Falklands 5 - Hand Brake 4/5/82

[fitzpatv]

This one covers the historical Argentine Exocet strike that sank the destroyer HMS Sheffield. You can only play the Argentine side and have six hours to do some damage to the British task force. ‘Hand Brake’was the British air-defence alert code-word for the Exocet.

To do this, you are given two Super Etendards with one Exocet each. A Neptune MPA is on hand to locate the targets, with another ready later. There is also a Hercules tanker for in-flight refuelling and a half-dozen Dagger/Mirage fighters to provide escort. Finally, you have ground forces on the islands, with an air search radar.

An important factor, hinted-at in the Briefing, is that the British 909 air-search radar, which guides the Sea Dart SAM systems on the ships, has a blind spot in its rearward quarter.

A couple of Harriers can be seen on CAP and the Briefing tells you that the task force is about 75nm SE of the Falklands.

09:00Z (05:00L): The game starts at night, so the Argentine fighters are unavailable for an hour or so, not that this matters much. The first job was recon, so I launched the readied Neptune and sent it to a point within its 200nm surface search range of the estimated British position, with its radars off to begin-with. I also launched the Hercules to get it into position as early as possible. The radar on the islands was switched-on to help track the British CAP.

10:30Z: The Neptune got into position, switched-on its radar and pinpointed the task force. Helpfully, they were steaming NE at 5 knots, exposing the SAM blind spot mentioned above. Both Etendards were scrambled, with four of the Daggers acting as an escort and this force proceeded to the tanker rendezvous point.

11:00Z: The Etendards refuelled and, leaving the fighters to guard the Hercules, headed to a reference point I’d placed roughly at the limit of the British fleet’s radar range of 120nm. Once they reached this, the two strike planes dove to 1,000’ to get under the radar, then headed for their targets.

11:35Z: The Etendards got into range and fired their Exocets at a probable carrier in the centre of the formation, before heading away at 1,000’. Both missiles locked-onto a destroyer at the rear of the task force instead and, oh so predictably, were both spoofed on 10% chances (10 and 02 rolled by the AI). The Harriers gave chase, but the Etendards got clear and everything returned home. Disaster!.

I’d wisely taken a save before firing and replayed the attack. Again, the Exocets latched-onto the destroyer, which proved to be HMS Coventry, instead of their designated target, but this time sank her for 75VP. Damaging her would have scored 25 and was enough to win. Once again, the strike planes got away and everything returned to base safely for an Argentine Triumph.

A quick, straightforward scenario which represents the real-life events well enough but, as the above demonstrates, victory or defeat is basically a matter of luck (which is a drawback of a lot of small scenarios like this).

[Eboreg]

Yeah... sometimes there is no shame in save-scumming in this game.