Indian Ocean Fury 7 - Deep Strike 26/2/94

[fitzpatv]

Iran’s main reason for entering the conflict on the side of the USSR was Soviet help with its nuclear programme. The prospect of an Iranian bomb deeply concerns Israel and any Israeli intervention to prevent this could critically damage America’s precarious web of Middle Eastern alliances. Washington has, therefore, undertaken to cripple Iran’s nuclear facilities and, thereby, stay Israel’s hand. It is vital to avoid causing any radioactive contamination, so precision bombing is required and several targets, especially the reactor at Arak, are out of bounds.

The 366th Expeditionary Fighter Wing, based in Cairo, has been tasked with carrying-out a deep strike on the nuclear power complex at Arak and the fuel enrichment facilities at Qom and Natanz. Two B-1 Lancers are being flown over from the States to assist and can be supported by four Extender tankers, based at Zaragoza in Spain. An SR-71 Blackbird high-altitude recon plane is also available at Sigonella in Sicily, with a dedicated KC-135Q carrying the specialised fuel it requires. You are warned that losing the Blackbird or either Lancer would bring a heavy VP penalty. You will only get one attempt, due to the 20-hour time limit and readying times.

At Cairo, you have 18 F-15C fighters, armed with AMRAAMs and Sidewinders, plus 18 F-15E Strike Eagles and 18 F-16s, all of which can be given the player’s choice of loadouts. In support, there are four EW jammers and 10 KC-135s.

There are extensive No Fly Zones, which limit the action to the Mediterranean (for approach purposes) and a corridor across Israel, Jordan and Iraq into Iran. In practice, this does not pose any major difficulties.

The Iranians and Soviets are not thought to have many heavy SAMs left in the region, with most of those at Khatami air base, Isfahan, to the S of Natanz. The exact defences at the targets are uncertain, so some SR-71 recon would be useful. Iran’s F-14s are based at Khatami, though they are not believed to have many Phoenixes left and would rely on Sejil/HAWKs (which still have five times the range of the AMRAAM A on current settings). There are Fulcrums at Mehrabad, NNE of Qom and, concerningly, at Kermanshah, which is perfectly placed to interdict strike planes on their return route from the targets. Otherwise, there are lots of F-4s, F-5s and MiG-21s, as well as some Flankers in SW Turkmenistan, which might not be able to intervene in time.

Helpfully, you are told in advance which targets score which VP and almost all of these are readily locatable from prior recon, the main exception being the critical handling and processing plant at Qom. You also don’t know which of two admin buildings at Natanz is the more important site HQ. Critical targets score 50VP, important ones 25, secondary objectives 10 and tertiary ones 5. In all, this adds-up to a potential 1,620VP.

My first thought was that it was lunacy to send two Lancers across the Atlantic to do precision strikes carrying bays full of iron bombs. Not only are the aircraft slow and vulnerable to fighters, but they would have to bomb at low altitude to get any kind of accuracy, making them easy prey for MANPADS, light SAMs and even AA. Those are the cards you’ve been dealt. I decided to keep their involvement under review until the Blackbird had taken a closer look at the defences.

Looking at the loadouts available for the F-15Es and F-16s, I did an assessment, based on range, damage, night-time suitability, whether they had penetrator warheads and, above all, CEP. The weapon of choice appeared to be the GBU-15(v)2/B or 1/B, which has a range of 15nm, is as precise as you can get and does large amounts of damage. All the Eagle strike planes were kitted-out with these. Unfortunately, the F-16s are limited to Mavericks or HARMs and, in the latter case, we didn’t know in advance what the SAM defences would be. Chances were that they would be switched-off by default and any plane used to suppress SAMs was one less to attack the real targets. So it was Mavericks all-round. All strike planes omitted their optional AMRAAMs in the hope of increasing endurance. As the F-16s would likely require a double refuelling before reaching the targets, we were going to need all the tankers and, preferably, the ones from Zaragoza for good measure.

Matching strike planes to targets and trying to hit the most important ones, I decided to send four F-15s to Natanz, 3 to Qom and everything else to Arak. This would score a highly-unlikely maximum of 1,125VP. If the defences at Qom and Natanz looked too strong and alert, the F-15s sent there could be diverted to Arak.

