Following the successful operation against the Spratly/Paracel bases, the US and Australia aim to strike key targets in Mainland China, Hainan and Okinawa. This is a five-day scenario and, as befits the concluding battle of the campaign, is very difficult (I believe that a ‘Hail Mary’ is a challenging move in American Football). As with other recently-played scenarios, I will be covering this one with five posts, covering a day’s action each.
You are given a target list of 16 Chinese bases and only these ones score points, though there are many more. You also score for destroying ships and aircraft. Needless to say, the Chinese have a full array of fighters, SAMs, AA and radars, as well as several destroyers and frigates in screening roles along the coast. For the first time, the Americans must face the J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth fighter and intel is lacking as to where exactly these are based. China can also counterattack with ballistic missiles and Badger bombers. A low-level submarine threat remains, with unknown numbers of Kilos and Yuans at sea.
Even at this stage of the conflict, the US is limited to two proper carriers, Nimitz and Eisenhower, which are not spoiled for strike aircraft and munitions. You also have the handful of useful, but short-ranged planes on USS America and a large selection of aircraft at a single base in Australia. The latter need to be moved N to newly-available bases in the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam with the assistance of numerous tankers (some based at Christmas Island). For what they are worth, you also have the powerless Canberra group and some detached destroyers and littoral combat ships.
More usefully, ten American SSNs and SSGNs are on-station. Many of these are armed with torpedoes only, but five carry cruise missiles, particularly the two Ohio-class boats, which have 154 each.
At Tinian and Iwo Jima, you have some B-1 and B-2 bombers, but like the cruise missiles, these will be of limited use until enemy SAMs and fighters have been suppressed. One of the B-1s carries a single load of AGM-158B EMP weapons. Unfortunately, these are slow-moving cruise missiles and need to strike a ground target to release their pulses so, while designed to suppress SAMs, they can’t be used until the SAMs have been suppressed. I speculated at the outset on using them against a weakly-guarded target (if I could find one) in the hope that the pulse would then affect others some distance away. Problem is that you just get the one sortie and have to use all 24 AGM-158Bs then or lose the remainder.
Another intriguing piece of technology is an SBX converted oil platform at Tinian, which gives improved early warning of enemy ballistic missile launches, theoretically making THAAD and similar batteries more effective. There were also some short-ranged laser weapons at Cebu in the Philippines, though whether these could stop a ballistic missile was doubtful.
Day 1 (02:00Z 30/7/18 to 02:00Z 31/7/18)
My initial assessment was that it was unrealistic to expect to destroy all or even most of the targets, given the strength of the defences. It seemed best to concentrate on one area at a time and defeat the enemy in detail and I opted to go for Okinawa first, as it appeared relatively isolated. The Chinese naval and sub threat seemed slight and, so long as my ships stayed around the Philippines, there was little risk from MRCAs carrying anti-shipping missiles. Badger strikes could be seen coming and engaged a long distance out, on the evidence of the previous scenario. The biggest danger was the ballistic missiles, against which there is no really effective defence. Only Australia was definitively out of their range.
We had lots of Tomahawks and short-ranged GBU weapons, but genuine air-launched stand-off munitions were in short supply and needed to be conserved until defences had been worn-down.
30/7/18 02:00Z: Six Aussie F-22s were sent to Labuan in E Malaysia, supported by two tankers, which would re-base to Christmas Island. An Extender was sent to Lumbia Airport in Mindanao and another took-off from Iwo to support the Okinawa operation. Distance is a major constraint in this scenario and tankers are vital.
03:00Z: Two Jian Bing satellites overflew our carriers, which must have been seen in the prevailing clear weather.
04:00Z: An initial ASW surge with helicopters found nothing, so it seemed likely that any Chinese subs were deployed for coastal defence rather than harassing us in the Philippines.
The action then began in earnest with a big Chinese ballistic missile strike. A volley of DF-21Ds hit and sank the cruiser Princeton for a devastating 5,000VP, plus 100 more for her two choppers. Happily, it wasn’t a carrier, which would have been terminal. I wonder whether this is hard-coded not to happen for the sake of balance, if not realism?. Meanwhile, DF-26Cs struck Tinian and destroyed all four of our B-2 Spirits on the ground for another 200VP. Alerted by the SBX, ten THAADs managed to fire but only downed one DF-26C.
With typical lousy timing, this happened while I was in the process of sending two F-35s from Nimitz to probe Okinawa. These were pounced-upon by a pair of Mighty Dragons – the first stealth fighters I’ve had to face in the air since I started playing the game. In the ensuing high-class duel, nobody scored a hit, though I managed to get two AMRAAMs to lock-on for 61% shots, both of which missed. At least the J-20s were only using PL-12s instead of the deadlier PL-15. In the process, we found a Chinese SAG off Okinawa, consisting of a Luyang II, a Sovremenny and two Jiangkai frigates. The F-35s ran for home, evading another J-20 that pursued them. Overall, it seemed better to avoid Okinawa and switch my focus to the other end of the map, at Hainan, which might be less well-protected.
05:00Z: Satellite passes gave me a better idea of the SAM defences at the various targets, most of which had one main SAM battery, supported by AA and sometimes lesser missiles.
Another heavy Chinese attack was incoming, with a fleet of Badgers and large numbers of KD-20 cruise missiles, presumably launched from Gods of War safe in enemy airspace.
06:00Z: Every available plane engaged the Badgers and cruise missiles. In the end, 25 Badgers were destroyed and the first wave of KD-20s were all stopped. As in Scenario 11, the Badgers made an incredible number of 20% spoof rolls, which had to be more than just luck. Some of our planes got confused between following their plotted course and going Engaged Offensive on Afterburner and needed a lot of manual intervention to get them to do as I wished. Many SAMs from the ships were wasted, as the AI insisted on blazing them thousands of feet over the incoming sea skimmers. Unfortunately, editing WRA for more than two batteries per platform crashes the game, so my ability to control this was limited.
07:00Z: Another flight of 16 KD-20s were detected heading for Zamboanga airport in Mindanao, where I had no defences available.
At this point, I uploaded the latest update to fix a problem with Stamen banner notices all over the map. This worked without disrupting the game, but the AI was now, presumably, engaging at 75% range rather than NEZ.
The KD-20s duly hit Zamboanga, taking-out the fuel store and, therefore, making the base unusable.
Worse, another undetected shoal of KD-20s hit Iwo Jima, destroying a B-1 Lancer, though not the one with the EMP weapons. Fortunately, the base (which has no radar or CAP) was still operable.
09:00Z: Two F-35s from Nimitz finally got within striking distance of Hainan and engaged two Flankers and a Cub. Eight AMRAAM D shots, no hits. I was firing at a sensible 60nm, but the chances of a hit were only around 20-30%, even against the Cub. Not much I could do apart from throw better virtual dice.
11:00Z: More F-35s arrived and, after a deal of pain, nailed four Flankers for 200VP.
12:00Z: Another seven AMRAAM shots yielded four misses, a spoof and two peter-outs. Frustrating.
14:00Z: Two F-35s, nursed-in from USS America, accounted for a pair of Flankers and a Cub jammer. Australian F-35As, now based in W Malaysia, began to arrive and clobbered three Finbacks, damaging another. At one point, it took eight shots on 40-50% chances to down one of these second-line fighters and we don’t have infinite ammo.
15:00Z: As another Cub jammer was shot down near Hainan, more KD-20s were spotted over Vietnam. I diverted four F-35As, which destroyed them all, mostly using cannon to save AMRAAMs (they’re also more accurate). As the Aussies resumed course for Hainan, two J-20s showed-up but, despite more initial bad luck, both were taken-out without loss. Again, it helped that the Dragons were only armed with PL-12s. A couple of US F-35s then made a horrible mess of engaging two Cubs, managing no hits at what, again, seemed unreasonably low odds against these slow-moving aircraft. Two more Dragons then materialised and, having inevitably missed them, the Lightnings withdrew.
17:00Z: The J-20s pursued the F-35s and, being 100 knots faster, caught and downed one. Having no ammo and low on fuel, there was little I could do.
ARM strikes on Lingshui airbase, Hainan commenced but met resistance from SAMs, Finbacks and Flankers, the latter armed with PL-15s. We pulled-back to the tankers to refuel and re-group.
18:00Z: Continued attempts to suppress the SAMs at Lingshui failed, but expended enemy ammo.
19:00Z: More DF-26s hit Lumbia airport, destroying an Extender on the ground and closing the runway. We switched to using Iloilo and Cebu, the remaining Philippine bases that could handle large aircraft.
Meanwhile, our fighters disposed of a PL-15 Flanker and three more Finbacks and the AI managed to ditch four Firebirds. ARM strikes finally broke through and scored a hit on the Lingshui HQ-9 site, but only appeared to have knocked-out a supporting 30mm AA gun.
20:00Z: Another five-plane SEAD strike failed to do any damage to the Hainan defences.
21:00Z: Our fighters continued to excel themselves. An F-35 needed three shots to kill a Cub MPA and five more AMRAAMs were required to down a clueless Finback that just cruised ahead and took no evasive or aggressive action.
More ballistic missiles (DF-21Cs, this time) hit Iloilo, destroying a tanker that had only just landed there and rendering all hangars and tarmac spaces unusable. Clearly, these attacks were coded to explore the full variety of ways to shut-down airbases!. We were now left with Cebu as the only tanker base in the Philippines and fervently hoped that the Chinese were running out of missiles.
22:00Z: After a long stalk to avoid an escorting Jiangkai frigate, the SSN Santa Fe torpedoed and sank the Luyang III-class DDG Kunming off S Hainan. Miserably, this scored just 100VP, or 2% of the value of the Princeton. A Cub ASW and Haitun took-off in hair-trigger fashion to hunt Santa Fe, which made-off at Flank. Two F-18s, which had just loosed ARMs at the frigate and the Lingshui SAMs, moved to drive them away. One of the AGM-88Es hit the Jiangkai, but without much apparent effect.
23:00Z: After some dreadful shooting, the Cub was downed with a Sidewinder and the Haitun damaged with cannon, causing it to RTB, so Santa Fe escaped. No need for a certain song with a lot of ‘woes’ in it!
Meanwhile, a ten-plane strike succeeded in damaging the runways at Lingshui and Yaxian Sanya in S Hainan with AGM-84s and 158s for a paltry 100VP each. The Jiangkai defended itself with highly-accurate 30mm cannon and survived. Some Flankers and J-20s intervened, but both sides shot poorly and there were no losses either way.
31/7/18 01:00Z: As proof-of-concept, I sent two Aussie F-22s from Labuan against Yaxian Sanya, which was now without the Kunming’s SAM protection and a feasible target for 13nm-ranged GBU-32s. They took-out the control tower, a radar and two ammo shelters which, to my relief, actually scored 100VP each. As I said, proof-of-concept...
So, at the end of Day 1, the score stood at -2,350, totally dominated by the loss of the Princeton. We’d lost 10 aircraft in addition to the cruiser and the Chinese were down a DDG and 49 planes. I note that the scoring scale runs from 0-150,000 so, at 100 per target, I’d need to hit a ludicrous number of the things to stand a chance of winning. Hopefully, I’m wrong.
Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
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FrangibleCover
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Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
Sounds like the TBMs are tearing you up. I wonder if it might be viable to go for a full court press (to mix our American sports metaphors) early on and try to catch and kill the launchers before they fire? Better to lose some aircraft to pushing air defences than to lose cruisers and air bases to the TBMs. Alternatively, with a five day scenario do you just hold the Australian forces back for a day and let them shoot up empty airports in the Philippines before you arrive at the ones that are left over?
I definitely share your concerns about the EMP weapons, I was thinking about that for your Taiwan Blitz playthrough as well: Why do they have to be targeted at a unit? Surely they can be set to burst anywhere, so for Taiwan you could launch the missiles over them and kill their electronics with the spillover while keeping far enough away to keep your Gargoyles working, and for the EMP JASSM you could detonate them just as the SAM site starts to engage them. I need to have a bit of a play with the functionality but I think it might be worth trying to get the devs to let you BOL them.
I definitely share your concerns about the EMP weapons, I was thinking about that for your Taiwan Blitz playthrough as well: Why do they have to be targeted at a unit? Surely they can be set to burst anywhere, so for Taiwan you could launch the missiles over them and kill their electronics with the spillover while keeping far enough away to keep your Gargoyles working, and for the EMP JASSM you could detonate them just as the SAM site starts to engage them. I need to have a bit of a play with the functionality but I think it might be worth trying to get the devs to let you BOL them.
