Showcase - Icebreakers 18/8/25
Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2026 4:07 pm
Situation
The rationale behind this scenario is somewhat far-fetched – or is it?. Climate change has been reducing the extent of Arctic sea ice and some governments and corporations regard this as an opportunity to access mineral resources that were previously out of reach. This has led to the potential for rivalry in the region, most notably between the States and Russia. With Russia distracted by the conflict in Ukraine, the American President decides to make a point by sending a task force on a Freedom of Navigation cruise through the Russian Arctic. Moscow sees this as an unacceptable provocation and makes it clear that any such attempt would be opposed, by force if necessary. It becomes a contest of wills between two egotistical leaders, neither of whom is prepared to back down. The armed forces of both nations are pitchforked into the middle of this impending crisis. You can only play the NATO side.
You have three days to sail the task force from a starting position N of Wrangel Island to an Objective Zone in the Laptev Sea. The latter is still in the heart of Russian territory, so the value of success seems limited, but this may have been intentional on the designer’s part – read on...
Along the way, there are two belts of 10-12nm of pack ice, which you will have to break a way through with icebreakers (the second one could be avoided by a big detour Polewards). Each zone has a corresponding Special Action, which detaches an icebreaker from your control while it batters a way through at Creep speed. You are warned that ‘unexpected behaviour’ can occur when using this Special Action but, if so, there is another one you can employ to stop the process, which can then be re-started as often as desired.
You have access to a cyber-warfare package, called Widowmaker, which can be triggered by Special Action. This will disable Russian satellite communications for 24-48 hours, theoretically hindering their ability to track the task force (they have good surface-search-capable satellites which traverse the region at regular intervals). The question is when to use it.
At the outset, you can choose from three Difficulty Levels. ‘Hard’ makes no change to the real-life capabilities of the Russian forces. At ‘Medium’, the number of Zircon hypersonic missiles on the battlecruiser Petr Velikiy (your biggest military problem) is halved from 80 to 40 (which doesn’t really make that much difference, I would suspect) and the Russian ships’ experience level is reduced to Cadet. At ‘Easy’, the Russians have no Zircons on the battlecruiser (though they have equivalents on a sub and aircraft) and all Russian units are at Cadet level. To be honest, I’ve not noticed that unit experience levels really make that much difference to the game. In any case, I felt obliged to play at ‘Hard’.
During the game, you get periodic news reports from social media sources. They don’t add much to play and you can turn them off with another Special Action.
Note that no victory levels have been set, which actually isn’t a bad thing, but you do have a score which goes up and down as events unfold.
The US-Canadian task force begins strung-out in a long line, N of Russia’s Wrangel Island. In the lead is the icebreaker Polar Star. Next comes the Michael Monsoor SAG, consisting of the eponymous Zumwalt-class destroyer and the littoral combat ships (LCS) Charleston and Savannah. Savannah can optionally exchange her helipad and choppers for extra SM-6 anti-ballistic missiles and I decided that this would be a good idea. Behind these ships follows the Cape St George SAG, with the cruiser of that name (a Ticonderoga), the Arleigh Burke DDGs Gridley and Jack Lucas and the light-armed coastguard cutter Stratton. Another icebreaker, the Terry Fox, is next in line, then a Canadian SAG brings up the rear, the helicopter frigate Winnepeg accompanying the oiler Protecteur and the weak ocean patrol vessel Harry DeWolf.
The force has a useful range of weapons, including ABMs, lots of TLAMs and a dozen LHRW ballistic missiles, plus adequate numbers of ASW choppers and a couple of Fire Scout UAVs with 200nm air and surface search. A major problem is that Terry Fox, which you might well need, is limited to a Flank speed of 16 knots and will need periodic re-fuelling from the oiler. While icebreaking time, diversions around extensive No Navigation Zones and enemy action could easily distort things, an initial calculation suggested that, at 16 knots, it was questionable whether we could reach the Objective Zone in time.
The SSNs Columbia and Oklahoma are near the edge of the ice pack in the Eastern Siberian Sea, where enemy surface ships are believed to be assembling, while the Canadian diesel sub Corner Brook is to the immediate E of that region. The game assumes better US-Canadian relations than at the present time!.
In Alaska and Washington State, you have 18 F-22 fighters and 24 F-35s (split evenly between A2A, SEAD and strike loadouts). These are adequately supported by tankers, Sentries, a couple of long-ranged Triton recon UAVs and Rivet Joints for ELINT. There are also some Poseidons, but they are too far away to be of much use to the task force and wouldn’t want to risk going far into Russian-controlled airspace, either. Finally, four Globemasters are readying with Rapid Dragon pallets, which potentially give you 180 AGM-158C anti-shipping missiles with a range of 220nm (despite some indications to the contrary, these ARE AGM-158Cs and not land-attack AGM-158Bs).
You also have some search radars in Western Alaska and the Aleutians and regular satellite overflights, which rely on cameras for surface and ground search (and there is low cloud down to 2,000’ across the region) but also provide ELINT/SIGINT.
The Russians have a worrying range of unpleasant things that they can do to you. Petr Velikiy (Peter the Great) is the biggest danger, with his 80 deadly Zircons, which range 700nm and can only be engaged by your limited stock of RIM-161Ds, RIM-174s and older, SARH, RIM-156s. The battlecruiser is escorted by just one Udaloy ASW destroyer and a Grisha corvette and also has an accompanying Artika nuclear-powered icebreaker and an elderly Boris Chilikin class oiler.
Somewhere in the region lurks a Yasen/Severodvinsk-class SSN, with another eight Zircons and maybe Sizzlers as well, while the enemy Northern fleet has also deployed an unknown number of Akulas and Victor IIIs.
In the air, Moscow has some strike Foxhounds, equipped with the Killjoy/Kinzhal, which is an air-launched version of the Zircon. There are also Backfires, with the latest Modified version of the old Kitchen A, which has a 215nm range. In theory, Bears can use Kickback anti-shipping and SEAD missiles but, in the game, they are used purely as MPAs. Near Wrangel Island, there’s a unit of Fulcrums which, happily, seem to be on fighter loadouts, as they can potentially use the Krypton B which, if the database can be believed, cruises at 15’, below the engagement floor of every US SAM!
On shore, the Russians have batteries of Sennight and Stooge/Bastion anti-shipping missiles, as well as numerous SAMs protecting their bases. The latter include Growlers and the latest medium-ranged SA-28 Vityaz.
