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As the conflict around Japan and Korea settled into stalemate, the US and Australia form TF77 with a brief to clear the South China Sea of enemy forces and escort an amphibious formation to the Southern Philippines. The intention is to neutralise Chinese bases on the artificial islands of the Spratly and Paracel chains. Though you have plenty of Tomahawks, you are told to use them sparingly, as they will be needed later. Weather is expected to be stormy and laser- and EO/IR-guided weapons are likely to be ineffective (you don’t have any of these loaded at the outset).

The scenario has a duration of SIX days, so I intend to play it a day at a time, with breaks for other games, posting up to six entries on this post.

All US/Australian task groups start at the corner of the Java Sea next to Sumatra, with outlying units elsewhere. Supporting the CVN Nimitz are two cruisers, three DDGs and two oilers, while the Eisenhower has a similar escort with one less cruiser. Both have substantial air groups, mostly consisting of F-18 Hornet variants along with some F-35s on Nimitz and support aircraft and choppers. The useful AMRAAM D is widely available, along with a range of strike munitions.

The US part of the amphibious group centres on the carrier America, which has choppers, Ospreys and a small force of F-35s with AMRAAM Ds. Her escort comprises a cruiser and three destroyers and the warships are accompanied by four transports.

Having entered the war, Australia furnishes the helicopter carrier Canberra, with a destroyer, four frigates and a landing ship. There are no relevant aircraft apart from ASW choppers on the escorts.

You have four spare Arleigh Burke DDGs, which can be assigned to the other groups as desired. Four US littoral combat ships are loitering off Singapore (for all the use they are) and there are three SSNs and two Aussie SSKs between the task force and the two exits from the Makassar Strait between Borneo/Kalimantan and Sulawesi/Celebes.

A number of F-18s and F-22s are based in Australia, but carry older versions of the AMRAAM and will, in any case, require a lot of tanker support to get near the action. Here and at Christmas Island, there are ample numbers of maritime patrol planes, but the distances involved in this scenario means that their endurance is going to be severely challenged. A healthy number of tankers is on-hand, which is just as well, since without them you are totally screwed. Some UAVs are also provided for recon and, if nothing else, they have long legs.

At Tinian in the Marianas, there are four B-1 bombers and another pair of tankers. The Lancers are restricted to one loadout each and only two of these four are genuine stand-off weapons, so they need to be used with care.

China has a variety of weapons with which to stop you. Most menacing are the ballistic missiles expressly designed to combat US carrier groups. The DF-21D has a range of 1,100nm (in theory) and, even optimally sited in Southern Hainan, can only reach halfway down the coast of Borneo, so you can avoid them by steering through the Makassar Straits. The superior DF-26 reaches 2,160nm, however and can only be escaped by sailing S of Christmas Island, which is a real stretch for conducting offensive operations against the Spratly and Paracel Islands. Besides, you probably wouldn’t get time to reach this haven. The missiles can’t be used unless the Chinese get a firm fix on your location, but they have plenty of satellites passing overhead and some have the radar to see through the weather. Especially as you have the risk of being found by submarines, UAVs and conventional aircraft, it is not really practical to escape detection over six days. The only weapons you have that can stop a DF-26 are the RIM-161s, of which the Nimitz and America groups have 30 each and the Eisenhower group 14. RIM-174s can theoretically stop DF-21s, but it would be unwise to count on it. Otherwise, you have decoys and electronic countermeasures.

Perhaps the next most serious threat is China’s force of H-6G Badger bombers, which can each carry four anti-shipping cruise missiles. Closer to the island chains, they can supplement these with Flounders and Flankers carrying Kryptons and the like. Batteries of YJ-62 cruise missiles are emplaced on the islands, while offshore, there is known to be an SAG of two DDGs, four FFGs and an oiler, as well as detached groups of Houbei missile corvettes. Finally, there are SSNs and SSKs in the theatre of operations.

Needless to say, the islands have batteries of HQ-9, HQ-12 and HQ-17 SAMs, as well as MANPADs and AA guns. Strikes on Mainland China and Hainan are expressly forbidden at this time.