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
The problem is finding the launchers and then penetrating the defences around them before they fire (which is pretty early in the scenario). Your only viable recon is with satellite passes and these don't often identify platforms precisely. Next difficulty is a shortage of strike aircraft with weapons ranging much over 13nm. You do have lots of Tomahawks, but they are slow-moving and vulnerable to SAMs and fighters - I felt it best to save them until later. Rather like having balls over the pockets in pool, really. With luck, I'll be able to score a ton of points with them on Days 4 and 5, with lots of Chinese bases exposed to attack by that stage.
I'm pretty sure that the Chinese lack the capability to wipe-out all of your forward bases, so the player will always be left with enough. It's probably a game balance feature, just as the ballistic missiles are almost certainly coded to attack escorts instead of carriers. In real life, things would be harder for the US, even if they had more than two carrier groups available.
I'm proceeding slowly with Day 2, mainly because I've got several other things going on in my life right now. Nonetheless, the Chinese do seem to be out of ballistic missiles and we've been making headway. Partway through Day 2, I've gotten the score positive but, as has been discussed on other threads, it is probably impossible to win this one without, perhaps, editing out the entire Chinese defence...and I'm not sure that you could even do it then. So I'm not overly concerning myself with winning and thinking more in terms of enjoying the scenario regardless.
I'm pretty sure that the Chinese lack the capability to wipe-out all of your forward bases, so the player will always be left with enough. It's probably a game balance feature, just as the ballistic missiles are almost certainly coded to attack escorts instead of carriers. In real life, things would be harder for the US, even if they had more than two carrier groups available.
I'm proceeding slowly with Day 2, mainly because I've got several other things going on in my life right now. Nonetheless, the Chinese do seem to be out of ballistic missiles and we've been making headway. Partway through Day 2, I've gotten the score positive but, as has been discussed on other threads, it is probably impossible to win this one without, perhaps, editing out the entire Chinese defence...and I'm not sure that you could even do it then. So I'm not overly concerning myself with winning and thinking more in terms of enjoying the scenario regardless.
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
Day 2 (02:00Z 31/7/18 to 02:00Z 1/8/18)
02:00Z: An Aussie F-35 got the day underway by downing a Cub off Hainan, missing on 56, 83 and 49% chances before getting the job done.
03:00Z: The F-22 strikers from Labuan destroyed four hangars at Yaxian-Sanya, while the F-35 escorts disposed of two PL-15 Flankers and the AI managed to ditch two Firebirds and four Finbacks.
Meanwhile, some God of War Badgers were intercepted near Luzon, five being shot down and all their cruise missiles stopped by CAP.
04:00Z: In the air battle over Hainan, the Australians bagged two Flankers and a Mighty Dragon without loss. More hangars were wrecked at Yaxian-Sanya and SEAD planes silenced a HQ-9 defending Lingshui and, with some effort, a HQ-16B at Ledong.
05:00Z: One of the returning SEAD Hornets was bounced and destroyed by a pair of J-20s, both of which were disposed-of by the Aussie F-35s, which were doing a grand job. One of these blotted its copybook by botching an attack on a Cub AEW and was then attacked by another brace of Mighty Dragons. It managed to stay alive long enough to be rescued by one of Nimitz’s Lightnings, which killed both Dragons. I note from the database that the J-20 is too small to carry the 5.8m long PL-15, which explains why they only have PL-12s in this scenario (though I remember them having had PL-15s in the God of War scenario).
Another nine KD-20 cruise missiles were dealt-with by CAP over Luzon.
06:00Z: F-22s destroyed the remaining hangars at Yaxian-Sanya, leaving no more worthwhile targets at that base. An incoming Aussie Hornet SEAD strike was surprised by a pair of Firebirds when I wasn’t looking and (having only C.7 AMRAAMs) had to abort their attack and retreat in a hurry. Two F-35As came-up and needed 6 AMRAAMs to kill the Chinese fighters.
07:00Z: Refuelled and regrouped, the Aussie F/A-18s attacked SAMs around Jialaishi and Wendeng in N Hainan with AGM-88Es, but were thwarted by the defences. Despite the targets making successive 10% spoof rolls, two F-35 attack planes from Nimitz destroyed a pair of intervening Firebirds.
08:00Z: More strike planes swamped another brace of defending Firebirds, which broke-off and hit three targets at Ledong to level the score at zero VP. The next wave did more damage and destroyed a couple of Finbacks in their hangar. Meanwhile, despite another two 20% spoof rolls, an Aussie F-35A got rid of a Cub AEW plane.
09:00Z: An F-35 sank the Jiangkai FFG off Hainan with a JSOW/BROACH, while an Aussie Lightning downed two Firebirds which tried to intervene. Yet another pair of Mighty Dragons showed-up and were downed after much effort. Under cover of this, single aircraft strikes chipped away at the base facilities on the island, learning that jamming vehicles score no VP. At +1,100, it was down to a Major Defeat.
11:00Z: We’d grown to regard Firebirds as no more than an inconvenience, but the next pair encountered were the J-10B model and carried PL-15s. Against F/A-18s, which couldn’t get into range to retaliate effectively, these proved a nasty shock and we lost three strike planes in short order. Thankfully, there were only two of them and our pilots kept coming, wreaking havoc on Lingshui airbase and also scoring hits on the Space Launch Facility at Wendeng, which was imperfectly protected by a detached HQ-9.
12:00Z: By now, Lingshui was thoroughly demolished, with no more scoring targets.
13:00Z: Yet another pair of Mighty Dragons tangled with an American and two Aussie F-35s near Hainan, enjoying incredible ‘luck’. One was damaged and retired, but the other kept coming and made four successive spoof rolls of 20% or less. I’d had enough of this bug and took a save, whereupon the J-20 did it a FIFTH time!! I felt justified in overruling this and replayed the incident twice more before finally getting the kill. This isn’t just bad luck – it is a bug and it is time it was investigated properly and fixed.
Strikes continued to focus on Ledong and Wendeng, both of which were looking worse for wear.
15:00Z: The AI managed to ditch another three Firebirds somehow.
16:00Z: Two F-35s from Nimitz tried to get at the enemy AEW and tanker aircraft orbiting E of Suixi (the peninsula N of Hainan) but needed around 20% to hit these sluggish targets with AMRAAM Ds at 60nm. Two J-10Bs intervened and we couldn’t hit these either – all eight AMRAAMs missed and we had to get out in a hurry with more enemy incoming. Two supporting Aussie F-35s discovered some low numbers on the virtual dice and got rid of the dangerous J-10Bs.
While this was going on, we found that hitting the numerous aircraft weather shelters at Ledong scored no points, so the F-22s finished-off the four control towers(!) and a hangar, leaving no more worthwhile targets on the base.
17:00Z: The tendency of pilots to head for tankers when they didn’t really need to was becoming exasperating. Two F-35s with over an hour’s fuel left headed for a nearby tanker when only 165nm from Nimitz. Soon afterwards, an Aussie F-22 reversed course away from Labuan when just 155nm from the airfield to chase a tanker going the other way – again, it had ample fuel to make it home unaided. Another recurring problem during the strikes on Hainan was aircraft turning for the tankers just as they were about to fire at ground targets, requiring me to remove their refuelling privileges, unassign them, override the resulting RTB, make the attack, then restore the privileges afterwards. Realistically, offloading your weapons improves your fuel budget. The safety margins in the current refuelling thresholds (which can’t be amended on the Doctrine window) are too wide. It was better when Bingo Fuel was Bingo Fuel and the player knew where they stood.
18:00Z: An eight-plane SEAD strike neutralised three of the four HQ-16 and 17 sites around Jialaishi. The fourth remained active, as did the HQ-9 W of Wendeng, which protected nothing anymore and was just a navigational hazard now. F-35s and 22s followed-up and completed the destruction of the Wendeng satellite launch site, also damaging one of the DF-21 batteries at Jialaishi. Unfortunately, we had no ranged cluster munitions and the TELs needed to be picked-off one-by-one.
19:00Z: An F-35 finally managed to swat an elusive Cub AEW near Suixi by holding fire until some 40nm away. It then needed three shots to kill a Badger tanker on 40-50% chances, allowing a second tanker to survive. Four J-10A Firebirds with PL-12s intervened and lost three of their number to the escorting Aussie Lightnings. It appears that the latest version of the missile dynamics model has reduced the tendency for lofting weapons fired too close to overshoot the target, so it once again pays to get as close as possible. It will be nice when things have definitively bedded-down and there is some consistency.
20:00Z: After a painstaking stalk, USS Connecticut torpedoed and sank the Luyang III DDG Hefei off Suixi. As the Chinese ship had good sonar, a 30nm ranged ASROC and was in shallow water, the US SSN was grateful for her exceptional stealth qualities. To be honest, it probably wasn’t worth the risk, as the SSN was likely worth 50 Luyangs...
During the attack, two more J-10Bs showed-up but were knocked-down by the Aussies with relatively little trouble. Perhaps these were only armed with PL-12s or maybe they had trouble spotting the stealth fighters?.
21:00Z: Three SEAD planes failed to crack the residual SAM defences on Hainan. We would have no more for another five hours or so and different tactics would be needed to maintain momentum.
To my disbelief, an Aussie F-22 managed to hit four Chinese planes (a Cub AEW, Badger tanker and two more J-10Bs) with four shots at 35-71% chances!. Just to assure me that I wasn’t dreaming, his wingman proceeded to miss some J-10A Firebirds with all four shots at around 40%. The fortunate Chinese calmly refuelled from their foolhardy tanker…
23:00Z: Four F-35s attacked Jialaishi with long-ranged JSOW/BROACHes, meeting only limited resistance from AA and the HQ-17, which appeared to run out of ammo. They finished-off the damaged DF-21C battery which, ludicrously, scored no points (so it isn’t worth targetting the things, which are almost certainly out of missiles). More usefully, they discovered that there was a squadron of Flankers on the airfield and thinned these out a little. The J-11s stayed grounded, presumably because they were on attack loadouts. Having also zapped an outlying radar, the Lightnings switched to fighter mode to use their AMRAAMs. They need scarcely have bothered, as they managed just one tanker with eight shots (some at around 50%) and then had to make a hasty exit.
1/8/18 00:00Z: Two of the stellar Aussie F-35s destroyed four J-10AH Firebirds. One carefully stalked a tanker to 30nm range but the dice can always have other ideas and it missed with its remaining shot on a 67% chance.
01:00Z: Two American F-35s engaged four J-10A Firebirds. They downed three, but the last one made successive spoof rolls on 10% and 6% chances. I let it go this time.
Two Hornets with AGM-84s did further damage to Jialaishi, with AA the only opposition. It seems safe to send-in the F-22s with GBU-31 and 32s, though I’ll initially be doing it a plane at a time.
02:00Z: We’ve spotted four Badger bombers near Guangzhou. They seem to have fired cruise missiles and turned for base, as was wise but there shouldn’t be too many to deal with and I’ve sent four Hornets to rendezvous with a tanker and intercept them a long way out.
Otherwise, we’ll be aiming to level Jialaishi while mounting SEAD strikes and fighter sweeps against Suixi (which has about five SAM batteries) on Day 3. Meanwhile, Connecticut is stalking a Luyang I DDG, which should be easier prey than her more modern sisters. After Suixi, the Guangzhou area to the NE is not on the target list, so we’ll either move inland to Guiping-Menshi or switch back to Okinawa. We have considerable numbers of cruise missiles, a squadron of B-52s (with about 50% reloads available) and the enigmatic EMP weapon in reserve but there is no hurry to use all this just yet – better to thin-out the fighters and SAMs first.
At the close on Day 2, the score is +8,300, which is a considerable improvement, but still a Major Defeat. Frankly, I can’t see this changing and am playing more to see what happens than in any expectation of victory in scenario terms. Playing this one is a major effort and is likely to occupy me for a while yet, though I’ll probably play a couple of other games, i.e not CMO, before resuming.
For the record, our losses to-date amount to a cruiser and 14 aircraft (just 5 of which were lost in the air). The Chinese have lost 2 DDGs, an FFG and 111 aircraft so far.
02:00Z: An Aussie F-35 got the day underway by downing a Cub off Hainan, missing on 56, 83 and 49% chances before getting the job done.
