Northern Fury 37 - Charge of the Light Brigade 13/3/94
Posted: Fri Jul 17, 2026 3:28 pm
Situation
With the amphibious landings in Norway pending, NATO uses the British Ark Royal and Invincible carrier groups to absorb Soviet attention with the notional objective of neutralising the airbases at Orland and Vaernes, near Trondheim. It is also intended to sweep mines from the mouth of the Trondheimsfjorden and to insert special forces by helicopter either side of Orland. You can only play the NATO side.
HMS Invincible has a Type 42 destroyer (with Sea Darts) and two Type 22 frigates for escort, while Ark Royal has one of each. Between them, the flat tops have a dozen strike Harriers fitted-out with wholly inadequate bombs and rockets and ten fighter Harriers, as well as the usual helicopters.
TG Exeter, consisting of two Type 42 destroyers and two frigates, is charged with the special forces insertion (via two Lynxes on HMS Lancaster) and can potentially bombard Orland from a marked zone at the fjord entrance. TG Virginia, consisting of the eponymous cruiser, a Type 42 and four assorted multi-national frigates, is in a screening position between TG Exeter and the Soviet bases.
Two Danish PCFGs accompany seven minesweepers, which start perilously close to the mined zone.
You also have 13 PAP 104 ROVs at Lerwick in the Shetlands, though what part they are supposed to play is beyond me.
There is a decent amount of land-based air support. At Lossiemouth, you have a dozen fighters of mixed type, two Tornadoes with ALARM ARMs and ten Buccaneers and Jaguars with bombs and rockets, as well as some support aircraft. Nearby Kinloss houses four Nimrods, split between ASW and ELINT duties.
In the Shetlands, there are seven Hercules tankers, two Prowlers and eight Hornets, the latter again being lumbered with bombs.
At Coningsby in Lincolnshire, there are a dozen F-4s with more bombs, of the sort that have to be released at low altitude. Three tankers at Mildenhall are capable of refuelling these.
Between the bases at Flesland (Bergen) and Sola (Stavanger) in Norway, you have eight F-16s with HARMs, ten F-15s and F-16s with fighter loadouts and eight Jaguars and F-5s with more bombs.
At Gardermoen (Oslo), there are two Norwegian F-16s with AMRAAMs and four more with a heavy load of bombs that would probably stop them reaching Vaernes or Orland, plus four F-5s with more bombs and two more F-16s (Dutch) in recon mode. At Rygge (S of Oslo) there are four SEAD Phantoms, four F-15s with halfway-useful GBU-15s (range 15nm), an OECM plane and six more F-5s with bombs or recon loadouts.
Finally, you have three Patriot sites in Southern Norway.
The Soviets have a variety of small naval units, most notably Tarantul III PCFGs with Sunburn missiles but also Grisha ASW corvettes and Pauk and Stenka patrol boats.
At least one Akula and one Kilo are in the area.
In the air, the Russians have shrugged-off their losses from Shoulder to Shoulder and can still field a large number of Foxhounds, Flankers, Fulcrums and Flogger Ks, as well as Fencer D, MiG-27 and Fitter attack planes and some support aircraft.
Defending their bases, they have the usual range of SAMs, from Gargoyles through Grumbles to Grouse MANPADs. There are also batteries of Improved Styxes along the coast, posing a grave threat to the minesweepers.
Assessment and Planning
This looked impossible but, in view of what happened in NF36, I chose not to despair. The default score of zero was a Minor Defeat, so we had to do something positive to win.
At least we didn’t have to face massed Backfire/Badger strikes, which indicated that these were being reserved for the amphibious landings and that our goal of distracting the Soviets was unattainable. Similarly, the enemy were keeping their Oscars and other SSGNs back, too.
Our ability to withstand air attack was clearly contingent on how many planes came against us.
We had Harpoons, but no TLAMs, so the latter could not be used to provoke the Soviet SAM sites protecting the airfields to light-up.
The vast majority of our ground attack weapons were suicidally short-ranged. Some were only usable in good daytime weather (and the game starts at 5pm Norwegian time in March). I took the view that the forecast light rain did not disqualify weapons that had ‘limited all-weather capability’, as it was hard enough already.
