Indian Ocean Fury 6 - Into the Breach 22/2/94

[fitzpatv]

The sixth scenario in the Indian Ocean Fury series assumes that the Saratoga CVBG (CTF154) failed to get through the Straits of Hormuz in Scenario 5 but nevertheless managed to degrade the Iranian defences around Bandar Abbas. They now need to finish the job and get through to the Persian Gulf before demonstrating off the coast of Saudi Arabia, hopefully encouraging the Saudis to enter the war on their side while tieing-down Warsaw Pact forces which might otherwise be used in the Mediterranean or Europe. Meanwhile, there are numerous tankers waiting to get into and out of the Gulf and these must be escorted safely on their way. Off to the East, the India-Pakistan conflict splutters indecisively on, though it has no real impact on play and should probably have been left out completely, especially as it slows processing down (which is a big issue in this scenario).

Another consideration is Iraq. Saddam Hussain is still in charge and has been steering a course between NATO and the USSR in the early days of the war. There is a risk that the Warsaw Pact could try to bully him into siding with them and the NATO forces in Kuwait have been told to beware of and guard against strikes on the Baghdad area.

As the game begins, CTF154 has been split into smaller groups, not all of which are under the player’s control. The Saratoga, escorted by the CG Philippine Sea and the destroyers Nicholson, Merrill and Chandler, is over 150nm SE of the Straits. Also under human control is a convoy of 7 tankers, shepherded by the frigates Gallery and Coventry, which starts 75nm ESE of Doha, Qatar and aims to escape the Gulf and reach a Destination Zone (DZ) in the SE of the Gulf of Oman.

Starting 36nm SE of Saratoga, a replenishment group is bound for Diego Garcia and has its own DZ in the Arabian Sea – it consists of the frigate Hobart and three auxiliaries. Coming to replace it and currently 550nm from their DZ in the upper Gulf of Oman are the auxiliaries Mount Hood and Henry J Kaiser. The player is also able to control the SSN Buffalo (near Saratoga), the Italian frigate Aliseo (off Dubai), three Arab PGMs and four individual tankers.

The other NATO-aligned naval forces and tankers are AI-controlled. TG Texas, consisting of the eponymous cruiser, the destroyer Elliott and the frigates Sydney and La Fayette, is W of the Straits, providing close cover for merchant shipping and mine-clearing operations. The CG Fox, with the destroyer Paterson and frigate Cataluna, has a similar role just SE of the Straits. Three minesweeping groups are at work in and around the narrows, supported by TG Tripoli, consisting of the helicopter carrier and the frigates Argyll and Hawes. Otherwise, there are several PGMs and patrol boats and a lot of single-ship tanker sailings, inbound and outbound.

Everything is very strung-out and looks exceedingly vulnerable. One blessing is that there is a swept channel through the minefields in the narrows. Stray floating mines are still a potential hazard but, in my playthrough, they did no damage and the minesweepers did a good job of clearing them up.

Most of the NATO-aligned air forces are player-controlled, the exception being the Saudis, who are allied but not yet actively belligerent. Saratoga’s air group is plentiful enough but worryingly short of munitions. In particular, there are just 18 Phoenix missiles available and you are otherwise reliant on Sparrows, short-ranged AMRAAMs and Sidewinders.
As regards land based aircraft, there is a small but useful group of F-16s and Emirati Mirages, as well as a U-2, at Al Dhafra, near Abu Dhabi and some tankers, Sentries and Orions at Thumrait and Masirah in Southern Oman. Further up the Gulf, there’s a mix of F-16s and F-15s at Bahrain and a similar force at Ahmed al Jaber in Kuwait. Also in Kuwait, a few British Tornadoes are based at Ali al Salem. The French have a small force, including a tanker, at King Abdulaziz airport on the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia. Helpfully, given that the Downed Pilot script is in force, you have a decent number of SAR choppers.

Things would be truly dire were the enemy still in as good shape as they were in Hormuz Hoedown. Thankfully, the mine danger is greatly diminished and the SAM defences and air group at Bandar Abbas have been degraded to point-defence levels. A similar story pertains at Bushehr in the upper Gulf. Much of the Iranian air force is centred inland at Shiraz, where they have their dangerous F-14s and Fencers, backed by numerous Fulcrums and Phantoms, and in the W of the Islamic Republic around Dezful and Omidiyeh, where the Fulcrums and Tigers have been reinforced by a large contingent of Soviet aircraft. The Russians have a number of Long Range Aviation assets well inland, mostly Blinder bombers, which can carry a single Kitchen supersonic stand-off anti-shipping missile each.

