JCM3000
Posts: 34
Joined: 11/28/2017
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Intro
As usual, my goal with this AAR is to provide a descriptive narrative that can be used as a learning tool by other relative newbies to COMANO like myself. So I’ll try to talk about why I did things, and point out mistakes and potential take-aways as I go along. So obviously, there will be major spoilers, so be warned!
This scenario opens with hostilities about to erupt between the US and a resurgent Iran. In this hypothetical future war, Iran has managed to reinvigorate its armed forces with purchases of modern weapons systems from both Russia and China. With their new-found military might they have decided to strangle western economies and choke off their oil supply by blockading and mining the Strait of Hormuz.
The US 5th Fleet has been tasked with reopening the SLOC by force. Our mission priority is to clear the shipping channel through the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz and get a SAG centered around the DDG Zumwalt into station in the Persian Gulf. To ensure the Zumwalt SAG’s safe passage we have been ordered to attack and destroy all Iranian naval and air force assets in southeastern Iran which directly threaten the Zumwalt SAG and the Gulf of Oman/Strait of Hormuz SLOC. The threats that will need to be eliminated to ensure safe passage of the Zumwalt and open the SLOC in this AOR include:
- Airbases at Char Basar and Jasek in southern Iran
- the strategic naval and air forces bases at Bandar Abbas which sit at the choke point of the Strait of Hormuz (this area includes a modern and dense IAD network with at least 3x SA-10 and 1x SA-20 battery)
- land based mobile SSM batteries (locations unknown) which are likely to be stationed along the Iranian coast and capable of striking naval and commercial traffic
- Intel also suggests the presence of Iranian Navy submarines and surface forces interdicting the SLOC, as well as anti-ship mines.
This is clearly going to be a difficult nut to crack but I do have most of the assets of the US Fifth fleet at my disposal including a few very interesting and fun toys:
- A CVBG centered around the newest CVN, the USS Ford with 2 Sqd of Hornets and 2 Sqd of Super Hornets (2-3 AC from each Sqd are unavailable due to maintenance), along with 3x EA-18G Growlers.
- An amphibious ready group based around the LHA America (6 F35Bs plus its normal complement of rotary wing aircraft)
- A small SAG consisting of the DDG Zumwalt, an Arleigh Burke AEGIS DDG, and pair of Freedom/Independence class LCSs
- In addition I have a Virginia class SSN at my disposal, as well as recon (Global Hawk), tanker (KC135), and ASW (P-8) assets based at Diego Garcia
Overall Strategy:
The starting location of the Zumwalt SAG at the mouth of the Gulf of Oman puts it in the precarious position of being less than 200nm from two Iranian air bases (Char Bahar and Jasek) and in what is likely a high submarine threat area. Missile boats are also likely in the gulf as well, hiding amongst the commercial traffic perhaps. I'll need to maintain an AAW patrol over the Zumwalt all the way into the Gulf and through the Strait. I'll also need to recon ahead of the route looking for missile boats and SSM batteries. In addition I'll need to maintain an ASW and mineweeping patrol for it's entire route as well.
The problem is that the Zumwalt SAG doesn't have the necessary assets to accomplish any of the above (except for the ASW and maritime patrol functions). The America's helos will have to handle some of these functions, and given the limited range of helos and lack of in-flight refueling, that pretty much means that the America will have to accompany the Zumwalt into the Gulf.
I'll use the global Hawks to help hunt for missile boats, SSMs, and mobile SAMs, and use the drones on the LCSs to visually identify maritime contacts. I'll also employ the SSN as an ASW picket.
So my first priorities are as follows:
- to get my defensive posture set (AEW, AAW, ASW, minesweeping and recon)
- Initiate hostilities with a coordinated surprise attack to put those 2 airbases out of commission
After that, I’ll focus my attention on:
- hunting down any naval threats in the Gulf of Oman (submarines and missile boats, as well as shore based SSMs)
- An Alpha Strike on Bandar Abbas (the IAD and military bases there)
- link-up the America with the Zumwalt SAG and continue to utilize the America's helos to sanitize the SLOC through the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz and into the Persian Gulf. My strategy here is to link up the Ford CVBG and the America ARG at the mouth of the gulf of Oman, detach the amphibs to the care of the CVBG, and then run the America and it's attendant Burke at flank speed down the corridor already sanitized by the Z SAG to catch up. There's risk here, but I think the risk is less than that of leaving the Zumwalt SAG without minesweeping support. Plus, having the America there will provide a quick reaction force of F35s to take care of any surprise threats that pop up. This is of particular value because I plan to run an Alpha Strike about 9 hours into the scenario (3 hours to run my first two airbase strikes, then 6 hours to reload all of my aircraft for the Alpha Strike), and this will mean that there will be a gap after the Alpha Strike where the Ford will not be able to provide any assets (other than a few CAP fighters) to support the Zumwalt SAG.