Day 1 (13:00Z 14/7/18 to 13:00Z 15/7/18)
I calculated that it would take the America and Canberra groups over 130 of the available 144 hours to reach the Mindanao Sea arrival zone via the Makassar Strait, moving at the cruise speed of the slowest horse. This seemed satisfactory, so I sent them E to begin with, assigning the DDGs Stockdale and Spruance as additional escorts and setting-up Poseidon and Orion patrols in the Java Sea. The SSN Texas and the SSK Sheehan would sweep the Makassar Strait in advance.

It seemed best to keep the Nimitz and Eisenhower groups S of DF-21 range off the W coast of Borneo. From here, they could mount strikes against the targets with tanker support. We could only pray that the DF-26s wouldn’t do too much damage when they arrived and that China only had a few of them. The DDGs Kidd and Lawrence were assigned as support. Needless to say, everything moved with radars and other emissions off. Patrol planes and the SSNs Pasadena and Hampton were told to scour the assembly area for enemy subs. It was only at the end of the first day of the scenario that I realised that the Nimitz and Eisenhower groups were meant to go to the Mindanao Sea as well. This means that everything has to go via the Makassar Strait and further extends the range for strikes against the island targets. As it is, I’m now probably too late to get the carriers there and must hope that this does not make a bad position even more unrecoverable.

As for the four LCS near Singapore, their only real use seemed to be to distract Chinese strikes away from the high-value assets. I dispersed them to prevent all four falling to the same sub and hoped for the best.

13:00Z: It was soon apparent that the Chinese were going to get far better support from their satellites than we were from ours. We only had the benefit of the occasional pass, whereas the enemy had the regular services of a much larger constellation. We did detect half a dozen Flankers and four Firebirds over the islands. On early evidence, there seemed little danger of our task forces running out of fuel over the six days and magazines seemed fairly well-stocked, at least.

14:00Z: Data began to accumulate about enemy defences on the islands and their SAG and missile boat squadrons were located. Our patrol planes were struggling with distance, though re-basing aircraft to Christmas Island helped alleviate this. Three Chinese Soar Dragon UAVs were forging steadily S and, although they could only detect our non-existent emissions, something had to be done about them.

18:00Z: After much nursing from a tanker, an Aussie F-18 from RAAF Tindal in Northern Territory destroyed two of the Soar Dragons. This saved wasting AMRAAM Ds on them, but necessitated more tanker support to get the plane home again. It was necessary to use an F-35 from America to shoot down the Westernmost UAV. It seemed that Chinese aircraft losses would score us no VPs.

19:00Z: The F-35 made the most of her loadout and tested enemy CAP, downing a Flanker and escaping.

21:00Z: Another F-35 managed to destroy a Flanker after much in-flight refuelling. USS America’s Lightnings have less endurance than the ones on Nimitz, partly because America is further away from the action. It illustrated how problems would worsen if everything went via the Makassar Strait.

Inevitably, the Chinese got a satellite or submarine fix for their DF-26s and attacked with what I suspect was their full complement of eight. They targeted the Canberra group, which was the least valuable but the most defenceless. The FFG Arunta was sunk for 250VP and the Canberra was struck and died of wounds later for 1,250 more. Losses of choppers at 100VP each added-up to a further 1,300VP penalty. I’d done everything I could think of to remain hidden. USS Stockdale was sent to link-up with Nimitz and the surviving amphib TF ships forged on.

23:00Z: USS Texas detected a sub at the N end of the Makassar Strait. It was too close for comfort at about 5nm away, so I loosed two torpedoes. The Chinese boat evaded at Flank and somehow managed to slip away. Texas lay low and waited for her to reappear.

25/7/18 00:00Z: A large Badger formation was detected by Hawkeye to the S of Vietnam, heading for the carriers. A nearby F-35 attacked, but all four of her AMRAAMs were spoofed or plain missed. Eight F-18s launched from the carriers and USS America sent two more F-35s to help. I assumed that we would be fending-off cruise missiles, but the Chinese were out-of-range, possibly didn’t have a firm location fix and kept coming. They had some ludicrous good fortune with spoof rolls, but still lost 15 of their number and the survivors withdrew. No VP scored, of course, whereas each of Canberra’s ‘no loadout’ choppers was worth 100...