Clearly, trying to bomb Orland and Vaernes without suppressing the SAMs first was a non-starter. We weren’t just talking SA-20 Gargoyles here, as even ZSU-23s could be deadly to low-flying aircraft and there was plenty in-between.
Reviewing the starting loadouts, I managed to replace a lot of the useless bombs and rockets with HARMs at the expense of having to wait for six hours. The Phantoms at Coningsby were given GBU-15s, which was a distinct improvement on what they started with, while the Buccaneers were given versatile A.168 Martels.
I pondered whether to concentrate on one enemy airbase or attack both. Vaernes could be approached via Sweden, which might hopefully catch the defences off-guard, whereas Orland would be a frontal attack. The problem with concentrating on Vaernes was that the UK-based planes would struggle to get there, making it a Norway-based operation. Provisionally, I decided to attack Vaernes accordingly, then see what I could do with Orland afterwards. As for getting the SAMs to reveal themselves, I would probably need a risky probe with low-value aircraft like the F-5s. Then again, enemy fighters could deal with this without the SAMs needing to get involved. It all smacked of ‘bricks without straw’…
For the naval gunnery option to work at Orland, it was theoretically necessary to sweep the mines first. Then again, the enemy could easily massacre the minesweepers should they turn-up on his doorstep. Besides, minesweeping in CMO is notoriously inefficient – there’s always another mine, no matter how hard you try. Close examination of the map indicated that the Exeter group MIGHT be able to bombard from outside the marked naval gunnery area. It seemed best to aim for this approach and just get the minesweepers away to sea for their own safety as fast as possible (which wasn’t very fast).
Exeter (or, to be precise, HMS Lancaster) also has to get close enough to fly-in the special forces, which would require the choppers to come-in at low altitude and try to use terrain to their advantage.
Events
13/3/94 16:00Z: Much of the above proved academic.
I soon found that Build 1825 had created problems with retaining carefully-specified Doctrine settings after saving and re-starting the game. Ships would go Engaged Defensive when they’d been told not to, some of my naval SAM WRA had been reset to default values and, as in other recent versions of the game, aircraft had their General Doctrine restored to default values when they took off, unless they were on a Mission. All this had a sufficiently chaotic effect that I restarted a short way in. Not that it made much difference…
Some Foxhounds went after TG Virginia’s and Exeter’s ASW choppers, which managed to RTB under SAM cover, which shot down two MiG-31s for 2VP each.
An absolutely overwhelming attack then annihilated both TG Virginia and TG Exeter, sinking the cruiser, two destroyers and six frigates, with a dozen choppers. The damage was all done by a shoal of 56 Sunburns from what must have been 14 Tarantul IIIs in the fjords. A database change for B1825 had increased the Sunburn/Moskit’s range from 70 to 130nm and given it an extra 20 damage points of punch for good measure. As a result, the enemy PCFGs outranged us and could bring massive force to bear, beyond what Bart must have intended. Some lousy shooting from our SAMs didn’t help, though this was offset by a surprising number of Sunburns appearing to be spoofed. Several ships were destroyed after running-out of SAMs. There just aren’t enough.
Before she succumbed, Virginia did manage to destroy three of the Tarantuls with Harpoons, but the rest were out of range.
Meanwhile, a wave of MiG-27s came-in with a close escort of Fulcrums. A half-dozen Harriers responded from the two carriers, but were hit in the NE side by a force of Flankers which came tearing in from Bodo. We lost five Harriers for two Flankers, two Fulcrums and three attack planes (NATO losses cost 3VP and Soviet ones score 2VP).
As if this wasn’t bad enough, a sub followed-up torpedoing two false contacts by ambushing the retreating minelayer force, sinking both Danish PCFGs. Having no ASW capabilities, I could do nothing about this.
Finally, my own plans progressed as far as sending a recon F-5 to take a look at enemy preparedness at Vaernes. Two fighters intercepted it and, with my attention distracted, chased it down before it could reach Patriot cover.
So, after an hour, I’d lost two entire task groups, had no chance of inserting special forces or doing any bombardment and the score was on -156. I couldn’t see much point in continuing, though I still have the save file if anything brilliant occurs to me (or anyone reading this).
This was mostly down to the enhancements to the Sunburn and the sheer number of enemy PCFGs, but it was always going to be a tall order without this happening. It was all over very quickly indeed, I couldn’t escape and had no weapons beyond the ones I used.