There isn’t much left of the regular Iranian Navy but their five converted freighters with 5” guns have been resurrected and haunt the Straits with a few Zafar patrol boats and rather a lot of Toraghs, which can be expected to use their normal swarm tactics. The Russians and Iranians have several Kilos in the area and there is a constant risk of Soviet SSNs further out to sea.

22/2/94 20:00Z (00:00L): With customary lack of restraint, the AI promptly fired all of the Texas and Fox SAGs’ Harpoons and TLAMs, sinking four AMCs moored at Bandar Abbas, plus a Toragh that got in the way and damaging a couple of power stations and a uranium plant. The ships scored no VP. I sent an F/A-18 to hit the last AMC, the Pahlavi, which was further W but, infuriatingly, I couldn’t for the ludicrous reason that it was in a No Navigation Zone which doubled as a No Fire Zone. In response, numerous small craft issued from the docks around Bandar Abbas. It wasn’t possible to forestall this by hitting the piers, as we had no suitable and readied strike assets (and Walleyes don’t work at night).

Three F-4s interloped from Char Bahar in the Gulf of Oman and nearly took me by surprise before being downed by patrolling Tomcats for 2VP each. However, this cost two precious Phoenixes and four RIM-66 SAMs.

Watching Baghdad was a problem. For one thing, the theatre of operations is massive and it is physically impossible to watch all parts of the map in any detail. For another, the only ready AEW plane in the area was a Saudi Sentry which I couldn’t control and which wasn’t positioned to spot strikes far enough out to be effective. The French had a Gabriel ELINT plane with excellent endurance, so I launched it but such aircraft are really of limited use in CMO and, without radar, it proved an inadequate stopgap. The other issue was whether to maintain a standing CAP over Baghdad. The city is a little way from Kuwait and the only available tanker would have to come-up from Bahrain. I decided that it was impractical and that I might have to leave Saddam to his fate.

As all NATO units default to Weapons Hold against Surface targets, I had to make a lot of adjustments to Weapons Tight. This needs fixing. I also noticed that, as usual in Indian Ocean Fury, the US frigate Gallery has no SAMs loaded.

The Toragh swarm, supported by the three larger Zafars, began harassing passing tankers, notably the Pacific Ruby, which obligingly waited for them on Full Stop. Meanwhile, the AI-controlled PGM Dhofar just stooged around and watched on 5 knots. There wasn’t much I could do with the Saratoga group so far away, but some Hornets and a pair of Emirati Super Pumas wasted some Exocets and Harpoons and sank four of the small craft.

A Western swarm of Toraghs assailed the tanker Damar. Happily, the Texas SAG was nearby and stirred itself to intervene. In turn, the Iranians countered with a volley of 4 Seersucker SSMs from shore batteries but the warships had the SAMs to parry this. The small French frigate La Fayette got too close to a single Toragh, which did her minute amounts of damage before expiring but still put her out of comms, which meant that for some unfathomable reason, she became intermittently visible to her consorts for the rest of the scenario, even in broad daylight (it’s a seriously flawed rule and needs fixing). Damar and Pacific Ruby similarly lost radio links. The Texas group inflicted butchery on the Toraghs and, counting those sunk by aircraft, their losses quickly mounted to 38. No doubt motivated by thoughts of the houris of paradise, the remainder continued to attack with no sense of self-preservation. CMO badly needs a morale rule for the AI – the player supplies their own.

21:00Z: A second Seersucker volley was stopped by SAMs, though Texas herself was only saved by a weapon malfunction. She and her escorts then mopped-up the wave of Toraghs, allowing Damar to continue uncertainly into the Gulf.

Things remained dire around the Pacific Ruby. A Hornet sank two Zafars with Mavericks but this was all we had available for the moment.