03:00Z: Texas re-acquired the sub contact in the Makassar Strait. This time, the Kilo’s luck ran out, but the sinking scored no points. It was now clear that only hitting targets on the Spratly and Paracel Islands and, possibly, getting ships or task groups to the Mindanao Sea would score anything. With fighters and SAMs to subdue with long-ranged, heavily tanker-supported strikes before there was any realistic chance of attacking the island targets, we faced a long wait. Meanwhile, any losses of our own were going to hurt us badly. It was also very depressing...

04:00Z: An F-35 destroyed a pair of Flankers as we continued to harass the Chinese CAP.

05:00Z: The F-35s bagged another Flanker.

06:00Z: The surviving Badgers completed refuelling from a Midas tanker and returned suicidally for another go. Five more were downed by CAP and maybe one escaped.

We then endured a long spell where our F-35s simply couldn’t hit a Flanker. AMRAAMs fired at 70nm range were being outrun and petering out, while those fired at 60nm ran the risk of overshooting if the enemy planes kept coming. When this didn’t happen, they simply missed…

In the middle of this, I tried firing two Tomahawks at the SIGINT bunker on Cuateron Reef, which did not seem to be defended by more than AA guns. In keeping with the prevailing ill-fortune, the missiles coincided with the Mischief Reef airbase scrambling about eight Flankers to engage one of our Lightnings and were intercepted and destroyed.

09:00Z: Again, an F-35 engaged three Flankers at 70nm. Again, the Chinese turned and ran and the missiles petered-out. Our pilot tried again at 60nm with his last AMRAAM, but missed on a 52% shot.

Suddenly, USS Russel, an Arleigh Burke with the Nimitz group, was sunk by DF-21s, four having been fired. Another 250VP gone. I had calculated how close I could get to the Southern tip of Hainan, but had wanted to cut things fine to minimise the distance my strike planes would have to travel. Russel’s sinking happened 1,107nm from the closest place the DF-21s could have been UNLESS they were on the Spratlys or Paracels (and recon had detected lots of other stuff, but no ballistic missile TELs). It may only have been a matter of 7nm, but the DF-21s were out of range (and our ships had all stopped). It is possible that the problem stemmed from map changes since the scenario was written. Seriously doubting whether it was worth the bother, I pulled both carrier groups back about 75nm.

10:00Z: Another F-35 engaged the Flankers at 60nm and actually managed to down one after over 20 misses. All relevant aircraft were told to engage at 60nm, which on the evidence to-date was too far away from the Flankers for them to get a clear return shot.

11:00Z: Another pair of F-35s engaged. By now, with six of their number down, the Fiery Cross Reef squadron were not in evidence, though some must have been readying. The Mischief Reef squadron, instead of having two birds up at a time, had a policy of surging at anything within range and once again came at me en masse. My lead Lightning destroyed its opposite number, but was then obliged to flee, at which point the back-up plane decided to go to a tanker and refuel (and you don’t dare put the tankers too close).

So, after a day, the score is -3,050. Not as bad in actuality as this sounds, as the Chinese are probably out of DF-26s, have lost most of their Badgers and also a submarine, whereas the units we’ve lost were not essential and our combat readiness is largely unimpaired. However, the CAP at the islands is only down about 20% and it will take quite a while to finish the job at the rate we are going, after which we’ll still have to reduce the SAMs and carry-out the strikes. Five more days might be enough but, on the other hand, only the America is going to reach Mindanao in time, even if all is well with her. We also have no idea whether the VP we’d get for the targets on the islands will suffice to pull back the huge deficit.

Day 2 (13:00Z 25/7/18 to 13:00Z 26/7/18)
25/7/18 13:00Z: The US stepped-up the pressure by increasing the numbers of F-35s and tankers on-station near the Spratlys. Three Lightnings engaged the Mischief Reef Flankers and downed four of them (firing at 60nm with rather better luck than hitherto), which was more like it.

14:00Z: Three F-35s took-on the Fiery Cross CAP and accounted for two more Flankers. The Chinese continued to struggle against the stealthy and OECM-capable American fighters and seemed incapable of returning fire at the ranges involved.

15:00Z: As an F-35 hit and damaged a Flanker, USS Roosevelt struck the Cuarteron Reef SIGINT station with two TLAMs and somehow failed to destroy it.

16:00Z: Despite the return of lousy shooting, the F-35s killed two more Flankers. Roosevelt eliminated two radars on Cuarteron Reef and actually scored 200VP, but the 300DP SIGINT station withstood a third hit.