Assessment/Planning
A quick count showed that the task force had 64 SAMs which could combat the enemy’s 88 Zircons, to say nothing of the Killjoys and other hazards. Simply put, we had to get the Petr Velikiy before it got us which, since we didn’t know where it was, would not be easy. As the battlecruiser had 96 Gargoyles, 128 Gauntlets and 48 Grisoms, plus Gatling cannon and the SAMs on the Udaloy, the only remotely feasible ways to do so were by using the Rapid Dragons (fighters permitting) or our SSNs.
We started 62nm from Russia’s confusingly-named Polar Star base on Wrangel and didn’t initially know what was there or at Mys Shmidta, opposite the island on the Siberian mainland.
The aircraft in North America would be of limited use, owing to the vast distances involved, even given tanker support. I could only hope to use them in the initial stages before leaving the Task Force to its own devices (if it survived that long).
Russia starts Unfriendly, so pre-emptive strikes are inadvisable, either with conventional forces or by using Widowmaker. I decided to hold the latter in reserve as long as possible, as I didn’t want its effects to expire at an inconvenient moment.
Events
18/8/25 12:00Z: It was soon apparent that the Russians had Fulcrums at Mys Shmidta. A satellite pass suggested that Petr Velikiy was some way E of Icebreaking Zone 2 and almost halfway to Zone 1, though it was very hard to be sure, owing to massive interference from his powerful jammers. There was a Gladiator/Giant site at Tiksi air base, some 220nm SW of Zone 2. Two AGIs, the Yuri Ivanov and Yug, were already shadowing the task force from behind and ahead, respectively. Internet reports confirmed that the Russians had detected us.
13:00Z: The task force moved towards Zone 1, which was 217nm WSW of its starting position, at 16 knots.
I kept getting daft “‘NATO_UnitDestroyed’ was triggered but did NOT fire (at least one condition failed)” pop-ups, which became so annoying that I switched all Scenario (but not Special) Message pop-ups off via Options.
The two patrolling Fulcrums then came charging-in at 889 knots, evidently heading for our duty ASW chopper, so I RTB’d it to delay hostilities. The MiGs turned away, but this was due to lack of fuel and they were replaced by a second pair, which Afterburnered at our Fire Scout UAV, which I’d just launched. Reluctantly, I declared them Hostile and shot them down with SAMs for 8VP each.
This illustrated a problem with the game, which isn’t, by any means, confined to this scenario. When setting WRA, I am very careful to specify just one SAM per target, in order to conserve ammo. Unfortunately, the game makes this decision separately for each individual SAM system, so multiple weapons still get aimed at the same target. In scenarios like this one, some confusion can also result from the WRA window listing all SAMs potentially usable by a given ship, even if it doesn’t actually have them in the scenario – with different versions of, say, RIM-174s being similarly-named, it is easy to make mistakes. You can also have situations where Group-level WRA overrides Unit Level and vice versa. I’d reserved some weapons for use against hypersonic missiles only, which helped, but the only possible solutions to the excessive weapons expenditure are to either do all SAM shots manually, specify Do Not Use Weapon against all target types for some mounts or put entire ships on Weapons Hold. All of these can leave you perilously exposed, especially when the enemy attacks while your attention is elsewhere.
Two Harpoons from Winnepeg and two RGM-184s from Charleston put paid to the two AGIs for 50VP each.
14:00Z: Two more Fulcrums approached and, with the above problems unresolved, too many SAMs were fired at them. As shooting at fighters at 50% range just doesn’t seem to work, they all missed, so I altered engagement range (for those SAMs not excluded by WRA) to 25%.
15:00Z: I was maintaining a two-plane F-22 patrol off Nome in Alaska, covering the Bering Straits with support from a Sentry and KC-135. These fighters intervened by attacking Fulcrums heading for the task force in the flank while trying to stay out of Growler range. In this way, four MiG-29s were downed or ditched for lack of fuel after being worn-out evading.
However, somewhere out in the distant pack-ice, the Severodvinsk had obtained a target solution and fired all eight of his Zircons. These now sank the Polar Star for an eye-watering 500VP and the Savannah for another 300, four RHIBs also being lost for 10VP each. Savannah’s extra RIM-161s did not help her much, stopping just one Zircon. Note that this would still have happened playing at Easy.
Our F-22s had spotted a Sennight battery on the mainland littoral, SW of Wrangel, so we steered to keep out of its range.
The two lost ships had spawned ten life-rafts. The scenario includes a Special Action for Search and Rescue (SAR) which, mercifully, this time, worked rather better than the one I learned to hate in the Fury series. While the notification you get about this every time you start the game could have been more comprehensive, I worked-out how to use it and two choppers were able to redeem a total of 100VP by retrieving all the survivors. You discover that you need to have choppers flying lower than 245’ and at less than 50 knots, while being very close to the life raft concerned. My approval comes with the qualification that these rescue missions took place close to the task force and did not involve any UAVs being lost and spawning imaginary pilots, nor was the facility tested deep in friendly territory, where survivors’ chances would be much better. Also, it shouldn’t be used when aircraft go down in remote places where rescue just isn’t feasible, as it is unfair to fine a player for this. It did involve a lot of micro-management, so it helped that we’d suppressed the Fulcrums for now and nothing else attacked in the interim.
16:00Z: It was proving comically difficult to pinpoint the Petr Velikiy. Latest satellite data suggested he was off Southern Kamchatka (!) and I could only hope that the Russians were being equally badly served by their own spacecraft.
Two more Fulcrums went after our Sentry in the Bering Straits and were driven-off by an F-22. Unfortunately, the enemy always seemed to be able to outrun missiles fired at 50% range, so I altered WRA for all AMRAAMs and AIM-260s to 30nm against fighters. Using this modification, a second F-22 downed the next pair of MiGs.
18:00Z: It turned-out that the enemy had strike Foxhound Ks at Ugolny Kopi air base in Far Eastern Siberia. Only one Killjoy came-in from that direction, however and a RIM-161D dealt with it. Another then came fireballing-in from the NW and, while it was stopped, too many of our better missiles were used-up in the process. Any sane US commander would have been sorely tempted to abort the whole mission at this point, but I decided not to take things too seriously and carried-on.
A Helix from the base on Wrangel Island was shadowing us, so Gridley downed it with a RIM-66 for 3VP. This was a manual shot, overriding my standard WRA instruction to ignore choppers more than 5nm away.
