Northern Fury 28 - Bump in the Night 1/3/94

[fitzpatv]

Forces

This isn’t your typical Northern Fury scenario, in that it is a fast-paced skirmish between light forces rather than a continent-spanning epic.

The front-line in Norway stands on the broad Trondheimsfjorden, with some NATO units cut-off to the N, notably at the coastal fort of Hysnes, near the captured Orland air base. NATO badly needs to re-supply this outpost and both sides have minefields to maintain. You can play either side but I stuck with NATO for consistency with my earlier stance in this campaign.

A number of units start on RTB and it is advisable, as Bart suggests, to Unassign these at the outset and specify new orders. What is less clear is that other units will go RTB when damaged or low on ammo, so it pays to go into the Withdrawals and Re-Supply tab in Doctrine and re-set them to ignore all triggers.

In priority order, NATO must get a convoy to Fort Hysnes, avoid losses, lay two minefields where indicated on the map and inflict damage on the Soviets.

Starting in a channel between the mainland and some of Norway’s many offshore islands, the convoy consists of the freighter Valkyrien and four commandeered trawlers. Helpfully, these start as single ships, rather than a group, so it is fairly easy to determine your own formation for them and steer them individually.

Escort is provided by the corvette (and former training ship) Sleipner, which has a 76mm and 40mm gun and some Stingers, along with the lightly-armed patrol boats Leeds Castle and Redpole (all NATO units are Norwegian or British). There is also a civilian motor yacht with a 20mm Oerlikon and surface search radar, but I detached it as a liability.

Ranging in front of the convoy are two minesweepers, the British Helford and the veteran (WW2-vintage) Norwegian Alta.

Otherwise, you have three more upgraded motor yachts (best kept out of harm’s way) and, bringing-up the rear, the minelayer Vidar, which has the task of laying eggs to block the entrances to the fjord and the Russian naval base near Orland.

Out to sea, you have the MTB/PCFG Hauk, with four Penguins for anti-shipping work and some Mistral MANPADs. She is forbidden to close for action with her 76mm gun, as Norway has few of these craft left and can’t afford to lose another.
This applies still more to the SSK Uthaug (ironically sharing the name of the captured anchorage), which is also posed to approach the enemy harbour.

There aren’t many aircraft in this one and you have just two – a Lynx maritime recon chopper and a Huey, which needs to evacuate casualties from the fort.

On land, Hysnes has some 105mm guns that can reach much of Orland, confining Soviet operations to choppers just out of reach at the far end of the field. Some infantry platoons and radars on islands and peninsulae can provide useful intel.

As for the Russians, they have a Pauk patrol frigate with 76mm guns and two light-armed Stenkas. These, backed by a couple of Haze choppers, make-up the Soviet ASW capability. There are also four Shmels, which are heavily-armed patrol boats with 76mm guns and Grad rockets, a Sonya minesweeper, an Ondatra landing craft and a couple of armed trawlers.

At Orland, there are two Hind attack choppers with cannon and Spiral ATGMs, plus an AEW Helix. Worryingly, there is also a Sepal (land-based Shaddock) battery that could potentially make a nasty mess of the convoy if the Helix tipped it off.

Assessment

Insofar as can be judged from indicative markers, there is an increasing mine risk as the convoy approaches Hysnes. I sent the minesweepers on ahead of the escorts, with the convoy following in single file and the Valkyrien at the rear.

One of the locations for Vidar to lay her minefields is dangerously close to the Russian base, while the other is on the far side of Hysnes, past the enemy mines. I moved the minelayer cautiously towards the former, aiming to play it by ear. Needless to say, all ships had their radars off.

I deleted the pre-set Strike mission from Hauk and moved her towards Orland, aiming to cover the convoy with her Penguins, then get out. Uthaug came-in carefully at Creep.

The Lynx was launched early with radar on to help spot enemy ships, the idea being to follow-on with the Huey once we knew whether it was safe.

I hoped that the area around the fort would be clear of Soviet ships due to the danger of their own mines.

Bombarding Orland with the 105s at Hysnes was initially out of the question, due to imprecise spotting data.

The Action

1/3/94 22:00L: Norwegian troops with binoculars soon spotted two Stenkas in the bay SW of Orland, an armed trawler in the sound between Storfosna and Storslattoya islands to the WSW and another in the main approach channel to Hysnes off Beian Point. A Pauk and Sonya then appeared off the enemy harbour.

Hysnes fort shelled the trawler in the main channel, doing medium damage before it pulled out of range.

Hauk closed and sank her near-namesake with two Penguins, despite one malfunctioning, scoring 5VP. A positive score counts as Average.

Soviet helicopters launched from Orland and a Haze got too close to Sleipner, falling to her Stingers for 3VP.