17:00Z: Roosevelt finally destroyed the SIGINT station for a tooth-pulling 100VP.

19:00Z: Roosevelt continued to bombard Cuarteron Reef, destroying a YJ-62 SSM site and an AA battery for 100VP each (?). As the briefing had told me to conserve TLAMs, I resolved to refrain from using any more except against key targets. It was just nice to score some points.

20:00Z: A six-plane SEAD strike from Eisenhower was remarkably successful. Firing four AGM-88Es each, the Hornets knocked-out all the SAMs and radars at Fiery Cross and battered the ones at Johnson Reef as well. HQ-9s look formidable on paper but I found that, while they can generally stop the first quartet of HARMs, the second salvo catches them reloading. The score was back to -1,850.

21:00Z: By now, the Flankers were conspicuous by their absence and, as we began to probe deeper into the Spratly defences, the Chinese committed a squadron of Firebirds. If nothing else, these were lucky and two F-35s only managed to down one with eight shots.

22:00Z: Five F-18s went at the exposed Western islands with 13nm-ranged GBU-31s. They finished-off the last item on Cuarteron Reef (a 35mm AA battery) with some effort, took-out the control tower and an ammo revetment on Fiery Cross and downed a Firebird for good measure.

23:00Z: Two Hornets made a SEAD strike on Johnson Reef, destroying the radar and reducing the SAMs to three components total. The score was now -1,350.

26/7/18 00:00Z: The Firebirds continued to lead charmed lives. Again, eight shots from two F-35s killed just one of them. Roosevelt deemed the Fiery Cross runway worthy of a few TLAMs, but six shots did not suffice to close it down.

An F-18 strike on Fiery Cross was intercepted by four Firebirds. The Chinese were again plain lucky, but the strike planes’ defensive AMRAAMs still disposed of three bandits. Nonetheless, the F-18s were obliged to retreat and refuel and were relieved when the last Firebird abandoned its pursuit.

01:00Z: With tanks replenished, the F-18s returned and loosed their GBU-31s at Fiery Cross airbase. Now tarmac spaces have 300DP and the GBU-31 does that sort of damage and is rated against runways, so why did repeated hits fail to destroy a single tarmac space?. I had similar luck with the runway which, to that point, had absorbed 11 TLAM hits with its 1,050DP. In each case, the Message Log reported that the armour had been penetrated. I didn’t want to keep using TLAMs, though I had plenty, but…

03:00Z: Another five TLAM hits STILL failed to close the Fiery Cross runway. Each one hit, each one penetrated. What was going on?!

04:00Z: A Jiangdao corvette had been nosing towards the coast of East Malaysia (North Borneo) and, as I had some MPAs with anti-shipping loadouts standing idle in Northern Australia, I decided to do something about it. Orions lacked the range, but a Poseidon sank it with a pair of AGM-84s. To my surprise, Chinese warships score 100VP, even if their subs don’t. Not knowing the scoring system can be a real handicap in this game (unless, I suppose, you cheat and look it up in the Editor).

Another five TLAMs and five F-18s with 1,000lb Mk84 GBU-31s failed to close the Fiery Cross runway or destroy a single tarmac space (one of the latter must have been hit ten times or so). I had to conclude that something was very wrong here and not waste any more ammo on these target types. Trouble is, I need all the points I can get…

06:00Z: Six F-18s with AGM-88Es delivered some grief to Mischief Reef, destroying an HQ-9, reducing another to one component, knocking-out two radars and sinking a couple of Houbei PCFGs off Johnson Reef as a bonus. The score was now -750.

08:00Z: A Poseidon from Christmas Island detected three Chinese subs around Palawan and N of Tawi Tawi. They must have been recharging batteries or using sensors at periscope depth. To boost endurance, the MPA used her two AGM-84s to sink the other pair of Houbeis off Johnson Reef, then dove and sank a nearby Yuan-class sub which, of course, scored nothing. It then deemed the sub off Tawi Tawi a greater threat than the other one, which was NW of Palawan and further from the America and Canberra groups’ course. Happily, the plane had enough endurance to reach the new target and dispose of what proved to be an old Song-class diesel sub. I tagged the remaining submarine with a set of reference points and a mission for later treatment.