Air combat was a major worry. With an effective range of about 5nm, our AMRAAMs were going to be outreached by enemy Alamos, Sejils and even Sparrows. Moreover, 14 of the 18 F-15Cs had but two AMRAAMs apiece. As for the Sidewinders, their best use is being fired over-optimistically under AI control to put the enemy fighter on the defensive as it auto-evades them. I regard any hits with them as a bonus. Ruefully, I reflected that the Eagles might well have to engage the Russian and Iranian CAP to draw them away from the bombers, which would mean heavy losses. There was the option of employing F-16s as fighters but their limited endurance would be an issue and each one used this way would reduce the strike.

Obviously, remaining undetected as long as possible was essential. Enemy ground radar was off, but F-14s have an air search range of 180nm and they could easily cover all of the targets if they wanted to. The MiG-29s at Kermanshah were similarly capable of screening any move on the nearest and largest target, Arak. None of our aircraft had any stealth capabilities and I’ve never been convinced of the value of jammers – quite apart from anything else, the enemy can detect the jamming. The best bet seemed to be to keep radars dark (even for the fighters until needed) and approach the targets from the SW, giving Kermanshah a wide berth. This would take us close to Dezful, where there were supposed to be two squadrons of F-5s, but better them than Fulcrums!.

As we had four jamming planes (three EF-111s and a C-130), I decided we might as well use them, especially as their good endurance meant that they wouldn’t clutter the tankers. How much effect they had, I still don’t know, though I did keep them back a distance from the action. After all, the AI always seems to be able to jam you (without much effect) from hundreds of miles away…

26/2/94 15:00Z (18:00L in Iran): Three hours in and the strike planes were halfway to being readied. The B-1s had reached SE Spain from their starting position W of the Azores, so the Zaragoza tankers, just readied, launched in support. Meanwhile, the Blackbird was moving to refuel from its dedicated tanker off the Nile Delta.

17:00Z: Continuing over Baghdad, the SR-71 detected at least six enemy fighters patrolling near the targets on its ELINT. Approaching the targets unseen looked recedingly unlikely, so the F-15Cs would be needed to clear the skies long enough for the strike to go in. Our data suggested that no enemy A2A missile, not even a Phoenix, could engage the Blackbird at 90,000’, so I sent it in nearer. Meanwhile, the slow C-130 launched, with jammers on.

I decided there and then that it would be suicide to commit the Lancers, so I packed them off to Sicily. Their tankers continued onward.

The SR-71 then found a radar, Grumble and two Gadflies at Khatami, where they would do no harm, with another Gadfly at Mehrabad. At the targets, there only appeared to be a Rapier platoon at Arak, 2-3nm WNW of the site. With its fuel depleting, it seemed best to withdraw the recon plane at this point.

18:00Z: The time had come, with all planes readied. I could either mount the strike or not, so I took a deep breath and began launching planes. Tankers, then jammers, launched first to get into position, then the fighters followed to refuel and then form a screen. As this process began over the Iraqi-Jordanian border, the strike planes began lifting-off, starting with the four for Natanz, then the Qom trio, then the other F-15s and finally the F-16s. As is my usual procedure (given the current issues with missions), all planes were launched individually (I’m totally off using groups) and flown manually which, as you can imagine, was a lot of work and felt like spinning plates.

20:00Z: It took two hours of game-time to get everything airborne, during which time the fighters all refuelled. The SR-71 caused problems by flying to Sicily on RTB, then deciding it would be a great idea to fly back to the Sinai and refuel from one of the Zaragoza tankers instead of just landing!. Thankfully, I spotted it in time and took away its refuelling privileges. Its own tanker had gone Bingo during the second refuel but made it back to Sigonella OK.

21:00Z: By now, all strike planes had been laboriously refuelled and were on their way to their assigned targets. Note that the scenario runs pretty swiftly on Turbo speed, which helps here. Doing a second refuel nearer the objectives seemed unwise, given the proximity of enemy fighter patrols. I set-up an A2A Mission zone over the three targets and had half the fighters approach it with radars off, but did not assign them for now, as the mission had Active EMCON and I didn’t want to act prematurely.

