AAR: Battle of Britain II

[FransKoenz]

Spoiler Alert

After Action Report

Scenario: Battle of Britain II
Designer: Freek Schepers
Author: Taitennek
Side: The Netherlands

Intro.

The purpose of this scenario is to investigate war between pretty much the entire military forces of two modern countries.

The Netherlands has moved ground forces into Belgium and defeated French attempts to interfere. The Charles de Gaulle has been sunk and the French air force is licking its wounds.

The UN has authorised all members to take steps to reverse this situation and the UK has taken up the call of Duty.

This scenario has been built up for the PlayersDB, version 6.4.9.

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Orders for Netherlands:

Situation:

The Campaign against Belgium and France has concluded. Flanders has rejoined the Kingdom. A daring Raid against Denmark has resulted in the liberation of 30 Danish F-16's previous sold to the Netherlands. Delivery was withheld due to the war.

The Queen has re-instated the "Militaire Willemsorde" and more of these medals have been awarded for this one raid than in all of WW2. Losses have been severe, but Belgian and Danish F-16's, now operational in the KLu, have made up for combat losses. All airbases except Florennes are operational. AMRAAM and Patriot Missiles are still scarce. The Navy has been hard hit and its surviving Frigates are short of SAM's

The Security Council has issued a resolution urging all UN members to force the Netherlands to relinquish Belgian territory. Germany is thought to remain on the sidelines due to the stranglehold we have on the Ruhr Gebiet through the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. The UK, however, has mobilised its forces and has issued an ultimatum requiring unconditional Dutch compliance with the UN resolution within the next 24 hours.

Orders:

You are ordered to establish local air superiority over the Netherlands and central UK and to attack the Luton Node of the Integrated Battle Management System.
If this system is destroyed, RAF numerical superiority will be offset by our better AAM's and SAM's in spite of their limited supply.

CLARIFICATION OF VICTORY CONDITIONS:

- Kill Luton EW system;
- Kill 10 ground targets;
- Kill 100 aircraft;
- Sink 2 warships;
- Prevent more than 15 NL facilities from being hit.

[Note: This is a summary of the written orders for the Netherlands in the scenario. The complete version can be found in the scenario itself]

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GAME ON!

04:00:00 Zulu
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Only few aircraft are available at the first stage of the coming hostilities between NL and UK.
4 F-16 armed with 4 Mk84 2000lb each for an attack on the Luton Battle Management System and nearby airbases and
6 F-16 armed with AMRAAMs for CAP above UK.
2 F-16 armed with Sidewinders only will stay close to the Dutch surface groups in the north.
1 P-3C Orion for reconaissance/asw patrol at the Dutch/Belgian coast.
The second [larger] group is ready within 30 minutes and scheduled for CAP and ground attacks on British airfields.

First I set course for the three naval surface groups operating in Dutch Coastal Waters. The 2 groups in the North will make a rendezvous with each other and will stay close at the coast nearby Den Helder Naval Base [not mentioned in the scenario, but the location is north of Airbase De Kooi]. The surface group in the south set course to the English Channel to engage British surface units. The S801 Walrus will intercept UK warships when they leave Portsmouth, the S808 Dolfijn will guard the entrance to the North Sea and the S810 Bruinvis will intercept UK warships at the east coast of UK. The 3 Lynx helicopters based at De Kooi and the Orion's at Valkenburg are assigned to an ASW-mission in Dutch coastal waters and nearby the surface groups.

Soon Radar spotted aircraft taking off from AB.....
Soon sonar picked up a sub contact..... 30 km off coast from The Hague. Perhaps no more "Hollandsche Nieuwe" [Hering] from the North Sea due to nuclear pollution, but..... the risk of losing Dutch vessels is too high to let it go. It took 15 minutes to take out the submarine.
Meanwhile the first air-to-air missiles were fired. During the first 30 minutes of the battle NL did not loose a single aircraft against 4 British fighters and a submarine. Not bad.


04:30:00 Zulu
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Now I can launch a massive strike against British airfields. Main targets are the airbases of the British attack aircraft in Central UK. 30 F-16 attack aircraft escorted with 12 F-16 fighters, all armed with AMRAAM. Another 6 F-16 fighters, armed with Sidewinders for protection of the fleet and Dutch airspace.
50 minutes after start the first group bombers reached the Luton BMS. Within minutes the target was destroyed, together with the first AEW Sentry. The 3 other attack-aircraft launched a first attack at nearby airfields. The UK meanwhile launched an attack on my surface groups in the northern area with Sea Eagle missiles. I managed to survive

05:30:00 Zulu

All remaining aircraft returned to their bases after the massive air strike on the British airfields. time to check results.
151 aircraft destroyed, as well as 12 ground facilities and a submarine. My losses were 18 aircraft.
Only fighters were available and the British Air force launched more and more aircraft. Soon several groups were underway to the Netherlands. I managed to stop the massive attacks with minimal damage to Dutch Ground facilities. With attack aircraft ready I started an air strike at the English fleet in The Channel together with the S801 Walrus. I managed to sink 2 vessels with torpedoes; I was able to damage the HMS Illustrious and sank 2 more submarines with bombs.

At 07:00:00 I had reached all Victory conditions.

British losses:

Aircraft : 229
Submarines: 2 Trafalgar II
: 1 Swiftsure
: 1 Type 42.2 Exeter destroyer
: 1 Duke Type 23 Frigate
Facilities: 22

Dutch Losses:

Aircraft : 48

Thanks for the nice scenario.

[hermanhum]

Very nice AAR!

Thanks for sharing.  I'm almost finished my own AAR, too.

You can get this scenario at:

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