RIPperSVK
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Joined: 2/12/2018
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So after a long time I managed to play through the "You Brexit You Fixit!" and "No Brexit No Problem" scenarios. Played them both from both sides, except "No Brexit No Problem" for NATO side (yet, still planned). So here are my comments (SPOILERS ahead):
Russia
Initial thoughts:
- it took me a few attempts to start correctly, typically I escalated everything too quickly. I didn't understand at first from the scenario description how to de-escalate and provoke NATO as little as possible. Basically immediately when NATO was marked hostile, I attacked anyone “red” - including their planes, ships etc.
- the winning strategy was - close the NATO runways with Iskander missiles, use the awesome air defences of Kaliningrad area to protect me from NATO aircraft in the west, generally use my A2/AD assets (primarily S-400s) to help my aircraft against enemy aircraft, and bring aircraft CAP patrols slowly from the east to the west over the Baltic states. I was careful to destroy only the necessary targets and enemies. After I achieved air superiority over the Baltic states, I continued to kill NATO aircraft, ships etc
How it went:
- The Iskander missiles were quite effective in closing the runways. I actually missed that I have one more missile battery, that would be even better. The Aegis destroyer tried shooting down some of the missiles going for Lithuania, but failed. Then the destroyer didn’t shoot at my ships, which was good. In my previous attempts when I tried closing the runways with planes, the destroyer started attacking them and also my ships - and well that escalated quickly.
- I tried closing the runways with Su-24s and BetAB bombs, approaching low and fast. That didn’t go well, they were shot down by Mistrals, so I abandoned this idea and used the Iskanders. Overall I think going low and fast is suicide against a prepared enemy. So I re-armed the Su-24 with Kazoos and Kryptons.
- The S-400s in the east greatly helped my Su-27s in gaining air superiority against Baltic states, they took out NATO fighters armed with AMRAAMs (this was needed as the runways weren’t completely closed).
- After some initial steps over the Baltic states, I decided to attack the Aegis destroyer near Kaliningrad. It didn’t really stand a chance with the amount of missiles in the Kaliningrad area (land and ship-based).
- NATO tried attacking my A2/AD umbrella over Kaliningrad, but unsuccessfully - the attacks weren’t massive enough. When I played the NATO side later, I basically had to attack with EVERYTHING to take out the air defences.
- I took out the bridges with Su-24s and Mig-29s. It was hard to damage but not destroy the dam - even a single Ch-29T destroyed it. In the end I straffed it with a cannon…
- In the end I just continued to destroy enemy aircraft and some ships to collect points, ended with a Triumph I think
I didn’t notice a difference in difficulty when playing the brexit and not brexit variant of the scenario. In both cases I managed to not escalate too much I guess? Overall I think my strategy was correct in this case.
NATO
I played only the brexit variant so far.
Initial thoughts:
- It will be hard to keep the Aegis cruiser alive - I need to move it away from Kaliningrad
- My ships and sub have some decent amount of Tomahawks, I should use them against Kaliningrad area
- I need to clear the air defenses in Kaliningrad, so that I can move my aircraft patrols over the Baltic states
- There are aircraft preparing with anti-ground and anti-radar weapons, but will be ready only after 6 hours, so I need to hold until that. I changed their loadouts to lots of SDBs, some JASSMs and HARMs
- I can have AWACS and ELINT patrols in the eastern part of Poland (out of reach of S-400), and 2 CAP patrols (one over Poland and one over Baltic sea) to protect my assets
- F-22s will be my most dangerous killers, I’ll need to use them well
How it went:
- I immediately started moving the Aegis destroyer north-east. In the end it didn’t help me, the amount of missiles shot against it later simply depleted its defenses. I didn’t have aircraft nearby at the time to protect it, as I was concerned about the anti-air defense around Kaliningrad. This is a thing to try in the next playthrough, to better protect the destroyer with aircraft.
- Immediately when Russia started pushing to the Baltic states I saw I can’t really defend them, there were too few aircraft in the area. The aircraft caused the Russians some casualties, and then died valiantly.
- I wasn’t able to completely protect the bridges, because the Kaliningrad A2/AD network was in the way. However, F-22s could get there if I thought about it sooner.
- I established my initial CAP and recon patrols. The F-22 were great at penetrating the Kaliningrad A2/AD network and killing enemy aircraft in the Kaliningrad area - the S-400 either didn’t shoot at them, or when it did, it missed.
- Before the Aegis cruiser was sunk, I made it shoot all its Tomahawks at air defences in Kaliningrad, together with other ships and subs. The tomahawks weren’t very successful.
- After my ground attack planes were ready, I launched a massive strike at the Kaliningrad area, with SDBs, MALD-Js, JASSMs etc. When all of this was launched, the game slowed down massively (about 5 seconds real time for each 1 second of game time), maybe caused by MALD-Js? But I was able to overwhelm the air defences and kill most of them. From this point the “blockade” of Baltic states was gone, and I moved my CAP patrols north-east and started to kill lots of enemy planes.
- I used the new assets from states joining the NATO effort just very little, most of the damage was done with my original assets.
- I used the ships in Klaipeda naval base to just pop-out of the base, shoot lots of Harpoons and hide back
- In the end I killed all enemy ships and most of their aircraft, finished with Triumph
Overall my strategy was OK. I could be more aggressive with CAP patrols to protect the Aegis destroyer better, and I could use the F-22s earlier to go through the Kaliningrad A2/AD network and wreak havoc and protect the bridges.
Lessons learned:
- Attacking low and fast against airfields is suicide
- Active radar guided missiles (AMRAAMs) are much superior to SARH missiles. Even if both have similar range, the SARH shooter is forced to defend and this will cause him to miss
- Stealth planes allow you to get deeper into A2/AD networks and hit targets, e.g. enemy aircraft. Also, they’re great “assassins” that can kill enemy deep in their area, especially the F-22 as it has lots of fuel and a big missile load
- Complex A2/AD networks are very very good at protecting big areas, and they require massive attacks to be disabled
Scenario design feedback:
- For the Russian side I didn’t really understand what escalates the tensions and what doesn’t, I had to try it out experimentally
- Also, the scoring wasn’t very clear (for both sides). For Russians I expected to win if I have air superiority over Baltic states and destroy the bridges, but I don’t think that’s possible, I need a lot more points.
- I was confused about the message that I won - should I continue or not? For example, for the NATO side it appeared when I had Average score, but it was before I could even launch my attack on the ground targets. From the scenario editor I think the intent is for me to continue playing, the message appears simply after some number of points.
- For the Russian side I would expect more info about enemy airfields. The airfields I needed to close both had just a very small enemy presence, so they weren’t that dangerous.
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