AndrewJ
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March 1 1994, 20:00 Zulu.
First merchant unloads! "War good as won" says Secretary of the Navy. "Mission accomplished" proclaims president. "One lone ship from Halifax to New York without any losses. A magnificent demonstration of naval power." 
So maybe it's not quite that significant, but a good excuse for a sitrep nonetheless.
The fight against the Russians continues. After the Oscar attack I tried putting an ASW aircraft cordon between the probable location of the third Oscar and the African coast, in case it was headed for the location of the sunken sub tender, but nothing turned up. The damned thing could be anywhere. Hopefully they don't have any missiles tucked away in an African port somewhere. At the moment my forces are claiming 6 lesser SS (including that ugly Romeo conversion), 8 moderns SS (various Kilos, including the Cuban one), 7 SSN (including an ancient Hotel), and 3 SSGN (the third being a Charlie up north). Rather alarmingly, intel is also muttering about the Russians losing a Badger in theatre, although they won't tell me where. (It showed up unexpectedly on the losses chart.)
Westbound convoys in the north are closing in on the Grand Banks, passing the Eastbound convoys in the same area. A new convoy is leaving the Brest area, with 14 freighters and the repaired T-AKR (freshly patched in Portsmouth), mostly escorted by second-rate ships coming on station in the last few days. The convoy which tangled with the Oscars near the Azores continues on, gradually dropping a trail of damaged stragglers behind it. (I've got a tug coming out of Europe to bring home one mangled tanker with no engines left.) Near Bermuda I've got escorts dropping in to top off their tanks before heading back to their eastbound convoy. My Panama to Med convoy is getting a bit nervous as it watches some if its escorts heading back to the mainland for lack of fuel. Hopefully nothing too dangerous lurks in its path. The Asturias is bringing its eastward bound convoys across the equator now, but the westbound ones have branched off and are heading up the coast of South America (albeit ~ 250 miles out) without escort. Nobody's available to escort them, poor fellows. TG Stump, way down south, is in a bad way for fuel, and is hoping the oiler coming up from South Africa can save the situation. (I copied the A 14 from the Asturias group in order to replace the Unrep-less South African oiler.)
The situation with the lesser combatants is relatively calm. Cuba, Honduras, and Nicaragua are all quiet at the moment. I'm keeping an eye on Venezuela from a distance. Their one sonarless patrol boat which was in the strait my Panama convoy needed was sunk in the dead of night by a discrete Mk48. A set of three missile boats which were on a flank speed course for my convoy were engaged at dawn by A-4s coming out of the western darkness, and sunk before they could ID their attackers. Without firm intelligence on what happened, the Venezuelans have not launched further attacks, although I did have to pull my E-8 further north in response to their fighter sweeps. Down south the Argentines and I continue to patrol and keep an eye on each other. More Tornados have flown in, and the Perry is on station, but no hostilities so far. I haven't sent everything down to the Falklands, and I'm retaining some units at Ascension in case of Nigerian troubles.
Lessons Learned
Fuel is Important! Those Perrys have short legs. At this scale oilers and bases become so much more important. (Suddenly the lumbering old Protecteur is one of my most valuable assets.) This is especially true at the inefficient convoy speeds I need to travel at in order to get any decent sonar performance, and to stay with slow-moving tankers. A Perry can go 4200 nm on a single tank of gas - at it's fuel efficient cruise speed of 20 kts. Of course it can't hear as much at that speed, and it would leave its convoy far behind. If I'm travelling at 12 kts, like a cruising tanker, my range is only 2700 nm. That's a single crossing in a narrow spot.
Sprint and Drift eats fuel! You're essentially trying to cross the Atlantic at fuel-inefficient low speed, and fuel-inefficient high speed. You probably won't get there. It may work nicely for a couple of days in a restricted zone, but not so much on the grand scale of this scenario (unless you have enough oilers).
Miscellaneous Bits
(I'm still playing 1.2, so sorry if these bits have been fixed since then.)
Alacrity and Sirius have Mk46s in their helicopter magazines, but actually need Stingrays.
Sirius stays on the Biological side after it teleports.
It might be useful to have a "Squadron Ready" message when the groups of P-3s become active at the inland airbases. It's easy to miss them otherwise.
I went and added some more docking facilities at a number if islands. Google Earth shows ships of ~ 120 m + docked with plenty of spare space in the Azores, Tenerife, Madiera, Mindelo, so there should be plenty of room for frigates. I think there are bunkering facilities for most of them (not sure about Mindelo). (See what a good teaching tool this sim is? I'd never have investigated the geography of these islands for any other reason.)
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Printable Version
RE: New 'Long Scenario' for testing NF 12.6 The Longest... - 
It launched everything. A radical convoy course change saved me from some of the missiles, but the remainder struck home and two more merchants and another three frigates went down, firing off their last few SAMs as they went. Now I've got to get 34 merchants across 3/4 of the ocean with 3 exhausted frigates for escorts. If there's another Oscar out there these guys are toast. 
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