Benny's Sweep 6/5/58

[fitzpatv]

I wanted to play something better than Pebble Island Raid before returning to the fray on Mediterranean Fury. Having read Mark Gellis’s posts on Khrushchev’s War with some interest, I tried something similar from the same source.

The scenario assumes that Communist rebels have seized part of NW Luzon in the Philippines with Soviet help. America isn’t prepared to tolerate this, but only has a small task group in the area. This consists of the carrier Bennington, destroyer Henderson and destroyer escort Alvin C Cockrell. All of these are upgraded versions of WW2 units, the escorts being armed with guns and relying (if that is the word) on depth charges for ASW. Bennington has a large air group, with fighters mounting rear-aspect Sidewinder B missiles and cannon while her attack planes mostly carry bombs and rockets but include a septet of Furies with Bullpups. Inconveniently, rather too many aircraft, including four Skyraider AEW planes, are unavailable for the first few hours and most of them are technically daytime-only operators (something I try to play in the spirit of).

Just to the E of the Bennington, the Guppy-class submarine Diodon is on patrol. Given that the task group’s ASW is worryingly poor, her half-decent sonar and torpedoes seemed to offer the best defence against enemy subs.

The Soviets are known to have a gun-armed cruiser, the Sverdlov, somewhere nearby, as well as a couple of diesel subs (a Zulu IV and Whiskey II). A night-time attack by the cruiser or a submarine ambush could easily make short work of the US task force, so the hope was to see the former coming and stick close to the Diodon and hope that the enemy subs’ lousy sonar would make it hard for them to find us. Orders were to avoid hostilities with the Soviets unless attacked first.

Ashore, the rebels were believed to have ground combat units with mortars and 40mm Bofors AA guns and a few Ilyushin Crate transports. A number of targets had been identified, including four bridges, a pier with four adjacent storage buildings and an airport (confusingly called Mindoro, although it is nowhere near the island of that name). Some of these are close to civilian facilities like schools and hospitals. All targets were comfortably within strike range of the Bennington at the outset.

6/5/58 10:00L: I put-up a recon Cougar jet and a Retriever chopper to check-out the surrounding area in the absence of the AEW Skyraiders. Both these assets relied on the Mk 1 Eyeball and had to keep below the cloud layer at 7k’. There otherwise seemed no reason to delay attacking the Southernmost of the four bridges, so I sent two bomb-armed Skyraiders, with a pair of Furies for escort.

A message was soon received, warning that the Soviets were sending fighters from Vietnam to reinforce the rebels. Force was authorised to prevent any of these landing at the airport, so I set-up a Kill Zone on the approaches and committed the two fighters aloft and the four I had available in reserve.

A Soviet spy trawler was believed to be in the area of the task force, but we were not cleared to sink it unless we had been attacked by Soviet or rebel forces first. There were a number of trawlers and other civilian craft in the vicinity, but the spy ship was readily identifiable by its surface search radar signature.

The two Skyraiders attacked the bridge from 2k’, hitting it seven times but somehow failing to destroy it when two bombs should have been enough. A lone defending Bofors battery got-off 78 shots during the attack pass and, despite having just the regulation 1% chance to hit, downed both planes (Aircraft Damage rules do not apply in this scenario, so all hits are lethal). This cost us 40VP. I should have remembered the lesson from the Meteors Over Korea scenario that it just doesn’t pay to bomb from low altitude in this era and with these settings.

Our Fury fighters intercepted two MiG-15s and two MiG-17s on their way into the airport. Whether flown by Russians, Vietnamese or trained Filipino insurgents, these were handicapped by fuel and, probably, by being on Ferry loadouts and were shot-down for 20VP each.

11:00L: Unfortunately, the Furies lacked the endurance to remain on-station and, with no other fighters ready, we had to watch as two more pairs of MiGs followed and made-it to the airport.

Near the task group, we had a biological sub-surface contact and also detected a Filipino subchaser with a decent mixed gun/depth-charge armament which had gone over to the rebels. Rather foolishly, it was moving to engage us, so I detached USS Henderson to deal with it.