Hauk disposed of both Stenkas with her remaining Penguins for another 10VP, then headed away at speed to conform to orders. I had to adjust her Doctrine to prevent chaos with Pathfinder.

The Huey launched on her ferry mission without orders (there was a suggestion that her flight is triggered by Hauk’s attack). Reaching Hysnes without problems, she scored 5VP and then had to ready for 30 minutes before returning.

A Hind attacked our detached motor yacht with cannon to no effect.

The second armed trawler approached the convoy and was battered by Sleipner, coming to a dead stop.

The Russians had a Gainful site on Storfosna island and this blazed away ineffectually, either trying to hit our Lynx at extreme range or maybe firing at our ships.

Two Hinds attacked the convoy with Spirals. Both were shot down by MANPADs and AA for 6VP, but Redpole was hit and lost her 40mm main gun, Helford took superficial damage and a patrol yacht was hit 18.6% with fires. Redpole and the yacht were sent back towards safer waters (there were again issues with Pathfinder in the latter case).

A second Haze foolishly came too close to Sleipner and suffered the same fate as its predecessor. This removed any enemy ASW threat and gave Uthaug a free hand.

23:00L: After much shelling, Sleipner sank the trawler in the approach channel for 5VP, taking the score to +37 and a Minor Victory. The second trawler was no longer a threat.

Sleipner then sank the Sonya, which was doing minesweeping, with gunfire for 5 more VP.

Uthaug torpedoed the Ondatra LCM as it traversed the bay, the moved to engage two Shmels coming-in from the NE.

Sleipner destroyed the Gainful battery, but this scored nothing.

The two Shmels fired Grad rockets at the minesweepers, but the weapons were very inaccurate and missed completely. Another salvo was aimed at Vidar as she entered the bay, but did only slight harm. Uthaug than put paid to both patrol boats for 10 more VP.

2/3/94 00:00L: A third Shmel sortied, missed Vidar with her Grads and was sunk by our SSK. A fourth one then appeared and was an equally bad shot, but ridiculously avoided two torpedoes by travelling on land!. It then began patrolling at random and finally moved into a position where Uthaug could sink it.

01:00L: Probing into the high-risk mine zone (the low and medium risk ones proved to have no mines close to the Norwegian side of the fjord), the two minesweepers located a number of lurking hazards but initially made a total hash of clearing them on a Mine-clearing mission with all kit and sonar active. There was, however, a channel through which I hoped I could steer the convoy in single-file. The lead trawler duly reached the Unload Zone off Hysnes, triggering messages to say that not only she, but Valkyrien had arrived but scoring no VP. She then found a mine in the Unload Zone, failed to swerve away in time and fortunately took only minor harm, being reduced to 6 knots.

Meanwhile, the Huey (having returned to base at Surnadal) made another run to Hysnes, but had buggy problems landing, perhaps because she had been taken on-and-off her Ferry mission. When I eventually resolved this via much Unassigning, she landed and scored nothing, so I later sent her back to Surnadal for the duration.

02:00L: The rest of the convoy reached the Unload Zone without mishaps, but initially scored nothing. Meanwhile, the minesweepers were finally making headway clearing the detected mines.

The crippled Soviet trawler stubbornly refused to sink, so Uthaug finished it off, but only after two torpedoes had struck shoals that were impossible to see, even after the event.

Vidar had smothered the first Minelaying zone with her eggs so, rather than risk her being sunk by them once their 5-hour activation time was due, I risked sending her towards the second zone up the main fjord beyond Hysnes.

03:00L: The convoy vessels eventually unloaded for 5VP per trawler and 10 for Valkyrien, taking the score over +75 and into Triumph territory. They then set-off singly to get clear of the area before dawn brought the Red Air Force.

06:00L: Not sure what Vidar had to do to score any points, but she got both minefields laid and, like every other NATO ship, got clear before daybreak.

So it finished as a Triumph, with a score of +102. Some minor damage apart, NATO lost nothing, while the Soviets lost 3 patrol frigates, 2 heavily-armed patrol boats, a minesweeper, amphib, 2 armed trawlers, 4 choppers and a Gainful. NATO swept 12 mines.

Certainly not dull and a refreshing change to play, despite a few bugs and issues. The Russian Sepal never engaged, maybe because the AEW Helix was flying around with its radars off (though other units definitely detected us). In this and other respects, I must admit that I had such luck as was going this time.

I note that, in the official storyline (as per the Briefing for the next scenario), the reinforcement of Hysnes failed with heavy losses on both sides. The next one seems to be a similar clash of the small fry, playable only from the Soviet side.

[Gunner98]

Thanks for the report Vince

Glad most things worked well

Bart