Eggstor
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Joined: 1/24/2016
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Some notes from my campaign playthrough of The Bedford Incident, using the .34 beta, so there were no slowdowns (spoiler alerts):
- First things first, I turned off the sonars on the Bedford and the Narvik, turned off the no-cavitation option and turned on sprint/drift. I also switched the ASW-only P-3 loadout at Banak to the Harpoon/Mk-46 mix the airborne P-3 and the other P-3 at Banak had.
- At the appropriate times, I got the two contact messages, but only the first RP was auto-placed.
- Shortly after the second contact message was received, the airborne P-3 (under manual control) ID'd a fishing boat, the (southern) AGI, and the tender (the last conveniently near the first contact point). I set up a manual search pattern for the P-3 between the tender and the alleged sub contact point, sent the Bedford on a sprint-drift course toward the tender, and sent the Narvik toward the southern AGI. I turned on a surface search radar on the Bedford and the Narvik, as well as an air search radar on the Bedford.
- Shortly thereafter, I detected a submerged contact near the sub contact point, which auto-turned unfriendly when I ID'd it as biologics (though not as the side "Biologic"). Manually marking it as neutral didn't take until I turned off the exclusion zone, and only much later did I finally ID it as a school of fish belonging to the side "Biologic".
- The Soviet Mails would come and go, swooping down to ID my ships as each new flight would come into the area. As the airborne P-3 would hit bingo fuel, I would manually set up the patrol for the next one. It also meant that I would temporarily lose the Soviet contacts until the Narvik got into radar range of the AGI.
- With about 8 hours to go, one of the sonobouys finally picked up and ID'd a SSB (eventually classified as a Golf II), and I got new orders to track the sub and sink it as well as any other Soviet forces should they decide to attack. As the detecting sonobouy had a fair amount of life left and the airborne P-3 had just enough gas to make one swing north, I decided to send the P-3 north to do a surface sweep and launch another P-3 to mind the sub. I also started to rush the Bedford back east toward the sub, and launched another P-3 to keep airborne tabs on the sub. Spoiler - at this point, the Soviet attitude toward NATO switches from unfriendly to hostile, though it needs to know where NATO is to attack, and the Fitters only have a 350-nm attack radius.
- The northern P-3 quickly detected a couple of new surface contacts, and when it ID'd the northern AGI, that Soviet decided to take a potshot, damaging the VHF radio. Per the updated orders, I declared weapons-free at that point, pumped Penguins into the southern AGI and a Harpoon into the northern AGI once the P-3 got as sufficient distance away for 2 sunken Red Fleet ships (but no points).
- I then sent the northern P-3 at the tender, and finished it off with the other 3 Harpoons for some victory points. The Soviets sent a fresh Mail at the Bedford as the previous one returned to base, which ate a SM-2 upon identification for some more VP.
- I couldn't localize the Golf to within the 0.4-nm requirement to directly attack it with the P-3, so I BOL-launched a Mk-46 to where I thought it should be. The torpedo didn't acquire the Golf, but it did get it moving fast enough for the sonobouys to get a good location. A second Mk-46 got enough for the Golf to stop dead in the water, but not surface. A third Mk-46 (which needed to be launched BOL because I couldn't localize the sub) also missed, but a 4th (also launched BOL) finished it off.
- At that point, I had enough VPs to move on, but the message "congratulating" me on kicking off WWIII, which presumably should have fired as part of the NATO Victory trigger that also ends the scenario for standalone play, didn't fire as it isn't an action of that trigger.
- I decided to go through to the timed end, and the Soviets sent more Mails and a pair of attack aircraft, all dispatched by the Bedford to pad the VP score. I did assume the attack aircraft were targeting the Bedford when they adopted an attack profile, so I shot them before they could attack me.
< Message edited by Eggstor -- 10/25/2021 5:46:35 PM >
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