Northern Fury 36 - Wrestling an Octopus 13/3/94
Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2026 6:26 pm
Situation
The Soviets begin their climactic advance down the Gudbrandsdal through Lillehammer to Oslo and the 2nd Brigade of the US 82nd Airborne tries to stop them. You can only play the NATO side.
The 82nd and their Norwegian allies are represented by a variety of fixed and mobile units, the former being modified installations with short-ranged weapons, simulating entrenched infantry. The latter include eight platoons of Patton and Leopard tanks with four or five vehicles each. Most of these units have only very short-ranged weapons, though there are two batteries of M270 MLRS (range 20nm), two of 155mm towed guns (16nm) and three of 105mm howitzers (just 6nm).
Supporting these are three Patriot batteries, seven MANPAD squads and some AA guns, plus four radars/height-finders.
Air support consists of helicopters near the front line and fixed-wing aircraft further back. The former consist of seven Kiowa recon choppers, seven Apache and Cobra attack types and a single Quick Fix OECM whirlybird.
At Oslo Gardermoen, you have 12 Dutch and Norwegian F-16s with a mixture of Sidewinders and bombs and four bomb-armed Freedom Fighters. There are 14 A-10s at Oslo Fornebu with bombs, Mavericks and Sidewinders and eight Hornets at Torp with Sparrows, Sidewinders and a mix of bombs and rockets. At Stavanger (Sola), there are four F-16s with AMRAAMs, two with HARMs and six with AMRAAMs and cluster bombs, as well as four F-5s with bombs.
The Soviets have a large force of over 200 tanks, mechanised infantry in APCs and a formidable artillery contingent which heavily outnumbers and outranges the defenders. This is protected by lots of medium SAMs (Geckoes, Gauntlets, Gainfuls and Gadflies), AA guns and MANPADs.
Fulcrums and Floggers provide air cover for the Warsaw Pact, who also deploy numerous MiG-27 and Frogfoot attack planes and a variety of attack and EW choppers.
Assessment
It looked hopeless. Only four of our ground units had a range of over 6nm and even the MLRS batteries could only just clear our own forward positions, while the Russians had systems with a range of 22 to 38nm and enough ammo to scour us off the map. They also had three times as many tanks and freedom of manouevre against what was basically a fixed defence.
We might conceivably have some joy with HARMs in the unlikely event of the enemy having their radars on by default, but we only had the two SEAD Falcons with four missiles. Our other aerial weapons were bombs, rockets, Hellfires and Mavericks, which were all outranged by Gadflies, while the missiles could only take-out a tank each.
Then there were the enemy attack planes and choppers, against which we had mainly Sidewinder-armed fighters (and not many of those) and SAMs which were likely to be neutralised quickly by enemy artillery.
I turned-off AutoEvade for SAMs and artillery in case it stopped them firing back.
The MLRS were put on Weapons Hold, as advised in the Briefing, so that they didn’t fire and give away their positions prematurely. It was a moot point whether to use them primarily against artillery or to reserve their anti-tank mine dispenser munitions for the Soviet armour. Aircraft aside, there was no other way of destroying the enemy guns and rocket launchers.
The Sidewinder-armed fighters were ill-equipped to fight Fulcrums or Floggers, so I gave them a low-altitude CAP mission with which to tackle the attack planes and choppers. I also set-up a high-altitude CAP mission for the handful of AMRAAM fighters at Sola, who could at least attempt to gain air superiority.
The helicopters and attack planes could try to exploit a couple of valleys along the Soviet advance route to terrain-mask themselves and get close enough to hit the artillery, but this really required us to deal with the MiGs and intervening SAM units first. I found that the map was insufficiently detailed to support such tactics unless I switched-on the Relief/Bathymetry Layer which is, at least, colourful.
Events
13/3/94 08:00Z (09:00L): The four AMRAAM F-16s sortied from Sola and one Patriot battery was turned-on to give some visibility of enemy air activity before the Falcons arrived. A quartet each of Fulcrums and Floggers engaged the F-16s who, despite the 2:1 odds, shot down seven of these, plus a MiG-27, without loss before having to withdraw for lack of ammo. This scored 5VP each, but the scenario has no pre-set Victory Thresholds.
The Falcons detected a couple of Gauntlets covering the approach valleys a short way down, so the MLRS were used to eliminate the one to the East for 1VP, opening the way for our choppers to attack the numerous artillery units we’d spotted further back
Unfortunately, the surviving Fulcrum just happened to fly close to an Apache that I was trying to sneak up the valley and shot it down for a loss of 5VP. The MiG-29 then chased a retiring F-16, which drew it into range of a Patriot, which downed it at the second attempt, to general astonishment.
Meanwhile, Soviet rocket artillery and MiG-27s began bombarding the NATO positions, destroying one of the MLRS batteries, a radar and one set of ‘cratering charge’ mines, costing us 3VP in all.
Four Dutch Sidewinder F-16s arrived from Gardermoen, but the enemy had more Fulcrums on the way. We were never going to get air superiority and pave the way for our attack planes and choppers, while the ground units had no real way of fighting back. Basically, it was hopeless, so I left it there.