03:00Z: The F-22 strikers from Labuan destroyed four hangars at Yaxian-Sanya, while the F-35 escorts disposed of two PL-15 Flankers and the AI managed to ditch two Firebirds and four Finbacks.
Meanwhile, some God of War Badgers were intercepted near Luzon, five being shot down and all their cruise missiles stopped by CAP.
04:00Z: In the air battle over Hainan, the Australians bagged two Flankers and a Mighty Dragon without loss. More hangars were wrecked at Yaxian-Sanya and SEAD planes silenced a HQ-9 defending Lingshui and, with some effort, a HQ-16B at Ledong.
05:00Z: One of the returning SEAD Hornets was bounced and destroyed by a pair of J-20s, both of which were disposed-of by the Aussie F-35s, which were doing a grand job. One of these blotted its copybook by botching an attack on a Cub AEW and was then attacked by another brace of Mighty Dragons. It managed to stay alive long enough to be rescued by one of Nimitz’s Lightnings, which killed both Dragons. I note from the database that the J-20 is too small to carry the 5.8m long PL-15, which explains why they only have PL-12s in this scenario (though I remember them having had PL-15s in the God of War scenario).
Another nine KD-20 cruise missiles were dealt-with by CAP over Luzon.
06:00Z: F-22s destroyed the remaining hangars at Yaxian-Sanya, leaving no more worthwhile targets at that base. An incoming Aussie Hornet SEAD strike was surprised by a pair of Firebirds when I wasn’t looking and (having only C.7 AMRAAMs) had to abort their attack and retreat in a hurry. Two F-35As came-up and needed 6 AMRAAMs to kill the Chinese fighters.
07:00Z: Refuelled and regrouped, the Aussie F/A-18s attacked SAMs around Jialaishi and Wendeng in N Hainan with AGM-88Es, but were thwarted by the defences. Despite the targets making successive 10% spoof rolls, two F-35 attack planes from Nimitz destroyed a pair of intervening Firebirds.
08:00Z: More strike planes swamped another brace of defending Firebirds, which broke-off and hit three targets at Ledong to level the score at zero VP. The next wave did more damage and destroyed a couple of Finbacks in their hangar. Meanwhile, despite another two 20% spoof rolls, an Aussie F-35A got rid of a Cub AEW plane.
09:00Z: An F-35 sank the Jiangkai FFG off Hainan with a JSOW/BROACH, while an Aussie Lightning downed two Firebirds which tried to intervene. Yet another pair of Mighty Dragons showed-up and were downed after much effort. Under cover of this, single aircraft strikes chipped away at the base facilities on the island, learning that jamming vehicles score no VP. At +1,100, it was down to a Major Defeat.
11:00Z: We’d grown to regard Firebirds as no more than an inconvenience, but the next pair encountered were the J-10B model and carried PL-15s. Against F/A-18s, which couldn’t get into range to retaliate effectively, these proved a nasty shock and we lost three strike planes in short order. Thankfully, there were only two of them and our pilots kept coming, wreaking havoc on Lingshui airbase and also scoring hits on the Space Launch Facility at Wendeng, which was imperfectly protected by a detached HQ-9.
12:00Z: By now, Lingshui was thoroughly demolished, with no more scoring targets.
13:00Z: Yet another pair of Mighty Dragons tangled with an American and two Aussie F-35s near Hainan, enjoying incredible ‘luck’. One was damaged and retired, but the other kept coming and made four successive spoof rolls of 20% or less. I’d had enough of this bug and took a save, whereupon the J-20 did it a FIFTH time!! I felt justified in overruling this and replayed the incident twice more before finally getting the kill. This isn’t just bad luck – it is a bug and it is time it was investigated properly and fixed.
Strikes continued to focus on Ledong and Wendeng, both of which were looking worse for wear.
15:00Z: The AI managed to ditch another three Firebirds somehow.
16:00Z: Two F-35s from Nimitz tried to get at the enemy AEW and tanker aircraft orbiting E of Suixi (the peninsula N of Hainan) but needed around 20% to hit these sluggish targets with AMRAAM Ds at 60nm. Two J-10Bs intervened and we couldn’t hit these either – all eight AMRAAMs missed and we had to get out in a hurry with more enemy incoming. Two supporting Aussie F-35s discovered some low numbers on the virtual dice and got rid of the dangerous J-10Bs.
While this was going on, we found that hitting the numerous aircraft weather shelters at Ledong scored no points, so the F-22s finished-off the four control towers(!) and a hangar, leaving no more worthwhile targets on the base.
17:00Z: The tendency of pilots to head for tankers when they didn’t really need to was becoming exasperating. Two F-35s with over an hour’s fuel left headed for a nearby tanker when only 165nm from Nimitz. Soon afterwards, an Aussie F-22 reversed course away from Labuan when just 155nm from the airfield to chase a tanker going the other way – again, it had ample fuel to make it home unaided. Another recurring problem during the strikes on Hainan was aircraft turning for the tankers just as they were about to fire at ground targets, requiring me to remove their refuelling privileges, unassign them, override the resulting RTB, make the attack, then restore the privileges afterwards. Realistically, offloading your weapons improves your fuel budget. The safety margins in the current refuelling thresholds (which can’t be amended on the Doctrine window) are too wide. It was better when Bingo Fuel was Bingo Fuel and the player knew where they stood.
18:00Z: An eight-plane SEAD strike neutralised three of the four HQ-16 and 17 sites around Jialaishi. The fourth remained active, as did the HQ-9 W of Wendeng, which protected nothing anymore and was just a navigational hazard now. F-35s and 22s followed-up and completed the destruction of the Wendeng satellite launch site, also damaging one of the DF-21 batteries at Jialaishi. Unfortunately, we had no ranged cluster munitions and the TELs needed to be picked-off one-by-one.
19:00Z: An F-35 finally managed to swat an elusive Cub AEW near Suixi by holding fire until some 40nm away. It then needed three shots to kill a Badger tanker on 40-50% chances, allowing a second tanker to survive. Four J-10A Firebirds with PL-12s intervened and lost three of their number to the escorting Aussie Lightnings. It appears that the latest version of the missile dynamics model has reduced the tendency for lofting weapons fired too close to overshoot the target, so it once again pays to get as close as possible. It will be nice when things have definitively bedded-down and there is some consistency.
20:00Z: After a painstaking stalk, USS Connecticut torpedoed and sank the Luyang III DDG Hefei off Suixi. As the Chinese ship had good sonar, a 30nm ranged ASROC and was in shallow water, the US SSN was grateful for her exceptional stealth qualities. To be honest, it probably wasn’t worth the risk, as the SSN was likely worth 50 Luyangs...
During the attack, two more J-10Bs showed-up but were knocked-down by the Aussies with relatively little trouble. Perhaps these were only armed with PL-12s or maybe they had trouble spotting the stealth fighters?.
21:00Z: Three SEAD planes failed to crack the residual SAM defences on Hainan. We would have no more for another five hours or so and different tactics would be needed to maintain momentum.
To my disbelief, an Aussie F-22 managed to hit four Chinese planes (a Cub AEW, Badger tanker and two more J-10Bs) with four shots at 35-71% chances!. Just to assure me that I wasn’t dreaming, his wingman proceeded to miss some J-10A Firebirds with all four shots at around 40%. The fortunate Chinese calmly refuelled from their foolhardy tanker…
23:00Z: Four F-35s attacked Jialaishi with long-ranged JSOW/BROACHes, meeting only limited resistance from AA and the HQ-17, which appeared to run out of ammo. They finished-off the damaged DF-21C battery which, ludicrously, scored no points (so it isn’t worth targetting the things, which are almost certainly out of missiles). More usefully, they discovered that there was a squadron of Flankers on the airfield and thinned these out a little. The J-11s stayed grounded, presumably because they were on attack loadouts. Having also zapped an outlying radar, the Lightnings switched to fighter mode to use their AMRAAMs. They need scarcely have bothered, as they managed just one tanker with eight shots (some at around 50%) and then had to make a hasty exit.
1/8/18 00:00Z: Two of the stellar Aussie F-35s destroyed four J-10AH Firebirds. One carefully stalked a tanker to 30nm range but the dice can always have other ideas and it missed with its remaining shot on a 67% chance.
01:00Z: Two American F-35s engaged four J-10A Firebirds. They downed three, but the last one made successive spoof rolls on 10% and 6% chances. I let it go this time.
Two Hornets with AGM-84s did further damage to Jialaishi, with AA the only opposition. It seems safe to send-in the F-22s with GBU-31 and 32s, though I’ll initially be doing it a plane at a time.
02:00Z: We’ve spotted four Badger bombers near Guangzhou. They seem to have fired cruise missiles and turned for base, as was wise but there shouldn’t be too many to deal with and I’ve sent four Hornets to rendezvous with a tanker and intercept them a long way out.
Otherwise, we’ll be aiming to level Jialaishi while mounting SEAD strikes and fighter sweeps against Suixi (which has about five SAM batteries) on Day 3. Meanwhile, Connecticut is stalking a Luyang I DDG, which should be easier prey than her more modern sisters. After Suixi, the Guangzhou area to the NE is not on the target list, so we’ll either move inland to Guiping-Menshi or switch back to Okinawa. We have considerable numbers of cruise missiles, a squadron of B-52s (with about 50% reloads available) and the enigmatic EMP weapon in reserve but there is no hurry to use all this just yet – better to thin-out the fighters and SAMs first.
At the close on Day 2, the score is +8,300, which is a considerable improvement, but still a Major Defeat. Frankly, I can’t see this changing and am playing more to see what happens than in any expectation of victory in scenario terms. Playing this one is a major effort and is likely to occupy me for a while yet, though I’ll probably play a couple of other games, i.e not CMO, before resuming.
For the record, our losses to-date amount to a cruiser and 14 aircraft (just 5 of which were lost in the air). The Chinese have lost 2 DDGs, an FFG and 111 aircraft so far.
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
Great AAR and job so far!
Honestly I need to fire this one up again at some point. Designed it 6+ years ago. Things are very hazy
Mike
Honestly I need to fire this one up again at some point. Designed it 6+ years ago. Things are very hazy
Mike
Don't call it a comeback...
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
Thanks, Mike. Here's Day 3.
Day 3 (02:00Z 1/8/18 to 02:00Z 2/8/18)
02:00Z: Mostly using cannon, three F/A-18s sufficed to deal with the 14 incoming KD-20 cruise missiles before they’d even crossed the Philippine coast. The Hornets headed for China to use their AMRAAMs.
Two Aussie F-35s disposed of a pair of Roaring Wolf OECM planes, which foolishly tried to close and engage them with PL-10s.
03:00Z: One of Nimitz’s F-35s bagged three J-10A Firebirds. Letting them get to 40nm or so greatly improves the chances of success, while still being outside the PL-12’s effective range. Our two-plane recon strike on Jialaishi went well, so full-scale bombing of that base was authorised.
04:00Z: The F/A-18s made good use of their AMRAAMs, downing another three J-10As near Guangzhou. One of USS America’s F-35s got two more. An Aussie F-35 needed four shots to kill a Badger tanker that wasn’t even actively trying to get away, finally closing to 75nm for a 75% chance.
05:00Z: An F-35 from USS America removed another tanker. Meanwhile, an 8-plane SEAD strike knocked-out four of the six SAM batteries defending Suixi, with two HQ-17s left operational. There was no fighter opposition, but a supporting Growler OECM plane bagged another hapless tanker. F-22s did more damage to Jialaishi.
06:00Z: F-35s engaged four J-10As S of Guangzhou, downing three.
08:00Z: A smaller follow-up SEAD strike on Suixi came under flanking fire from the HQ-9 battery on Hainan, which wasn’t silenced after all. At long range, the missiles were easily evaded and a Hornet put an AGM-88E into the HQ-9. The other two F/A-18s probably silenced the HQ-17s at Suixi, leaving it open for bombing. Meanwhile, four F-22s hit Jialaishi. There are two problems here, firstly that it is impossible to see which of the many aircraft revetments you have hit already and secondly that the Aussie Raptors head home at 1,000 knots, getting into fuel problems later, so you have to remember to tell them to pull-out at Cruise instead.
09:00Z: Four more F-22s scored another 800VP at Jialaishi, while an F-35 killed one of two J-10As S of Guangzhou.