Defensive Posture:
- To maintain surprise my intention is to keep everybody on EMCON silent except my Hawkeye AWACS until I initiate hostilities. My plan is to keep all ships EMCON silent as long as I can (hopefully the entire scenario) to prevent targeting by enemy anti ship missiles.
- I will rely on aircraft to shield my ships from threats (to the extent possible) and will only use active radars and ECM on ships if there are incoming vampires. In reality, in COMANO, I've discovered that US AWACS can provide all of the necessary targeting data for both ship based SAMs as well as AMRAAMs carried by F18s and F35s, so as long as you protect your E2, you don't really need any other emitters. I intend to take the strategy as far as I can in this scenario.
- The first rule of COMANO is apparently: always get your AEW and CAP up. So I set two AAW Patrols, one centered on top of the Zumwalt SAG at the mouth of the Gulf of Oman, and another north of the Ford CVBG (along the threat axis between Char Bahar). As I only have 10 available aircraft with AAW loadouts I assigned 4 aircraft to each CAP with 1/3 rule on and mission EMCON to passive initially and rely on my AWACS for target identification and vectoring. I also made sure that the quick turnaround box was checked for all 10 of my AAW fighters. The remaining 2 AAW F18s will be my Alert 5 reserve, and assigned to a Strike Intercept mission. They will automatically launch when I assign targets to that mission, which I will not do until I detect a large number of inbound bogeys.
- I set an ASW patrol area (fixed rotating reference points) in front of both the Ford CVBG and the Zumwalt SAG. Interestingly, despite the fact that the America is primarily a helicopter carrier, she and her escorts do not carry any ASW helicopters (at least in this scenario). This makes for a risky proposition I think. So this makes it even more important that I link the America ARG up to the Ford CVBG as quickly as possible.
- I am anticipating that there will be a fair amount of commercial ship traffic (unknown contacts that will need to be investigated once I enter into the Gulf of Oman so I created a Maritime patrol station 60-70nm ahead of my Zumwalt SAG and assigned the 2 maritime recon drones to it (1/3 rule).
- As naval mines are also an integral part of the threat assessment, I also set up a minesweeping mission centered on a narrow corridor directly in front of the path of the Zumwalt SAG and the exact width of the Zumwalt SAGs formation using all 4 SeaDragon minesweeping helos on the America (1/3 rule; keep minimum 2 on station option selected).
Strike Planning (Jasek, Char Bahar):
Once all of my CAP, ASW, Minesweeping and drone recon flights were airborne I directed my attention to knocking out the Jasek and Char Bahar air bases. My plan was to launch 3 simultaneous air strikes to hit both air bases as well as the "Sector Command Bunker" to the northwest of Jasek airbase. I was hoping to obtain surprise and catch most of the Iranian aircraft on the ground because both airbases were less than 250nm from the Ford, so my SEAD F18s would have the range to fly most of the way at 200ft AGL. In fact Char Bahar was only 150nm away, which meant I could set up that flight plan to be 200ft AGL from takeoff all the way to the target.
My plan would send SEAD F18s to take out the enemy SAMs and radars, followed up by the main strike armed with GBU31 penetrators to take out the runways and access points. I created 2 sets of identical missions targeting each air base consisting of: 4x SEAD F18s with AARGMs, "escorted" by an EF-18 Growler for jamming, followed by 4x F18s armed with GBU31s and 2x F18s armed with SLAMERs to clean up any hangers or tarmac spaces with spotted aircraft.
I would employ the F35s to hit the furthest target, the Sector Command Bunker which was defended by an SA-6 site. I figured their stealth and high altitude would keep them undetected and out of danger from the older and not as capable SA-6.