20:00Z: A long-legged Triton UAV had been steadily pushing into Russian airspace over the ocean and this finally gave us an accurate fix on the Petr Velikiy. By a miraculous stroke of luck (or, perhaps, scenario design), it was fairly close to USS Columbia and, before being shot down by Foxhounds for -15VP, the Triton was able to guide the SSN in. Even more remarkably, the battlecruiser had sent his escort away to the South, didn’t even have any ASW choppers up and was accompanied only by the oiler. Such was his jamming strength, though (even against sonar, it seemed), that Columbia had to risk going to periscope depth to get an accurate firing solution for her Mk48 torpedoes. With the Russians asleep, seven tinfish sent the Velikiy to the bottom for 500VP (same as the Polar Star?!) and four more dealt with the oiler for another 200. Petr Velikiy tried to use her Paket torpedoes, but they were wholly ineffective against the SSN (too far away) or the Mk48s. Both of our SSNs then withdrew under the ice sheet, where Russian Stallion, Starfish or aerial weapons could not harm them. Just possibly, thought our task force commander, we might now have a chance of surviving this!. It also meant that playing at Hard was no longer really an issue.
Gridley disposed of a second shadowing Helix. ‘Kill the eyes’ as they say…
22:00Z: The Russians sent a Searcher armed UAV to track the fleet and we knocked it down for 2VP. Again, two SAMs were used when I wanted to use one.
19/8/25 01:00Z: We really needed to neutralise the strike Foxhounds at Ugolny Kopi, but it wasn’t really feasible to do it with Alaskan-based aircraft. Instead, I used some of the TLAMs from the task force. With enemy SAMs (Vityaz, Greyhounds and Grinches) slow to react, we got one Foxhound K (15VP), two Searchers, a Bear (nothing) plus two hangars and an AvGas tank (the latter by accident) for 5VP each. Note that our satellites had told us where enemy aircraft were parked, in the open at least (presumably, they’d gotten this data when the weather was clearer).
04:00Z: Still shadowed by a Searcher that had departed Ugolny Kopi before the TLAMs hit, the task force reached the E edge of Icebreaking Zone 1 in about 16 hours, much as expected. Our ships had a welcome chance to close-up. Having initiated the appropriate Special Action, I now faced a three-hour wait while Terry Fox did her thing under AI control, moving at 3 knots.
It occurred that it could be very nasty should the Russians have an SSN under the ice at this choke point (it’s what I’d have done), but they hadn’t. In general, the Arctic Ocean is shallow (which negates towed sonar arrays) and not well suited to SSN operations. It also has no convergence zones or layer. We were constrained throughout the scenario by the risk to our ASW choppers and recon drones from enemy fighters, so I had to use them sparingly. This was one period when it seemed worth the risk, as the Fulcrums were no longer an issue.
The Searcher eventually got too close and was downed. A lone Foxhound BM fighter then incongruously appeared from the NW, heading for Mys Shmidta. Before it could get there, it ran out of fuel and nose-dived into the sea for 10VP. It was probably the one that had shot down our Triton and had fallen victim to the bilious ‘AI Emergency’ base diversion rule. Foxhound patrols range a long way out from two enemy bases near Icebreaking Zone 2 and were a good reason not to have risked the Globemasters against Petr Velikiy.
08:00Z: Terry Fox broke through the ice, not that it scored any points. Doing so creates an error which pops-up every time the game is restarted, because the Zone area is no longer a valid shape for a mission. This has no genuine effect on play, thankfully. The icebreaker slowed down and waited for the Cape St George and Monsoor SAGs to go past before slotting-in between the latter and the Winnepeg group.
10:00Z: Taking longer than expected, all ships made it through the Zone 1 channel with 49 hours left. Simply put, we weren’t going to reach the Objective Zone in time at Fox’s pace, but we needed her to get through Zone 2 unless we wanted to take the Northern detour, which probably wouldn’t help much.
By now, the value of our Alaskan air cover was slight and I was considering discontinuing it.
Foxhound fighters were stationed at an air base on an island N of Zone 2, suggesting that there were bombers at Tiksi air base on the mainland, further SW. Satellite recon showed two Foxhound Ks and several more MiG-31 fighters there, so we launched another TLAM strike.
12:00Z: The TLAMs were thinned-out en route by patrolling Foxhounds and only succeeded in destroying a hangar and an AvGas tank. A follow-up strike was completely thwarted by the Foxhounds, but we did take-out a Tall Rack air search radar in an isolated position on the Siberian coast for 50VP.
13:00Z: I recalled the Alaskan aircraft, who were, by now, more of a distraction than a help.
The Monsoor group then launched its dozen LHRW ballistic missiles at Tiksi, the island base and Nagurskoye base on distant Novaya Zemlya, but the enemy defences (mostly Growlers) were highly effective and the strike failed disappointingly.
Somehow, a strike Foxhound must have survived at Ugolny Kopi, as a Killjoy hurtled in from that direction, to be parried by a RIM-161. At least they only had a few of the things…
Our Fire Scout detected a Sennight battery onshore to the S, so we damaged it with three TLAMs. As its radar was disabled, we could safely ignore it now.
A further TLAM strike on Tiksi only succeeded in taking-out a fighter Foxhound on the ground. As I was aiming multiple TLAMs at the strike Foxhound tarmac spaces and only single shots at other targets, I could consider myself a little unlucky here.
15:00Z: Tiksi retaliated with another Killjoy, but we dealt with it. We had 14 RIM-161s left, which seemed adequate, given their efficiency.
16:00Z: More strikes on Tiksi proved very difficult and, with just 18 TLAMs left, plus 32 on the SSNs, we had to call a halt here.
20:00Z: ASW was now being severely hindered by Foxhound patrols nearby as we got closer to the base near Zone 2.
21:00Z: Terry Fox was getting low on fuel. Having to move at maximum speed was proving a strain on her engines. Also, Harry DeWolf was lagging behind, as the AI, for some reason, had reduced her speed to 15 knots. I re-fuelled Fox from Protecteur, which was surprisingly quick (but involved detaching the tanker from the Winnepeg SAG) and had DeWolf increase speed to Flank to catch-up. It was, again, tempting to give-up and head back the way we’d come, but it was only a game, so I pushed-on.
22:00Z: A Bear MPA was sighted ahead, showing that the Russians didn’t really need satellites. Mercifully, it wasn’t carrying anti-shipping weapons, nor was any serious effort being made to hunt our subs.