An F-35 attacked the Over the Horizon (OTH) radar site NE of Guangzhou, which is on the target list, using JSOW/BROACHes. There was no immediate opposition but, needless to say, one of the missiles malfunctioned, necessitating another sortie to kill the second of the two possible targets. Two J-10As lifted-off from nearby Xiangshi Hsu airbase in response but a covering F-35 disposed of them. Two more launched from Shantou, to the NE and a pack of Flankers came roaring in for good measure. Dreadful shooting gave us no kills from three shots at 40nm. A second Aussie F-35 arrived and didn’t do much better, but did get one Firebird before pulling out with the rest of the strike.
10:00Z: Four Hornets attacked Suixi with little effect. A couple of GBU-31s were wasted trying to hit a radar (apparently, they can’t do this) and one of the HQ-17s was still alive and stopped the remaining missiles on generous 70% chances. We consoled ourselves that it didn’t have infinite ammo…
11:00Z: A second sortie against the OTH radar site was impeded by three intervening pairs of J-10As, the enemy having mounted a fighter surge after the previous raid. An F-35A engaged the first pair, but missed with all four shots (two being spoofed on 02 and 03) but the Firebirds then RTB’d, as did the pair nearest the target as the strike plane approached. The third pair dashed-in on Afterburner but ran out of fuel and veered away. Using two JSOW/BROACHes to make sure, we destroyed the target, which was worth just 200VP in total. Meanwhile, an F-35 knocked-down two more J-10As S of Guangzhou.
12:00Z: I decided that it was time to use the AGM-158 EMP weapon!. The plan was to hit undefended coastal radars in the hope that the pulse would affect other targets far and wide, as had happened with the Chinese nuke blasts in the Taiwan Blitz scenario. In practice, the pulse from the AGM-158 proved to be very localised and it was impossible to gauge what effect it had, if any. I loosed a few more at various targets, kept 14 back and withdrew the B-1 over the Philippines.
Meanwhile, the AI managed to ditch a few of its Firebirds – goodness knows how…
13:00Z: USS Connecticut got within weapon range of the Luyang I-class DDG Wuhan, which was part of Guangzhou’s air defence system. Somehow, her first four torpedoes failed to lock-on and she then had difficulty getting a firm enough fix on the destroyer to try again. In the end, I had to risk going to periscope depth to correct this, comforted by the knowledge that the enemy ship was ill-suited to ASW. A second salvo of tinfish did the trick and the SSN gratefully dived and cruised for the open sea.
An Aussie F-35 missed with all four shots at some J-10As, but his wingman compensated with three kills out of four.
15:00Z: Eight Hornets hit Suixi. The HQ-17 stopped the first pair of missiles but then ran out of ammo and the base took a pounding, with the runway closed and at least one plane destroyed on the ground. Two F-22s struck Jialaishi.
The retiring B-1 loosed its remaining ordnance at Okinawa. One AGM-158 got through, for whatever effect (probably none) but it did, at least, make the Chinese use a lot of SAMs.
The strategy now was to continue to bomb Jialaishi and Suixi with the GBU-31/2 aircraft, mount a big SEAD strike on the Badger base at Guiping Menshu (some way inland of Suixi) and gradually switch the carriers’ attention to Okinawa, leaving SW China to the Australians, whose fighters would move forward to Bien Hoa in Vietnam. Tentatively, the B-52 squadron in Australia would be used to hit Shaodong and Leiyang/Hsin Shi bases in the interior on Days 4 and 5.
16:00Z: Four F-22s did more damage to Jialaishi.
17:00Z: An Aussie F-35 bagged two J-10As near Shantou, while another got a J-10C Firebird over Mainland China.
Four Hornets struck Suixi, finding that some hardened aircraft shelters here score VP and others don’t. It turned-out that the two Mighty Dragons we had damaged earlier were based at Suixi and had been destroyed on the ground.
Less pleasantly, we discovered that only F-35As could base at Bien Hoa, due to runway limitations, so the Aussie SEAD Hornets had to divert to Labuan and the four F-22s the base could accommodate had no reloads, needing to be ferried back to North Borneo.
18:00Z: An 11-plane SEAD strike on Guiping Menshu took-out most of the SAM defences, including a HQ-9. A couple of Gauntlets survived by not radiating. Three J-10Cs with PL-15s intervened and had our strike planes doing 90-degree turns on Burner to survive. One of these dangerous foes was shot down by an escorting F-35A after I’d corrected both Lightnings heading for distant tankers at precisely the wrong moment (this recurrent problem is the most painful feature of the scenario, albeit being a deficiency of the rules rather than the scenario itself).
Four F-22s again struck Jialaishi, where we were running out of targets.
19:00Z: An Aussie F-35A chased a retiring J-10C, came-up close behind it and fired twice, only for the idiot dice to say “NO”. Inevitably, the fortunate Firebird spun round and shot me down with its PL-15s for the first Australian casualty of the game. Tom and Jerry stuff!. A second F-35 took revenge.
20:00Z: A straggling Hornet failed to take-out the remaining pair of Gauntlets at Guiping Menshu, which were now active. With our covering F-35 missing a couple of J-10As, both of our planes had to get clear in a hurry. Chinese fighters surged in pursuit.
Suddenly, a flight of F-35s heading for Okinawa ran into a group of six Badgers coming the other way!. With Hornet CAP intervening, five of the reckless bombers were downed and the other escaped, having delayed my move against the Okinawa CAP.
22:00Z: Two Hornets probed Okinawa and were bounced by two stealthy Mighty Dragons while trying to attack four Flankers. Each side lost a plane. An F-35 from Nimitz followed-up and took-out a second J-20, damaging a third.
Meanwhile, an Aussie F-35 eliminated what proved to be the last pair of J-10C PL-15 Firebirds over the Chinese mainland.
23:00Z: Two F-35s and a Hornet shot down four Flankers near Okinawa. Unfortunately, while my attention was absorbed in strikes elsewhere (and the three fighters were making a prudent withdrawal for that reason), two more Mighty Dragons pounced. I reacted in time to keep losses down to one F-35, having to override all kinds of fuel and RTB chaos in the process and get a tanker out of Dodge.
Further strikes hit Jialaishi and Suixi. Two SEAD planes destroyed one of the Gauntlets at Guiping Menshu and, with stiff opposition from the other Gauntlet and AA, four Hornets took-out the base’s main runway.
Meanwhile, USS Key West, patrolling S of Okinawa, detected a Chinese sub and attacked. The Yuan was sunk but had somehow gotten within Yu-6 range (8nm) of the American SSN (moving at 5 knots) and took posthumous revenge. Crazily, subs score nothing for either side, which was a relief!!
To illustrate the infuriating anomalies that happen with the current refuelling settings, an F/A-18 on RTB, doing 480 knots, had 2 hours and 9 minutes’ fuel left and was 590.3 nm from its base on Eisenhower, but had somehow ‘reached Bingo Fuel’, which caused it to veer away towards a more distant tanker N of Luzon until I manually corrected it, removing its tanker privileges. Constantly having to watch out for these issues is driving me nuts! It is all so needless.
2/8/18 00:00Z: An Aussie F-35, intruding over China, destroyed an Su-30 Flanker, but managed just one hit in four shots at 40% or so. They say chance evens out, but this has been the default throughout this game. As I understand it, I should be getting two kills 60% of the time, but it has just not been like that. Getting much closer would allow the Chinese to reply with their PL-12s.
01:00Z: Two more Aussie F-35s engage J-10As over China. One actually did get two kills with four shots, but the other missed completely (one shot petered-out and the others went wide on 43, 51 and 61% chances). The Chinese chased us out to sea and a Hornet, aiming to finish the HQ-9 on Hainan, diverted to engage a pair – but missed with both AMRAAMs. The Chinese did at least pull back, having sent tankers and a Sentry running all over the place. As the game progresses, you have to edge your tankers further forward, making them vulnerable to surges like this – a nicely-designed ploy for the Chinese if it was deliberate.
Things went a little better at Okinawa, where two of USS America’s F-35s, having been coaxed there by tanker support (at one point they both RTB’d immediately after refuelling and had to be hauled back) nailed three Flankers and damaged another.
So, at the end of Day 3, the score stood at +17,750, still a Major Defeat. Our losses amounted to a CG, SSN and 17 aircraft, while China had lost 3 DDGs, an FFG, a sub and 176 aircraft.
The scenario still appears unwinnable but we’ll battle on, as it’s a good, highly-absorbing one if you can just ignore the scoring system. Hopefully, Day 4 will see us crack the defences of Okinawa and reduce the swarms of fighters the Chinese still have over their mainland, enabling cruise missile attacks from ships, subs and B-52s on Day 5.
Day 3 (02:00Z 1/8/18 to 02:00Z 2/8/18)
02:00Z: Mostly using cannon, three F/A-18s sufficed to deal with the 14 incoming KD-20 cruise missiles before they’d even crossed the Philippine coast. The Hornets headed for China to use their AMRAAMs.
Two Aussie F-35s disposed of a pair of Roaring Wolf OECM planes, which foolishly tried to close and engage them with PL-10s.
03:00Z: One of Nimitz’s F-35s bagged three J-10A Firebirds. Letting them get to 40nm or so greatly improves the chances of success, while still being outside the PL-12’s effective range. Our two-plane recon strike on Jialaishi went well, so full-scale bombing of that base was authorised.
04:00Z: The F/A-18s made good use of their AMRAAMs, downing another three J-10As near Guangzhou. One of USS America’s F-35s got two more. An Aussie F-35 needed four shots to kill a Badger tanker that wasn’t even actively trying to get away, finally closing to 75nm for a 75% chance.
05:00Z: An F-35 from USS America removed another tanker. Meanwhile, an 8-plane SEAD strike knocked-out four of the six SAM batteries defending Suixi, with two HQ-17s left operational. There was no fighter opposition, but a supporting Growler OECM plane bagged another hapless tanker. F-22s did more damage to Jialaishi.
06:00Z: F-35s engaged four J-10As S of Guangzhou, downing three.
08:00Z: A smaller follow-up SEAD strike on Suixi came under flanking fire from the HQ-9 battery on Hainan, which wasn’t silenced after all. At long range, the missiles were easily evaded and a Hornet put an AGM-88E into the HQ-9. The other two F/A-18s probably silenced the HQ-17s at Suixi, leaving it open for bombing. Meanwhile, four F-22s hit Jialaishi. There are two problems here, firstly that it is impossible to see which of the many aircraft revetments you have hit already and secondly that the Aussie Raptors head home at 1,000 knots, getting into fuel problems later, so you have to remember to tell them to pull-out at Cruise instead.
09:00Z: Four more F-22s scored another 800VP at Jialaishi, while an F-35 killed one of two J-10As S of Guangzhou.
An F-35 attacked the Over the Horizon (OTH) radar site NE of Guangzhou, which is on the target list, using JSOW/BROACHes. There was no immediate opposition but, needless to say, one of the missiles malfunctioned, necessitating another sortie to kill the second of the two possible targets. Two J-10As lifted-off from nearby Xiangshi Hsu airbase in response but a covering F-35 disposed of them. Two more launched from Shantou, to the NE and a pack of Flankers came roaring in for good measure. Dreadful shooting gave us no kills from three shots at 40nm. A second Aussie F-35 arrived and didn’t do much better, but did get one Firebird before pulling out with the rest of the strike.
10:00Z: Four Hornets attacked Suixi with little effect. A couple of GBU-31s were wasted trying to hit a radar (apparently, they can’t do this) and one of the HQ-17s was still alive and stopped the remaining missiles on generous 70% chances. We consoled ourselves that it didn’t have infinite ammo…
11:00Z: A second sortie against the OTH radar site was impeded by three intervening pairs of J-10As, the enemy having mounted a fighter surge after the previous raid. An F-35A engaged the first pair, but missed with all four shots (two being spoofed on 02 and 03) but the Firebirds then RTB’d, as did the pair nearest the target as the strike plane approached. The third pair dashed-in on Afterburner but ran out of fuel and veered away. Using two JSOW/BROACHes to make sure, we destroyed the target, which was worth just 200VP in total. Meanwhile, an F-35 knocked-down two more J-10As S of Guangzhou.
