Operation Trident Boreal--AAR

[DWReese]

Operation Trident Boreal

Warning: This report contains spoilers

Setup: This is a rather large scenario and pits a combined NATO force combating a large Russian naval force, supported by lots of land-based aircraft. Destroying the other side is the primary objective. The Russians are also attempting to leak three boomers into the Atlantic.

The scenario begins with an event which draws the groups together, and fighting begins shortly thereafter. Task Force Viking is the US carrier group which is front and center, ready to take on the Russians head-to-head. The British and French task forces are primarily assigned to stop the boomers from entering the Atlantic.

On the Russian side, the premier surface group is centered around the Admiral Nakimov battle cruiser, which is a beast. There are plenty of Russian groups, and all are armed with missiles that can completely destroy everything.

The Russians have several units armed with the Zicron missile which travels at 5000 kts, and can only be defeating by the extremely limited number of SM-6 missiles on Task Force Viking. It’s quite obvious that the Russians have more missiles than Task Force Viking has to defend itself.

Game Play: Playing as the NATO Commander, I immediately sent CAP out as far as I could defending the US Carrier group. I also sent out plenty of ASW, AEW and tankers. For the Brits and French, I sent out everything that I could to locate and detect the subs, and they spent the entire time doing that. In Norway and Finland, I sent out CAP units, with hope of being able to defeat incoming missiles and planes. There are a very limited number of these units available for CAP duties.

The attack on Havis North is basically a way for the scenario to begin, and after it does, little is done with that afterward.

The US CAP found Russian surveillance aircraft, and I immediately sent fighters to deal with those. Since hostilities had not begun, so I could not shoot them down as of this time. My goal was to try to prevent them from locating my carrier group. But, unfortunately, they were already too close, and as soon as hostilities began, a missile barrage from every Russian asset began.

While my fighters quickly destroyed the surveillance aircraft, a bunch of Zicrons were already in flight toward my Viking Task Force.

Meanwhile, other missiles obliterated all of the facilities in northern Finland and Norway, with little defense at all. The NATO fighters tried to do some things to repel the attack, but it was fruitless. A few SSM facilities that I had there did manage to fire some SSMs at a few Russian ships close to the shore, but the facilities were destroyed pretty quickly.

Task Force Viking (the carrier) has a limited number of SM-6s and those are the only ones that can defeat a Zicron. There just aren’t enough of them, and I quickly lost one of my Arleigh Burke destroyers to the Zicron attack. Gone also were half of my Tomahawks, and half of my SM-6s. Just as I began to evaluate what I still have available, a series of Backfire bombers began launching AS-4 Kitchens at the carrier group, and at other land facilities. Almost everything that they fired struck something.

Despite my best efforts, I lost a NATO destroyer which was with the group, and my remaining Arleigh Burke was now completely out of SM-6 missiles.

A follow-up AS-4 strike took out almost all of the remaining ground facilities, and this war was only an hour old, and NATO was being completely destroyed.

At this point I elected to try to neutralize the bomber base, so I fired the 32 Tomahawks from my remaining Arleigh Burke at the 4 Very large Runway Access Points. I figured that if I destroyed those, then they could not launch a second wave. I elected to fire those now because I figured that another attack may soon sink my destroyer, and that I would waste another group of Tomahawks.

I then launched several groups of F/A-18s at the known Russian smaller surface groups close to the front of the Russian advance. These were armed with LRASMs and those were all generally successful.

The Tomahawk attack was only half successful, so the base was still operational. Very little was going right for NATO at this point.

With the SM-6s gone, and the SM-2s down to just 5 left, I then turned the aircraft carrier around and sprinted toward the Southwest, and prayed that there would not be another missile barrage. Any more attacks and the carrier would likely sink.

Nato’s secret weapons were the four B-1 bombers that they had at Orland. Two were ready to go so I sent them after the Admiral Nakimov group. I had tested the LRASM missile before, and it was always awesome, so I figured that it was completely obliterate the entire group. That didn’t happen. Apparently, the LRASMs flew right over where the Russians should have been, and didn’t activate their radars until after they had passed by. They travelled on, and destroyed a bunch of fishing boats. That was a disastrous outcome. So, the B-1s returned home with no kills.

Figuring that the Russians would be re-arming their backfires, I knew that I needed to shut down the rest of that bomber base. I fired 12 Tomahawks from the USS Barb, and 12 more from the Jimmy Carter, and I managed to destroy the other two Runway Access Points. Of course, I didn’t know that, and my carrier group continued to flee.

I then figured that I would use the USS Barb again and go after the Admiral Nakimov group once again. I fired all 40 Tomahawks, and all of them were shot down. The Admiral Nakimov group is just too powerful. They have two SA-N-21 launchers, and a SA-N-6. They might not have great success against LRASMs, but they can completely destroy Tomahawks.

My US carrier was now about 500 miles away from the Admiral Nakimov group, and the Russians remaining missiles had a maximum range of 300 miles, so they were not going to catch the fleeing US carrier.

The P-8s from Iceland, and the Brits and French were able to detect and destroy all of the boomers, so that worked out well.

The second group of B-1s could have had another shot at the Admiral Nakimov group, but the program crashed. When I tried to reload the scenario, half of my units were gone, and the point total was gone. At the time of the crash, I had earned about 2000 points, which was a Minor Defeat.

Since half of the units were now gone into cyberspace, and those that were still there seemed to have been recharged with weapons, it was no longer possible to continue then game. I can’t say for sure that the second group of B-1s would have been able to destroy the Admiral Nakimov. I researched the Events, and I’m not certain if its destruction actually ends the game or not. The question of whether the Admiral Nakimov could have even been targeted, and with no other units (other than subs) available to detect anything, so I’m not sure that it could have been done.

After the game was over, I also learned that the bomber base had been neutralized, so NATO was no longer in danger of being damaged or killed.

The scenario is challenging, almost initially overwhelming. There is more action in the first hour of this scenario, than in almost every other scenario that I have played.
I’m not sure if the crashes, which seem to happen quite a bit, are a computer problem, or a program issue, or a scenario issue. Others have reported similar incidents with other scenarios, so it’s likely something else.

I’d recommend it, but it’s exhausting.