There were then simultaneous problems at opposite ends of the map, accompanied by serious performance issues. An Iranian sub torpedoed the tanker Unity Lake to the NW of the Saratoga group, hitting her multiple times and sending her out of comms before being sunk by one of our two Orions from Masirah for 25VP.

Meanwhile, a raid hit Baghdad, with the Saudi AWACS plane only spotting the attackers after the first bombs fell. Eight Iraqi facilities were destroyed for 3VP each and I got a rather annoying, abrasive message about how incompetent I was. It was far too late to send any fighters to help the Iraqis, so I just had to take the hit.

We then became aware of enemy bombers around Kerman, over 200nm N of the Straits, launching a stand-off attack on shipping therein. With the ongoing 12.7mm gunfire calculations for the Toragh assault on Pacific Ruby, processing was so slow that I could hardly pan the map. At this stage, the prospect of having to play another 46 game hours of this was daunting. Fortunately, there were just two Blinders with a Kitchen each and Texas shot the missiles down with SAMs.

To reduce the problem, I sent two Intruders, newly readied, against the Toraghs with Paveways, getting the third Zafar and raising small boat sinkings to 51. However, the persistent attacks on Pacific Ruby and the damage to Unity Lake gained the enemy 50VP for crippling both tankers.

While I wasn’t looking, a Kilo torpedoed and sank the Omani PGM Al Sharqiyah, which at least cost no points. An Orion was sent to deluge the area with sonobuoys.

22:00Z: As happens so often in the Fury series, enemy strike aircraft (from the Baghdad raid) began crash-landing, costing them 8 Soviet Fencers for 3VP each. I can only assume this is because the AI just can’t manage the fuel calculations. Similarly, the AI-controlled NATO Support faction lost 9 choppers over the course of the whole scenario, only two of them to enemy action (rightly or wrongly, this cost nothing). I would suggest that it happens more in the Fury series because of the unusually large numbers of aircraft deployed.

The Orion eventually found the Soviet Kilo and USS Merrill then sank it with an ASROC. It had gotten worryingly close to the CVBG.

I managed to get my head above the parapet long enough to mount a few operations in the Northern Gulf. An F-16 from Kuwait sank a Delvar armed freighter with Mavericks and another damaged an oil refinery near Abadan.

23:00Z: I moved a Sentry up from Thumrait to help cover Baghdad, improving the AEW situation.

50 more VP were lost due to the accumulated damage (a phenomenal number of shots) sinking the Pacific Ruby. This wasn’t really preventable.

As USS Buffalo had three TLAMs available (the only ones I controlled), I decided to use them and destroyed the Bandar Abbas uranium plant for a whole 2VP, also hitting the docks at nearby Larak and demolishing 11 Toraghs being readied there. The SSN then dove deep and sped SE to escort the Diego Garcia-bound auxiliaries.

Another F-16 hit the Abadan oil refinery, then two Tornadoes followed-up and destroyed it for another 2VP (4% of the Pacific Ruby).

Another pair of tankers, Hellas Fos and Arcturus, then blundered mindlessly into the Toragh swarm. There was no way to tell them to stop and hold-off, nor could I order TG Fox or the wretched Dhofar to intervene as they just sat there. A couple of human-controlled Arab PGMs were on their way at Flank from the Dubai area and the Aliseo was marking the Pahlavi with her Otomats in case she emerged from her artificial sanctuary but none of this was going to make a difference anytime soon.

23/2/94 00:00Z: Another 12 Toraghs arrived from Hengam docks, W of Bandar Abbas and were sunk by TG Texas, though one did some heavy systems damage to USS Elliott. A total of 75 Toraghs had now been sunk.

An F-16 attacked a Rangout surface search radar in the upper Gulf and suffered a double malfunction with its Mavericks.
01:00Z: Four Iranian F-14s came down from Shiraz and attacked the AI-controlled choppers in the Straits, downing a Seasprite and Sea Dragon, though this cost us no points. Three of the enemy Tomcats were shot down by SAMs, making it an expensive excursion for them.

Meanwhile, the Pahlavi (out of Toraghs) left its sanctuary and was blasted by Aliseo. Four Otomats failed to sink it, so a Viking finished the job with a Harpoon.

Some Toraghs boldly advanced further down the Gulf of Oman, stirring TG Fox into belated action. All four perished swiftly.

