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Malafon -> Oil in Somalia (2/24/2017 1:20:43 AM)
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More of a review than an AAR
First of all, this is a great scenario. It’s two days or so long but I never had time compression on more than 5 seconds and then only briefly. There is always something to do or something popping up. (Usually a Soviet-era sub or long-range maritime patrol aircraft).
The scenario involves Italy (you) and India fighting for Somalia’s oil. You have three air bases and one fleet. The Indians have at least two fleets and one airbase in the little southern town of Eyl. They have infantry and armour and SAMs ashore at this location. Things have obviously gone pear-shaped diplomatically, because weapons are already free against Indian forces.
I’ll put some tips in this, but try not to include too many spoilers.
There is a squadron of F104 Starfighters at Hargesia. They are very far away from the action and can only stay on station for about 30 minutes by the time they get to the Arabian Sea.
Here’s the pro-tip: You can base them at the dirt strip at Bosaso, which is some 200 miles closer to your fleet.
But. Bosaso can only handle 8 aircraft. There are four AMX aircraft already based there. If you have the four AMX’s and four F104s on the ground at Bosaso and try to land a ninth aircraft it will refuse and divert to the next nearest field – which it almost certainly won’t be able to reach. Be warned.
Also, the F104s will refuel, but won’t rearm at Bosaso. If you land with weapons onboard, you get to refuel and take those weapons with you on the next trip. But if you are out of missiles then the airfield will refuel you but you can’t rearm. Despite Bosaso having a stock of AIM 9Ls, as carried on at least one F104 pylon.
Get your ASW screen up and working first. There are so many subs out there you could walk to Yemen on them. Nuff said.
I like to micro-manage my ASW screen. In case you don’t realise, you can set a course for your helos and mandate where they stop and dip their sonar. Just select the helo, F3 then draw the course, click and keep drawing, click again, etc. They will hover and deploy sonar at each point you clicked. This pays dividends, in my experience.
Do not forget the two Breguet Atlantic fixed wing ASW aircraft at Berbera. They’re props and they take time to get on station, but they’re chock full of sonobuoys. The two Breguet maritime patrol aircraft are based at Berbera too. Get one up immediately.
After the sub screen is up, the critical issue, IMO, is to neutralise the Indian air at Eyl. This is quite bloody, but can and must be done. Not all of the F104s or Tornados (based at Berbera) that you dispatch will return. The Eyl airfield has to be wrecked.
There are multiple (I won’t say how many) Indian fleets out there. The next job is to find them. The job after that is to sink them.
A couple or more things while I think of them.
Four or so of the tornadoes are loaded with Kormoran anti-ship missiles. These are a good weapon with a decent stand-off. But their malfunction rate in my game was 20-25%. They’re vulnerable to chaff and the AK630M CIWS, which is a fearsome (and I think) double-barrelled gatling. They should get past the SA N 1s and other missiles and the older AK230 CIWS.
Also, there are only so many Kormoran in stock. This means the tornadoes have to eventually go after the Indian ships with 500lb iron bombs. It’s very Falklands. And not risk free because of the sheer volume of fire from the ships. At 1000 feet and 560 knots I lost a Tornado to an AK230 with a one percent hit chance. And one to a 114mm (I think) gun with the same one percent hit chance.
On this point, even with the Tornados radiating, the Indian ships don’t activate their own radar. They wait till the Tornadoes are identified by their cameras, some ten miles out on the better ships, before they light up. I don’t know if that is too realistic, but I’m not complaining, because I don’t LUA and don’t know how hard that would be to change. Multi-player would make this a more challenging scenario, but you could say that about all of them.
Your other long-distance strike option is the four Sea King with Marte missiles. These are quite effective too, with the same vulnerabilities as the Kormoran and shorter range. You only have so many of these as well.
While looking for the ships, you have to be careful of subs. Funny thing. When I sent the Sea King out on a Marte anti-ship mission, they accidentally found a total of three seperate subs. All Sea Kings carry an inbuilt MAD sensor, and I guess they turn it on, and the subs were maybe surfaced, but how effective is a MAD from 2000 feet? It was an amazing stroke of luck anyway, plotted a random general course to the surface target by me, they all came within half a mile of a sub and detected it by chance. On the other hand it just goes to show how many subs are in this scenario. They’re not all simple torpedo carriers too, BTW.
That’s enough for now. I’m about half way through the game. I’ll write more if anyone is interested.
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