Northern Fury 42 - Blast from the Past 20/3/94

[fitzpatv]

This short scenario sees the USS Wisconsin battle group attempt a bombardment mission against former Norwegian coastal forts, now being operated by the Soviets, SW of Tromso. Under cover of this operation, a Sea King from the battleship needs to insert some special forces near the Swedish border to provide liaison and supplies to Norwegian partisans – this mission has to be completed undetected to avoid giving the guerrillas’ positions away. In fact, the whole mission is a diversion, intended to mislead the enemy as to the true locations for the forthcoming amphibious landings, which will be elsewhere. You can only play the NATO side.

You have just the three ships – the elderly battleship, the cruiser Belknap and the Knox-class frigate Beary. Between them, these carry the Sea King, a couple of Pioneer recon UAVs and a Seasprite for ASW. The familiar logistics problems mean that you are limited to just two TLAMs and three Harpoons and Belknap has fewer RGM-67B SAMs than usual (the only other air defence is a Stinger team on Wisconsin).

There are seven forts on the target list, all equipped with guns ranging from 105mm to 150mm in calibre, with mortars in outlying installations and integral radar. In the surrounding area, the Soviets have some Improved Styx and 152mm howitzer batteries, Gauntlet mobile SAMs and Grouse MANPADs. There are naval mines on the approaches to Narvik and Tromso and their locations are approximately known and marked.

Naval opposition might come from one or more Pauk patrol craft and a Foxtrot diesel sub, while a number of civilian fishermen have been coerced into reporting what they see to the Russians. At least there is no air threat in this one.

Wisconsin starts 70nm from Skrolsvik (the highest-priority fort) and will need over three hours (in a six-hour game) to get into firing range at Cruise. There is the usual balance to be struck between speed and ASW considerations and you really need to keep the lone Seasprite aboard Beary for when it is genuinely required.

Another issue is that, while it might be wise to keep radars off, you aren’t going to detect incoming Styxes if you do so. On balance, I decided to keep them on for Belknap only and also use active sonar.

20/8/94 22:00Z: I launched the ready Pioneer and had it fly recon along the route I intended the Sea King to take, circuitously around Tromso, at least for the over-water part of the journey.

23:00Z: The Sea King took-off an hour in and its passive sensors soon picked-up about seven surface contacts, all of which turned-out to be fishing boats.

21/3/94 00:00Z: The chopper made an uneventful run to the Swedish border and duly offloaded the special forces, scoring 50VP to make it Average, before returning by the same route.

01:00Z: Unluckily, Belknap’s course just grazed the maximum range of a 152mm battery on a peninsula to the NW of the Southern group of five forts. Despite the fact that the Soviet gunners had no radar and it was night, there was no difference to the usual rule that artillery just doesn’t miss so, by the time Wisconsin had replied and destroyed the howitzers (no VP), the cruiser (trying her best to open the range at Flank) had taken 5.2% damage. As per normal, this meant various disproportionate systems damage and, again unluckily, this included the loss of her sonar. I’d had both Pioneers scouting near the shore, but they didn’t spot the guns in time.

Two Styx batteries then engaged (I was probably spotted by the fishing boats), Belknap dropped the ball and let a missile through to sink the Beary, along with my remaining ASW capability. Cue the habitual eviscerating VP loss – 160 points in this case, making it a Disaster. Either Belknap stops the missiles or she doesn’t and there isn’t much you can do about it.

Finally getting into range, Wisconsin discovered that her 406mm guns (which outranged the forts) had the less effective AP ammo (57DP) loaded instead of the HiCAP variety (210DP). Should have checked, I suppose, but… Her TLAMs were also inside their minimum range of 40nm by a coat of paint and couldn’t immediately engage the two Northern forts as I’d intended. Regardless, the bombardment was none too accurate, given the 406mm gun’s CEP.

02:00Z: I couldn’t risk waiting for the Foxtrot to appear, so had both surviving ships head-out to sea at Flank. On the way, I fired the TLAMs – one inevitably malfunctioned but the other appeared to hit a fort. In all, the bombardment took-out a whole coastal gun for 15VP and a supporting mortar for 5 more. This cost about half Wisconsin’s ammo.

04:00Z: So it ended in a Major Defeat, with a score of -90. NATO lost a frigate and chopper, the Soviets two fort and six howitzer elements.

A number of margins went against me here and I daresay that (with the benefit of a prior playthrough) I could get a non-defeat score if I played it often enough, but enthusiasm is lacking. It is a problem with small scenarios that you can lose them quickly if something goes wrong.