VictorInThePacific
Posts: 169
Joined: 10/30/2008
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It begins!
I am going do something a little bit different here. I am going to not use direct chronological sequence. Instead, I will present different operational aspects of the scenario in separate sections.
The UN Frigate group
19.5 min after the Hawkeyes are launched, we get the first contact, a small FF/DD group. Since they turned their radars on immediately, we know exactly what they are:
- A UK Type 42/3 DD, which carries 40 nm range Sea Darts;
- A UK Type 23 FF, which carries 80 nm range Harpoons;
- A Horizon class FF, which carries 38 nm range Exocets and 30 nm range SAMs.
Since these ships are right where we need to be, and are heading towards us, they actually do represent a threat. If the contact had occurred just a few minutes later, we would have had 8 less strike planes available. At present, we can put together a 16-plane strike:
- 6 x F/A-18D (12 Harpoon)
- 8 x F/A-18C (16 Harpoon)
- 2 x Prowler (4 ARM)
This weak little attack won’t do much except make the ships use up some SAMs. However, we can’t really allocate any more planes because they are needed for other purposes. Nor can we wait until those tasks are completed, because in a few hours, those ships will be close enough to be a serious threat. (At present, they are about 180 nm from our nearest units.) So we will have to launch repeated attacks.
Political Interlude
Are we really going to do this?
So far, nobody has been killed, and only a few fishing ships have been sunk. But if we kill hundreds of people and destroy ships worth billions of dollars, then this situation is going to escalate out of control.
And make no mistake, we will be the aggressors.
Where is Ron Hunter when you need him?
The debate lasts all of 2 minutes.
Back to the action
The Prowlers, being slower, are launched immediately. The Hornets are launched 10 min later. The F/A-18Cs flying from the CV are near the limit of their range and may require tanker support. They have a range of only 550 nm. The enemy ships are 325 nm away. Subtract 75 nm for the Harpoon range, and these Hornets need 500 nm of fuel for the round trip.
Technical detail: Harpoon won’t let you launch those planes with “attack” orders. They have to “patrol” to a closer location, after which you can reset the orders to “attack”, and you have to adjust the flight altitude for maximum cruise speed.
At 48 min, the first airstrike is about to go in. http://i703.photobucket.com/albums/ww33/VictorInThePacific/Nor_Sea/2nordic/light2.png In order to get a coordinated strike, the Prowlers and lead Hornets will need to loiter and wait for the following Hornets to arrive. Harpoons are launched starting 5 min later. The Prowlers pop up and start jamming, and the Hornets head home.
As could have been predicted, none of our missiles hit. All we managed to do was deplete the enemy SAMs. Of 40 Sea Dart, 15 were used. Of 64 Aster-30, 43 were used. Of 12 Mistral, 2 were used. That’s about 2 SAMs per ASM. 32 Aster-15 and 32 Sea Wolf also remain. At this rate, it will take 2 more such airstrikes before we do any damage.
After the first airstrike, and remembering how quickly the ARMs were shot down, the Prowlers are re-armed with TALDs instead, so as to give them 12 missiles each instead of 2 each. (Who can say why this is a mistake?)
All 14 Hornets used in the first strike are re-armed for the same mission.
When the Prowlers are ready to go again, we realize that the TALDs can only be used against land targets.  So we put ARMs back on these planes, and send only the 14 Hornets.
This airstrike also does no damage. 9 Aster-30, 16 Sea Dart, and 24 Aster-15 were used. That’s about 2 SAMs per ASM. Although our count appears to be incomplete, this depletes all the Sea Dart and Aster-30. The next airstrike will do grievous bodily harm.
Political interlude
So far, only a few fishing ships have been sunk, and 11 Tornados have been shot down. But shooting down the Tornados and killing their crew is already a huge escalation. Perhaps it is already too late to stop this madness. Are the political leaders trying to resolve this?
It is certainly clear that the next hour will cause much pain to the UN. There will be much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. And yet, those frigates continue to advance, to their certain doom. Brave, perhaps. Stupid, certainly.
Back to the action
About 4 hours after the enemy ships were detected, they are all on the bottom of the ocean. Only a few SAMs were able to respond to the 4 ARMs and 28 Harpoons of the third airstrike (4 Harpoons were not used), and that wasn’t enough.
