Commonwealth Collision 9/6/18

[fitzpatv]

In this one, war breaks out between India and Pakistan in 2018 over rocket attacks by Islamist militias in Kashmir, India having evidence that the insurgents were given advanced weapons by Islamabad. Some British observers were killed in the attack and this has persuaded the UK Government to throw-in its lot with India. China has been accumulating influence in Pakistan for some time and Beijing chooses to provide military support for its ally.

The land war quickly degenerates into a slogging match and the Indian/British side seeks to gain advantage at sea, sending a combined task force to strike targets behind Pakistani lines. You can play either side, but the Indian/British one is the default.

India/Britain score points for destroying land targets (and nothing else). Specific objectives are an oil refinery near the port of Ormara, an armoured brigade and naval infantry battalion in strategic reserve nearby and a bridge that said force would need to use to reach the front. Also, intel is that the commander of the Pakistani Navy is due to be flying into Jinnah naval base at Ormara to make an inspection tour and you are authorised to shoot him down.

Note that Pakistan/China score for sinking ships (only) and that the Aircraft Damage rules do not apply, so all hits on aircraft are fatal.

The British and Indian fleet is deployed in three CVBGs in the Arabian Sea, some 330nm from Ormara. The UK fields the new Queen Elizabeth, with a small wing of eight F-35s plus 11 choppers, escorted by the DDG Duncan and the frigates Monmouth and Sutherland. The carrier has no SAMs and Monmouth has only an old Sea Wolf system, so the other two escorts must take most of the air defence load, particularly Duncan, which has the modern Aster. The F-35s have C5-model AMRAAMs and a choice of JDAMs and Paveway IVs for ground attack.

In the middle of the formation, the Indian carrier Vikramaditya (ex-Soviet Gorshkov) is warded by the destroyers Ranjit and Mysore and the frigate Gomati. This carrier has no defences of her own whatsoever and the only halfway effective SAMs are the Gadflies on the Mysore. Vikramaditya has six Fulcrums loaded as fighters with capable Adder and Archer missiles and eight more carrying Krypton ARMs, at least to begin-with. She also has 10 choppers, including three Helixes which actually have sonobuoys and a couple of AEW types.

On the right is the more modern Indian carrier Vikrant with the frigates Satpura and Shivalik. Like Ranjit, the latter have the highly-effective supersonic Brahmos anti-shipping missiles and some Grizzly SAMs to support the carrier’s quality Barak 8 weapons. On the downside, none of Vikrant’s five choppers have any sonobuoys. In general, the lack of long-range, long-endurance ASW aircraft is a concern.

Screening the fleet are four subs, the British SSN Ambush (Tomahawks and Spearfish), her Indian counterpart Chakra (torpedoes including ex-Soviet Starfish) and two Indian SSKs, the Sindhuraj and Shalki (torpedo-armed in the main, though the former has a couple of Sizzler anti-shipping missiles).

As for the opposition, Pakistan’s surface fleet has suffered badly from early raids on the Karachi area but is expected to make a desperate sortie with half-a-dozen assorted frigates with medium-ranged Harpoon and C-802 anti-shipping missiles. Their two Khalid-class diesel subs (potentially carrying Exocets) have been reinforced by at least three Chinese SSNs, including a Shang II with a formidable battery of long-distance missiles.

Much of Pakistan’s Air Force is engaged on the main front, but they are expected to be able to field two Mirage squadrons with Exocets and one of Thunders with a choice of ship-killing weapons and tanker support. An understrength squadron of F-16s with AMRAAM C-5s is covering the Ormara base. China has provided a variety of AEW planes and UAVs to supplement Pakistan’s dated MAR-Maritime and Turbine Islander MPAs.

Defending the facilities at Ormara, Pakistan has at least one unit of effective Chinese HQ-16 SAMs, plus possibly lighter SAMs and certainly MANPADs and AA.

9/6/18 03:00Z (07:00L): Concerned about Vikrant’s lack of ASW, I detailed one of Vikramaditya’s Helixes to support her. The possibility of Chinese subs being behind us was worrying.

Recon was an issue, as only our F-35s were capable of detecting mobile ground targets at a distance. I sent one with a fighter loadout to scout Ormara and it found the six Pakistani frigates off the coast and heading towards us at speed. Four F-16s were on CAP and a Turbine Islander was on its way to look for our fleet. Lots of mobile units (tanks, mechanised infantry, trucks and ‘technicals’) were in evidence NW of the port. The F-35 disposed of the Islander and then moved clear as the enemy Falcons charged and retreated.

04:00Z: The eight strike Fulcrums visited Ormara, but the enemy mostly had their radars off (the one that was active was duly taken-out). Having A2A missiles, the MiG-29s downed another Islander and a Soar Dragon ELINT UAV. More F-16s then showed-up and the Fulcrums had to back-off. Carelessly, I allowed one to overfly the frigate Tariq, which shot it down with an Aspide SAM.

HMS Ambush tried to exploit the enemy’s lack of radar with her TLAMs, but one aimed at the bridge fell foul of an F-16 despite being routed circuitously to the E and NE to avoid such and those targeted at the HQ-16 battery happened to fly over some FN-6 MANPADs, which made good shooting and downed them. However, the SSN did manage to destroy the refinery, which scored 500VP, enough for a Minor Victory.