12:00Z: I decided that it was time to use the AGM-158 EMP weapon!. The plan was to hit undefended coastal radars in the hope that the pulse would affect other targets far and wide, as had happened with the Chinese nuke blasts in the Taiwan Blitz scenario. In practice, the pulse from the AGM-158 proved to be very localised and it was impossible to gauge what effect it had, if any. I loosed a few more at various targets, kept 14 back and withdrew the B-1 over the Philippines.
Meanwhile, the AI managed to ditch a few of its Firebirds – goodness knows how…
13:00Z: USS Connecticut got within weapon range of the Luyang I-class DDG Wuhan, which was part of Guangzhou’s air defence system. Somehow, her first four torpedoes failed to lock-on and she then had difficulty getting a firm enough fix on the destroyer to try again. In the end, I had to risk going to periscope depth to correct this, comforted by the knowledge that the enemy ship was ill-suited to ASW. A second salvo of tinfish did the trick and the SSN gratefully dived and cruised for the open sea.
An Aussie F-35 missed with all four shots at some J-10As, but his wingman compensated with three kills out of four.
15:00Z: Eight Hornets hit Suixi. The HQ-17 stopped the first pair of missiles but then ran out of ammo and the base took a pounding, with the runway closed and at least one plane destroyed on the ground. Two F-22s struck Jialaishi.
The retiring B-1 loosed its remaining ordnance at Okinawa. One AGM-158 got through, for whatever effect (probably none) but it did, at least, make the Chinese use a lot of SAMs.
The strategy now was to continue to bomb Jialaishi and Suixi with the GBU-31/2 aircraft, mount a big SEAD strike on the Badger base at Guiping Menshu (some way inland of Suixi) and gradually switch the carriers’ attention to Okinawa, leaving SW China to the Australians, whose fighters would move forward to Bien Hoa in Vietnam. Tentatively, the B-52 squadron in Australia would be used to hit Shaodong and Leiyang/Hsin Shi bases in the interior on Days 4 and 5.
16:00Z: Four F-22s did more damage to Jialaishi.
17:00Z: An Aussie F-35 bagged two J-10As near Shantou, while another got a J-10C Firebird over Mainland China.
Four Hornets struck Suixi, finding that some hardened aircraft shelters here score VP and others don’t. It turned-out that the two Mighty Dragons we had damaged earlier were based at Suixi and had been destroyed on the ground.
Less pleasantly, we discovered that only F-35As could base at Bien Hoa, due to runway limitations, so the Aussie SEAD Hornets had to divert to Labuan and the four F-22s the base could accommodate had no reloads, needing to be ferried back to North Borneo.
18:00Z: An 11-plane SEAD strike on Guiping Menshu took-out most of the SAM defences, including a HQ-9. A couple of Gauntlets survived by not radiating. Three J-10Cs with PL-15s intervened and had our strike planes doing 90-degree turns on Burner to survive. One of these dangerous foes was shot down by an escorting F-35A after I’d corrected both Lightnings heading for distant tankers at precisely the wrong moment (this recurrent problem is the most painful feature of the scenario, albeit being a deficiency of the rules rather than the scenario itself).
Four F-22s again struck Jialaishi, where we were running out of targets.
19:00Z: An Aussie F-35A chased a retiring J-10C, came-up close behind it and fired twice, only for the idiot dice to say “NO”. Inevitably, the fortunate Firebird spun round and shot me down with its PL-15s for the first Australian casualty of the game. Tom and Jerry stuff!. A second F-35 took revenge.
20:00Z: A straggling Hornet failed to take-out the remaining pair of Gauntlets at Guiping Menshu, which were now active. With our covering F-35 missing a couple of J-10As, both of our planes had to get clear in a hurry. Chinese fighters surged in pursuit.
Suddenly, a flight of F-35s heading for Okinawa ran into a group of six Badgers coming the other way!. With Hornet CAP intervening, five of the reckless bombers were downed and the other escaped, having delayed my move against the Okinawa CAP.
22:00Z: Two Hornets probed Okinawa and were bounced by two stealthy Mighty Dragons while trying to attack four Flankers. Each side lost a plane. An F-35 from Nimitz followed-up and took-out a second J-20, damaging a third.
Meanwhile, an Aussie F-35 eliminated what proved to be the last pair of J-10C PL-15 Firebirds over the Chinese mainland.
23:00Z: Two F-35s and a Hornet shot down four Flankers near Okinawa. Unfortunately, while my attention was absorbed in strikes elsewhere (and the three fighters were making a prudent withdrawal for that reason), two more Mighty Dragons pounced. I reacted in time to keep losses down to one F-35, having to override all kinds of fuel and RTB chaos in the process and get a tanker out of Dodge.
Further strikes hit Jialaishi and Suixi. Two SEAD planes destroyed one of the Gauntlets at Guiping Menshu and, with stiff opposition from the other Gauntlet and AA, four Hornets took-out the base’s main runway.
Meanwhile, USS Key West, patrolling S of Okinawa, detected a Chinese sub and attacked. The Yuan was sunk but had somehow gotten within Yu-6 range (8nm) of the American SSN (moving at 5 knots) and took posthumous revenge. Crazily, subs score nothing for either side, which was a relief!!
To illustrate the infuriating anomalies that happen with the current refuelling settings, an F/A-18 on RTB, doing 480 knots, had 2 hours and 9 minutes’ fuel left and was 590.3 nm from its base on Eisenhower, but had somehow ‘reached Bingo Fuel’, which caused it to veer away towards a more distant tanker N of Luzon until I manually corrected it, removing its tanker privileges. Constantly having to watch out for these issues is driving me nuts! It is all so needless.
2/8/18 00:00Z: An Aussie F-35, intruding over China, destroyed an Su-30 Flanker, but managed just one hit in four shots at 40% or so. They say chance evens out, but this has been the default throughout this game. As I understand it, I should be getting two kills 60% of the time, but it has just not been like that. Getting much closer would allow the Chinese to reply with their PL-12s.
01:00Z: Two more Aussie F-35s engage J-10As over China. One actually did get two kills with four shots, but the other missed completely (one shot petered-out and the others went wide on 43, 51 and 61% chances). The Chinese chased us out to sea and a Hornet, aiming to finish the HQ-9 on Hainan, diverted to engage a pair – but missed with both AMRAAMs. The Chinese did at least pull back, having sent tankers and a Sentry running all over the place. As the game progresses, you have to edge your tankers further forward, making them vulnerable to surges like this – a nicely-designed ploy for the Chinese if it was deliberate.
Things went a little better at Okinawa, where two of USS America’s F-35s, having been coaxed there by tanker support (at one point they both RTB’d immediately after refuelling and had to be hauled back) nailed three Flankers and damaged another.
So, at the end of Day 3, the score stood at +17,750, still a Major Defeat. Our losses amounted to a CG, SSN and 17 aircraft, while China had lost 3 DDGs, an FFG, a sub and 176 aircraft.
The scenario still appears unwinnable but we’ll battle on, as it’s a good, highly-absorbing one if you can just ignore the scoring system. Hopefully, Day 4 will see us crack the defences of Okinawa and reduce the swarms of fighters the Chinese still have over their mainland, enabling cruise missile attacks from ships, subs and B-52s on Day 5.
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
Day 4 (02:00Z 2/8/18 to 02:00Z 3/8/18)
02:00Z: An F-35 engaged two Flankers near Okinawa, getting the usual one kill from four shots.
A strike on Jialaishi closed the runway and also killed the second DF-21C (scored no VP but it had to be done in real-world terms). Meanwhile, a SEAD Hornet struck the HQ-9 on Hainan, which was still radiating and posed a hazard to RTB’ing aircraft, given the AI’s tendency to fly them over it. Both AGM-88Es hit 30mm AA radars instead of the fire-control radar but the absence of defensive fire suggested that the site was no longer a threat.
The next big target N of Guiping Menshu was the Badger base at Shaodong. Recon indicated that it was guarded by an HQ-9 and two Crotale/HQ-7 sites and included lots of difficult underground targets. Nearby Leiyang/Hsin Shi also had an HQ-9 and two HQ-17s. Neither was an easy proposition, given my dwindling SEAD resources. Eisenhower was completely out of AGM-88s, so I was having to rely on re-equipping some of Nimitz’s Hornets to go with four Aussie F/A-18s, which were also running low. It was also a long way to fly, with plenty of Chinese fighters active in the interior. I reduced the latter problem slightly by intruding two Aussie F-35s, which killed two Flankers with eight shots – just not good enough.
04:00Z: Three F-35s swept Okinawa, engaging two Flankers and getting the habitual one kill in four shots from the lead plane. As the other Flanker RTB’ed away, two Mighty Dragons appeared. In a remarkable change of luck, one of USS America’s F-35s avoided two PL-12s and a PL-10 at close range and downed both J-20s for a big morale boost.
Meanwhile, more single-plane strikes took-out some of the remaining targets at Jialaishi and Suixi.
06:00Z: Improved luck continued as the Aussies clobbered three Flankers and three J-10As with two sorties on the Shaodong front.
07:00Z: A carrier Hornet strike on Guiping Menshu had major difficulties with their GBU-31s being ineffective against hardened and underground targets, which seem to predominate on Badger bases. The taxiway was put out of action to close the base and we kicked-over to seek softer-skinned prey.
08:00Z: Three SEAD planes attacked the Sovremenny DDG Hangzhou and the Jiangkai II FFG Xiangtan SE and S of Okinawa in a bid to punch a hole in the ring of ships around the island’s bases. Two Flankers sortied and were destroyed at copious expenditure of AMRAAMs from strikers and escorts. Chinese SAMs stopped all 10 AGM-88s.
09:00Z: Seven strike planes struck the ships but found the SAMs impenetrable.
Two F-35s needed the usual eight shots to down a pair of J-10As W of Guangzhou.
10:00Z: A four-plane SEAD strike on Okinawa failed to crack the defences.
11:00Z: Another nine-plane strike broke through and sank the Hangzhou and Xiangtan.
12:00Z: By now, Labuan was running out of strike munitions, so the Aussie F-22s were ordered to re-base gradually to Puerto Princesa on Palawan, Philippines.
13:00Z: An F-35 bagged a J-10A with the usual four shots N of Guangzhou. A second Lightning missed four times. Out of patience, I mounted an 8-plane fighter surge, including F-35s and carrier Hornets with lots of AMRAAMs, to cull the fighter swarm and cover a forlorn SEAD hope with the Aussie Hornets against Shaodong.
15:00Z: A major dogfight ensued S of Shaodong as the strike force impacted the enemy swarm. Eight Flankers and J-10As were downed and it would have been more but for continued lousy shooting. The SEAD Hornets had to back-off several times, but one eventually got close enough to throw its AGM-88 pebbles against the wall of Shaodong’s HQ-9. Needless refuelling chaos prevented it from escaping two pursuing Flankers on Burner – the AI just wouldn’t let me fly faster than 480 knots though, in actuality, I did have the fuel. Resignedly, I accepted that I was going to lose the plane and turned to fight with AMRAAM C.7s and Sidewinders. Neither side shot well at 15nm range, but I damaged one Flanker with four missiles before being shot down. An F-35 arrived just too late and disposed of both Flankers (included in the eight quoted above).
16:00Z: Escorts downed two more Flankers and the enemy surge subsided. The remaining three SEAD Hornets, having refuelled from tankers flying boldly over the Chinese mainland, attacked Shaodong and used-up some SAMs.
Under cover of this activity, two Aussie F-22s hit and destroyed what proved to be a CJ-10 long-ranged anti-shipping cruise missile site in SW China. No VP but, in reality, it would have been deemed very necessary.
18:00Z: In a stealthy surprise attack, a B-1 Lancer from Iwo Jima flew via Japan and South Korea to attack the Badger base at Danyang, near Shanghai, where satellite recon had indicated no SAM defences. The strike closed the runway and taxiway and hit another 13 targets for 1,500VP. There were maybe another 400 to 500VP-worth of targets left without using excessive, non-cost-effective amounts of ammo.
19:00Z: An F-35 penetrated deep into China and met 6 Flankers near Tiahe, but only managed to kill one, as usual. His wingman backed-up and the AI then decided to cheat and spoofed all four shots. Both Lightnings escaped.
20:00Z: A big carrier strike sank the Jiangkai FFG Changzhou SW of Okinawa. SEAD strikers simultaneously hit the HQ-17 sites around Naha and Futenma. These were hard to break down, but the Futenma installations took a couple of hits. As has tended to be the way, though, they were on AA radars rather than the vital FCRs. With the Changzhou down, there was no point in attacking the remaining two ships with the last couple of JSOW/BROACH loads, so some hangars at Naha were wrecked instead.