With the amphibious landings in Norway pending, NATO uses the British Ark Royal and Invincible carrier groups to absorb Soviet attention with the notional objective of neutralising the airbases at Orland and Vaernes, near Trondheim. It is also intended to sweep mines from the mouth of the Trondheimsfjorden and to insert special forces by helicopter either side of Orland. You can only play the NATO side.
HMS Invincible has a Type 42 destroyer (with Sea Darts) and two Type 22 frigates for escort, while Ark Royal has one of each. Between them, the flat tops have a dozen strike Harriers fitted-out with wholly inadequate bombs and rockets and ten fighter Harriers, as well as the usual helicopters.
TG Exeter, consisting of two Type 42 destroyers and two frigates, is charged with the special forces insertion (via two Lynxes on HMS Lancaster) and can potentially bombard Orland from a marked zone at the fjord entrance. TG Virginia, consisting of the eponymous cruiser, a Type 42 and four assorted multi-national frigates, is in a screening position between TG Exeter and the Soviet bases.
Two Danish PCFGs accompany seven minesweepers, which start perilously close to the mined zone.
You also have 13 PAP 104 ROVs at Lerwick in the Shetlands, though what part they are supposed to play is beyond me.
There is a decent amount of land-based air support. At Lossiemouth, you have a dozen fighters of mixed type, two Tornadoes with ALARM ARMs and ten Buccaneers and Jaguars with bombs and rockets, as well as some support aircraft. Nearby Kinloss houses four Nimrods, split between ASW and ELINT duties.
In the Shetlands, there are seven Hercules tankers, two Prowlers and eight Hornets, the latter again being lumbered with bombs.
At Coningsby in Lincolnshire, there are a dozen F-4s with more bombs, of the sort that have to be released at low altitude. Three tankers at Mildenhall are capable of refuelling these.
Between the bases at Flesland (Bergen) and Sola (Stavanger) in Norway, you have eight F-16s with HARMs, ten F-15s and F-16s with fighter loadouts and eight Jaguars and F-5s with more bombs.
At Gardermoen (Oslo), there are two Norwegian F-16s with AMRAAMs and four more with a heavy load of bombs that would probably stop them reaching Vaernes or Orland, plus four F-5s with more bombs and two more F-16s (Dutch) in recon mode. At Rygge (S of Oslo) there are four SEAD Phantoms, four F-15s with halfway-useful GBU-15s (range 15nm), an OECM plane and six more F-5s with bombs or recon loadouts.
Finally, you have three Patriot sites in Southern Norway.
The Soviets have a variety of small naval units, most notably Tarantul III PCFGs with Sunburn missiles but also Grisha ASW corvettes and Pauk and Stenka patrol boats.
At least one Akula and one Kilo are in the area.
In the air, the Russians have shrugged-off their losses from Shoulder to Shoulder and can still field a large number of Foxhounds, Flankers, Fulcrums and Flogger Ks, as well as Fencer D, MiG-27 and Fitter attack planes and some support aircraft.
Defending their bases, they have the usual range of SAMs, from Gargoyles through Grumbles to Grouse MANPADs. There are also batteries of Improved Styxes along the coast, posing a grave threat to the minesweepers.
Assessment and Planning
This looked impossible but, in view of what happened in NF36, I chose not to despair. The default score of zero was a Minor Defeat, so we had to do something positive to win.
At least we didn’t have to face massed Backfire/Badger strikes, which indicated that these were being reserved for the amphibious landings and that our goal of distracting the Soviets was unattainable. Similarly, the enemy were keeping their Oscars and other SSGNs back, too.
Our ability to withstand air attack was clearly contingent on how many planes came against us.
We had Harpoons, but no TLAMs, so the latter could not be used to provoke the Soviet SAM sites protecting the airfields to light-up.
The vast majority of our ground attack weapons were suicidally short-ranged. Some were only usable in good daytime weather (and the game starts at 5pm Norwegian time in March). I took the view that the forecast light rain did not disqualify weapons that had ‘limited all-weather capability’, as it was hard enough already.
Clearly, trying to bomb Orland and Vaernes without suppressing the SAMs first was a non-starter. We weren’t just talking SA-20 Gargoyles here, as even ZSU-23s could be deadly to low-flying aircraft and there was plenty in-between.
