a holding pattern (an initial support mission). Then, when the satellite pass begins, head them south again towards the carrier (towards a second support mission). Finally, when they are pointed south towards the carrier, switch them to the attack mission, and hope that they can shoot before the pathfinder activates and turns them out of arc and prevents them from launching. The WRA for Kinzhals on the attack mission would need to be on ‘use all weapons’, otherwise they’ll take most of them home.

Bear in mind, this can maul the carrier group. Twelve Tu-22s with 4 missiles each is 48 Kinzhals. In my game, it took about 5-6 SM-6s to reliably shoot down each missile. That uses about 240 to 288 SAMs, but the carrier group only has 132 SM-6s… (Assuming none have been used vs. Oscar attacks.) In tests I can just withstand a 24-missile simultaneous attack. Beyond that, losses tend to occur. In trials, I was not able to get the SM-3s to operate reliably. There’s only a very brief moment between detection by ship-board radar (the Cobra Dane is out of arc and can’t help) and the Kinzhal being too low for an SM-3 to engage, so it’s very rare to get it to work.

Were the Bears on the Dragon Patrol mission, which seems to be an ELINT/support track, supposed to be there? They have ASW loadouts. Were they intended to be on the Dragon ASW mission instead?

The Fox CAP mission worked well. Maybe bring the SW corner of the prosecution zone a bit further south, to give a bit more cover to ships in the area?

The Kamchatka Intercept mission launched planes against contacts in the southern Sea of Japan, 1300 miles away. I’m not sure why. Possibly the No-Nav zone over Japan confused the calculations? Maybe a range limit could help prevent this.

The Kuril Sea Control mission is allowed to investigate contacts outside the patrol area, but it has no prosecution zone set. Therefore, it can go anywhere, and it tried to set a course for ships in the Tsushima Straits. This is why the ships moved to the coast of Japan in my playthrough. A prosecution zone could limit this behaviour.

The MiG-31Ks on the Ship Strike mission are set in flights of two. They launched an attack (which I never spotted) on the four ships down in Tsushima Straits, using four flights of planes. However, the Kinzhal WRA is set for one missile per ship, so half the MiGs tried to bring their heavy missiles back, and the extra fuel consumption caused them to crash. Having a flight size of 1 might prevent this. (Or allowing Kinzhals to be fired two or more per target.)

The task group of ships on the Surface Action mission did not proceed to their zone. The moment the mission activated at 0700Z they all RTB-ed, returned to port, and came back out again as individual ships. I’m not sure what’s prompting this. Disabling the damage and weapon RTB settings had no effect on the behaviour. To get a round this, you could have a Lua event to assign the ship to the mission after it has activated. (Or you could have the mission active from the start of the game, if you think the ships are unlikely to be in range of anything before planned hostilities.)


EVENTS, ACTIONS, TRIGGERS

The Russia S-300 Destroyed trigger is not set for a specific subtype.
The Russia S-350 Destroyed trigger is not set for a specific subtype.
Although this should mean they trigger for any mobile vehicle, they actually don’t trigger at all. The player therefore gets no points for these objectives. Selecting the relevant units makes the events work.

The NATO CV Damaged event is repeatable. This means it will activate again and again in the event of ongoing fires on the carrier, leading to excessive points loss.


MISCELLANEOUS

The southern Udaloy needs to be Engage Opportunities = Yes. At the moment it cannot shoot anything.

The Side Briefing mentions a Kilo “NW of Shinkoku Japan”. I had no luck finding Shinkoku with Google. Did you mean the island of Shikoku instead? But directly NW of Shikoku is the main island of Honshu, so that didn’t seem to make sense either. Maybe a different landmark would be helpful?

Would it be worthwhile to have the Russian ships, particularly the ones operating independently in the Kuriles, retire when they get low on SAMs? Maybe up towards Poronaysk, just to break contact, rather than present a vulnerable target to subsequent strikes?

Would the Marshal Krylov press it’s luck like this? It seems a risky move for such a rare capability.

[AndrewJ]

12 Backfires fire off 48 Kinzals at the CVBG from the vicinity of Iturup air base.

Maverick, what version of CMO were you using to get a 48 Kinzhal salvo? I tried multiple times in trials afterwards, and I only ever got them to launch a single missile at each ship, unless I changed the WRA on the Russian side.

[Gunner98]

Yeah I looks like Maverick got the full load both barrels. In any case I'll reduce that salvo somewhat, either to 24 or 32.

B