Two F-18s with AGM-84s destroyed the SIGINT station on Johnson Reef, the blast consuming two other ‘facilities’, which were probably MANPADs teams. They also destroyed a ‘large building’ on lightly-defended Gaven Reef, while finishing an HQ-9 and destroying an ammo revetment on Mischief Reef. Still no sign of the surviving Flankers and the Firebirds had gone quiet, too.

11:00Z: Five F-18s with GBU-31s attacked targets on Johnson and Mischief Reefs, but achieved little, just finishing a crippled HQ-9 and an ammo revetment. The weapons can’t hit mobile targets (like a YJ-62 site on Mischief Reef) and were, once again, useless against that base’s runway.

13:00Z: By the end of Day 2, the score had improved dramatically to +350. Still a Major Defeat but, with four days to go and ample ammo, we were in with a chance. The Chinese had taken a hammering today and we had lost nothing apart from munitions. A fresh SEAD surge was underway, with a couple of carrier F-18s and a posse of Aussie strikers and tankers heading for the last bastion in the Spratlys, Subi Reef and the nearby Chinese SAG.

Hi fitzpatv

Great AAR as always.
If I remember correctly, you can´t outright destroy tarmac spaces.
All "open space" facilities like runways, taxiways and tarmac spaces can only be cratered enough to render them unusable, but not completely destroyed, unless you nuke them of course.

So you may very well already have rendered the tarmac spaces useless.
Regarding the runways. They are heavily armored, so you need penetrator warheads like BLU-109 or Broach.
The standard Mk84 or TLAM warhead will only do minimal damage.

Hope this helped and looking forward to the next part of your fight.

Søren

Day 3 (12:00Z 26/7/18 to 12:00Z 27/7/18)
26/7/18 12:00Z: A SEAD F-18 got things moving by destroying the two radars on Gaven Reef, while another attacked Subi Reef to make the SAMs use some ammo.

15:00Z: The Aussie strike found two subs lying in wait between NE Borneo and Mindanao, so two Poseidons were sent to deal with them. An RQ-180 UAV was surprisingly useful for keeping the subs under observation as they lay in blissful ignorance in the shallows.

17:00Z: The Australians carried-out their tanker-intensive strike, sinking four more Houbeis and a Jiangdao that was patrolling NE of the Spratlys. Supported by six Hornets from Eisenhower, they also attacked the Subi Reef defences with HARMs. These proved much tougher than those on the other islands, with a 12-component HQ-12A backed-up by two HQ-17s and the SAG. No damage was done, but the Chinese had to expend prodigious quantities of SAMs. At +1,050, it was now back to a Minor Defeat. The long, careful task of getting the Aussies back to base commenced.

A Poseidon sank a Kilo near Tawi Tawi, helped by the watching RQ-180.

18:00Z: The second Poseidon sank another Kilo off Zamboanga in Mindanao.

19:00Z: Six F-35s with AGM-154s attacked the Chinese SAG, but couldn’t get past the SAMs.

20:00Z: All Australian aircraft got safely back to base thanks to a massive tanker operation which I wouldn’t want to repeat. VB, barramundi and fries all round!. Those tankers with sufficient fuel remaining were sent to the main area of operations S of the Spratlys.

21:00Z: The obdurate SAG fought-off AGM-154s from two more F-18s.

22:00Z: Four F-18s with GBU-31s tried to mop-up Johnson and Gaven Reefs, but couldn’t engage mobile targets and only got one (presumably static) AA gun. Useless though it was, I fired their remaining ammo at the Fiery Cross runway. The many GBU-31 armed Hornets were assigned various alternative loadouts.

A Poseidon sank the Yuan sub detected some time ago off Palawan. Intel suggests that the Chinese have only one or more old Ming-class subs left.

27/7/18 00:00Z: Two SEAD F-18s found that Subi Reef still had plenty of SAMs.

02:00Z: The group of six SEAD F-18s returned to Subi Reef and made the breakthrough, crippling all the SAMs and destroying three radars. This took the score to +1,650, past the Average threshold of (I think) 1,500.

04:00Z: The six F-35 strike planes attacked the SAG with AGM-154s. The Luyang II Haikou and one other vessel were hit and the Chinese ships now looked to be out of SAMs, though their 30mm AA guns were impressively accurate. Their collective speed dropped to one knot.

