AndrewJ
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Well, this scenario certainly isn't as quick as I had anticipated. I finally had time to play the rest of it, so here's what happened in somewhat abbreviated form.
Playthrough
CENTER
In the center, I decided not to wait for the SSK to arrive at Tripoli, and went ahead with a night-time anti-shipping strike, bringing in every Harpoon and SLAM carrying aircraft I had, including S-3s and even EF-18s from Spain, and covering them with HARMs and heavy jamming (3 Prowlers) and a strong fighter escort to keep the enemy out of my missiles. (F-14s are essential here to reach into the enemy SAM envelope with Phoenixes.) After intense fighter combat I launched a concentrated single axis attack on the enemy fleet. The combination worked, with multiple hits on all units, sinking some outright, and leaving the others to burn out. (if you let the AI spread out your missiles this won't work. You must manually set them for a single straight line attack down the jamming strobe, and time them so the enemy wastes its initial SAMs hitting HARMs instead of your Harpoons.) The crew of the submarine Marconi, only 55 miles away, could only listen in frustration to the distant rumbling as their targets broke up and sank. They spent the rest of the scenario patrolling off Tripoli and gathering ESM information.
In the meantime, the bulk of the Libyan missile boat fleet was headed north, sending long-range Otomat shots towards my ships, who were trying to take long-range Otomat shots of their own. There were several desperate dashes by F-104s to intercept the enemy missiles, and some heavy SAM work by TG Grecale (the Ardito, Grecale, and Monmouth in close formation, relying heavily on the Monmouth's Sea Wolf VLS system) to keep the group alive. In the end I had air cover and airborne radar and they did not, and my group was able to shoot-look-shoot to whittle down the enemy forces. A cluster bomb strike by returning F-18s which had expended their HARMs down south was also useful for slowing down the La Combattantes (the only ones with long-range Otomats), and the French helped out with a long-range Etendard/Exocet strike from the Clemenceau, and the Libyan flotilla was under water by dawn. (The Osas south of Crete met a similar fate, taken by surprise by missiles arriving out of the dark.) TG Grecale was out of SSMs, but the Minervas hadn't reached the enemy in time to engage so they were still fully loaded. Both groups went to patrol around Pantelleria, alert for possible Tunisian action, for the remainder of the scenario.
The strike on the Russian task group off Tripoli had revealed a new player - a very dangerous SA-10 system - which would cause a great deal of trouble for any attack on the targets in the region. Accordingly, the morning strike was planned with the primary goal of SEAD: heavy jamming, heavy fighter cover, and then 30 of my remaining 40 HARMs and all my SLAMs intended for the SA-10, timed to arrive along with a salvo of TLAMs to deal with the SA-3s and SA-5. I was pretty pleased with my math (after all, the SA-10 only has so many missiles, and had used some trying to hit my fighters), until my barrage of HARM shots at the SA-10 provoked a barrage of fire from the four surrounding medium range SAM sites and the SHORADs site that had been lying in wait. My reserve HARMs were immediately fired at these new threats, and SLAMs were redirected to deal with them. A few shots from my main salvo made it through the gauntlet to shut down the SA-10, and since the new SAM sites had used most of their missiles, my remaining shots were able to take down the new threats. I had expected a token SA-10 to keep the Libyans quiet. Clearly the Russians had not agreed.
Nonetheless, the sites were down and the signal was given for the three dozen AMXs (which had overnighted at Pantelleria) to launch their attack. Naturally, the moment this happened I started getting ESM hits from a massive swarm of Mig-25s heading north. Anything airborne with a long-range missile (heck, or even a short range missile) was ordered to form up and receive the charge, and stop it before it could get wreck the AMX attack. After furious air-to-air combat the Migs were vanquished, and the AMXs came scooting in at treetop level, shutting down Tripoli airbase with Durandals, going after the SA-2s and radars with cluster bombs, and beating up on barracks and bases with iron bombs. Their attack complete, they retired to Pantelleria for a well-earned celebration.
EAST
In the eastern end of the Med things had been quieter. A force of the Greek F-4s had flown in to Souda to provide cover for the ferry and cargo flights to Egypt, and they set up patrols SE of Crete. The Andromeda was sent further south, two thirds of the way to Egypt, in order to act as a radar picket in case the Libyans tried sneaking along the coast. The Libyans never made an attempt on those aircraft, so patrols continued quietly for the rest of the scenario.
After the main attack in the center was over, a smaller attack was launched at the facilities around Benina. Long range Italian jammers flew in, along with some fighter cover and my remaining HARMs from the American carrier, and Greek attack planes flew in from the mainland and Crete. A combination of HARMs and TLAMs dealt with the SA-3s and SA-5, and the low level attacks dealt with the SA-2s, but the overall threat level here was significantly lower, and the attack planes were able to batter away at the airfield and nearby facilities. (The main lesson here was 'don't waste 500lb warheads on runways'.)