The curtain then went up. The F-15Cs succeeded in diverting the enemy CAP, initially a mix of Fulcrums and Fishbeds, away from the strike’s approach route and into a melee near Kermanshah. A horde of Fishcan MiG-21s swarmed-up from Sanandaj, to the NW side of my mission box – the briefing had told us that these were ground-attack only… They might only have been MiG-21s, but they still posed a threat, needed missiles to dispose of them and could easily swamp F-15s down to 20mm cannon and unable to fly on Afterburner due to the fuel situation. As for the Fulcrums, I gave this sector my close attention and held my own by manually evading on Afterburner whenever, they fired, then coming back at them. This couldn’t continue for ever and, inevitably, there were a couple of losses, so I had to feed-in my other nine Eagles, some of which had been refuelling. More and more enemy fighters poured-in – they must have had more airframes than we had missiles. In the end, we lost four F-15Cs for 5VP each and downed two Fulcrums, a Phantom and 18 MiG-21s for 1VP each, shading it 21-20. The surviving F-15Cs withdrew, most of them out of ammo and a couple damaged and grateful for lousy MiG-21 radar. We had made no perceptible impression on the enemy fighter swarm.

It became obvious that the F-15Es sent to Qom and Natanz were going to find getting there very borderline fuel-wise and they stood a serious risk of being pincered by Fulcrums from the NW and F-14s (which had not joined the fighter battle) from the SE. I diverted them all to Arak. The four previously intended for Natanz actually managed to get to Arak, where they destroyed the control facility, two turbines and three generator stations for 225VP despite a malfunctioning GBU-15, a forest of AA guns and some light SAMs, possibly including a Gainful. However, this came at the price of being intercepted by Fulcrums on the way out. Unable to fly at top speed due to lack of fuel and carrying only Sidewinders, they were all lost.

The F-16s were never going to reach Arak without refuelling again too close to the enemy, so I recalled them. Similarly, the other 14 Strike Eagles had been headed-off by the Fulcrums, with Tomcats streaking in from the E and to continue would have been inviting a massacre, so I withdrew them, too. As it was, two of the Qom contingent were caught, one being shot down and the other making a miraculous escape after losing comms.

27/2/94 00:00Z: After much pain with the erratic behaviour of aircraft on refuel settings or taken-off my A2A mission (avoid authorising aircraft to refuel unless you absolutely need to), the great bulk of the strike made it back to Cairo, with the tankers from Zaragoza later returning to Spain (one tried to fly back the way it had come due to the effects of the No Fly Zone and the game’s deficient Pathfinder navigation routine).

The withdrawal was facilitated by my practice of feeding-in bombers in streams, as the British did in WW2, rather than going for an ‘all at once, time on target’ approach. Streams give the enemy more time to react, but this made little difference here. On the other hand, they allow you to bomb manually, a few planes at a time and to risk fewer assets at once, as happened here.

So, it ended in a Minor Defeat, with a score of +201. The US lost 4 fighters and 5 strike planes, while the Soviets and Iranians lost 21 fighters and 6 important-to-critical installations at Arak. The strike had done some damage to Iran’s nuclear programme, at a price, but not enough to satisfy Israel, so the problem remained.

It was a suicide mission under present game conditions and could have been a complete disaster had I not been prudent at the end or committed the Lancers. It might have been more feasible when it was designed and AMRAAM ranges were more competitive. As it stands, there is no way you can effectively take-on that many enemy fighters. All-in-all, cruise missile strikes would have been a much safer approach to the task, had enough TLAMs been available, of course.

One more scenario to go in this series, after which I’ll have to choose between the Mediterranean (probably), the Pacific or going back to the North.

I’m off to the Alps tomorrow to climb some mountains (weather permitting) and will be back in three weeks.

[tylerblakebrandon]

I can honestly say that I have not experienced several of the reported issues with recent releases, but it appears that it might be because I never use any time compression and always play in real time.