fitzpatv
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Following the USN’s efforts to erode Soviet fighter cover over Iceland, the USAF mounts a major strike that evening. This is aimed at crippling enemy air operations, command and control, supply and military government facilities. Just to complicate matters, the strike force and its supporting base elements then need to fly on to Lakenheath in Suffolk, England for later missions on the Central European Front.
To do this, you are given 40 F-111, 15 F-117, 10 F/A-18A, 21 F-16CJ and 12 F-15E strike aircraft, plus 19 Phantoms with HARMs and a couple of B-52s. This force is escorted by 29 F-15s with AMRAAMs and 27 F-15s and 16s with Sparrows and supported by 11 EF-111, two Prowler and two Hercules EW aircraft. There are also 4 Sentries, 56 tankers, 6 Orions, a Hercules Commando flying command post, a Dragon Lady high-altitude recon plane and a Rivet Joint ELINT aircraft.
To reduce the air-to-air refuelling burden on the player (a bit), there are three artificial ‘floating island’ staging areas where most attacking planes appear when ready, plus another to the W of the UK for receiving the transiting aircraft after their missions. These represent additional tanker aircraft. The briefing suggests that, as these aren’t real bases, you launch all aircraft there once they’ve completed their ready times, though there appears to be no penalty for not doing so.
Waiting for you are a still-potent force of Soviet fighters including all the old favourites and backed by Mainstays and EW planes. Behind these lurk a formidable array of SAM batteries, including Gargoyles, Grumbles and Gladiator/Giants, plus smaller types and AA guns. There are also a couple of Soviet warships (a Kresta and a Sovremenny), which can augment the SAM defences.
I began by writing-out a schedule of when my aircraft would be available. No air superiority missions would be possible for the first three hours, during which time you are restricted to Hornets with HARMs and TALDs, the recon planes and the tankers. After this, if you adhere to the spirit of the forward base concept, you’ll have to feed planes in every 15 minutes of game time or so, rapidly giving yourself an administrative headache.
Most of your strike planes have GBU-15, GBU-27 or Maverick weapons with ranges between eight and 15 nm. Sending these in against SAMs with an 80 nm range is suicidal unless, perhaps, you can make use of the rugged Icelandic terrain to stay hidden until the last moment, then pop-up and fire. A downside to the latter approach is that you don’t know where everything is and could easily be ambushed by inconveniently-located SAMs. Only the HARMs have enough range to give a decent chance of attacking and getting away without terrain masking and my experiences in Here Comes the Cavalry did not give me much confidence, even given jammers in close support. Of course, the F-117s are stealth aircraft and just might be able to get in close thereby – the proof would be in the eating.
Given that there were likely to be enough SAMs to stop any number of attacking missiles, it’s fair to say that I wasn’t optimistic. Indeed, had I been in command for real, I would have vetoed the mission and offered my resignation should this decision have been overruled.
Helpfully, all planes start with Auto Evade OFF. I set all fighter types to Winchester, specified one air-to-air missile per target and set EMCON to Active for all AEW, EW and maritime patrol planes. Warned that space at the Lakenheath ‘forward base’ could be tight, I set-up ferry missions from there to Lakenheath proper and nearby Mildenhall.
Needless to say, I got my rear end kicked but, as I don’t go back to the last save when things go wrong or pretend that defeats didn’t happen (after all, who does?), here’s the grisly tale…
22/2/94 16:00Z : I began by launching a Sentry and four tankers, the intention being to feed the latter in gradually at one or two per base per hour and learn from experience where the best refuelling points were. Early indications were that the Russians had a Gargoyle battery at Reykjavik and two more at the tips of the peninsulae to NW and SW, all able to support each other. Predictably, the enemy radars were off, so no HARM strikes would be possible unless I could bait them into illuminating. There was a Mainstay airborne, plus a couple of EW planes and Foxhounds. It was clear that the Lakenheath ‘forward base’ was potentially vulnerable to enemy interdiction.
18:00 : Just to complicate things further, I was ordered to re-base my Orions, Sentries and two squadrons of tankers to Kangerssuaq in Greenland as they completed their missions – a bit of admin I could have done without.
As the Dragon Lady recon plane followed its pre-set path to the NW of Iceland, a Soviet fighter rose to 60,000’ and tried to intercept. Fortunately, moving away caused it to abandon the chase. Having read about Foxhounds downing satellites in the Northern Fury book, I wasn’t inclined to take chances. The Rivet Joint SE of Iceland also needed to be moved back for security, but both planes supplied useful intel on enemy air movements until the Sentry could arrive.
A briefing at 18:20 gave an update on residual Soviet strength. This was estimated at some 118 to 168 fighters. Even if half of these were down for maintenance, as suggested, clearing the airspace was looking like an impossible task.