Char Bahar was defended by an active 3D search radar (AN/TPS-70) and an SA-10 site which was actively radiating, and I suspected there would also be an SA-13 site hidden around there as well, along with some hidden AAA. The SA-10/SA-13 combo is a very modern SAM and is a tough nut to crack especially as it was located near the ocean with flat ground for at least 25nm in every direction. So sending in slow moving cruise missiles wasn't a great option as the SA-10 would make mincemeat of anything less than a full battery worth (an SA-10 has an 80+% PK against slow moving cruise missiles, and a battery can fire 24 missiles before reloading). By my calculations it would likely require a coordinated TLAM/TACTOM strike with at least 24x missiles to overwhelm the SA-10, and that doesn't even take into consideration AAA or the likelihood of a hidden SA-13 joining the party. So to be safe it would likely take 30-35x cruise missiles to saturate the site. I only had about 160 cruise missiles available to me in all of my ships combined, so I figured using a SEAD strike with Anti-Radiation missiles might likely be a better use of my available resources. Once the air defenses are down I'll use the TACTOMs to clean up any follow up targets.
The key with any SEAD mission is to use terrain to get as close as possible to the target to minimize your enemy's reaction time. Unfortunately in the case of Char Bahar, the closest "hill" was a sand dune about 600ft ASL about 25nm to the east of the SA-10 site. Even at 2000kts, it would still take an AARGM about 50 sec to traverse that distance. From my experience 50 sec might be enough time for the SA-10 to get off 2 salvos (essentially all of its ready missiles as it can engage up to 12 targets simultaneously - I believe). Ideally I'd like to give him time for only 1 salvo, so that means getting within 15nm before launching. I decided the best chance for success was going to be to wait to launch my AARGMs until I detect the SA-10 launching SAMs. This strategy is hard on the fighter pilots, but I decided that with jamming support from a Growler, and at full afterburner I might be able to get over that ridge (25nm away) and then get another 10nm closer before the SA-10 starts launching missiles. Plus, by waiting to launch, the first 4 missiles would be aimed at my F18s, not at the AARGMs. At that point, the SA-10 would have 14 AARGMs (+2 AARGMs I allocated to the search radar) coming at it and less than 30secs to react. I'm hoping that with only 12 available targeting/illumination channels, it would then decide to drop my F18s as targets and launch everything it had at the AARGMs. I'm not sure how CMANO actually models this, but I'm pretty confident this plan will work.
To improve my chances of success even further, I decided I would make use of the 2x F18s I had ready with ITALD decoys. They would loiter to the southwest, just outside SAM range and then BOL fire the ITALDS at the SA-10 about 30sec before my nap-of-the-earth flying SEAD strike crests that 600ft hill from the East. Hopefully this would get the SA-10 to expend at least 8 missiles on the ITALDs and increase the OODA loop for them to re-engage the SEAD F18s once they are spotted on radar coming from a different direction.
Image - Char Bahar SEAD Plan
For the Jasek strike I would employ a similar strategy. The problem there however was, that there was no SAM radar actively emitting, just an air search radar. I knew there must be some sort of SAM site defending that base (possibly another hidden SA-10). So I figured I'd fire 8 Tomahawks at the search radar approaching from the south and see what pops up to defend it (these Tomahawks would essentially play the same decoy role that the ITALDs do in the Char Bahar strike - distract the SAM and buy my SEAD aircraft a little more time to sneak up from the hills behind and to the northeast of the airbase).
After Action Report (0-3 Scenario Hours):
All of this worked out well, despite a couple of snafus.
The first snafu occurred as shortly after the scenario start, while my ASW and CAP were getting into position and my strikes were taking off, my Virginia class SSN got a Goblin contact off the Iranian coast in the path of the Ford CVBG. It wasn't yet close enough to anything to be a threat, so I sent my Virginia to investigate and attempt to identify. However, I wasn't paying attention (coordinating my strikes) so I didn't notice that two of the Ford ASW choppers had come over and dropped torpedoes on the unidentified Goblin, sinking it. The Goblin turned out to be a Russian Severodvinsk class SSN. Oops. That cost me -100pts. I also now had to worry about other Russian assets in the area wanting revenge.
The Iranians had a CAP up flying over the Iranian mainland between the Jasek and Char Bahar airbases. I already had my CAP fighters up, and initially the Iranian patrol was content to ignore the American jets loitering about 50nm off their coast (I had set WRA for my AMRAAMs to auto fire at 40nm (for two reasons, first, I wanted to limit accidental engagements, and secondly, because I've found AMRAAMs to be highly ineffective at their maximum range of 60-80nm).