06:00Z: Alarmingly, it transpired that the Chinese still had some DF-26s. A volley of four, aimed at the Eisenhower group, hit and mortally wounded the cruiser Leyte Gulf. As before, there was no effective defence apart from decoys and malfunctions and only one SAM was fired at the ballistic missiles. With worse luck, I could have lost the carrier and I don’t know whether the enemy have any more of the things left. They are clearly intended to be a balancing factor in the scenario.

Two F-18s retaliated by sinking the Luyang III Changsha and the Jiangkai II Liuzhou with AGM-154s.

07:00Z: Three F-18s with AGM-84s finished-off the Chinese SAG, sinking the Haikou, a second Jiangkai and an oiler. Another Hornet kicked over to destroy the satellite comms bunker at Subi Reef while a fifth, armed with CBU-59 cluster bombs, eliminated the YJ-62 at Mischief Reef in a low-level attack.

09:00Z: As Leyte Gulf was clearly doomed, I felt justified in using her 16 TLAMs while I still had them. Half only had the range to be wasted on the Fiery Cross runway, but the others wrote-off what was left of the HQ-9A at Subi Reef.

10:00Z: Two F-18s with AGM-84s finished one of the HQ-17s at Subi and destroyed a hardened shelter, which proved to have contained a mysteriously inactive Firebird. They also disposed of an annoying Cub jammer that had been patrolling N of the island.

450VP were lost for the Leyte Gulf and her two choppers. The score was now +2,200 with, I suspect, a total of +3,000 needed to win.

11:00Z: Two F-18s followed my good friend Soren’s advice and hit the Fiery Cross runway with BLU-109s, but there was no indication of damage and it seems that runways and tarmac spaces score no points in this scenario. Again, you have to find-out the hard way unless you want to look in the Editor.

12:00Z: Another pair of BLU-109 Hornets and a B-1 Lancer with similar ordnance blasted Subi Reef. All of the remaining Firebirds were destroyed by hits on their shelters and tarmac spaces and the only targets left standing were a crippled HQ-17, two hard-to-destroy AvGas tanks and an ammo revetment. Four missiles hit the runway. On the way there, the Lancer visited Mischief Reef and hit every tarmac space, killing three Flankers and put six missiles into the runway, with the usual lack of confirmation. A replacement Cub over Subi Reef led a charmed life and avoided four AMRAAMs from the Hornets.

So, Day 3 ended with the score on +2,500. I calculate that I have 400VP-worth of possible targets left in the now-neutralised Spratlys, a hundred short of what I need to win. With the Chinese out of surface ships and their remaining sub(s) being worthless, I need to do damage to Woody Island in the Paracels or get points for reaching the Mindanao assembly area (do I?) to win. In the process, I have to avoid losing aircraft and must fervently hope that the Chinese don’t have more DF-26s in their locker.

Day 4 (12:00Z 27/7/18 to 12:00Z 28/7/18)
14:00Z: A pair of F-18s used AGM-154s to destroy the damaged HQ-17 at Subi Reef and damage an AA gun at Gaven Reef, also downing the lucky replacement Cub.

Two F-35s made a start against the Woody Island Flankers, who fight mob-handed, disposing of three of them without reply.

16:00Z: Three F-35s with AGM-154s cleaned-up the AA guns on Gaven and the ammo revetment on Subi, before moving-on to Woody Island and destroying two more Flankers.

Two Hornets tried AGM-154s on an AvGas tank at Fiery Cross with inconclusive results, then flew on to down a third lunatic Cub jammer.

19:00Z: Two F-18s with AGM-84s finished the first AvGas tank on Fiery Cross, taking the score to +3,000 and a Minor Victory. One then got rid of the fourth and last Cub jammer.

Two F-35s bagged another pair of Flankers, leaving China increasingly dependent on tanker-supported Finbacks (an older, less-effective fighter) at Woody Island.

23:00Z: We sent-in two F-35s and two Hornets, which downed two Flankers, three Finbacks and two Midas tankers. The Chinese were able to return fire against the F-18s, which could Afterburner away. It has certainly helped that the Chinese (so far) appear to have no PL-15s in this scenario.