At least I now had a fair idea about where it was safe to station the tankers. We also detected a couple of suspicious ships to the E of the Goose Bay and Gander ‘forward bases’, so I sent a couple of Orions to investigate further. There was a risk that they were SAM traps, so flight paths would have to be adjusted accordingly.
19:00 : The mission got the green light and I began launching planes as they became available. Things soon became close to unmanageable, with too many aircraft to juggle and engagements all over the map as Soviet CAP reacted. In early clashes, I downed two Fulcrums and two Flankers without loss, but was keenly feeling the absence of the Phoenix missiles which gave the USN an edge in earlier battles. Here, things were much more evenly balanced, with the AMRAAM’s fire and forget ability offset by the greater range of Soviet Amos and Alamo missiles. For now, loosing missiles and accelerating away at Afterburner was working. Sometimes, it was sufficient to keep radars dark but, on others, I needed to turn them on to get precise targetting. The Russians were being pretty canny, keeping their fighters well-spread so that I couldn’t fire at more than a couple at once (I did the same). Fencer EW planes proved impossible to attack, as before, due to their (over-?) powerful DECM. Enemy planes score 1 VP each. Tankers needed to be moved-in closer for more comfortable refuelling.
20:00 : The main aerial duels S of Iceland continued to go my way, with another two Flankers, three Fulcrums, five Floggers and two Fencer Es downed without loss. However, with my attention on this, some Floggers attacked a quartet of Phantom Wild Weasel planes that I’d left circling off NW Iceland in the hope that enemy radars might come-on. Before I knew it, all four were lost for an eye-watering 10VP each.
Meanwhile, the suspicious ships were tagged as AGIs. An Orion sank one, the Vishnya, with two Harpoons (5 VP), then moved on to the second, the Balzam, which got very lucky, as both weapons fired at her malfunctioned. I now had to wait for my second Orion to arrive.
21:00 : As word arrived that Poke in the Eye had gone better in this reality, with the Oscar sunk, the Russians mounted a big CAP surge with Foxhounds and Flankers. Things did not go well, with 7 Eagles lost for 10 Soviets. Even though the attack was broken-up, the VP balance was unsustainable. Meanwhile, a Flogger snuck-up on an EF-111 off Greenland while I wasn’t looking and shot it down for a fearsome 15 VP. I can only explain the contrast with my superior Eagles’ inability to engage Fencers and Cubs by suggesting that the latter have OECM/DECM and the EF-111 only has OECM.
By now, my first 'Winchester' plane had touched-down at the Lakenheath ‘forward base’, but this scores no points, making the whole transfer a burdensome overhead.
Unable to use HARMs, I couldn’t mount any meaningful strikes on Iceland, as any other planes would just have been crucified by the SAMs. Given the attention required on the aerial dogfighting against the aggressive Russian CAP, I couldn’t spare the time required for attacking with terrain masking and eventually decided to cut my losses and simply fly everything to Lakenheath.
The AI then hit a purple patch when almost every missile it fired scored (often on chances of 25% or so) and the fighter losses became unacceptable, with a 2-5 deficit in this phase. With the Russians constantly feeding more aircraft into the fray, securing air superiority just wasn’t going to be achievable.
To add insult to injury, the second Orion attacked the Balzam and needed three Harpoons to sink her. What are the chances of four successive Harpoons malfunctioning on the same weak target?.
I quit at this point. It would probably have been possible to get most planes to the UK, keeping out of enemy CAP range, but this would have gained me nothing. So, a Major Defeat and not far short of a Disaster. I can hear Soren saying 'Told you so!'
Main Issues:
1. Too much to co-ordinate, so your back is always turned to something. This is probably the thing I like least about Command.
2. Feeling obliged to launch planes as they became available. Perhaps I shouldn’t have and this would have reduced Issue 1.
3. The Russian CAP is too strong and, what with its being fed-in gradually, this means it is impossible to get air superiority. Without this, it is very hard to focus on mounting strikes.
4. Soviet SAM radars being off by default makes HARMs useless unless one uses sacrificial targets. I considered using the B-52s and their AGM-67s for this, but they might not have gotten past CAP and I only had 16 of these weapons. I’ve found TALDs ineffective in the past (lack of range, ignored when radars are off).
5. Sheer strength of the SAM defences.
6. Total uncertainty about the effectiveness of SEAD aircraft, as one can’t see it from the enemy point-of-view.
7. Lack of visibility of the Russian positions. Perhaps the Dragon Lady could have gone closer with her long-distance cameras, but her early near-escape did not encourage.
8. The heavily-skewed VP schedule makes losses unaffordable. Who would bet on a close result when they’re offered odds of 1-5 ?
Overall, a chastening experience. Perhaps it was meant to be. I might experiment with Anteater’s Revenge a bit before moving on to Scenario 19 but, as matters stand, I have no confidence I could ever win it – though I’m sure there are people out there who have.
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Northern Fury 18 - Anteater's Revenge 22/2/94 - 
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