02:00Z: Dawn broke, improving both sides’ options by enabling strikes with daytime-only munitions. Eight Hornets rose from Saratoga, destroying all of the Bandar Abbas docks with Walleyes and attacking the Toraghs with Mavericks insofar as the No Fire Zone allowed.

I noticed that tankers in the danger area continued to take ‘hits’ even after all nearby Toraghs had been sunk – this echoed a problem I reported after playing the Paracel ‘74 scenario in Chains of War. Quitting and restarting the game resolved the problem and, finally, improved the funereal performance somewhat. It was still necessary to play at Turbo speed to get any kind of headway and, even then, the game only proceeded at about twice real-time, right to the end.

03:00Z: TG Fox frittered away its SAMs taking potshots at the handful of Phantoms flying passive and ineffectual CAP over Bandar Abbas. This stopped when the Iranians ran-out of fighters.

04:00Z: A massive strike was spotted assembling to hit Baghdad, so I assigned four F-15s, 4 F-16s and five Kuwaiti Mirages to do something about it. The eight US aircraft were already flying CAP with support from a French KC-135, which smartly got out of the way. This was a big mistake on my part, made worse by entrusting the dogfight to a Mission instead of handling it manually. True, it is hard to micro-manage 13 planes but I could have mitigated this by sending them in a few at a time. The enemy were preceded by several Fulcrums and my planes had just a few Sparrows, being otherwise reliant on short-ranged AMRAAMs and Sidewinders or, in the case of the Kuwaitis, Magics. Once the Sparrows (and enemy Alamos) had all missed, it became a dagger-fight and the Fulcrums scored heavily with their Archers, to lead 6-1 at one stage. The last Eagle and Falcon redeemed matters a little by downing two more MiG-29s and four Fishbed attack planes before getting clear, out of ammo. It was the best I’ve ever seen Fulcrums perform. The nearest pair of Mirages got swamped by Iranian Tigers and each side lost two airframes, at which point I told the other Kuwaitis to withdraw. Each of the eight losses generated a Downed Pilot (it is, theoretically, possible for this not to happen). Baghdad took a battering over the ensuing hour or so as plane after plane struck the Iraqi capital. Realistically, there was no way to protect the place given the available forces and current missile dynamics and I should have trusted my judgement and left it alone.

05:00Z: Five rescue choppers took a chance and tried to reach the downed pilots. The two Kuwaiti airmen were lost almost straightaway and two Puma choppers lacked the range to get to the American fliers. Two Super Pumas and a Credible Hawk soldiered on, hoping that the enemy planes would be gone by the time they arrived. Some of the raiders began to crash as they returned to base.

Meanwhile, a game of cat-and-mouse continued in the narrows, with the surviving Toraghs hugging the line at the edge of the No Fire Zone as Saratoga threaded the Straits. The Arab PGMs had now arrived and the Bahraini Al Fadel was on-hand to sink the first two enemy boats that broke cover.

06:00Z: The last of the Toraghs emerged and were slaughtered by Hornets, Emirates-based attack planes and choppers and the guns of Aliseo and the Emirati PGM Mubarrak. In all, there had been 120 of the vermin.

One of Saratoga’s Vikings was sent to Masirah to help the Orions cover the Diego Garcia and Mount Hood groups.

The nearest pair of downed pilots were rescued by the choppers for 6VP total.

07:00Z: The third chopper picked-up two more pilots, proving by trial and error that a single aircraft was allowed to do more than one rescue. There was nothing I could do for the other two pilots, who were out of range.

08:00Z: Eight Iranian Fencers from Shiraz tried to attack shipping in the Straits without an escort. This was a more suitable combat to be handled using a Mission, as it was low-risk and CAP shot the lot down over Iran with very little trouble.

Meanwhile, a couple of strike Hornets obliterated the Seersucker site that had attacked us early in the scenario.

Another six Fencers followed-up, catching CAP low on missiles and heading home. The Tomcats and Hornets reversed course and downed five of the attackers. The last Fencer, clearly going for merchant shipping, delayed launching its weapons too long and was destroyed by TG Texas.

09:00Z: Two Bahraini F-16s sank a tugboat (the last Iranian surface asset but no award for this) in the upper Gulf and wrecked three Rangout radars, not that it scored anything. They also found several coastal artillery batteries that lacked the range to pose much threat to shipping.