27/7/18 00:00Z: A B-1 needed its entire payload of 24 BLU-109s to destroy the two AvGas tanks on Mischief Reef.

02:00Z: An F-18 strike destroyed the remaining AvGas tank at Fiery Cross, leaving two more at Subi Reef. Meanwhile, another Hornet got rid of two Finbacks.

05:00Z: An eight-plane SEAD strike did damage to the Woody Island SAMs, hitting the big HQ-9A and three of maybe five HQ-17s. The escorts fended-off the Finbacks and shot down another Midas.

08:00Z: Four light-armed SEAD F-18s did further damage to the SAMs and also destroyed two radars and a fourth and last Midas. Two Finbacks intervened but were spared by some poor shooting. Found that a score of +3,500 was still only a Minor Victory.

11:00Z: Two F-18s and two F-35s visited Woody Island, destroying four Finbacks, but discovering that the enemy still had some HQ-17s left, the strike doing no ground damage.

The America and residual Canberra groups were negotiating the straits S of Mindanao before working their way around the E coast of the large island to steer through the scene of the Battle of Leyte Gulf and reach their objective, DF-26s permitting. Operations today have been at a lower level as the scenario complexity decreases. Eisenhower is out of AGM-88s, so Nimitz is having to pick-up the SEAD work, of which we might still need a little. More F-35s are en route to deal with the three or so remaining Finbacks and a B-1 is on its way to Woody Island with a big load of stand-off munitions. Hopefully, Day 5 will see the Paracels effectively neutralised and the last couple of targets on Subi Reef mopped-up as well. Getting USS America to the objective area might take us into Day 6. Unless there are more DF-26s pending, we should win. If there are, all bets are still off.

Days 5 and 6 (12:00Z 28/7/18 to 12:00Z 30/7/18)
28/7/18 12:00Z: Realising that the Chinese could engage the America/Canberra Group with DF-21s as it moved up the E coast of Mindanao, I decided I couldn’t take that risk and had them turn away to the S while they were still out of range.

15:00Z: A B-1 attacked Woody Island, dismantling the remaining SAM defences and destroying aradar, the control tower, an ammo shelter and, wonder of wonders, a DF-21 battery. Evidence was that this was the one that attacked and sank USS Russel, so it wasn’t out of range after all. At +4,300, it was now a Major Victory.

16:00Z: Scenario Platforms indicated that the Chinese had only had the one DF-21 battery, so the America/Canberra force reversed course again and headed for the assembly area.

17:00Z: An F-35 bagged two more Finbacks, which were the last Chinese fighters to trouble us.

19:00Z: Our second AGM-158 B-1 levelled most of the remaining scoring targets on Woody Island, leaving four AvGas bunkers and a hangar standing. Another visited Subi Reef with BLU-109s and destroyed the two AvGas bunkers which constituted the last worthwhile targets on the Spratlys. At +5,000, it was now a Triumph.

21:00Z: Six F-35s with AGM-154s eliminated the remaining targets on Woody Island. There was no point in mounting any more strikes and all aircraft were recalled.

29/7/18 02:00Z: All planes were back at base apart from routine ASW and AEW patrols.

23:00Z: USS America reached the Mindanao Sea assembly area, scoring 500VP. This ended the scenario as a Triumph for passing the +6,000VP mark.

The US and Australia lost the Canberra, a cruiser, destroyer and frigate, plus 15 choppers. Not a single aircraft was lost in air-to-air combat all scenario.

China lost 2 destroyers, 2 frigates, 2 corvettes, 8 PCFGs, an oiler, 6 diesel subs, 51 fighters, 20 bombers, 4 tankers, 4 jammer planes, 3 UAVs, 6 choppers, 4 DF-21s, 8 YJ-62s, 18 radars, 53 SAMs and 82 other ground elements.

The Chinese bases in the Spratlys and Paracels had been thoroughly neutralised and air superiority gained in the region, though not without the loss of three valuable warships.

Overall, it was an enjoyable scenario and the length was partly alleviated by being able to play at 15x speed most of the time, as things only rarely happened simultaneously in different parts of the map. This brings me to the final scenario of the war, which promises to be a really challenging affair, again spread over five days. Before this, Indian Ocean Fury will resume with the Gate of Tears scenario, another major effort.

Thank you for playing and posting this!

M