The Soviets begin their climactic advance down the Gudbrandsdal through Lillehammer to Oslo and the 2nd Brigade of the US 82nd Airborne tries to stop them. You can only play the NATO side.
The 82nd and their Norwegian allies are represented by a variety of fixed and mobile units, the former being modified installations with short-ranged weapons, simulating entrenched infantry. The latter include eight platoons of Patton and Leopard tanks with four or five vehicles each. Most of these units have only very short-ranged weapons, though there are two batteries of M270 MLRS (range 20nm), two of 155mm towed guns (16nm) and three of 105mm howitzers (just 6nm).
Supporting these are three Patriot batteries, seven MANPAD squads and some AA guns, plus four radars/height-finders.
Air support consists of helicopters near the front line and fixed-wing aircraft further back. The former consist of seven Kiowa recon choppers, seven Apache and Cobra attack types and a single Quick Fix OECM whirlybird.
At Oslo Gardermoen, you have 12 Dutch and Norwegian F-16s with a mixture of Sidewinders and bombs and four bomb-armed Freedom Fighters. There are 14 A-10s at Oslo Fornebu with bombs, Mavericks and Sidewinders and eight Hornets at Torp with Sparrows, Sidewinders and a mix of bombs and rockets. At Stavanger (Sola), there are four F-16s with AMRAAMs, two with HARMs and six with AMRAAMs and cluster bombs, as well as four F-5s with bombs.
The Soviets have a large force of over 200 tanks, mechanised infantry in APCs and a formidable artillery contingent which heavily outnumbers and outranges the defenders. This is protected by lots of medium SAMs (Geckoes, Gauntlets, Gainfuls and Gadflies), AA guns and MANPADs.
Fulcrums and Floggers provide air cover for the Warsaw Pact, who also deploy numerous MiG-27 and Frogfoot attack planes and a variety of attack and EW choppers.
Assessment
It looked hopeless. Only four of our ground units had a range of over 6nm and even the MLRS batteries could only just clear our own forward positions, while the Russians had systems with a range of 22 to 38nm and enough ammo to scour us off the map. They also had three times as many tanks and freedom of manouevre against what was basically a fixed defence.
We might conceivably have some joy with HARMs in the unlikely event of the enemy having their radars on by default, but we only had the two SEAD Falcons with four missiles. Our other aerial weapons were bombs, rockets, Hellfires and Mavericks, which were all outranged by Gadflies, while the missiles could only take-out a tank each.
Then there were the enemy attack planes and choppers, against which we had mainly Sidewinder-armed fighters (and not many of those) and SAMs which were likely to be neutralised quickly by enemy artillery.
I turned-off AutoEvade for SAMs and artillery in case it stopped them firing back.
The MLRS were put on Weapons Hold, as advised in the Briefing, so that they didn’t fire and give away their positions prematurely. It was a moot point whether to use them primarily against artillery or to reserve their anti-tank mine dispenser munitions for the Soviet armour. Aircraft aside, there was no other way of destroying the enemy guns and rocket launchers.
The Sidewinder-armed fighters were ill-equipped to fight Fulcrums or Floggers, so I gave them a low-altitude CAP mission with which to tackle the attack planes and choppers. I also set-up a high-altitude CAP mission for the handful of AMRAAM fighters at Sola, who could at least attempt to gain air superiority.
The helicopters and attack planes could try to exploit a couple of valleys along the Soviet advance route to terrain-mask themselves and get close enough to hit the artillery, but this really required us to deal with the MiGs and intervening SAM units first. I found that the map was insufficiently detailed to support such tactics unless I switched-on the Relief/Bathymetry Layer which is, at least, colourful.
Events
13/3/94 08:00Z (09:00L): The four AMRAAM F-16s sortied from Sola and one Patriot battery was turned-on to give some visibility of enemy air activity before the Falcons arrived. A quartet each of Fulcrums and Floggers engaged the F-16s who, despite the 2:1 odds, shot down seven of these, plus a MiG-27, without loss before having to withdraw for lack of ammo. This scored 5VP each, but the scenario has no pre-set Victory Thresholds.
The Falcons detected a couple of Gauntlets covering the approach valleys a short way down, so the MLRS were used to eliminate the one to the East for 1VP, opening the way for our choppers to attack the numerous artillery units we’d spotted further back
Unfortunately, the surviving Fulcrum just happened to fly close to an Apache that I was trying to sneak up the valley and shot it down for a loss of 5VP. The MiG-29 then chased a retiring F-16, which drew it into range of a Patriot, which downed it at the second attempt, to general astonishment.
Meanwhile, Soviet rocket artillery and MiG-27s began bombarding the NATO positions, destroying one of the MLRS batteries, a radar and one set of ‘cratering charge’ mines, costing us 3VP in all.
Four Dutch Sidewinder F-16s arrived from Gardermoen, but the enemy had more Fulcrums on the way. We were never going to get air superiority and pave the way for our attack planes and choppers, while the ground units had no real way of fighting back. Basically, it was hopeless, so I left it there.