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Deathbunny -> Desert Storm 1: Invasion - AAR (2/4/2021 3:27:21 PM)
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Successfully completed the first scenario of the Desert Storm campaign.
This was a story of trial and error (mainly error!) compounded by some duff orders at the outset!
My first attempt saw me set up all the missions and the tanker lines as per the orders you receive just after the scenario start. Everything was going swimmingly until my F-15s transiting from Langley to Dhahran got to mid-Atlantic and their scheduled refuelling, only to find that the tanker line was about 5 degrees too far north of their flightpath. No tankers means no fuel and no fuel means a bunch of Eagle drivers ending up in the drink!
Ok, reset and try again. Atlantic tanker line adjusted to put it on the F-15s' fightpath and things were better, but still not right. Four of the Eagles successfully refueled but two were so low on gas that they flamed out before they could get to the tanker. So, move the tanker line further out to sea and have another go.
Next time round the trans-Atlantic leg of the journey went off without a hitch and I was able to concentrate on what was going wrong elsewhere! First thing that occurred to me was that my Blackbirds were never going to make it from Beale to Incirlik without tanking, so a KC-135Q orbit was established over northern Greenland and another one over Belarus (yes, I know, historically they couldn't have flown over Eastern Europe at that point but it's not a scenario constraint so I'm taking it!). The latter orbit required some adjustment to ensure it wasn't too far off the SR-71 flightpath and therefore ensure fuelling took place but it eventually worked.
The tanker line over Romania also had to be moved late on in the scenario, relocating to be over the West German - Czech border. This was to ensure that a C-5 inbound from Travis was able to refuel as it would not have made it to the original tanker location. This also necessitated adjusting the refueling policy for the Langley Eagles, changing it have them start looking for tankers at 50% remaining fuel. When left at the default 30% they just flew right past the relocated tankers and then either had to double back or just flew on dumbly until they ran out of juice.
The second stage of the scenario, relocating everything from Incirlik to various Saudi bases went off without a hitch. Tanker lines were established over Jordan and Saudi Arabia and these were able to ensure that everyone, including those pesky Langley F-15s, had enough fuel to get where they were going.
Attempted enemy interference was noted. An unidentified, but almost certainly Iraqi, MiG-25P popped up on a number of runs and was usually shot down without causing any damage. On one occasion it did manage to down the E-3 that I happened to have orbiting near the Turkish-Iraqi border.
All in all I enjoyed the challenge of this scenario, even if there was no actual combat involved. I am puzzled, however, as to why there seemed to be a standing CAP of Israeli F-16s over central Romania. These mystery aircraft nearly caused me to lose one of my SR-71s as they pulled the KC-135Q that was waiting for it off the tanker line to refuel the F-16s. Such a thing should not be possible, as the -135Q was a dedicated Blackbird tanker, but I guess such granularity is too fine for Command to capture. Thankfully I was able to launch another tanker which got on station before the Blackbird arrive, but it was a close run thing!
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