Unfortunately, what I forgot to take into account were the SM6 missiles carried by the Zumwalt. These have a range of whopping 130nm! Somebody on the Zumwalt got a little trigger happy and fired 2 SAMs at the Iranian CAP from over 100nm away just as my SEAD aircraft had gotten airborne from the Ford. I immediately set Air WCS to weapons HOLD for the Zumwalt SAG, but it was too late. 1 of the 2 missiles hit an Iranian J-7. Within 5 minutes of shooting down the J-7 there were a bunch more J-7 airborne from Char Bahar, and 6 MiG29s getting airborne from Jasek. I also noted some air activity coming up from Bandar Abbas, but they were initially two far away for my AWACS to get a positive ID.
With the cat out of the bag and many bogeys appearing on radar, I immediately launched my pair of ready AAW F18 Super Hornets to reinforce the CAP over the Zumwalt SAG. I figured the 2 F18s on CAP near Char Bahar could handle the J-7s without any help (besides the 2 ITALD carrying F18s were about to join them with 2 more AMRAAMs each). I also immediately set the WRA for the SM6s on the Zumwalt to 60nm and weapons back to TIGHT instead of HOLD. I wanted my CAP to get first crack at the enemy fighters to limit my SAGs SAM expenditures, but I did want them to be able to engage leakers especially after my CAP fighters run out of BVR missiles.
My 2 CAP fighters near Char Bahar expended their 12 AMRAAMS and quickly dispatched all of the J-7s that got airborne from Char Bahar allowing my strike aircraft to approach unmolested and the strike went off as planned. I launched the ITALDs which were engaged by the SA-10. 6 of the 8 ITALDS were destroyed in the first volley of 8 missiles and 2 more were launched to kill the last 2 ITALDS. As the 2nd salvo was in the air, my 4 SEAD F18s followed closely by the Growler came over the ridge at full afterburner. I'm not sure if it was due to the OODA loop or the jamming (or both), but the SA-10 didn't launch it's first missile at my F18s until they were less than 15nm away (as I had hoped). I immediately launched 14 AARGMs at the SA-10 and followed that with 2 more aimed at the search radar. I had turned auto-evade off temporarily to ensure that all of my AARGMs would launch. Once they AARGMs were in the air I turned auto evade back on in the doctrine window and let my F18s evade. Luckily 2 of the SAMs were spoofed by jamming and decoys and the other 2 missed.
The SA-10 was able to launch another 12 missiles at my 16 incoming AARGMs taking out both that were headed at the search radar and and 8 of the AARGMs heading at it. As I suspected, an SA-13 lit up and fired 4 more missiles taking out 2 more AARGMs. 4 AARGMs impacted the SA-10 silencing and heavily damaging it (though not completely destroying it as it appears that 1 TEL survived (although a follow up Tomahawk would take care of that later).
Knowing that there would likely be a 2nd pop-up SAM site I had set the WRA for the HARMs carried by my Growler to No Automatic Fire. I manually fired them at the SA-13 but the SA-13 was able to shoot both down (expending 3 missiles doing so). I should have fired the 2 HARMs immediately when the SA-13 was identified and it was engaging my volley of AARGMs, but I was too busy getting my F18s to evade and then watching to see if any of my AARGMs would break through to the SA-10 and the search radar. So it wasn't until the end of the SEAD engagement that I remembered to fire the last two HARMs. oops.
Because of that mistake there was still an SA-13 site defending the airbase. However, the limited range of the SA-13 meant that my strike could drop their GBU31 penetrators at the limit of the SA-13's range, so I let them do so. Unfortunately, what that meant was that some of the GBU-31s were shot down by the SA-13 before they could hit their targets. It also meant that I had to fire the 4 SLAMERs at the SA-13 instead of at aircraft targets on the ground at the airbase. 1 of the 4 SLAMERs made it through incapaciating but not totally destroying the SA-13.
In the end, I had heavily damaged and set fire to the runway, but not all of the runway access points, and only 1 of the 2 GBU31s I had targeted at the underground ammo bunker hit, only lightly damaging it. I also identified a few more aircraft on the ground which would require follow up TACTOM strikes. My follow up TACTOMs eliminated the rest of the SA-13 TELs, the search radar, as well as a number of aircraft on the ground (several P3s and a few more J-7s). I also eliminated the underground ammo bunker but it took 5 TACTOMs to do so.