In ongoing operations over China, two more Flankers were shot down and a radar at Suixi (previously immune to the carrier GBU-31s) was silenced by an Aussie GBU-32.
21:00Z: The F-22s were now being used to pick-off isolated Chinese radars. One bagged a pair near Guilin, which might have detected the incoming B-52 strike.
23:00Z: Nine strike planes went for a Luyang II class DDG W of Okinawa, using JSOW/BROACH and AGM-84s. To my horror, the JSOW/BROACH planes were engaged by SAMs before they had reached their 60nm firing range – I didn’t believe that SAMs could do this any more!. This entailed a lot of evasion and cancellation of planes running to tankers for bogus ‘fuel problems’. Virtually every plane, having previously refuelled, had to be pulled back into line during its attack run. The DDG defended itself ferociously and avoided damage. Worse, a retiring Hornet was prevented from flying faster than 480 knots (as earlier incident, above) with a SAM up its tail and was destroyed on what I was led to believe was a 74% chance at a range of 60nm or so!!. I checked the database and calculated that the HQ-9A should run out of fuel at 18nm or so but, as it has a top speed of 3,450 knots and lofts to 125k’, its terminal speed of over 1,000 knots in the above incident was just about credible. The hit chance was still jaw-dropping, though and contrasted with the poor odds I’ve habitually been stuck with throughout the scenario. Shades of the bad old days in Northern Fury over Iceland...
Meanwhile, an Aussie F-22 went for two coastal radars S of Guangzhou – and bunked-off to a tanker just as it was about to fire!. This has happened so often in this scenario that it has seriously reduced playability – and all because the AI simply doesn’t understand the varied mechanics of fuelling. You can correct it by suspending the plane’s fuelling privileges, unassigning it from going RTB, carrying out the strike, then allowing it to fuel again (without the weight of its munitions), but the overhead is a pain. Anyway, both radars were destroyed and, surprise, surprise, the F-22 made it home with no fuel issues.
The eight B-52s loosed their 64 AGM-86s from the China-Vietnam border, a few missiles going for Guiping Menshu but the great bulk for Shaodong. The Guiping Menshu strike met heavy AA fire, but hit several targets. Despite the AGM-86 being effective against hardened targets and doing 545DP, however, nothing was destroyed. The main strike on Shaodong wrecked an underground shelter and 9 aircraft, probably Badger bombers and tankers, despite the predictable hail of HQ-9s and Crotales. I think I’ll get a half-strike with the Buffs on Day 5, but am waiting for confirmation once they get back to Oz.
3/8/18 00:00Z: Four Hornets made single runs at Naha. It appeared that the Luyang had exhausted its HQ-9As, but there were still enough HQ-17s to defend the runway.
01:00Z: An Aussie F-35 went halfway to Shanghai to find some Flankers and downed two, which was better than average. Four more pursued and were met by a Hornet which chased them to 30nm range as they RTB’d. To my utter disbelief, it whacked the lot with five shots, albeit at 40-60% odds given the range!.
Day 4 ended with another eight Hornets lining-up to hit Naha with GBUs and USS Hawaii sneaking-up on a Sovremenny N of Okinawa. Some Hornets are patrolling off Guangzhou, but Chinese fighters are becoming an endangered species here at long last.
The score is now +24,300, still a so-called ‘Major Defeat’. There is no way I can win in game terms. To-date, we have lost a CG, SSN, 17 planes and two choppers. China has lost 4 DDGs, 3 FFGs, an SSK, 216 planes and 5 choppers.
Chances are that we’ll level Okinawa on Day 5, especially as USS Michigan is poised to strike with about 150 Tomahawks once the defences are down. It will be difficult to achieve much else, as I have few SEAD resources left and might have to rely on brute force against targets with unbroken SAMs, as at Shaodong. With less going on and the game defaulting to Turbo speed, Day 5 should not take that long to play so, if you’re still reading this, watch this space for updates soon.
02:00Z: An F-35 engaged two Flankers near Okinawa, getting the usual one kill from four shots.
A strike on Jialaishi closed the runway and also killed the second DF-21C (scored no VP but it had to be done in real-world terms). Meanwhile, a SEAD Hornet struck the HQ-9 on Hainan, which was still radiating and posed a hazard to RTB’ing aircraft, given the AI’s tendency to fly them over it. Both AGM-88Es hit 30mm AA radars instead of the fire-control radar but the absence of defensive fire suggested that the site was no longer a threat.
The next big target N of Guiping Menshu was the Badger base at Shaodong. Recon indicated that it was guarded by an HQ-9 and two Crotale/HQ-7 sites and included lots of difficult underground targets. Nearby Leiyang/Hsin Shi also had an HQ-9 and two HQ-17s. Neither was an easy proposition, given my dwindling SEAD resources. Eisenhower was completely out of AGM-88s, so I was having to rely on re-equipping some of Nimitz’s Hornets to go with four Aussie F/A-18s, which were also running low. It was also a long way to fly, with plenty of Chinese fighters active in the interior. I reduced the latter problem slightly by intruding two Aussie F-35s, which killed two Flankers with eight shots – just not good enough.
04:00Z: Three F-35s swept Okinawa, engaging two Flankers and getting the habitual one kill in four shots from the lead plane. As the other Flanker RTB’ed away, two Mighty Dragons appeared. In a remarkable change of luck, one of USS America’s F-35s avoided two PL-12s and a PL-10 at close range and downed both J-20s for a big morale boost.
Meanwhile, more single-plane strikes took-out some of the remaining targets at Jialaishi and Suixi.
06:00Z: Improved luck continued as the Aussies clobbered three Flankers and three J-10As with two sorties on the Shaodong front.
07:00Z: A carrier Hornet strike on Guiping Menshu had major difficulties with their GBU-31s being ineffective against hardened and underground targets, which seem to predominate on Badger bases. The taxiway was put out of action to close the base and we kicked-over to seek softer-skinned prey.
08:00Z: Three SEAD planes attacked the Sovremenny DDG Hangzhou and the Jiangkai II FFG Xiangtan SE and S of Okinawa in a bid to punch a hole in the ring of ships around the island’s bases. Two Flankers sortied and were destroyed at copious expenditure of AMRAAMs from strikers and escorts. Chinese SAMs stopped all 10 AGM-88s.
09:00Z: Seven strike planes struck the ships but found the SAMs impenetrable.
Two F-35s needed the usual eight shots to down a pair of J-10As W of Guangzhou.
10:00Z: A four-plane SEAD strike on Okinawa failed to crack the defences.
11:00Z: Another nine-plane strike broke through and sank the Hangzhou and Xiangtan.
12:00Z: By now, Labuan was running out of strike munitions, so the Aussie F-22s were ordered to re-base gradually to Puerto Princesa on Palawan, Philippines.
13:00Z: An F-35 bagged a J-10A with the usual four shots N of Guangzhou. A second Lightning missed four times. Out of patience, I mounted an 8-plane fighter surge, including F-35s and carrier Hornets with lots of AMRAAMs, to cull the fighter swarm and cover a forlorn SEAD hope with the Aussie Hornets against Shaodong.
15:00Z: A major dogfight ensued S of Shaodong as the strike force impacted the enemy swarm. Eight Flankers and J-10As were downed and it would have been more but for continued lousy shooting. The SEAD Hornets had to back-off several times, but one eventually got close enough to throw its AGM-88 pebbles against the wall of Shaodong’s HQ-9. Needless refuelling chaos prevented it from escaping two pursuing Flankers on Burner – the AI just wouldn’t let me fly faster than 480 knots though, in actuality, I did have the fuel. Resignedly, I accepted that I was going to lose the plane and turned to fight with AMRAAM C.7s and Sidewinders. Neither side shot well at 15nm range, but I damaged one Flanker with four missiles before being shot down. An F-35 arrived just too late and disposed of both Flankers (included in the eight quoted above).
16:00Z: Escorts downed two more Flankers and the enemy surge subsided. The remaining three SEAD Hornets, having refuelled from tankers flying boldly over the Chinese mainland, attacked Shaodong and used-up some SAMs.
Under cover of this activity, two Aussie F-22s hit and destroyed what proved to be a CJ-10 long-ranged anti-shipping cruise missile site in SW China. No VP but, in reality, it would have been deemed very necessary.
18:00Z: In a stealthy surprise attack, a B-1 Lancer from Iwo Jima flew via Japan and South Korea to attack the Badger base at Danyang, near Shanghai, where satellite recon had indicated no SAM defences. The strike closed the runway and taxiway and hit another 13 targets for 1,500VP. There were maybe another 400 to 500VP-worth of targets left without using excessive, non-cost-effective amounts of ammo.
19:00Z: An F-35 penetrated deep into China and met 6 Flankers near Tiahe, but only managed to kill one, as usual. His wingman backed-up and the AI then decided to cheat and spoofed all four shots. Both Lightnings escaped.
20:00Z: A big carrier strike sank the Jiangkai FFG Changzhou SW of Okinawa. SEAD strikers simultaneously hit the HQ-17 sites around Naha and Futenma. These were hard to break down, but the Futenma installations took a couple of hits. As has tended to be the way, though, they were on AA radars rather than the vital FCRs. With the Changzhou down, there was no point in attacking the remaining two ships with the last couple of JSOW/BROACH loads, so some hangars at Naha were wrecked instead.
In ongoing operations over China, two more Flankers were shot down and a radar at Suixi (previously immune to the carrier GBU-31s) was silenced by an Aussie GBU-32.
21:00Z: The F-22s were now being used to pick-off isolated Chinese radars. One bagged a pair near Guilin, which might have detected the incoming B-52 strike.
23:00Z: Nine strike planes went for a Luyang II class DDG W of Okinawa, using JSOW/BROACH and AGM-84s. To my horror, the JSOW/BROACH planes were engaged by SAMs before they had reached their 60nm firing range – I didn’t believe that SAMs could do this any more!. This entailed a lot of evasion and cancellation of planes running to tankers for bogus ‘fuel problems’. Virtually every plane, having previously refuelled, had to be pulled back into line during its attack run. The DDG defended itself ferociously and avoided damage. Worse, a retiring Hornet was prevented from flying faster than 480 knots (as earlier incident, above) with a SAM up its tail and was destroyed on what I was led to believe was a 74% chance at a range of 60nm or so!!. I checked the database and calculated that the HQ-9A should run out of fuel at 18nm or so but, as it has a top speed of 3,450 knots and lofts to 125k’, its terminal speed of over 1,000 knots in the above incident was just about credible. The hit chance was still jaw-dropping, though and contrasted with the poor odds I’ve habitually been stuck with throughout the scenario. Shades of the bad old days in Northern Fury over Iceland...
Meanwhile, an Aussie F-22 went for two coastal radars S of Guangzhou – and bunked-off to a tanker just as it was about to fire!. This has happened so often in this scenario that it has seriously reduced playability – and all because the AI simply doesn’t understand the varied mechanics of fuelling. You can correct it by suspending the plane’s fuelling privileges, unassigning it from going RTB, carrying out the strike, then allowing it to fuel again (without the weight of its munitions), but the overhead is a pain. Anyway, both radars were destroyed and, surprise, surprise, the F-22 made it home with no fuel issues.
The eight B-52s loosed their 64 AGM-86s from the China-Vietnam border, a few missiles going for Guiping Menshu but the great bulk for Shaodong. The Guiping Menshu strike met heavy AA fire, but hit several targets. Despite the AGM-86 being effective against hardened targets and doing 545DP, however, nothing was destroyed. The main strike on Shaodong wrecked an underground shelter and 9 aircraft, probably Badger bombers and tankers, despite the predictable hail of HQ-9s and Crotales. I think I’ll get a half-strike with the Buffs on Day 5, but am waiting for confirmation once they get back to Oz.
3/8/18 00:00Z: Four Hornets made single runs at Naha. It appeared that the Luyang had exhausted its HQ-9As, but there were still enough HQ-17s to defend the runway.
01:00Z: An Aussie F-35 went halfway to Shanghai to find some Flankers and downed two, which was better than average. Four more pursued and were met by a Hornet which chased them to 30nm range as they RTB’d. To my utter disbelief, it whacked the lot with five shots, albeit at 40-60% odds given the range!.