Follow-up attacks happened during the night with carrier aircraft (Harriers with night-vision) and land based aircraft the next day to finish off targets in the area. F-4s from Crete kept ganging up on the Mig-23s operating out of the Tobruk area, using numerical superiority and longer-ranged missiles to keep control of the situation, and they racked up a good score without reprisals. There were no other significant actions in the east for the rest of the scenario.
WEST
In the west the Algerians proved that they could still be troublesome. My proud Spanish submarine, fresh from its victories over the missile boats near Oran, headed north to clear the expected route along the north coast for my task group coming through Gibraltar. Mentally measuring up the broomstick he was going to tie to his mast, the captain ordered the sub to snorkel along at good speed, and went to measure his uniform to see if it could hold enough medals. That's when the sonarman started screaming about incoming torps. A desperate turn to bring the stern tubes (the only full ones) to bear, two shots down the enemy bearing, flank speed below the layer, then a boom, breakup noises and silence. Five minutes later another boom and breakup noises as the Kilo met the same fate. A mutual kill in the warm Mediterranean waters.
A second night bombing raid by the A-7s from Monte Real, this time carrying 2000 pounders, does a much better job of wrecking the airfield near Oran, and the two Spanish frigates also arrive in time for some night-time naval bombardment of radars and SAM sites in the area. They don't realize it at the time, but those two frigates were extremely lucky - they arrived at night from the north, in an area where the Square Tie surface search radar had been destroyed as an afterthought by strafing attack planes on the way home from bombing the airfield. The frigates are in a bay literally in between two undetected SSM sites, one five miles east, one five miles west, and since none of them can see my frigates they do not fire. My ships sail away cheerfully, ignorant of how close they came to being sunk.
During the day the Spanish light attack planes make some attempts to destroy SAM sites further along the coast by low level bombing, and it works, sort of. The sites can be killed, but it usually takes a plane or two to do it, so after some successes the attacks are called off, since it's not worth the exchange. The frigates are headed east , and they plan to stop by at Algiers for some more naval fire support there, which should be safer (hah!) than using the planes. In the meantime, the airmen ask the Spanish government to buy some HARMs.
OVERNIGHT
As the day of Feb 15th comes to a close, and the major attacks were over, forces withdrew to rest, rearm and regroup. TG Detroit is proceeding along the Spanish coast, and the Ray is past Sicily and en-route to Toulon. The small NATO carriers continue closing in on their RV, with support ships in attendance. The Eisenhower, which had been hiding north of Sicily, turned and started heading west towards to its RV point. A Soviet Victor gets caught off the East coast of Sicily, and sunk by MPA.
By this point the Enterprise is nearly black on air-to-air munitions. I can count my remaining Phoenixes on the fingers of one hand, I've got literally a dozen Sparrows, and even Sidewinders are in short supply. I have no HARMs, no SLAMs. I'm putting fighter aircraft on Ferry loadouts just so I can evacuate them in an emergency. However, I do have some TALDs and IR Mavericks left, as well as iron bombs, so I load my attack planes with those.
In the midst of all this the Soviet bombers arrive, flying north through Tunisia, and they're dangerously close. Scramble! F-104s go to crazed afterburner dash, and my CAP turns south to violate Tunisian neutrality. But then, just as I'm about to activate my task group's radars, the bombers turn about and fly south! Mystified, we continue to patrol... (It turns out that what happened was a couple of hours earlier some of my planes carelessly got too close to Tunisian airspace, and provoked some of their F-5s to come out and ID my planes. In doing so some of them overflew the carrier group and got an ID, which they shared with the Russians. However, it took the Russians two hours to lift off and head north, and in that time the Tunisians lost the contact. When the uncertainty zone expired the Russians continued for a couple of minutes, seeing nothing, and then turned for home.)
I conduct two attacks overnight, both in the west. Newly arrived F-16s fly from Sigonella to hit the Algerian airfield at Ain Beida, and carrier aircraft and the Spanish A-7s hit the Mig-25 base at Ain Oussera. (Those IR Mavericks reveal the horde of SA-6s at the latter site, and deal with them from a safe standoff before the A-7s arrive). The Spanish frigates decide to fly their FLIR-equipped helicopter up the coast in the dark at extremely low altitude and hunt for hidden SAM sites. What they find is hidden SSM sites! The naval bombardment of Algiers is postponed until the surface search radar can be knocked out...
NEXT DAY
Morning comes with another strike in Algeria, this time a dawn raid by Mirages on Laghouat, shutting down the runways with BAP-1000s and Durandals, and strafing and bombing the large number of planes there. F-16s fly OCAPs near Tripoli, and F-4s do the same near Tobruk, but other than that there is no significant action, and my task groups continue to their destination.
Hmmm. That probably wasn't so abbreviated after all.  Miscellaneous comments to follow later.
< Message edited by AndrewJ -- 4/16/2017 11:15:48 PM >
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RE: New Scenario for testing Mediterranean Fury 3 Casba... - 
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