Our U-2 was now up and about and detected a few MiG-21s and MiG-19s on Abu Musa and Kish islands. A Walleye Intruder attacked the two occupied tarmac spaces on Abu Musa as Saratoga sailed past and suffered a double malfunction with its first two shots. Thankfully, the second pair of Walleyes got the job done. A Hornet with just the two Walleyes had better luck and disposed of the MiG-19s on Kish without any trouble. Whether they had actually been airworthy, I remained uncertain.

10:00Z: Six Iranian F-14s made a retaliatory sweep as far as Abu Dhabi, where the Patriot battery was pointing the wrong way to engage them and could not be turned around. One was shot down by TG Texas as everything aloft got out of their way – a Viking only just landed at Dhafra on time.

Meanwhile, two Tornadoes took-out a power station at Abadan.

11:00Z: One of the F-14s landed at Kish for some reason, so a Walleye Hornet was sent to destroy it. However, even with an Emirati recon Mirage in support, we couldn’t spot which parking spot it was on, so I had to guess - with predictable results. The U-2 would not be ready again for a while…

Two Strike Eagles hit the Bushehr nuclear facility with six SEAD planes in support. One of the two reactors was destroyed, along with a pump house and a Gadfly site for 8VP total. One F-15 repeatedly disobeyed orders to RTB with Phantoms approaching and had to be gotten clear with a normal movement order before it would do so. Two Tornadoes could not use their Alarm ARMs due to some absurd assertion that they were out of DLZ range (of a land target, though it could theoretically move), so they had to RTB loaded.

There was a minor enemy raid on Baghdad, which destroyed one installation.

12:00Z: Our last U-2 flight had found a couple of Styx sites, protected by Geckoes, on the Iranian coast SE of Bushehr. Their ability to threaten shipping was very limited due to range but they were worth points, so an F-16 from Bahrain damaged one with Mavericks and three more from Kuwait eliminated the other one, along with a Gecko. Destroyed SAMs and Styxes score 2VP but the accompanying Event Message lacks a description.

An Intruder with Walleyes demolished the Lavan oil refinery, further SE along the Iranian coast. This scored 2VP. How a tanker is worth 25 refineries, I’m not sure.

13:00Z: We spotted a Candid transport plane on a supply run to Kish, so a Hornet intercepted and shot it down, scoring 3VP for a High Value Iranian aircraft. The score was now +21, still a Major Defeat.

Four Blinders took off from Kerman in Central Iran but didn’t fire and RTB’d before two Phoenix Tomcats could get near them. Meanwhile, there were more raids on Baghdad.

An Iranian Kilo appeared ahead of the CVBG and torpedoed the Aliseo, which was running interference with this sort of thing in mind. It cost 30VP, including the inevitable downed pilot in the Gulf of Guinea (#BinThe Script), 25 of which were retrieved by the equally inevitable rejoinder from our ASW aircraft. I then had a struggle to prevent the CVBG from Auto Evading onto the defunct Kilo’s orphaned torpedo as it circled in the water.

While doing so, I realised to my dismay that the destroyers Merrill and Chandler had been left behind in the narrows, which had been invisible with the units moving in Group Mode!. Merrill was about two hours away at Flank, so I had Saratoga wait for her. Chandler, on the other hand, was back to the SE of Bandar Abbas, having somehow strayed into a No Nav Zone from which she could not be extracted despite my best efforts. In the end, I had to leave her (and her useful RIM-67 battery) where she was. This is still an infuriatingly buggy game at times and the AI really struggles with navigating through tight spaces or shallow waters.

14:00Z: With the sub threat in the Persian Gulf removed, I began ferrying Vikings to Masirah to help protect the three convoys.

The U-2 got airborne again and pinpointed the F-14 on Kish, which was then destroyed by a Walleye Hornet. It was as well that I allocated two missiles, as the first one suffered yet another malfunction.

I had to detach Merrill from the Saratoga Group after she about-turned and headed back towards the Straits. Once sailing individually, she resumed course towards the carrier.

16:00Z: More raids on Baghdad. Absolutely nothing I could do about it.