12:00L: I sent another Skyraider at the bridge. Bombing from 6,500’, it predictably missed completely. A fourth plane then went-in slightly lower at 6k’, still attracted some flak, but survived and got the job done for 25VP.
Henderson duly sank the subchaser for 20VP, utilising her comfortable gun range advantage.

13:00L: Two ready Skyraiders remained, so I sent them against the airport in an attempt to hit the MiGs on the ground while they were readying. Again coming-in at 6,500’, below the clouds but at the extreme reach of the defending Bofors, they prioritised the tarmac space where the fighters were, but failed to hit them. Bombs scattered across the base and an ammo pad later burned-down for 25VP.

A squadron of Banshee jets was now ready and six went to bomb the airport, with five more as fighter escorts. They knocked-out the control tower for another 25VP, but the fighters continued to lead charmed lives and the raid otherwise achieved little.

14:00L: By now, the AEW Skyraiders were ready and the duty plane detected the Sverdlov over 100nm WSW of the task force, approaching at 18 knots. I sent a Cougar to verify her identity and intentions and calculated that my Bullpup Furies should be ready in time to deal with her.

In an error of judgement, I had left the five fighter Banshees patrolling W of the airport, believing that they would be able to handle the MiGs. When two MiG-15s rose to take them on, I felt confident. However, the Soviet fighters had greater agility and longer-ranged cannon and it went badly wrong for us. The Banshees couldn’t lay a glove on their adversaries and four were lost without reply before the survivor escaped back to Bennington.

The Sverdlov fired on the Cougar and missed, which gave us the clearance we needed to attack the Russians.

15:00L: Henderson and Cockrell dealt with the spy trawler for 5VP.

16:00L: Five Furies with Bullpups sank the Sverdlov (which took most of their 25 missiles). Whether by bug or design, there was no VP award…

Our AEW plane spotted what looked like a sub re-charging its batteries 25nm SE of Bennington. Diodon was ordered onto an intercept course.

17:00L: We had two Bullpup Furies left, so one attacked and destroyed a bridge, then hit the airport, its more precise weapons finally hitting the tarmac spot housing the four MiGs and getting rid of them.

The last Bullpup Fury made rather a mess of striking the last pair of bridges, but left one badly damaged and on-fire.

Four Skyraiders with bombs destroyed the pier and one of the four associated buildings. Four more then wrecked an ammo pad at the airport, two of the remaining buildings by the pier and one of the bridges. This was offset by 25VP when the bombs hit an effectively-invisible mobile civilian ‘unit’.

18:00L: A submarine was categorically-identified about 12nm E of the Cockrell, again spotted by the AEW plane while re-charging batteries. With few land targets left to attack, the evident risk of hitting civilians and nightfall approaching, it was time for the task force to head away to sea rather than court disaster. Diodon tried to attack the sub, but it finished re-charging and dove just before she was able to. Sonar contact was not obtained, even when I risked switching-on the active mode. All-in-all, it made sense to get Diodon away, too, so she dove and headed-off at Full until she had opened some disatnce, then went back to periscope depth, re-charged and crept on West.

20:00L: The AEW plane actually got a firm simultaneous fix on both Russian subs as they re-charged again, quite close together, but we had nothing to attack them with effectively and I had to let the temptation pass me by.

21:00L: The last building by the pier burned-down.

22:00L: The remaining bridge burned-down.

7/5/58 02:15L: The game ended with a final score of +240, plus whatever I should (perhaps) have scored for the Sverdlov. This was officially Average. Leaving the Banshees to be attacked cost me, as did bombing too low early-on.

The US lost four fighters and two attack planes, the USSR a cruiser and spy ship and the Filipino insurgents a subchaser, eight fighters and 12 ground facilities.

[Mgellis]

Excellent after action report. Thanks.

I've used the information to tweak the scenario a little (including updating the scoring). You now get 20 points for taking out the cruiser, so you would have ended with 260 points, a Minor Victory--just shy of the 270 needed for a Major Victory...the cost your own losses and the political fallout from accidentally blowing up civilians. You're right; they're all over the place, and very hard to spot. The nerve of those people!

I'll test the new version of the scenario and post it shortly.

Thanks again.