20/8/25 00:00Z: Suddenly, eight Backfires struck from the SE, using Kitchen A Mods. All eight missiles were stopped, but the aforesaid problems meant it used-up altogether too many SAMs and we were now out of RIM-174s and 156s. The Backfires probably came from Mongokhto air base, far to the S. Given its proximity to Japan, China and Korea, this was probably at least as well defended as the other bases, even if I could get a meaningful strike force there from Alaska. Still, Backfires usually have long turnround times…
02:00Z: A pair of fighter Foxhounds flew close to the task force, but our SAMs were on 22nm WRA, so we didn’t waste any ammo on them. So long as we kept our choppers and UAVs grounded, there was little that Foxhounds could do, as they lack surface search radar and there was low cloud cover.
05:00Z: Four more Foxhounds came-in even closer and the RIM-66s opened fire but, even at 22nm, the MiGs could still accelerate clear. I altered WRA to just 10nm against fighters.
06:00Z: Sending a Fire Scout up for a quick look in the temporary absence of Foxhounds, I detected some fishing boats and also numerous icebergs!. The latter didn’t appear to pose a threat and, in any case, we weren’t on a collision course with any of them. They just might have been an issue had we taken the detour around the enemy base island to the N.
We also detected a Sennight battery on the Siberian shore and two of our remaining TLAMs eliminated it for 100VP, helped by the defending Grizzly site being poorly positioned. Shame we didn’t finish the other one earlier…
11:00Z: We were now some 170nm, or 10+ hours, from Zone 2 with 24 hours left. It was now or never, so I used the Widowmaker software to disable the Russian satellites for the rest of the game. To be honest, it had little effect beyond greatly reducing the number of satellite passes and increasing the number of Bears.
Another Killjoy came-in from the SE and a RIM-161 did the honours.
Harry DeWolf had now caught-up and adjusted speed to 16 knots. The AI switched it back to 15 and I had to manually override it.
12:00Z: It was no surprise when another Killjoy streaked-in from the direction of Tiksi, but the RIM-161 again did its job. We now had a dozen left.
13:00Z: A Bear MPA pushed its luck too far and was shot down over the task force for 25VP, but it cost four SAMs. Still, it was a recon asset.
14:00Z: Again, I sent a Fire Scout up for a look and detected an Artika icebreaker and Grisha about 100nm to the NE. Used our six RGM-184 missiles, only for the UAV to spot an Udaloy further NE just after I’d fired. This position kept the enemy DDG out of harm’s way, but also meant that its Gauntlets couldn’t intervene as our missiles blew the Grisha apart for 250VP and scored multiple hits on the Artika, which was a robust beast but slowed to 8 knots.
16:00Z: Two Bears in quick succession got too close and were downed though, again, it used more SAMs than I’d have liked.
22:35Z: Without further incident, we reached the E edge of Zone 2 and Terry Fox began her work.
21/8/25 03:00Z: The second icy barrier was wider than the first and it took Fox almost four hours to almost break through. She then hit Pathfinder issues and I had to repeatedly cancel and restart the icebreaking process. A final sliver of ice seemed impenetrable then, suddenly…
04:14Z: Fox succeeded!! There were 7 hours, 45 minutes to go and we had no chance whatever of crossing the Laptev Sea in time.
06:00Z: All vessels were now through the Zone 2 channel, 275nm from the finish line and moving at 16 knots with six hours left.
We then had a Special Message that Polar Star (!!) had suffered a critical malfunction in her engine room and would have to reduce speed until repairs had been made. As she’d been sunk 63 hours ago, this was buggy nonsense. All ships continued to make 16 knots. As became apparent later, the designer never had any intention that the mission would succeed and this was a fail-safe to ensure that.
07:00Z: We re-fuelled Terry Fox again from Protecteur, as she lacked the fuel to finish the scenario. Having everything else stop while this was happening no longer mattered.
08:00Z: Another Killjoy appeared to the SE and was downed then, surprise, surprise, another came-in from Tiksi (we actually saw the Foxhound take-off and land this time) and was similarly dealt-with.
11:00Z: With an hour to go and nothing to lose, we launched our remaining TLAMs at Tiksi, this time breaking through to clobber both the strike Foxhounds and two fighter models for 50VP total.
A Bear then came within 50nm, so I relaxed WRA and and expended a couple of RIM-66s to earn another 25VP.
12:00Z: The scenario ended with a message about how the Russians had forced us back and sunk the Polar Star. This had led to a global conflict, which did both sides untold harm and left China to rule over the remains.
It was evident that the scenario was always intended to ‘Showcase’ the need for modern icebreakers while conducting naval operations in the Arctic, lambasting US Government procurement policy for neglecting this in the hope that someone might do something about it. The mission wasn’t meant to succeed, which explains why it theoretically finished in the middle of the Russian Arctic where, if everything else had gone well, it would still have turned-back. To balance this, there was no official measure of victory or defeat.
As it was, I managed a final score of +883, which was good enough for me.
NATO lost an icebreaker, an LCS, 4 small boats and a UAV.
Russia lost a battlecruiser, corvette, oiler, 2 AGIs, 13 fighters, 4 ballistic-missile strike planes, 5 MPAs, 4 UAVs, 2 choppers, a radar, 5 SSM elements and 6 air base facilities. They fired 195 SAMs over the course of the game, to our 92.
Despite initial misgivings over the odds I appeared to face, I ended-up rather enjoying this one. I must admit that I was lucky with the battlecruiser, though and things might have turned-out very differently otherwise.
So, this completes the series about the LIVE and Showcase scenarios. There are six Northern Fury scenarios left but, as #41 Tour de Force lasts ten days and will probably be played over as many instalments, I’ll still be playing this for a while yet, even if Bart doesn’t release any more material.
To alternate with this and provide variety, there are the following choices:
Fail Safe, Northern Inferno and Red Tide all suffer by being too similar to Northern Fury, albeit in different time periods. I’m not too keen about the use of nukes in Fail Safe, either.
Kashmir Fire has attracted bad press because database changes have apparently made some of the scenarios too hard.
Although Silent Service has been re-worked, I don’t like single-sub games that much, as it is too easy for one piece of misfortune to cost you the game.
That leaves Desert Storm, Shifting Sands or perhaps something from the Community Pack (maybe Mark Gellis’s Khrushchev’s War series?).
I’ll decide after Northern Fury 40, but am open to peoples’ thoughts in the interim.