Merrill caught-up and proceeded in company with Saratoga. I didn’t dare put her back in the group, as this might have changed the group name and invalidated the VP trigger when it reached its destination.

Ten Iranian Tomcats made a sweep over the Gulf and, with no targets for their missiles, mindlessly stooged around until they were all downed by SAMs. Terrible waste of good aircraft, but I wasn’t complaining.

21:00Z: The game entered a long, dull interlude and I passed much of the time reading a book as the time crawled along, even on Turbo speed. Another small raid on Baghdad cost us 2VP and the enemy more than that in ‘operational losses’ of aircraft.

24/2/94 02:00Z: As dawn broke over the Gulf, we livened things up by resuming strikes, An Intruder took-out two coastal power stations with Walleyes, then HARM and Maverick F-16s finished the damaged Styx and two Gecko batteries.

Saratoga reached her DZ but, in the best traditions of Indian Ocean Fury, the VP Trigger was broken and we received nothing. At +56, it was now ‘only’ a Minor Defeat.

03:00Z: A large strike completely demolished the Bushehr nuclear facility, leaving no targets standing, disabled all significant SAMs in the area and did minor damage to the airport. We also eliminated a 152mm artillery unit but this scored nothing (not knowing the VP schedule means that such things have to be deduced by trial and error). A few spare HARMs were expended against the Grumble battery at the core of the substantial defences of the Iranian airbase at Omidiyeh, at the head of the Gulf. The score was boosted to +155, but this was still a Minor Defeat.

Two Tornadoes destroyed one of two power stations at Bandar Khomeini, which was just outside the protection zone of the Omidiyeh SAMs (though it probably wasn’t when the scenario was designed).

04:00Z: A Maverick Hornet destroyed both of the radars at Bushehr for a surprising 5VP each.

Just as things were looking a bit better, eight Blinders appeared over Central Iran and made for the Mount Hood group, which was now approaching its DZ in the Gulf of Oman and covered only by a Viking. What followed was bizarre. I’d placed no CAP in the area, as Blinders can fire their Kitchens from 215nm range and RTB, giving no chance of catching them, while Sidewinders, AMRAAMs and even Sparrows are incapable of engaging that type of supersonic missile. However, I launched four F-16s from Dhafra and got them over there as fast as they could go and still have fuel to engage. Unbelievably, the Blinders did not fire from long range and kept coming until they were almost on top of Mount Hood. Even then, with both the Mount Hood group and the main convoy from the Gulf in their sights, they only loosed three missiles, but this was enough to sink the ammo ship for an absolutely devastating 200VP. Given NATO’s logistics and re-supply problems, there was some justification for this, but it still equates to 100 oil refineries or 40 nuclear reactors. The bombers then turned for home and the four Falcons caught-up with and downed the trailing pair for a small consolation of 6VP. This kind of thing was always a risk and I’m not sure what I could have done to prevent it beyond having a CAP against all expectations of success. I did so for the rest of the game. It looked absolutely hopeless, with the score negative and 15 slow hours to go.

05:00Z: Two F-14s on CAP over Saratoga failed to RTB when told to do so and had to be Unassigned from their Mission first. This sort of thing did not happen consistently over the course of the game but had to be checked for constantly.

09:00Z: Yawn…

An Intruder readied and took-out a Scud battery near Omidiyeh but scored nothing for it. The Iranians did not use their SSMs all game, possibly because they had used their ammo up earlier in the conflict.

The Diego Garcia group reached its DZ and scored 25VP per ship for 75 total. They then stayed there, escorted by Buffalo and our two Orions working shifts from Masirah in case any Soviet SSNs appeared. Vikings covered the Gulf of Oman convoys.

10:00Z: The Convoy from the Gulf began to arrive at its DZ, scoring 25VP per ship, with similar awards for each of the human-controlled single sailing tankers that joined them there (this wasn’t notified in advance and was another case of trial and error).

Tornadoes destroyed the second Bandar Khomeni power station, taking the score to +261 and Average, which had seemed very unlikely a little while back.

11:00Z: A strike on Bushehr airport heavily damaged both runways (nothing) and destroyed numerous structures, taking the score to +293.

The oiler Henry J Kaiser, which had accompanied the Mount Hood, reached its DZ for another 25VP.