Over at Jasek my strike was also a success, again going "mostly" as planned. My CAP over the Zumwalt quickly closed in and dispatched the 6 MiG29's that come up from Jasek. However they only had a few BVR missiles left and there were 6 J-10s, 6 J-7s and 6 more Fulcrums approaching from Bandar Abbas. Behind them were a flight of 6 F14s from one of the Iranian airbases farther north.
As this air battle was ongoing my SEAD strike had continued unmolested at 200 AGL looping around to the east and northeast of Jasek. I realized that I needed to fire those tomahawk "decoys" to "poke" the defenses around Jasek or my SEAD flight would arrive on target without having any SAM targets identified. So I quickly fired 10 tomahawks at Jasek.
In the meantime, low on BVR missiles my CAP F18s retreated to the safety of the Zumwalt SAGs SAM umbrella, pursued by the remaining Iranian J-10s & MiG29's. They closed within 60nm of the Zumwalt SAG at the same time the at my reinforcement flight of AAW F18s was arriving on the scene. There was a brief exchange of BVR missiles but against the concentrated fire from my F18s and SAMs from the Zumwalt all the J-10s were destroyed and 2 remaining MiG29's had turned and were escaping northward having expended all of their BVR missiles.
My F18s were unable to give chase however as a volley of Phoenix missiles was bearing down on them launched at long range by an incoming flight of Iranian F14s. Despite evasive maneuvering, 1 of the Phoenix missiles found it's target resulting in my first F18 loss of the day. My lone remaining F18 (the other pair had gone RTB Winchester a few minutes earlier after the J-10 engagement) was now outnumbered 6:1 by the rapidly approaching F14s, so once again it was time to high tail it back to the safety of the Zumwalt's SAM umbrella.
However, the F14s decided not to chase and instead veered off to engage the tomahawk missiles that were passing beneath them. At this time my strike flight of F35s had looped to the west and were now crossing east across the Gulf of Oman on their way to strike the command bunker northwest of Jasek. This route actually took them undetected behind the advancing F14s and in the path of the 2 escaping MiG29's. I decided to let the Migs go as they weren't a threat and instead engaged the 6 F14s that were at low altitude shooting down my tomahawks. I set an intercept course and surprised them with a volley of 6 AMRAAMs, scoring hits with 3. My F35s returned to their original flight plan. The F14s were able to shoot down 7 of my tomahawks before they went RTB Winchester.
As expected, a pop up SA-11 site came online and quickly disposed of my last 3 surviving tomahawks. As it turns out, no additional SAM battery appeared, though an SA-16 MANPAD took a pot shot at one of my low flying tomahawks that passed over it.
With a good idea of the air threat, I then let the dogs loose. The SEAD aircraft screamed in from the hills to the northeast and launched 8 AARGMs overwhelming the SA-11 as 2 got thru. I dropped a few JSOWs on the SA-13 site to finish it off as well as the search radar and a Skyguard radar enabled AAA. The main strike then heavily damaged the runway and access points and caught another 4 MiG29's on the ground.
As a side note, my F35s dispatched the command bunker with JDAMs and then took a crack at the SA-6 site defending the area. Unfortunately, the SA-6 was able to shoot down both JDAMs dropped on it, so I had to follow up with a 8 tomahawks to kill it along with another 2 for the SSM site that my F35s had spotted in the area while attacking the SA-6.
Shortly after destruction of the Jasek airfield, the Iranians sent a squadron of F4 Phantoms to again contest for the air space over the Gulf of Oman. Luckily I had a fresh pair of F18s that had newly arrived on CAP. They, with just a little help from the Zumwalt SAMs destroyed all 12 of them without too much drama.
