Slitherine

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.. part of the fun of Command scenarios is learning about history (for instance, I hadn't realized just how strong American air defenses were in 1961)..

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ORIGINAL: ARCNA442

A very interesting scenario. I'm actually working on something similar set in 2018 so it is fascinating seeing how much technology has changed.

Personally, I would have preferred if you had kept the Soviet forces historically accurate - part of the fun of Command scenarios is learning about history (for instance, I hadn't realized just how strong American air defenses were in 1961). While I don't know exactly how bad the balance was originally, Blue should still have a tough mission if they are trying to prevent any nukes from reaching their targets.

You could probably also make things more difficult by playing with the Soviet tactics. Right now they just charge in blindly in a giant group and the only real difficulty is preventing defense saturation (which isn't a huge problem since Blue has so many assets). I would suggest instead creating a a multi wave attack, where some bombers first try to take down Blue radars. Perhaps also test attacking at low altitude to avoid radars (this also makes it harder to engage them with missiles). Additionally, many bombers seem to be targeted at air defense sites rather than cities, simplifying Blue's job (Red using nukes against empty airfields is a good thing in my book). I also note that many of the bombers are flying right over Nike sites for no good reason.

As a final point, consider removing the submarines. The way the scenario is now there isn't really anything the player can do about them and they don't inflict that much damage, making them little more than a distraction.

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ORIGINAL: SeaQueen

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.. part of the fun of Command scenarios is learning about history (for instance, I hadn't realized just how strong American air defenses were in 1961)..

I used to live near an old Nike Hercules site which was part the defenses of Washington D.C. It probably had nukes. My friends and I would sneak out there and dare each other to get close to it. Even in its deactivated state it looked mysterious and intimidating to a small child, with lots of signs that said things like, "Property of US Government Keep Out!" followed by lots of legalese.

Now a days it's a small office for an obscure part of the Federal government.

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ORIGINAL: WW31987Blog

This scenario covers a hypothetical large scale Red (Soviet) bomber attack against North America in late October of 1961. The Berlin Crisis has escalated to a major conflict and pushed the world to the edge of nuclear war. The player takes command of Blue (US and Canada) air defenses in Greenland, northeastern Canada, and the northeast United States. This includes airbases, radar stations, fighter aircraft, ground-based missiles, tankers, and more. A wave of Soviet bombers has crossed the North Pole and is approaching Greenland. Your goal is to keep the major cities in your sector, and as many airbases and other military installations as possible intact and safe.

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ORIGINAL: stolypin

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ORIGINAL: WW31987Blog

This scenario covers a hypothetical large scale Red (Soviet) bomber attack against North America in late October of 1961. The Berlin Crisis has escalated to a major conflict and pushed the world to the edge of nuclear war. The player takes command of Blue (US and Canada) air defenses in Greenland, northeastern Canada, and the northeast United States. This includes airbases, radar stations, fighter aircraft, ground-based missiles, tankers, and more. A wave of Soviet bombers has crossed the North Pole and is approaching Greenland. Your goal is to keep the major cities in your sector, and as many airbases and other military installations as possible intact and safe.

Hope to give this one a play over the holidays. I love this era.

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ORIGINAL: Randomizer

You can never have too many NORAD air defence scenarios, so thanks for this, am looking forward to running it through.

I spent a hell of a lot of time and effort researching North American air defence for my Deter, Detect, Defend 1962 scenario so a couple of points to accept or disregard as you like:

- The RCAF Sabres were not used at home but solely in Europe with the RCAF Air Division there (except for trials unit at RCAF Cold Lake and the OTU). By October 1961 they were all gone except for one squadron in northeast France that was converting to the CF-100 pending the arrival of the new CF-104.

- Until the CF-101B Voodoos became operational the Canadian contribution to NORAD was the CF-100 Clunk. The final version (Mk-V) was to be equipped with AIM-7 Sparrows but the principle anti-bomber/air intercept weapon for the Mk-IV was the Mighty Mouse rockets and internal guns. The CWDB has the Mk-V as I recall, it might make a suitable "what if?" and are likely to be more effective than the FFRs and far better than the guns-only loadouts. The first RCAF Voodoos became operational in October 1961 at RCAF Namao, just north of Edmonton, AB, they would not reach RCAF Bagotville and RCAF Chatham until into 1962 and would not get their nuclear AIR-2 Genies until 1965 or so.