Reviewing the starting loadouts, I managed to replace a lot of the useless bombs and rockets with HARMs at the expense of having to wait for six hours. The Phantoms at Coningsby were given GBU-15s, which was a distinct improvement on what they started with, while the Buccaneers were given versatile A.168 Martels.
I pondered whether to concentrate on one enemy airbase or attack both. Vaernes could be approached via Sweden, which might hopefully catch the defences off-guard, whereas Orland would be a frontal attack. The problem with concentrating on Vaernes was that the UK-based planes would struggle to get there, making it a Norway-based operation. Provisionally, I decided to attack Vaernes accordingly, then see what I could do with Orland afterwards. As for getting the SAMs to reveal themselves, I would probably need a risky probe with low-value aircraft like the F-5s. Then again, enemy fighters could deal with this without the SAMs needing to get involved. It all smacked of ‘bricks without straw’…
For the naval gunnery option to work at Orland, it was theoretically necessary to sweep the mines first. Then again, the enemy could easily massacre the minesweepers should they turn-up on his doorstep. Besides, minesweeping in CMO is notoriously inefficient – there’s always another mine, no matter how hard you try. Close examination of the map indicated that the Exeter group MIGHT be able to bombard from outside the marked naval gunnery area. It seemed best to aim for this approach and just get the minesweepers away to sea for their own safety as fast as possible (which wasn’t very fast).
Exeter (or, to be precise, HMS Lancaster) also has to get close enough to fly-in the special forces, which would require the choppers to come-in at low altitude and try to use terrain to their advantage.
Events
13/3/94 16:00Z: Much of the above proved academic.
I soon found that Build 1825 had created problems with retaining carefully-specified Doctrine settings after saving and re-starting the game. Ships would go Engaged Defensive when they’d been told not to, some of my naval SAM WRA had been reset to default values and, as in other recent versions of the game, aircraft had their General Doctrine restored to default values when they took off, unless they were on a Mission. All this had a sufficiently chaotic effect that I restarted a short way in. Not that it made much difference…
Some Foxhounds went after TG Virginia’s and Exeter’s ASW choppers, which managed to RTB under SAM cover, which shot down two MiG-31s for 2VP each.
An absolutely overwhelming attack then annihilated both TG Virginia and TG Exeter, sinking the cruiser, two destroyers and six frigates, with a dozen choppers. The damage was all done by a shoal of 56 Sunburns from what must have been 14 Tarantul IIIs in the fjords. A database change for B1825 had increased the Sunburn/Moskit’s range from 70 to 130nm and given it an extra 20 damage points of punch for good measure. As a result, the enemy PCFGs outranged us and could bring massive force to bear, beyond what Bart must have intended. Some lousy shooting from our SAMs didn’t help, though this was offset by a surprising number of Sunburns appearing to be spoofed. Several ships were destroyed after running-out of SAMs. There just aren’t enough.
Before she succumbed, Virginia did manage to destroy three of the Tarantuls with Harpoons, but the rest were out of range.
Meanwhile, a wave of MiG-27s came-in with a close escort of Fulcrums. A half-dozen Harriers responded from the two carriers, but were hit in the NE side by a force of Flankers which came tearing in from Bodo. We lost five Harriers for two Flankers, two Fulcrums and three attack planes (NATO losses cost 3VP and Soviet ones score 2VP).
As if this wasn’t bad enough, a sub followed-up torpedoing two false contacts by ambushing the retreating minelayer force, sinking both Danish PCFGs. Having no ASW capabilities, I could do nothing about this.
Finally, my own plans progressed as far as sending a recon F-5 to take a look at enemy preparedness at Vaernes. Two fighters intercepted it and, with my attention distracted, chased it down before it could reach Patriot cover.
So, after an hour, I’d lost two entire task groups, had no chance of inserting special forces or doing any bombardment and the score was on -156. I couldn’t see much point in continuing, though I still have the save file if anything brilliant occurs to me (or anyone reading this).
This was mostly down to the enhancements to the Sunburn and the sheer number of enemy PCFGs, but it was always going to be a tall order without this happening. It was all over very quickly indeed, I couldn’t escape and had no weapons beyond the ones I used.