AndrewJ
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Well, this is certainly an interesting scenario Skjold, thanks for writing it.
I managed to keep my airbases intact, although the cost was high.
I started by immediately sending 8 fighters hurtling across the Gulf of Bothnia on full burner, to hunt down the AEW plane over there before a major escort could build up. Two fighters curved north to fend off the Flankers, and six bored in on the target, killing it and one of the Flankers. Unfortunately this proved to be my own Charge of the Light Brigade, as the Viggens turned out to be horribly vulnerable to the SAM belt and fighters. With no chaff and no jammers they were almost defenceless, and all eight were shot down before they could make it to safety. I had hoped this would cripple the Russian's situational awareness, but unfortunately this wasn't the case. Their navy was radiating and using OTH radars, so this sacrifice had almost no effect on them at all. In retrospect it probably wasn't worth it in this situation.
One thing this did do was pull some Flankers SE, and away from their attack planes, so I was able to handle the first incoming strike without too much more difficulty. The second strike went very well. Two groups of fighters flanked while another hung back in the middle. When the Su-27s went to deal with the side groups the center group was able to deal with the raid. Then, as the Flankers turned for home, I was able to follow up and shoot them down from the rear. I used the same tactic for the third and fourth raid, but they didn't go quite as well, and I lost seven more fighters when I had to get too close to the Su-27s. Fortunately, I was able to destroy all the attackers (with a little help from my HAWK), and all the enemy fighters were shot down on the way home. The Mig-23 raid was odd, in that the Migs seemed to hesitate and turn aside rather than pressing on (perhaps they were trying to engage my fighters?). For some reason the Su-17 raid launched without its escort, so they were easily shot down far out to sea.
The naval situation went reasonably well. I was using my ASW helicopters as radar pickets to keep an eye on the Russian task force, and one accidentally found a sub when I ordered it to hover for a moment. The depth-charges worked! Scratch one SS. The second sub was detected by eye by a passing fighter, because the water was so shallow the sub was at periscope depth with its masts up and leaving a wake. It was torpedoed shortly thereafter. Both detections were pure luck, and not part of any plan of mine.
The task group was a tougher target. I initially sent a flight of four Viggens to engage the southern ships, assuming they were frigates (Krivaks or something like that) that were too far away for the main task group to defend. Not so! Seven of eight missiles were shot down by SAMs, and the last one was gunned down by a CIWS. For the next strike my patrol boats sortied, and combined their efforts with four fighters using the old ASMs, to put a total of twenty missiles into the southern three ships. Moments later my two big ships and four more fighters fired a total of eight new missiles at each of the three front ships of the main task force, hoping that the southern strike would act as a decoy and soak up all the SAMs before the important targets were hit. I managed to get all three of the southern ships, which turned out to be worthless ASW patrol boats, but only hit (and sank) one of the Sovremennys. Of course, before my subsonic missiles arrived their Sunburns had destroyed all my brave missile boats - not one escaped. Two more waves of strikes sank the remaining Russian ships, which were finaly out of long-range SAMs, but not before one more blunder cost me one of my big ships. I had assumed that the salvo of Sunburns that destroyed my missile boats used all the SSMs the Russians had, forgetting that the SS-N-14s on the Krivaks had an anti-surface mode, so I didn't bother to retire my big ships after they had launched their missiles. Mistake... The Russians got into SS-N-14 range moments before my attack arrived. Their missiles passed my missiles, and since my ship had no AA defences worth mentioning it soon died.
The Russian task group could have been a real problem if it had gotten into SAM range of my airbase. As it was, it was pressing my aircraft out of the ocean, making it more difficult to deal with the later raids. If it had moved forward at higher speed the situation would have been truly alarming, with a pair of high powered SAM sites parked under the approach path!
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Norrland Defence, 1990 (SwAF) Release - 
RE: Norrland Defence, 1990 (SwAF) Beta - 
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