Day 4 ended with another eight Hornets lining-up to hit Naha with GBUs and USS Hawaii sneaking-up on a Sovremenny N of Okinawa. Some Hornets are patrolling off Guangzhou, but Chinese fighters are becoming an endangered species here at long last.
The score is now +24,300, still a so-called ‘Major Defeat’. There is no way I can win in game terms. To-date, we have lost a CG, SSN, 17 planes and two choppers. China has lost 4 DDGs, 3 FFGs, an SSK, 216 planes and 5 choppers.
Chances are that we’ll level Okinawa on Day 5, especially as USS Michigan is poised to strike with about 150 Tomahawks once the defences are down. It will be difficult to achieve much else, as I have few SEAD resources left and might have to rely on brute force against targets with unbroken SAMs, as at Shaodong. With less going on and the game defaulting to Turbo speed, Day 5 should not take that long to play so, if you’re still reading this, watch this space for updates soon.
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FrangibleCover
- Posts: 102
- Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2019 2:25 pm
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
You really do seem to have weird 'runs' of luck, with multiple consecutive miss or hit results. Would it be possible to print your message log to a file once you're done with this scenario? If this behaviour is actually statistically anomalous then that's very interesting and needs to be chased by the devs.
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
I could try but have found when trying to get screen shots that CMO is incompatible with Libre Office, which I use for word-processing. Perhaps I could try Adobe instead. Doesn't this happen to anyone else?. I can't believe that it is just a case of myself being unlucky.
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
Day 5 (02:00Z 3/8/18 to 02:00Z 4/8/18)
02:00Z: The US had a great number of Tomahawk cruise missiles to throw at the remaining targets but some movement was required to get them all into striking range. Several DDGs were detached from the Eisenhower and America groups and sent at Flank to new positions W of the Philippines, while the Nimitz group shifted a short distance N to bring Kadena within range. As far as possible, ships steered to give themselves direct avenues past known Chinese SAM sites without excessive waypointing.
USS Hawaii torpedoed and sank the Sovremenny-class DDG Fuzhou N of Okinawa. Meanwhile, GBU-carrying planes struck Naha but there was still some HQ-17 fire, which limited results. The runway was damaged and some structures destroyed.
Three ASW choppers went after Hawaii, which fled at Flank, diving deep. Overcoming the usual fuel vexations, a Hornet from the strike attacked and downed two helicopters, damaging the third, which went RTB.
03:00Z: Six returning strike Hornets headed needlessly for the new shift of tankers when less than 150nm from base with plenty of fuel. This is really annoying, however correctable by the player.
04:00Z: The eight B-52s returned to Northern Australia but proved to have insufficient time to turn around for another strike. I should have sent them in earlier. Only half had AGM-86 reloads, anyway.
06:00Z: Six F-35s with JSOW/BROACH and four SEAD Hornets visited Okinawa. The stubborn DDG Changchun was sunk, finishing the Chinese SAG around the island. A couple of HQ-17s were hit by AGM-88s, but I kept getting the AA radars instead of the FCRs. Naha, at least, was out of air defence.
An F-22 took-out an isolated radar near Shantou and went inland to use its other missile on a jamming vehicle S of Leiyang/Hsin Shi. No VP for the latter, but it was annoying me.
08:00Z: Four Hornets attempted to soften-up Okinawa with GBU-31s but the HQ-17s continued to be a pain, killing eight missiles with nine shots on 70% chances.
10:00Z: Another quartet of F/A-18s attacked Futenma. The HQ-17s hit seven out of eight missiles on 62% chances but finally appeared to run out of ammo as the remaining shot hit the runway.
13:00Z: Yet another foursome of Hornets tried and failed to break the HQ-17s at Kadena (both of which had already been hit with HARMs). Again, the SAMs scored eight hits with ten shots, stopping all the attacking missiles. Quite unbelievable…
15:00Z: In preparation for an Alpha Strike on Leiyang/Hsin Shi, an advance guard of four heavily-armed Hornets and a tanker intruded over China. The F/A-18s engaged and downed 5 Flankers, damaging another. Taking more missiles helps, though the Chinese can reply with PL-12s against non-stealthed fighters. ‘Burnering’ away suffices to avoid shots fired at 75% range.
Still more Hornets struck Okinawa, finally closing the runway at Futenma. Though uncertain whether Kadena had any SAMs left, I was out of patience. By now, the score was over +25,000 and officially a ‘Minor Defeat’.
Time to unleash Hell!. USS Stockdale loosed 56 Tomahawks at Kadena, USS Kidd the same at Futenma and USS Russel at Naha. Meanwhile, the Alpha strike (14 stand-off strike planes and seven escorts, plus seven SEAD Hornets) began taking-off from the carriers, Puerto Princesa and Labuan, timed to rendezvous with a half-dozen tankers off the Chinese coast near Guangzhou.
16:00Z: The advance guard, low on AMRAAMs, went as far as Wuyishan in the interior and bagged two out of five Flankers before being obliged to flee.
17:00Z: The Flankers pursued and met the seven screening fighters of the Alpha Strike. The two J-11Bs that had followed that far died quickly.
The Tomahawk strike on Kadena hit 24 targets for 2,400VP. Another 20 targets were struck at Naha and the two remaining Mighty Dragons destroyed on the ground. At Futenma, another 24 targets were hit and scored-for. The score was now +32,450.
USS Chung Hoon followed-up with another 56 Tomahawks at Kadena, which contained the most targets.
Two more Flankers tried to oppose the Alpha Strike and were knocked-down by the screen.
18:00Z: The next pair of Flankers engaged, one being destroyed and the other going RTB. Infuriatingly, the lead SEAD Hornet tried to go to refuel between firing its first and second AGM-88 at Leiyang/Hsin Shi’s HQ-9 and the other three from the carriers all bunked-off to the tankers while I wasn’t looking, so the JSOW/BROACH and AGM-84 strikers had to go in first, kicking and screaming in most cases. Four more Flankers were destroyed by the escorts as the strike concentrated on the SAMs, completely demolishing the HQ-9 and silencing both supporting HQ-17s. There were still about a dozen Flankers gathering to attack as the Alpha Strike pulled-out.
19:00Z: Chung Hoon’s strike scored for another 21 targets at Kadena. USS Sampson fired another 56 Tomahawks, mostly at Kadena, but some at Naha and Futenma. Menawhile, the SSN Hampton followed-up the Alpha Strike with 20 cruise missiles at the now-defenceless Leiyang/Hsin Shi.
Meanwhile a Hornet, left over from the strike, downed a Badger tanker N of Leiyang/Hsin Shi, then missed another at just 20nm range, being quoted an absurd 44% chance against a sitting duck. Closing to Sidewinder range, the pilot found that nearby Shaodong still had some HQ-9s left and had to get out in a hurry.
20:00Z: USS Michigan had a reasonably clear avenue at the most inaccessible Chinese target, Anqing airbase near Nanjing, so she fired 152 Tomahawks (!) plus two more at vulnerable-looking coastal radars. I didn’t expect much, even so, as enemy SAM defences looked formidable.
The last Hornet from the strike got the fortunate tanker, enemy CAP having landed to refuel.
USS Hampton’s strike did 1,900VP of damage to Leiyang/Hsin Shi.
21:00Z: USS Sampson’s bombardment of Okinawa yielded only 600VP as diminishing returns set-in. Some targets don’t score and you have to find-out by trial and error, while others are just plain hard to kill. For instance, I was typically firing 10 missiles at each underground facility once the low-hanging fruit ran out.
USS Michigan’s big strike ran into intense fighter activity as it crossed into China, with the enemy following my tactics of using cannon, judging from the Message Log. There must have been a lot of fighters, as over half the Tomahawks failed to make it past them. HQ-7s and 16s took their toll as the caterpillar of missiles approached the airbase and, in the end, the attack scored just 200VP, albeit damaging one of the two taxiways. The lone strikes against the radars both succeeded for twice as much.
22:00Z: The SSN Texas fired 12 Tomahawks at Shaodong before beginning to reload another twelve from magazines. USS Pasadena backed this up with another dozen from a different angle. Meanwhile, the other big SSGN, Ohio, let 80 cruise missiles go at the (apparently) heavily-defended Shanghai Communications Centre (all 400VP of it) and 38 more at Anqing, leaving 31 in reserve.
Our last B-1 sortie hit Danyang again, scoring 650VP.
An Aussie F-35 downed two Flankers near Wuyishan, helping to clear the way for the UGM-109s.
23:00Z: Two more Flankers launched from Wuyishan and a second F-35 bagged one in four shots. Three bandits pursued and the remaining pair of F-35s got the usual two kills in eight shots.
Ohio’s strike obliterated the Shanghai Communications Centre in a horrendous piece of overkill. It turned-out that there was no CAP nearby and that the SAMs around the facility were poorly-placed. Coming-in off the sea also helped. As a result, 70+ missiles flew on and gave Shanghai’s air defences plenty to do, probably doing a lot of damage to the city, which had not been our intention. The Anqing portion of the strike found markedly less opposition than before and did significant damage.
Pasadena’s Tomahawks did more damage to Shaodong, taking the score past 40,000.
The DDGs detached from the Eisenhower and America groups now executed Operation Skyfall, launching at anything that vaguely resembled a target across the map, while the subs fired their reserve loads in support.
4/8/18 01:00Z: Skyfall wreaked havoc from Hainan to Okinawa, taking the score to +45,650 (56 targets and a plane).
Three Aussie F-35s made a last intrusion into Chinese airspace but, with numerous enemy aircraft in the offing NE of Wuyishan, the game ended.
Overall, we lost a cruiser, an SSN, 17 aircraft, two choppers and 22 ground items, mostly to ballistic missiles early-on.
China lost 6 DDGs, 3 FFGs, an SSK, 270 aircraft, 8 choppers and 315 ground items.
Apparently, this constituted a ‘Minor Defeat’!. I maybe needed +50,000 for a draw, which would have meant another 44 targets, 87 planes or a combination of the two. There might even have been that many left, but few of the targets were readily destructible with a single missile. Reports vary as to whether you need +100,000 or +150,000 to ‘win’ but this would mean doing roughly twice or three times as well as I did. While beating my score of +45,650 is certainly feasible, exceeding it by that much seems improbable. If anyone has managed it on the current settings without recourse to the Editor or repeatedly going back to the last save, I’d be intrigued to know how they did it.
Given my result, China would have found it very hard to hold onto Okinawa, where the garrison would have been isolated and undefended from the air. Any occupation forces on Taiwan would have been only slightly better placed. China’s navy and air force had been severely degraded, every target area had been hit and most of them wrecked while the US/Australia coalition air forces pretty much had licence to roam at will over the mainland. Perhaps a peace could have been patched-up on the basis of the Chinese giving back their earlier gains, perhaps not.
What is clear from the campaign as a whole (and the scenario descriptions do a good job of conveying this) is that any such conflict would be ruinous and in nobody’s interests (except maybe Russia’s or Iran’s). Let’s hope that wiser heads prevail in reality.
Overall, Hail Mary is an excellent scenario, so long as you disregard the scoreline. Though long (it took me a month-and-a-half to play), it is seldom dull and often highly exciting. It also offers lots of strategic choices.
Tactically, the West’s biggest asset is the AMRAAM D, which is overwhelmingly superior to the main Chinese fighter weapon, the PL-12, enabling the outnumbered US and Aussie fighters to engage and withdraw at will with little risk of losses. PL-15-equipped fighters are far more dangerous, but the Chinese don’t have enough aircraft that can use them and these struggle against the F-35’s stealth abilities. The Mighty Dragons are scary, can appear unannounced due to stealth and have the speed to run-down a retreating F-35 or Hornet but they are undermined by being lumbered with PL-12s and die just as dead as anything else when struck with an AMRAAM.
China’s best weapons are the ballistic missiles, which are almost impossible to avoid (given the satellites) or stop. Thankfully, in the game at least, they don’t have enough of them and, I suspect, they are hard-coded not to hit the carriers for game balance. In reality, the Chinese would probably not have gone to war without big enough stockpiles to sustain their Dong Feng batteries. They would also have had more reloads for their SAMs and would undoubtedly handle their forces rather better than the AI does in the game. It should also be noted that both sides’ naval forces in the scenario are a bit understated (probably because it is big enough already). Chances are that the US would field more than two full-strength carrier groups (even allowing for the loss of the Reagan), while the Chinese Navy is much bigger than indicated here and the difference is not really explained by earlier campaign events.