At this point, I was about 3 hours into the scenario and the tally was as follows:
SIDE: United States
===========================================================
LOSSES:
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1x MQ-8B Fire Scout UAV
1x F/A-18F Super Hornet
EXPENDITURES:
------------------
15x AN/SSQ-53F DIFAR
27x RIM-174A ERAM SM-6MR Blk I
10x AN/SSQ-62E DICASS
40x RGM-109E Tomahawk Blk IV TACTOM
53x AIM-120D AMRAAM P3I.4
3x Mk54 LHT Mod 0
2x AN/ALE-55 FOTD
21x Generic Chaff Salvo [5x Cartridges]
1x AIM-9X Sidewinder
4x Generic Flare Salvo [3x Cartridges, Dual Spectral]
8x ADM-141C ITALD [Active RF]
12x GBU-32(V)2/B JDAM [Mk83]
24x AGM-88E AARGM
2x AGM-88C HARM
4x GEN-X [RT-1489/ALE] Active Expendable Decoy
26x GBU-31(V)4/B JDAM [BLU-109A/B]
8x AGM-84K SLAMER-ATA
4x AGM-154A JSOW [145 x BLU-97/B Dual Purpose]
2x RGM-109I Tomahawk Blk IV MMT [Multi-Mission]
SIDE: Iran Air Force
===========================================================
LOSSES:
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18x J-7IIH Fishbed [MiG-21 Copy]
14x MiG-29 Fulcrum A
6x J-10A Vigorous Dragon
3x F-14A Tomcat [F-14AM]
3x P-3F Orion
1x AvGas (40k Liter Tank)
12x F-4E Phantom II
SIDE: Iran Air Defense
===========================================================
LOSSES:
-------------------------------
4x 14.5mm/79 ZPU-4 Quad
4x SA-6a Gainful [2P25] TEL
1x Vehicle (Straight Flush [1S91])
3x SA-16 Gimlet [9K310 Igla-1] MANPADS
2x Radar (AN/TPS-70)
1x Vehicle (Flap Lid A [5N63])
1x Vehicle (Clam Shell [5N66])
6x SA-10a Grumble [5P85T] TEL
1x Radar (Tin Shield A [5N59])
1x Vehicle (Mobile Jammer)
2x SA-13 Gopher [9A35M2] TELAR 2
1x SA-11 Gadfly [9A39] LLV
2x SA-11 Gadfly [9A38] TELAR
1x Vehicle (UAR-1021 Skyguard)
2x 35mm Twin Oerlikon [UAR-1021 Skyguard FCR]
2x 23mm ZSU-23-4 Shilka
1x Ammo Shelter
SIDE: Iran Navy
===========================================================
LOSSES:
-------------------------------
1x 901 Tareq [PL-877EKM Kilo]
1x Bunker (Sector Control Station)
2x Toragh [Boghammar Mod]
4x C-802 Triple
1x Vehicle (China Type 352 Square Tie)
SIDE: Russian Sub
===========================================================
LOSSES:
-------------------------------
1x PLA-885 Severodvinsk [Yasen]
Strike Planning (Bandar Abbas):
As I had cleared most of the enemy defenses in southern Iran, I now needed to plan how I would tackle the air defenses around Bandar Abbas. Those defenses were quite formidable, including 3 air bases, as well as 3x SA-10s, an SA-20, 2x SA-2/HQ-2, and an SA-6 battery. That's just what had been identified from ELINT. I was fairly certain more SAMs would pop up once missiles started flying.
Image - Bandar Abbas IADS
Two of the SA-10s and the SA-20 were setup overlooking the two main airbases at Bandar Abbas along with several long-range search radars (an AN/TPS-70, a Tin Shield and a Great Wall). There were also two islands in the Strait of Hormuz (Qeshm Island and Hormuz Island), where the Iranians had placed 2x HQ-2 batteries and an SA-6 covering the frontal (southern) approaches to Bandar Abbas (the SA-6 and one of the two HQ-2 can be seen in the image above, the other HQ-2 was just off the bottom of the screenshot). Approaching these air defenses head on would be almost impossible as I would first have to destroy the SAM sites on the 2 barrier islands and then deal with the formidable SA-10/SA-20 SAMs which were positioned with only 15nm between them so they would all be mutually supporting.
