Falklands 8 - Pebble Island Raid 14/5/82

[fitzpatv]

This scenario covers the SAS raid on Pebble Island, just N of West Falkland, to destroy Argentine Pucara and Turbo Mentor ground-attack planes that could threaten British troops ashore. You can only play the British side.

It starts with four SAS teams already ashore some 2.8nm E of the airstrip and an SBS recon team about 2nm to the NW. The DDG Glamorgan is on her way to provide gunfire support, supposedly to engage and distract Argentine ground troops on the W side of the base. Further out to sea, the CV Hermes and FFG Broadsword are carrying-out ASW patrols while readying choppers to extract the commandos.

In addition to the ground attack planes, the Argentines have a Skyvan transport at the base – all of these aircraft have been pinpointed by prior reconnaissance on three tarmac spaces. A puny gunboat, the Rio Iguazu, patrols offshore with her 20mm cannon. Base security is provided by infantry platoons and 35mm Skyguard AA guns. There are no Argentine submarines.

14/5/82 20:00L: For all that it mattered in the end, I changed the loadouts on the five Sea King HC.4 transport choppers to SAS or SBS, as appropriate, to assist with the evacuation. Four Harriers on Reserve loadouts were given rockets in case any mopping-up was required.

As the SAS were already in ‘high explosive’ range of the airfield, there seemed little reason to risk moving them.

Glamorgan moved inshore and disposed of the Rio Iguazu with gunfire for 30VP. Theoretically, you are supposed to wait until 22:30L before attacking but, once Glamorgan reached her ‘gun line’, there seemed no reason to delay.

Three SAS teams attacked the three tarmac spaces with C-4 high explosives but, due to a ridiculous bug, destroyed themselves instead of the targets. The way ‘high explosives’ work in CMO has always been laughable and someone badly needs to fix it. Instead of being able to engage from up to 8nm away, the saboteurs should need to get on-site undetected and then set their weapons on a timer before getting clear, but it just doesn’t work like that. In fact, under 1527, it doesn’t work at all.

So I restarted and replayed the encounter with the Rio Iguazu, which required twice as much 114mm ammo to sink this time. Glamorgan then bombarded the tarmac spaces and destroyed all the aircraft in totally facile fashion for another 330VP and a rather empty ‘Triumph’.

In short (as has been reported elsewhere in these Forums), this is a very poor scenario and not worth playing. Sorry.