The rationale behind this scenario is somewhat far-fetched – or is it?. Climate change has been reducing the extent of Arctic sea ice and some governments and corporations regard this as an opportunity to access mineral resources that were previously out of reach. This has led to the potential for rivalry in the region, most notably between the States and Russia. With Russia distracted by the conflict in Ukraine, the American President decides to make a point by sending a task force on a Freedom of Navigation cruise through the Russian Arctic. Moscow sees this as an unacceptable provocation and makes it clear that any such attempt would be opposed, by force if necessary. It becomes a contest of wills between two egotistical leaders, neither of whom is prepared to back down. The armed forces of both nations are pitchforked into the middle of this impending crisis. You can only play the NATO side.
You have three days to sail the task force from a starting position N of Wrangel Island to an Objective Zone in the Laptev Sea. The latter is still in the heart of Russian territory, so the value of success seems limited, but this may have been intentional on the designer’s part – read on...
Along the way, there are two belts of 10-12nm of pack ice, which you will have to break a way through with icebreakers (the second one could be avoided by a big detour Polewards). Each zone has a corresponding Special Action, which detaches an icebreaker from your control while it batters a way through at Creep speed. You are warned that ‘unexpected behaviour’ can occur when using this Special Action but, if so, there is another one you can employ to stop the process, which can then be re-started as often as desired.
You have access to a cyber-warfare package, called Widowmaker, which can be triggered by Special Action. This will disable Russian satellite communications for 24-48 hours, theoretically hindering their ability to track the task force (they have good surface-search-capable satellites which traverse the region at regular intervals). The question is when to use it.
At the outset, you can choose from three Difficulty Levels. ‘Hard’ makes no change to the real-life capabilities of the Russian forces. At ‘Medium’, the number of Zircon hypersonic missiles on the battlecruiser Petr Velikiy (your biggest military problem) is halved from 80 to 40 (which doesn’t really make that much difference, I would suspect) and the Russian ships’ experience level is reduced to Cadet. At ‘Easy’, the Russians have no Zircons on the battlecruiser (though they have equivalents on a sub and aircraft) and all Russian units are at Cadet level. To be honest, I’ve not noticed that unit experience levels really make that much difference to the game. In any case, I felt obliged to play at ‘Hard’.
During the game, you get periodic news reports from social media sources. They don’t add much to play and you can turn them off with another Special Action.
Note that no victory levels have been set, which actually isn’t a bad thing, but you do have a score which goes up and down as events unfold.
The US-Canadian task force begins strung-out in a long line, N of Russia’s Wrangel Island. In the lead is the icebreaker Polar Star. Next comes the Michael Monsoor SAG, consisting of the eponymous Zumwalt-class destroyer and the littoral combat ships (LCS) Charleston and Savannah. Savannah can optionally exchange her helipad and choppers for extra SM-6 anti-ballistic missiles and I decided that this would be a good idea. Behind these ships follows the Cape St George SAG, with the cruiser of that name (a Ticonderoga), the Arleigh Burke DDGs Gridley and Jack Lucas and the light-armed coastguard cutter Stratton. Another icebreaker, the Terry Fox, is next in line, then a Canadian SAG brings up the rear, the helicopter frigate Winnepeg accompanying the oiler Protecteur and the weak ocean patrol vessel Harry DeWolf.
The force has a useful range of weapons, including ABMs, lots of TLAMs and a dozen LHRW ballistic missiles, plus adequate numbers of ASW choppers and a couple of Fire Scout UAVs with 200nm air and surface search. A major problem is that Terry Fox, which you might well need, is limited to a Flank speed of 16 knots and will need periodic re-fuelling from the oiler. While icebreaking time, diversions around extensive No Navigation Zones and enemy action could easily distort things, an initial calculation suggested that, at 16 knots, it was questionable whether we could reach the Objective Zone in time.
The SSNs Columbia and Oklahoma are near the edge of the ice pack in the Eastern Siberian Sea, where enemy surface ships are believed to be assembling, while the Canadian diesel sub Corner Brook is to the immediate E of that region. The game assumes better US-Canadian relations than at the present time!.
In Alaska and Washington State, you have 18 F-22 fighters and 24 F-35s (split evenly between A2A, SEAD and strike loadouts). These are adequately supported by tankers, Sentries, a couple of long-ranged Triton recon UAVs and Rivet Joints for ELINT. There are also some Poseidons, but they are too far away to be of much use to the task force and wouldn’t want to risk going far into Russian-controlled airspace, either. Finally, four Globemasters are readying with Rapid Dragon pallets, which potentially give you 180 AGM-158C anti-shipping missiles with a range of 220nm (despite some indications to the contrary, these ARE AGM-158Cs and not land-attack AGM-158Bs).
You also have some search radars in Western Alaska and the Aleutians and regular satellite overflights, which rely on cameras for surface and ground search (and there is low cloud down to 2,000’ across the region) but also provide ELINT/SIGINT.
The Russians have a worrying range of unpleasant things that they can do to you. Petr Velikiy (Peter the Great) is the biggest danger, with his 80 deadly Zircons, which range 700nm and can only be engaged by your limited stock of RIM-161Ds, RIM-174s and older, SARH, RIM-156s. The battlecruiser is escorted by just one Udaloy ASW destroyer and a Grisha corvette and also has an accompanying Artika nuclear-powered icebreaker and an elderly Boris Chilikin class oiler.
Somewhere in the region lurks a Yasen/Severodvinsk-class SSN, with another eight Zircons and maybe Sizzlers as well, while the enemy Northern fleet has also deployed an unknown number of Akulas and Victor IIIs.
In the air, Moscow has some strike Foxhounds, equipped with the Killjoy/Kinzhal, which is an air-launched version of the Zircon. There are also Backfires, with the latest Modified version of the old Kitchen A, which has a 215nm range. In theory, Bears can use Kickback anti-shipping and SEAD missiles but, in the game, they are used purely as MPAs. Near Wrangel Island, there’s a unit of Fulcrums which, happily, seem to be on fighter loadouts, as they can potentially use the Krypton B which, if the database can be believed, cruises at 15’, below the engagement floor of every US SAM!
On shore, the Russians have batteries of Sennight and Stooge/Bastion anti-shipping missiles, as well as numerous SAMs protecting their bases. The latter include Growlers and the latest medium-ranged SA-28 Vityaz.