12:00Z: Two UAE Mirages hit Abu Musa with French laser-guided bombs, doing substantial damage and taking the score (with arriving tankers) to +341. Five more followed-up with iron bombs from 12k’ to little effect. It was worth a try.

A HARM strike on Omidiyeh achieved little, disabling two Gadflies and doing some non-vital damage to the Grumble. We were now running out of munitions and darkness was, in any case, approaching.

Four Blinders approached Saratoga. Two Phoenix F-14s, followed by four Hornets with Sparrows, attempted to intercept over Iran but the bombers turned away without firing. Two Iranian F-4s engaged and were shot down.

13:00Z: Some points were scored for Iranian structures burning-down after our strikes.

14:00Z: Four more Blinders appeared and randomly launched a single Kitchen at long range before withdrawing. Crazily, they targetted the Saudi corvette Hitteen. A Phoenix missed the Kitchen on 46% and the corvette was duly sunk. Do you think this persuaded Saudi Arabia to change status and actively enter the conflict?. No chance!!. At least it cost no VP and two Blinders managed to crash on landing, which surely couldn’t have been down to botched fuel calculations and lengthy landing queues, so why does this keep happening??!

16:00Z: The tanker Texaco Denmark reached the DZ and took the score past 400, but the result remained Average.

18:00Z: An F-16 took-off from Dhafra to relieve others on CAP over the Gulf of Oman but refused to move until I Unassigned it (from Unassigned). Another refused to refuel until I told it to do something else first. This all seems symptomatic of issues reported by other players on v.2018.

20:00Z: The tanker Havkong scored a further 25VP just before the game finally concluded. I’d hoped fondly that Saudi Arabia might declare war at this point as belated reward for getting Saratoga to the DZ, but no such luck. So it ended on +431 and, officially, Average, though the points I should have scored for Saratoga would surely have secured at least a Minor Victory.

NATO lost an ammo ship, frigate, 8 fighters, a chopper and 43 land elements (all of the latter were Iraqi). NATO Support lost a tanker (ship), a PGM and 9 choppers and Saudi Arabia lost a corvette.

The Warsaw Pact lost an SSK, 4 Blinders, 24 attack planes, 4 SSMs, 16 SAM elements and 3 radars, while Iran lost 2 SSKs, 5 AMCs, 3 Zafars, 120 small craft, a small frighter, a tug, 30 fighters (including 15 Tomcats), 40 attack planes, a transport plane, 6 Scuds, 4 SSMs and 72 assorted land elements.

So, however wearily, NATO regained air and naval superiority in the Persian Gulf and, while hazards remained, enabled the flow of tankers to resume. Iran had largely been reduced to defending its hinterland and the main danger in the region now came from the Soviet long-ranged air units that CTF154 had been ordered to tie-down.
There are two Indian Ocean Fury scenarios to go (plus the ones that haven’t been released yet). The next one is a much briefer affair, so I’ll play it after finishing Chains of War (which might take a while, especially as I have a holiday in July-August).

I can’t conceal that I’ve found Indian Ocean Fury less enjoyable than the Northern, Caribbean and Baltic modules of the series. In general, the scenarios are too big and unwieldy. It is hard to maintain attention on all parts of the map, there are performance issues (especially with the swarms of enemy small craft) and the durations are painfully long. It might have been best had the action been broken-down into a larger number of smaller scenarios. India-Pakistan could have been relegated to the briefings instead of being represented on the map, maybe with Exclusion Zones where the fighting was going on.

Bugs have been another issue, though many of these have been down to wider problems with CMO. Broken Victory Point triggers have been a serious issue, though there have been other disruptive problems like the Ethiopian negotiations in Gate of Tears and subsequent erratic behaviour of Ethiopian units.

A number of ‘features’ need to be addressed, such as the never-ending Yemeni army on Socotra in Gate of Tears (the biggest irritation of all from my perspective – it totally ruined that game) and the bizarre No Fire Zone in Into the Breach. Removing the Downed Pilot script would also be beneficial.

Finally, it would be helpful to the player to have a clearer idea of what scores Victory Points to avoid a lot of wasted effort and trial and error experimentation.

[Gunner98]

Thanks Vince

I need to scrub these scenarios and will consider breaking them up. Appreciate your perseverance