While the main campaign in Chains of War is now over for me, there are still the Bonus Scenarios, set in different timelines. The first one, Reds, is another marathon and I could really do with some shorter games for a while, so I’ll play the others first. Before I start this, though, it will be same theatre, different opponents in the last of the NFZ scenarios. Stay tuned.
02:00Z: The US had a great number of Tomahawk cruise missiles to throw at the remaining targets but some movement was required to get them all into striking range. Several DDGs were detached from the Eisenhower and America groups and sent at Flank to new positions W of the Philippines, while the Nimitz group shifted a short distance N to bring Kadena within range. As far as possible, ships steered to give themselves direct avenues past known Chinese SAM sites without excessive waypointing.
USS Hawaii torpedoed and sank the Sovremenny-class DDG Fuzhou N of Okinawa. Meanwhile, GBU-carrying planes struck Naha but there was still some HQ-17 fire, which limited results. The runway was damaged and some structures destroyed.
Three ASW choppers went after Hawaii, which fled at Flank, diving deep. Overcoming the usual fuel vexations, a Hornet from the strike attacked and downed two helicopters, damaging the third, which went RTB.
03:00Z: Six returning strike Hornets headed needlessly for the new shift of tankers when less than 150nm from base with plenty of fuel. This is really annoying, however correctable by the player.
04:00Z: The eight B-52s returned to Northern Australia but proved to have insufficient time to turn around for another strike. I should have sent them in earlier. Only half had AGM-86 reloads, anyway.
06:00Z: Six F-35s with JSOW/BROACH and four SEAD Hornets visited Okinawa. The stubborn DDG Changchun was sunk, finishing the Chinese SAG around the island. A couple of HQ-17s were hit by AGM-88s, but I kept getting the AA radars instead of the FCRs. Naha, at least, was out of air defence.
An F-22 took-out an isolated radar near Shantou and went inland to use its other missile on a jamming vehicle S of Leiyang/Hsin Shi. No VP for the latter, but it was annoying me.
08:00Z: Four Hornets attempted to soften-up Okinawa with GBU-31s but the HQ-17s continued to be a pain, killing eight missiles with nine shots on 70% chances.
10:00Z: Another quartet of F/A-18s attacked Futenma. The HQ-17s hit seven out of eight missiles on 62% chances but finally appeared to run out of ammo as the remaining shot hit the runway.
13:00Z: Yet another foursome of Hornets tried and failed to break the HQ-17s at Kadena (both of which had already been hit with HARMs). Again, the SAMs scored eight hits with ten shots, stopping all the attacking missiles. Quite unbelievable…
15:00Z: In preparation for an Alpha Strike on Leiyang/Hsin Shi, an advance guard of four heavily-armed Hornets and a tanker intruded over China. The F/A-18s engaged and downed 5 Flankers, damaging another. Taking more missiles helps, though the Chinese can reply with PL-12s against non-stealthed fighters. ‘Burnering’ away suffices to avoid shots fired at 75% range.
Still more Hornets struck Okinawa, finally closing the runway at Futenma. Though uncertain whether Kadena had any SAMs left, I was out of patience. By now, the score was over +25,000 and officially a ‘Minor Defeat’.
Time to unleash Hell!. USS Stockdale loosed 56 Tomahawks at Kadena, USS Kidd the same at Futenma and USS Russel at Naha. Meanwhile, the Alpha strike (14 stand-off strike planes and seven escorts, plus seven SEAD Hornets) began taking-off from the carriers, Puerto Princesa and Labuan, timed to rendezvous with a half-dozen tankers off the Chinese coast near Guangzhou.
16:00Z: The advance guard, low on AMRAAMs, went as far as Wuyishan in the interior and bagged two out of five Flankers before being obliged to flee.
17:00Z: The Flankers pursued and met the seven screening fighters of the Alpha Strike. The two J-11Bs that had followed that far died quickly.
The Tomahawk strike on Kadena hit 24 targets for 2,400VP. Another 20 targets were struck at Naha and the two remaining Mighty Dragons destroyed on the ground. At Futenma, another 24 targets were hit and scored-for. The score was now +32,450.
USS Chung Hoon followed-up with another 56 Tomahawks at Kadena, which contained the most targets.
Two more Flankers tried to oppose the Alpha Strike and were knocked-down by the screen.
18:00Z: The next pair of Flankers engaged, one being destroyed and the other going RTB. Infuriatingly, the lead SEAD Hornet tried to go to refuel between firing its first and second AGM-88 at Leiyang/Hsin Shi’s HQ-9 and the other three from the carriers all bunked-off to the tankers while I wasn’t looking, so the JSOW/BROACH and AGM-84 strikers had to go in first, kicking and screaming in most cases. Four more Flankers were destroyed by the escorts as the strike concentrated on the SAMs, completely demolishing the HQ-9 and silencing both supporting HQ-17s. There were still about a dozen Flankers gathering to attack as the Alpha Strike pulled-out.
19:00Z: Chung Hoon’s strike scored for another 21 targets at Kadena. USS Sampson fired another 56 Tomahawks, mostly at Kadena, but some at Naha and Futenma. Menawhile, the SSN Hampton followed-up the Alpha Strike with 20 cruise missiles at the now-defenceless Leiyang/Hsin Shi.
Meanwhile a Hornet, left over from the strike, downed a Badger tanker N of Leiyang/Hsin Shi, then missed another at just 20nm range, being quoted an absurd 44% chance against a sitting duck. Closing to Sidewinder range, the pilot found that nearby Shaodong still had some HQ-9s left and had to get out in a hurry.
20:00Z: USS Michigan had a reasonably clear avenue at the most inaccessible Chinese target, Anqing airbase near Nanjing, so she fired 152 Tomahawks (!) plus two more at vulnerable-looking coastal radars. I didn’t expect much, even so, as enemy SAM defences looked formidable.
The last Hornet from the strike got the fortunate tanker, enemy CAP having landed to refuel.
USS Hampton’s strike did 1,900VP of damage to Leiyang/Hsin Shi.
21:00Z: USS Sampson’s bombardment of Okinawa yielded only 600VP as diminishing returns set-in. Some targets don’t score and you have to find-out by trial and error, while others are just plain hard to kill. For instance, I was typically firing 10 missiles at each underground facility once the low-hanging fruit ran out.
USS Michigan’s big strike ran into intense fighter activity as it crossed into China, with the enemy following my tactics of using cannon, judging from the Message Log. There must have been a lot of fighters, as over half the Tomahawks failed to make it past them. HQ-7s and 16s took their toll as the caterpillar of missiles approached the airbase and, in the end, the attack scored just 200VP, albeit damaging one of the two taxiways. The lone strikes against the radars both succeeded for twice as much.
22:00Z: The SSN Texas fired 12 Tomahawks at Shaodong before beginning to reload another twelve from magazines. USS Pasadena backed this up with another dozen from a different angle. Meanwhile, the other big SSGN, Ohio, let 80 cruise missiles go at the (apparently) heavily-defended Shanghai Communications Centre (all 400VP of it) and 38 more at Anqing, leaving 31 in reserve.
Our last B-1 sortie hit Danyang again, scoring 650VP.
An Aussie F-35 downed two Flankers near Wuyishan, helping to clear the way for the UGM-109s.
23:00Z: Two more Flankers launched from Wuyishan and a second F-35 bagged one in four shots. Three bandits pursued and the remaining pair of F-35s got the usual two kills in eight shots.
Ohio’s strike obliterated the Shanghai Communications Centre in a horrendous piece of overkill. It turned-out that there was no CAP nearby and that the SAMs around the facility were poorly-placed. Coming-in off the sea also helped. As a result, 70+ missiles flew on and gave Shanghai’s air defences plenty to do, probably doing a lot of damage to the city, which had not been our intention. The Anqing portion of the strike found markedly less opposition than before and did significant damage.
Pasadena’s Tomahawks did more damage to Shaodong, taking the score past 40,000.
The DDGs detached from the Eisenhower and America groups now executed Operation Skyfall, launching at anything that vaguely resembled a target across the map, while the subs fired their reserve loads in support.
4/8/18 01:00Z: Skyfall wreaked havoc from Hainan to Okinawa, taking the score to +45,650 (56 targets and a plane).
Three Aussie F-35s made a last intrusion into Chinese airspace but, with numerous enemy aircraft in the offing NE of Wuyishan, the game ended.
Overall, we lost a cruiser, an SSN, 17 aircraft, two choppers and 22 ground items, mostly to ballistic missiles early-on.
China lost 6 DDGs, 3 FFGs, an SSK, 270 aircraft, 8 choppers and 315 ground items.
Apparently, this constituted a ‘Minor Defeat’!. I maybe needed +50,000 for a draw, which would have meant another 44 targets, 87 planes or a combination of the two. There might even have been that many left, but few of the targets were readily destructible with a single missile. Reports vary as to whether you need +100,000 or +150,000 to ‘win’ but this would mean doing roughly twice or three times as well as I did. While beating my score of +45,650 is certainly feasible, exceeding it by that much seems improbable. If anyone has managed it on the current settings without recourse to the Editor or repeatedly going back to the last save, I’d be intrigued to know how they did it.
Given my result, China would have found it very hard to hold onto Okinawa, where the garrison would have been isolated and undefended from the air. Any occupation forces on Taiwan would have been only slightly better placed. China’s navy and air force had been severely degraded, every target area had been hit and most of them wrecked while the US/Australia coalition air forces pretty much had licence to roam at will over the mainland. Perhaps a peace could have been patched-up on the basis of the Chinese giving back their earlier gains, perhaps not.
What is clear from the campaign as a whole (and the scenario descriptions do a good job of conveying this) is that any such conflict would be ruinous and in nobody’s interests (except maybe Russia’s or Iran’s). Let’s hope that wiser heads prevail in reality.
Overall, Hail Mary is an excellent scenario, so long as you disregard the scoreline. Though long (it took me a month-and-a-half to play), it is seldom dull and often highly exciting. It also offers lots of strategic choices.
Tactically, the West’s biggest asset is the AMRAAM D, which is overwhelmingly superior to the main Chinese fighter weapon, the PL-12, enabling the outnumbered US and Aussie fighters to engage and withdraw at will with little risk of losses. PL-15-equipped fighters are far more dangerous, but the Chinese don’t have enough aircraft that can use them and these struggle against the F-35’s stealth abilities. The Mighty Dragons are scary, can appear unannounced due to stealth and have the speed to run-down a retreating F-35 or Hornet but they are undermined by being lumbered with PL-12s and die just as dead as anything else when struck with an AMRAAM.
China’s best weapons are the ballistic missiles, which are almost impossible to avoid (given the satellites) or stop. Thankfully, in the game at least, they don’t have enough of them and, I suspect, they are hard-coded not to hit the carriers for game balance. In reality, the Chinese would probably not have gone to war without big enough stockpiles to sustain their Dong Feng batteries. They would also have had more reloads for their SAMs and would undoubtedly handle their forces rather better than the AI does in the game. It should also be noted that both sides’ naval forces in the scenario are a bit understated (probably because it is big enough already). Chances are that the US would field more than two full-strength carrier groups (even allowing for the loss of the Reagan), while the Chinese Navy is much bigger than indicated here and the difference is not really explained by earlier campaign events.
While the main campaign in Chains of War is now over for me, there are still the Bonus Scenarios, set in different timelines. The first one, Reds, is another marathon and I could really do with some shorter games for a while, so I’ll play the others first. Before I start this, though, it will be same theatre, different opponents in the last of the NFZ scenarios. Stay tuned.
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tylerblakebrandon
- Posts: 453
- Joined: Mon May 11, 2020 5:16 pm
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
Another excellent AAR, I find wonderfully enjoyable while also informative. Thanks!
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
Looking forward to it. Another great AARfitzpatv wrote: Mon Dec 18, 2023 8:10 pm Before I start this, though, it will be same theatre, different opponents in the last of the NFZ scenarios. Stay tuned.
B
Check out our novel, Northern Fury: H-Hour!: http://northernfury.us/
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And our blog: http://northernfury.us/blog/post2/
Twitter: @NorthernFury94 or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/northernfury/
Re: Chains of War 12 - Hail Mary 30/7/18
Thanks for the great AAR fitzpatv!
Mike
Mike
Don't call it a comeback...