Assessment/Planning
A quick count showed that the task force had 64 SAMs which could combat the enemy’s 88 Zircons, to say nothing of the Killjoys and other hazards. Simply put, we had to get the Petr Velikiy before it got us which, since we didn’t know where it was, would not be easy. As the battlecruiser had 96 Gargoyles, 128 Gauntlets and 48 Grisoms, plus Gatling cannon and the SAMs on the Udaloy, the only remotely feasible ways to do so were by using the Rapid Dragons (fighters permitting) or our SSNs.
We started 62nm from Russia’s confusingly-named Polar Star base on Wrangel and didn’t initially know what was there or at Mys Shmidta, opposite the island on the Siberian mainland.
The aircraft in North America would be of limited use, owing to the vast distances involved, even given tanker support. I could only hope to use them in the initial stages before leaving the Task Force to its own devices (if it survived that long).
Russia starts Unfriendly, so pre-emptive strikes are inadvisable, either with conventional forces or by using Widowmaker. I decided to hold the latter in reserve as long as possible, as I didn’t want its effects to expire at an inconvenient moment.
Events
18/8/25 12:00Z: It was soon apparent that the Russians had Fulcrums at Mys Shmidta. A satellite pass suggested that Petr Velikiy was some way E of Icebreaking Zone 2 and almost halfway to Zone 1, though it was very hard to be sure, owing to massive interference from his powerful jammers. There was a Gladiator/Giant site at Tiksi air base, some 220nm SW of Zone 2. Two AGIs, the Yuri Ivanov and Yug, were already shadowing the task force from behind and ahead, respectively. Internet reports confirmed that the Russians had detected us.
13:00Z: The task force moved towards Zone 1, which was 217nm WSW of its starting position, at 16 knots.
I kept getting daft “‘NATO_UnitDestroyed’ was triggered but did NOT fire (at least one condition failed)” pop-ups, which became so annoying that I switched all Scenario (but not Special) Message pop-ups off via Options.
The two patrolling Fulcrums then came charging-in at 889 knots, evidently heading for our duty ASW chopper, so I RTB’d it to delay hostilities. The MiGs turned away, but this was due to lack of fuel and they were replaced by a second pair, which Afterburnered at our Fire Scout UAV, which I’d just launched. Reluctantly, I declared them Hostile and shot them down with SAMs for 8VP each.
This illustrated a problem with the game, which isn’t, by any means, confined to this scenario. When setting WRA, I am very careful to specify just one SAM per target, in order to conserve ammo. Unfortunately, the game makes this decision separately for each individual SAM system, so multiple weapons still get aimed at the same target. In scenarios like this one, some confusion can also result from the WRA window listing all SAMs potentially usable by a given ship, even if it doesn’t actually have them in the scenario – with different versions of, say, RIM-174s being similarly-named, it is easy to make mistakes. You can also have situations where Group-level WRA overrides Unit Level and vice versa. I’d reserved some weapons for use against hypersonic missiles only, which helped, but the only possible solutions to the excessive weapons expenditure are to either do all SAM shots manually, specify Do Not Use Weapon against all target types for some mounts or put entire ships on Weapons Hold. All of these can leave you perilously exposed, especially when the enemy attacks while your attention is elsewhere.
Two Harpoons from Winnepeg and two RGM-184s from Charleston put paid to the two AGIs for 50VP each.
14:00Z: Two more Fulcrums approached and, with the above problems unresolved, too many SAMs were fired at them. As shooting at fighters at 50% range just doesn’t seem to work, they all missed, so I altered engagement range (for those SAMs not excluded by WRA) to 25%.
15:00Z: I was maintaining a two-plane F-22 patrol off Nome in Alaska, covering the Bering Straits with support from a Sentry and KC-135. These fighters intervened by attacking Fulcrums heading for the task force in the flank while trying to stay out of Growler range. In this way, four MiG-29s were downed or ditched for lack of fuel after being worn-out evading.
However, somewhere out in the distant pack-ice, the Severodvinsk had obtained a target solution and fired all eight of his Zircons. These now sank the Polar Star for an eye-watering 500VP and the Savannah for another 300, four RHIBs also being lost for 10VP each. Savannah’s extra RIM-161s did not help her much, stopping just one Zircon. Note that this would still have happened playing at Easy.
Our F-22s had spotted a Sennight battery on the mainland littoral, SW of Wrangel, so we steered to keep out of its range.
The two lost ships had spawned ten life-rafts. The scenario includes a Special Action for Search and Rescue (SAR) which, mercifully, this time, worked rather better than the one I learned to hate in the Fury series. While the notification you get about this every time you start the game could have been more comprehensive, I worked-out how to use it and two choppers were able to redeem a total of 100VP by retrieving all the survivors. You discover that you need to have choppers flying lower than 245’ and at less than 50 knots, while being very close to the life raft concerned. My approval comes with the qualification that these rescue missions took place close to the task force and did not involve any UAVs being lost and spawning imaginary pilots, nor was the facility tested deep in friendly territory, where survivors’ chances would be much better. Also, it shouldn’t be used when aircraft go down in remote places where rescue just isn’t feasible, as it is unfair to fine a player for this. It did involve a lot of micro-management, so it helped that we’d suppressed the Fulcrums for now and nothing else attacked in the interim.
16:00Z: It was proving comically difficult to pinpoint the Petr Velikiy. Latest satellite data suggested he was off Southern Kamchatka (!) and I could only hope that the Russians were being equally badly served by their own spacecraft.
Two more Fulcrums went after our Sentry in the Bering Straits and were driven-off by an F-22. Unfortunately, the enemy always seemed to be able to outrun missiles fired at 50% range, so I altered WRA for all AMRAAMs and AIM-260s to 30nm against fighters. Using this modification, a second F-22 downed the next pair of MiGs.
18:00Z: It turned-out that the enemy had strike Foxhound Ks at Ugolny Kopi air base in Far Eastern Siberia. Only one Killjoy came-in from that direction, however and a RIM-161D dealt with it. Another then came fireballing-in from the NW and, while it was stopped, too many of our better missiles were used-up in the process. Any sane US commander would have been sorely tempted to abort the whole mission at this point, but I decided not to take things too seriously and carried-on.
A Helix from the base on Wrangel Island was shadowing us, so Gridley downed it with a RIM-66 for 3VP. This was a manual shot, overriding my standard WRA instruction to ignore choppers more than 5nm away.