05:00Z: Using waypoints to avoid the MANPADs this time, Ambush punished the HQ-16’s excess of caution and took it out with her reserve TLAMs, though this scored nothing.

A second F-35 downed a MAR-Maritime before it could report our fleet, then eliminated a Sea Eagle UAV.

A last pair of Tomahawks destroyed the bridge for another 500VP, making it a Triumph after a mere two hours or so of a 48-hour scenario...

As the Pakistani frigates advanced, Sindhuraj loosed her pair of Sizzlers, hitting the Amazon-class Babur.

07:00Z: An F-35 knocked-down another MAR-Maritime and Sea Eagle.

09:00Z: The Pakistani admiral’s plane reached Ormara unmolested, as I didn’t think intercepting it was feasible without maintaining a patrol over the port in the face of the F-16s in the hope that he would turn-up.

The Babur died of her wounds, but scored nothing.

10:00Z: As the enemy ships continued their hopeless sortie, Shivalik unleashed her eight Brahmos at over twice the Pakistanis’ range and obliterated the leading pair.

11:00Z: Ranjit engaged the remaining three Pakistani frigates (ex-Chinese Jiangwei IIs). Her eight Brahmos should have sufficed, but a spoof, malfunction and the last two missiles deciding to engage the same target meant that one survived.

12:00Z: Two strikes by Fulcrums with Kryptons dealt with the last frigate and eliminated Pakistan’s surface fleet, which never had a hope. One MiG probed enemy airspace and dealt with a second Soar Dragon. Pakistan was now realistically relying on submarines to locate our fleet.

13:00Z: Four strike F-35s with an escorting fighter approached Ormara, but some F-16s manifested themselves and I decided to have them hold-off in the hope that the enemy fighters would run out of endurance and withdraw.

Unfortunately, the Chinese Shang II chose that moment to appear to the NE of our weakest sub, the Shalki. It was one of those submarine gunfights where both parties are sunk but, despite destroying their best boat for our least-capable one, the enemy scored 100VP to our none, reducing the score to a Major Victory. Worse, I was distracted as the four F-16s decided to Afterburner out to sea and engage our strike. The AI was left to manage the fight and we lost three strike planes for the same number of F-16s. The remaining attack Lightning managed to hit some tanks with Paveways, but only had two missiles, whereas you need to take-down all components of an enemy ground unit to score – Paveways aren’t ideal for the task, but the alternative was iron bombs with MANPADs about.

15:00Z: An F-35 penetrated over Pakistan and downed a Cub AEW plane, despite the intervention of two F-16s.

18:00Z: An F-35 accompanied three Fulcrums towards Ormara. Two Pakistani F-16s RTB’d in time to save themselves, but we bagged a second Cub and a Haitun chopper that had made it back to land following the destruction of its parent ship and was now crazy enough to mount another sortie.

21:00Z: Two F-35s escorted the remaining British strike plane to Ormara. The fighters took-down two patrolling F-16s, attacking them from out-wide, while the strike plane destroyed a ‘technical’, which scored nothing and missed some tanks with its Paveways.

A Shang I SSN appeared NW of HMS Ambush, which fired first, put the Chinese sub on Auto Evade and sank it.

10/6/18 03:00Z: With daylight, seven Fulcrums struck Ormara with Kab-500 electro-optical glide bombs. Overcoming problems with ground altitude and ‘weapon must detect target before firing’ (awful message – you need to get nearer, even though you’re already in range), they restored the Triumph by totalling three units of tanks for 100VP each. Two F-16s gave chase and were downed by the F-35 escorts.

05:00Z: The remaining strike F-35 gained some insurance by finishing-off another tank unit.

11:00Z: The Fulcrums returned and destroyed another two units of tanks.

12:00Z: The F-35 finished-off another tank unit.

16:00Z: The Pakistani diesel sub Hamza manifested NE of Ambush and successfully fled to avoid the SSN’s torpedoes.

18:00Z: Helped by a Merlin chopper at some distance from Queen Elizabeth, Ambush tracked-down and sank the Hamza.

20:00Z: A Han SSN turned-up E of the Indian SSN Chakra. Just to show that anything you don’t specifically check comes back to bite you, the Chakra unbelievably had her Starfish on magazines!. She also had to rise to Shallow depth before she could fire the weapon into the atmosphere, but the Han is a noisy sub with short-ranged torpedoes, didn’t make use of the time and was sunk, though it took all four of the Starfish rounds to do it.

11/6/18 01:00Z: Fulcrums returned to destroy four mechanised infantry units for another 400VP. The strike F-35 sheered-over to hit Pasni air base, to the W and smashed six Thunders on the ground.

03:00Z: It ended in a Triumph, with a score of +2,000.

India and the UK lost an SSK and four attack planes.

Pakistan and China lost 3 SSNs, an SS, 6 frigates, 7 fighters, 6 attack planes, 6 support aircraft, 4 UAVs, 7 choppers, a refinery, bridge and 45 ground troop elements, a radar and 5 SAM elements.

Overall, while not the worst scenario I’ve played, this was a little too easy. It might well be more challenging as the Pakistan/China side, but that will have to wait for another time.