- RCAF Greenwood had no NORAD role and was home to two of the CP-107 Argus LRMP squadrons under RCN operational control.

- Harmon AFB was a SAC base for tankers. US interceptors regularly staged out of RCAF Gander and Goose but neither had special weapon storage facilities.

- Nukes for the Nike Hercules were generally restricted to the Regular Army air defence batteries as few of the National Guard units could be certified for nuclear weapons. Less than 10% of the operational missiles were fitted with the W31 warhead and these were primarily used by the Hercules batteries in Florida and Alaska.

- The Soviets cannot attack the Single Unit airfields. Presumably the beacon markers are there to provide a target but hitting Single Unit Airfields can yield some odd and unsatisfactory results and using markers mean that follow-on attacks are impossible. Most post Cold War sources indicate that Soviet nuclear targeting was almost exclusively counter-value, that is cities/industry and civilian infrastructure. The primary military targets were Army bases and ports to interdict the reinforcement of Europe. Targeting SAC bases was almost certainly never Red doctrine as they realized that the birds would have flown by the time the missiles arrived.

- Suggest that you use the Drop Target command then Clear Log and save to render the Soviet bases invisible.

- Hopefully you will consider side names other than Blue and Red...

-C

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ORIGINAL: Randomizer

Thank you for the response. As for the Sabres, the last of them in RCAF service were the Golden Hawks aerobatic team that was disbanded in 1964. I saw them as a child at the Canadian National Exhibition airshow in Toronto and while I don't recall the actual demonstration I do remember well being in awe of a Sabre in Golden Hawk livery at the Armed Forces static display.

Golden Hawks

Part of the issue with dispersal of aviation assets is that once high-performance military aircraft are separated from their supporting infrastructure, availability rates plummet and it does not take too long before dispersing a force renders that same force operationally useless. Of course this can me mitigated with advanced planning and a couple of C-123 Globemasters or C-133 Cargomasters crammed full of equipment, parts, munitions and technicians goes a long way towards mitigating the negative effects of dispersal. That said, such things would be very difficult to improvise and doing so on a foreign base would make it that much more difficult. I know of no RCAF bases outside of Gander and Goose Bay where the USAF Air Defense Command forces could disperse to on short notice. Gander and Goose already had sizeable USAF presence but no special weapons storage facilities and the USAF was generally reluctant to store nukes in expedient facilities, particularly in another country. I'm currently working on a RAF V-Bomber scenario and looking at the available information on the RAF's nuclear bomber dispersal scheme provides a hint as to the magnitude of the problem.

One trick to avoid single-unit airfields that takes advantage of the ability to base Player units out of non-Player friendly airfields is this:

- Create a new side, call it anything but Air Defence Command works. Set to Friendly to the Player, Hostile to the Enemy, Computer Side only and set the Awareness level to blind.
- Build the airfields as necessary.
- Change to the Player side and use CTRL-F6 to place your air assets in the base.
- Target the bases as desired in the OPFOR missions.
- The Player will have full control of his air assets at the friendly, non-Player base and the AI has full targeting abilities against the airfields.

Setting the awareness level to Blind means that you can have as many facilities as you want, they add very little to the computing requirements because they detect nothing and talk to no one. Just make certain that any sensors or defences are not part of the "blind" side.

Anyway, CMANO allows for all manner of realities and am looking forward to the final version with much anticipation.

-C

Edited to clarify airfield building.

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ORIGINAL: Schr75

Hi WW31987Blog

Randomizer have already said most of what I want to say, but I have a few things.
First and most importantly.

You have a lot of AN/FPS-6C radar sites along the coast, but these radars are Height Finders, so they won´t detect any enemy planes.
The will only provide you with the height of already detected targets, so they have to work in tandem with a surveillance radar of some sort.

Second.
It is annoying not being able to strike back at those pesky subs launching missiles at you. A few ASW planes would go a long way satisfying my lust for revenge

And last.

What are the Jupiter missiles for at New London Sub base?
I can´t find any targets for them except Cuba, and I can´t target anything there.

Hope this was helpful, and I´m looking forward to the final scenario.

Søren