20:00Z: A long-legged Triton UAV had been steadily pushing into Russian airspace over the ocean and this finally gave us an accurate fix on the Petr Velikiy. By a miraculous stroke of luck (or, perhaps, scenario design), it was fairly close to USS Columbia and, before being shot down by Foxhounds for -15VP, the Triton was able to guide the SSN in. Even more remarkably, the battlecruiser had sent his escort away to the South, didn’t even have any ASW choppers up and was accompanied only by the oiler. Such was his jamming strength, though (even against sonar, it seemed), that Columbia had to risk going to periscope depth to get an accurate firing solution for her Mk48 torpedoes. With the Russians asleep, seven tinfish sent the Velikiy to the bottom for 500VP (same as the Polar Star?!) and four more dealt with the oiler for another 200. Petr Velikiy tried to use her Paket torpedoes, but they were wholly ineffective against the SSN (too far away) or the Mk48s. Both of our SSNs then withdrew under the ice sheet, where Russian Stallion, Starfish or aerial weapons could not harm them. Just possibly, thought our task force commander, we might now have a chance of surviving this!. It also meant that playing at Hard was no longer really an issue.
Gridley disposed of a second shadowing Helix. ‘Kill the eyes’ as they say…
22:00Z: The Russians sent a Searcher armed UAV to track the fleet and we knocked it down for 2VP. Again, two SAMs were used when I wanted to use one.
19/8/25 01:00Z: We really needed to neutralise the strike Foxhounds at Ugolny Kopi, but it wasn’t really feasible to do it with Alaskan-based aircraft. Instead, I used some of the TLAMs from the task force. With enemy SAMs (Vityaz, Greyhounds and Grinches) slow to react, we got one Foxhound K (15VP), two Searchers, a Bear (nothing) plus two hangars and an AvGas tank (the latter by accident) for 5VP each. Note that our satellites had told us where enemy aircraft were parked, in the open at least (presumably, they’d gotten this data when the weather was clearer).
04:00Z: Still shadowed by a Searcher that had departed Ugolny Kopi before the TLAMs hit, the task force reached the E edge of Icebreaking Zone 1 in about 16 hours, much as expected. Our ships had a welcome chance to close-up. Having initiated the appropriate Special Action, I now faced a three-hour wait while Terry Fox did her thing under AI control, moving at 3 knots.
It occurred that it could be very nasty should the Russians have an SSN under the ice at this choke point (it’s what I’d have done), but they hadn’t. In general, the Arctic Ocean is shallow (which negates towed sonar arrays) and not well suited to SSN operations. It also has no convergence zones or layer. We were constrained throughout the scenario by the risk to our ASW choppers and recon drones from enemy fighters, so I had to use them sparingly. This was one period when it seemed worth the risk, as the Fulcrums were no longer an issue.
The Searcher eventually got too close and was downed. A lone Foxhound BM fighter then incongruously appeared from the NW, heading for Mys Shmidta. Before it could get there, it ran out of fuel and nose-dived into the sea for 10VP. It was probably the one that had shot down our Triton and had fallen victim to the bilious ‘AI Emergency’ base diversion rule. Foxhound patrols range a long way out from two enemy bases near Icebreaking Zone 2 and were a good reason not to have risked the Globemasters against Petr Velikiy.
08:00Z: Terry Fox broke through the ice, not that it scored any points. Doing so creates an error which pops-up every time the game is restarted, because the Zone area is no longer a valid shape for a mission. This has no genuine effect on play, thankfully. The icebreaker slowed down and waited for the Cape St George and Monsoor SAGs to go past before slotting-in between the latter and the Winnepeg group.
10:00Z: Taking longer than expected, all ships made it through the Zone 1 channel with 49 hours left. Simply put, we weren’t going to reach the Objective Zone in time at Fox’s pace, but we needed her to get through Zone 2 unless we wanted to take the Northern detour, which probably wouldn’t help much.
By now, the value of our Alaskan air cover was slight and I was considering discontinuing it.
Foxhound fighters were stationed at an air base on an island N of Zone 2, suggesting that there were bombers at Tiksi air base on the mainland, further SW. Satellite recon showed two Foxhound Ks and several more MiG-31 fighters there, so we launched another TLAM strike.
12:00Z: The TLAMs were thinned-out en route by patrolling Foxhounds and only succeeded in destroying a hangar and an AvGas tank. A follow-up strike was completely thwarted by the Foxhounds, but we did take-out a Tall Rack air search radar in an isolated position on the Siberian coast for 50VP.
13:00Z: I recalled the Alaskan aircraft, who were, by now, more of a distraction than a help.
The Monsoor group then launched its dozen LHRW ballistic missiles at Tiksi, the island base and Nagurskoye base on distant Novaya Zemlya, but the enemy defences (mostly Growlers) were highly effective and the strike failed disappointingly.
Somehow, a strike Foxhound must have survived at Ugolny Kopi, as a Killjoy hurtled in from that direction, to be parried by a RIM-161. At least they only had a few of the things…
Our Fire Scout detected a Sennight battery onshore to the S, so we damaged it with three TLAMs. As its radar was disabled, we could safely ignore it now.
A further TLAM strike on Tiksi only succeeded in taking-out a fighter Foxhound on the ground. As I was aiming multiple TLAMs at the strike Foxhound tarmac spaces and only single shots at other targets, I could consider myself a little unlucky here.
15:00Z: Tiksi retaliated with another Killjoy, but we dealt with it. We had 14 RIM-161s left, which seemed adequate, given their efficiency.
16:00Z: More strikes on Tiksi proved very difficult and, with just 18 TLAMs left, plus 32 on the SSNs, we had to call a halt here.
20:00Z: ASW was now being severely hindered by Foxhound patrols nearby as we got closer to the base near Zone 2.
21:00Z: Terry Fox was getting low on fuel. Having to move at maximum speed was proving a strain on her engines. Also, Harry DeWolf was lagging behind, as the AI, for some reason, had reduced her speed to 15 knots. I re-fuelled Fox from Protecteur, which was surprisingly quick (but involved detaching the tanker from the Winnepeg SAG) and had DeWolf increase speed to Flank to catch-up. It was, again, tempting to give-up and head back the way we’d come, but it was only a game, so I pushed-on.
22:00Z: A Bear MPA was sighted ahead, showing that the Russians didn’t really need satellites. Mercifully, it wasn’t carrying anti-shipping weapons, nor was any serious effort being made to hunt our subs.