Fighter operations
No fighters were launched until the first airstrike was en route. At that point, the 10 fighters allocated in the initial plan were sent out. More fighters were launched later.
58 min after the scenario starts, the first enemy fighters (3 Tornados) are detected. http://s703.photobucket.com/albums/ww33/VictorInThePacific/Nor_Sea/2nordic/light4.png They are headed for the westernmost Hawkeye. We send 6 fighters to intercept. In principle, we only need 6 AMRAAMs to shoot them down, so only 2 fighters will be adequate, but the top speed of a Tornado is higher than the top speed of a Hornet, and I don’t want to be in a situation where 8 AMRAAMs get only one kill, and there’s an angry Tornado chasing my planes.
However, there are no hitches, and the first pair of Hornets is victorious.
About a half hour later, 3 more Tornados are detected. They are also headed for the westernmost Hawkeye. These are also shot down without difficulty.
Sending the Tornados out in penny packets lie this is not an effective approach. But what if all 50 UK fighters and attack planes and the 4 Foxhounds all attacked at once? 25 Hornets and 4 Tomcats could easily deal with this force. This leaves us 6 Tomcats and 4 Harrier plus in reserve, not even considering the 20 F/A-18Cs and a further half dozen F/A-18Ds, although some of those planes are allocated to other roles.
So any way you slice it, we completely dominate the air.
However, our planes cannot stay in the air indefinitely. At some point, they will either need to return to base, or be refueled in place. For certain units, refueling-in-place is the better option. This applies to the 4 F-14s on the Russian flank and the 4 Prowlers supporting them. The technical difficulty is that our F/A-18C tankers only can carry spare fuel out 300 nm from base, and the eastern patrol stations are well beyond that range. So it becomes necessary to arrange refueling rendezvous for these planes. It takes a bit of calculation to do this efficiently, but it is no worse than what the actual pilots would be doing.
Although we control the air, bad surprises can still happen. Shortly after the second Harpoon wave was launched, some Tornados suddenly de-cloak in the middle of our planes, literally 1 nm away from some of them, and 120 nm from the nearest Hawkeye. The Hawkeye radar should detect the Tornados at 240 nm. So it seems to me that we should not be surprised like this. However, if you look at the Reports window, it looks like the UN planes were just as surprised. Radar horizon from a ship to a low-flying aircraft is about 50 nm, so the UN ships never detected my Hornets. Apparently visual detection doesn’t work very well in Harpoon.
In any case, the Tornados turn their radars on and missiles start flying. Fortunately, we quickly pot them with Sidewinders, and their Sky Flash lose tracking. Who needs to be good if you’re lucky.
ASW operations
35 min after the scenario starts, a Viking has arrived to support the AOE group. While the escorting frigate does have a capable sonar, what I am going to do is move the Viking in a zigzag pattern along the line of advance of the AOE group and lay sonobuoys. The ships will move through the pattern of sonobuoys and might get some additional warning of activity ahead of them.
The same procedure will be used with the cruise ship in the south and the DD pair in the SE.
It looked like a good idea at the time, but it turns out that this doesn’t work. The problem is that the ships are only moving at 10 kn, and the buoys only last for an hour, so they are gone by the time the ships arrive. Since a Viking only carries 60 bouys, and about a third of those need to be saved in case a sub is detected, you just can’t lay enough buoys to make this work.
Even with the cruise ship, which is moving at 30 kn, there just aren’t enough buoys to provide adequate coverage. So after this, we will just leave the Vikings nearby to deal with situations as they arise.
The first 4.5 hours
3 UN ships plus 3 of their helicopters plus 11 Tornados have been destroyed for no loss to us. The 2 other helicopters are headed for parts unknown.
And the dogs of war are roaming wild.
< Message edited by VictorInThePacific -- 7/18/2009 2:57:07 AM >
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Printable Version
Norwegian Sea 2 - Nordic Light (US) - 
coverage for the group, and that at least half the Vikings will be needed to provide ASW support for the scattered units, it is clear that none of the Vikings will ever be available as tankers. 
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