Considering the range and volume of fire that 2x SA-10s and an SA-20 can put up, I figured the only possible way to crack this would be by getting in close through the mountains behind and to the north of Bandar Abbas. There was a large mountain about 15nm north of the position where two of the three SA-10s and the SA-20 were located. The Iranians had placed a long-range search radar on top of it (according to Google Maps, the mountain is called Kuh-e Genu or "Genu"). My plan was to send my strike aircraft over the UAE peninsula and into the Persian Gulf, skirt around the SA-10 battery and airbase at Bandar Lengeh, descend to 200 ASL, then turn north and make landfall over Iran near Kish island. I would then proceed north and east into the mountains, and approach the Bandar Abbas area at low altitude from the northwest, and then turn south down a valley which leads directly to the northern slope of Genu mountain (on GMaps this is the valley that the North/South highway 71 runs through), and is shielded by Genu from the radars and SAM sites to the south. As I approach Genu from the north, I'll destroy the search radar on top of it, then split my attacking force so that half would sweep around to the west of Genu mountain while the other half sweep around to the east of the mountain. As my SEAD aircraft come around the sides of Genu, their targets (the 2 SA-10 and one SA-20 battery) would be on the low ground directly ahead of them about 15nm south of the mountain. I would launch my AARGMs (all 32 of them) and then try to beat a hasty retreat back behind Genu.
To complete my plan, while my SEAD aircraft are approaching from the rear, I plan on hitting the front of the Bandar Abbas defenses with a diversionary strike using ITALDs, SLAMERs and tomahawks to bleed off some of the Iranian SA-20 missiles and hopefully take out the SA-2 and SA-6 sites on the islands, thus opening the way for my main strike aircraft carrying BLU-109 runway penetrators to hit the 2 airbases at Bandar Abbas. They will also be accompanied by a flight of attack aircraft carrying LGBs and Mavericks to take out any pop-up AAA and hopefully target aircraft on the ground as well. This Alpha Strike will consist of every flyable aircraft, all 33, on the Ford (except for the 9 AAW aircraft assigned to CAP and tanker escort duties).
Although the AAW Hornets would be able to shield my primary strike aircraft from enemy fighters on their approach to the target area, and AFTER the SA-10s and Sa-20 were taken out, they wouldn't be able to support my SEAD fighters due to the large engagement envelope of the Sa-20. As a better option, I intended to send 2x (or maybe 4) F35s, armed with AMRAAMs and LGBs (internal-only loadout) ahead of the SEAD strike to scout the intended route through the mountains and look for mobile SAMs that might ambush my SEAD F18s. The F35s would then loiter in the area to shoot down any fighters that got airborne from the Bandar Abbas air bases. I am much more confident in the ability of the F35s to survive and engage inside the SA-20 umbrella than the F18s.
This plan raised some further complications though, as I carefully researched my path through the mountains and valleys behind these SAM defenses. Flying direct, it was about 250nm from the eastern part of the Gulf of Oman to Bandar Abbas. However, taking the circuitous route behind the mountains made the route about 450-470nm, which is beyond the maximum range of my Hornets carrying full SEAD (4x AARGM) loadouts. That strike radius also assumes flying at cruise altitude with only a 50nm sprint at 200AGL. Unfortunately, I would have to fly about 40% of the route at 200AGL weaving through the mountains, and I could expect my fuel consumption to double (if not more) during the terrain following section of my proposed strike route. Basically, my SEAD aircraft would need tanker support on the way home. I figured I could put a pair of KC135s with a fighter escort in the air over the UAE (near Dubai which roughly faces Iran across the Strait of Hormuz), however, this would put my tankers uncomfortably close to the southwestern-most of the 3 remaining Iranian airbases in the AOR (the Bandar Lengeh airbase). Also the presence of that airbase could be problematic as I know there are Mig29's based there (that's where my AWACs saw some of the Mig29s I encountered earlier coming from, and I'm not sure how many are still there (I know at least 2 escaped our last engagement and returned home, and there may be more).
After further inspection, I found there was a small hill (about 1100ft) just west (12nm) of the SA-10 site protecting the Bandar Lengeh airbase. 12nm is probably close enough that I could hit it with Tomahawks coming over that ridge. Despite the slow flight speed of the tomahawk, at 500kts the SA-10 will still have only about 45 sec reaction time. I think 15 tomahawks should do the trick. I'll follow up with another 15 or so tomahawks to hit the access points,tarmac spaces, and hangers, hopefully putting the base out of commission. By taking out this airbase and the SA-10 there, I can shorten my flight distance by about 50nm giving me a bit of fuel consumption breathing room for my SEAD strike.
Image - Bandar Lengeh TACTOM Strike
Stay tuned for the results of this complicated and highly choreographed SEAD/Alpha Strike! I'll finish the rest of the AAR by tomorrow I think.
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