20/8/25 00:00Z: Suddenly, eight Backfires struck from the SE, using Kitchen A Mods. All eight missiles were stopped, but the aforesaid problems meant it used-up altogether too many SAMs and we were now out of RIM-174s and 156s. The Backfires probably came from Mongokhto air base, far to the S. Given its proximity to Japan, China and Korea, this was probably at least as well defended as the other bases, even if I could get a meaningful strike force there from Alaska. Still, Backfires usually have long turnround times…
02:00Z: A pair of fighter Foxhounds flew close to the task force, but our SAMs were on 22nm WRA, so we didn’t waste any ammo on them. So long as we kept our choppers and UAVs grounded, there was little that Foxhounds could do, as they lack surface search radar and there was low cloud cover.
05:00Z: Four more Foxhounds came-in even closer and the RIM-66s opened fire but, even at 22nm, the MiGs could still accelerate clear. I altered WRA to just 10nm against fighters.
06:00Z: Sending a Fire Scout up for a quick look in the temporary absence of Foxhounds, I detected some fishing boats and also numerous icebergs!. The latter didn’t appear to pose a threat and, in any case, we weren’t on a collision course with any of them. They just might have been an issue had we taken the detour around the enemy base island to the N.
We also detected a Sennight battery on the Siberian shore and two of our remaining TLAMs eliminated it for 100VP, helped by the defending Grizzly site being poorly positioned. Shame we didn’t finish the other one earlier…
11:00Z: We were now some 170nm, or 10+ hours, from Zone 2 with 24 hours left. It was now or never, so I used the Widowmaker software to disable the Russian satellites for the rest of the game. To be honest, it had little effect beyond greatly reducing the number of satellite passes and increasing the number of Bears.
Another Killjoy came-in from the SE and a RIM-161 did the honours.
Harry DeWolf had now caught-up and adjusted speed to 16 knots. The AI switched it back to 15 and I had to manually override it.
12:00Z: It was no surprise when another Killjoy streaked-in from the direction of Tiksi, but the RIM-161 again did its job. We now had a dozen left.
13:00Z: A Bear MPA pushed its luck too far and was shot down over the task force for 25VP, but it cost four SAMs. Still, it was a recon asset.
14:00Z: Again, I sent a Fire Scout up for a look and detected an Artika icebreaker and Grisha about 100nm to the NE. Used our six RGM-184 missiles, only for the UAV to spot an Udaloy further NE just after I’d fired. This position kept the enemy DDG out of harm’s way, but also meant that its Gauntlets couldn’t intervene as our missiles blew the Grisha apart for 250VP and scored multiple hits on the Artika, which was a robust beast but slowed to 8 knots.
16:00Z: Two Bears in quick succession got too close and were downed though, again, it used more SAMs than I’d have liked.
22:35Z: Without further incident, we reached the E edge of Zone 2 and Terry Fox began her work.
21/8/25 03:00Z: The second icy barrier was wider than the first and it took Fox almost four hours to almost break through. She then hit Pathfinder issues and I had to repeatedly cancel and restart the icebreaking process. A final sliver of ice seemed impenetrable then, suddenly…
04:14Z: Fox succeeded!! There were 7 hours, 45 minutes to go and we had no chance whatever of crossing the Laptev Sea in time.
06:00Z: All vessels were now through the Zone 2 channel, 275nm from the finish line and moving at 16 knots with six hours left.
We then had a Special Message that Polar Star (!!) had suffered a critical malfunction in her engine room and would have to reduce speed until repairs had been made. As she’d been sunk 63 hours ago, this was buggy nonsense. All ships continued to make 16 knots. As became apparent later, the designer never had any intention that the mission would succeed and this was a fail-safe to ensure that.
07:00Z: We re-fuelled Terry Fox again from Protecteur, as she lacked the fuel to finish the scenario. Having everything else stop while this was happening no longer mattered.
08:00Z: Another Killjoy appeared to the SE and was downed then, surprise, surprise, another came-in from Tiksi (we actually saw the Foxhound take-off and land this time) and was similarly dealt-with.
11:00Z: With an hour to go and nothing to lose, we launched our remaining TLAMs at Tiksi, this time breaking through to clobber both the strike Foxhounds and two fighter models for 50VP total.
A Bear then came within 50nm, so I relaxed WRA and and expended a couple of RIM-66s to earn another 25VP.
12:00Z: The scenario ended with a message about how the Russians had forced us back and sunk the Polar Star. This had led to a global conflict, which did both sides untold harm and left China to rule over the remains.
It was evident that the scenario was always intended to ‘Showcase’ the need for modern icebreakers while conducting naval operations in the Arctic, lambasting US Government procurement policy for neglecting this in the hope that someone might do something about it. The mission wasn’t meant to succeed, which explains why it theoretically finished in the middle of the Russian Arctic where, if everything else had gone well, it would still have turned-back. To balance this, there was no official measure of victory or defeat.
As it was, I managed a final score of +883, which was good enough for me.
NATO lost an icebreaker, an LCS, 4 small boats and a UAV.
Russia lost a battlecruiser, corvette, oiler, 2 AGIs, 13 fighters, 4 ballistic-missile strike planes, 5 MPAs, 4 UAVs, 2 choppers, a radar, 5 SSM elements and 6 air base facilities. They fired 195 SAMs over the course of the game, to our 92.
Despite initial misgivings over the odds I appeared to face, I ended-up rather enjoying this one. I must admit that I was lucky with the battlecruiser, though and things might have turned-out very differently otherwise.
So, this completes the series about the LIVE and Showcase scenarios. There are six Northern Fury scenarios left but, as #41 Tour de Force lasts ten days and will probably be played over as many instalments, I’ll still be playing this for a while yet, even if Bart doesn’t release any more material.
To alternate with this and provide variety, there are the following choices:
Fail Safe, Northern Inferno and Red Tide all suffer by being too similar to Northern Fury, albeit in different time periods. I’m not too keen about the use of nukes in Fail Safe, either.
Kashmir Fire has attracted bad press because database changes have apparently made some of the scenarios too hard.
Although Silent Service has been re-worked, I don’t like single-sub games that much, as it is too easy for one piece of misfortune to cost you the game.
That leaves Desert Storm, Shifting Sands or perhaps something from the Community Pack (maybe Mark Gellis’s Khrushchev’s War series?).
I’ll decide after Northern Fury 40, but am open to peoples’ thoughts in the interim.
