ShadowB
Posts: 86
Joined: 8/14/2004
From: Buenos Aires
Status: offline
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Some commentary ahead on the Stand Up (2011) scenario. Spoilers too, so don't read further if you haven't played it and mean to at some point. Went with the presumably infrequently picked Argentinian side, and I'm not sure the scenario's working correctly. Here's what I did.
1) For the opening preparations, I immediately sent ARA SAG on an ASuW patrol in the predefined area west of the islands, while the corvette ARA Spiro remained within its area SW of the islands doing ASW. I also began arming Turbo Trackers with anti-sub ordnance, as well as the Fennec helo on the Almirante Brown, considering the briefing's mention of a possible British SSN in the area.
At this stage, it struck me as odd the Turbo Trackers were operational but devoid of any loadout, which prevented their launch. Due to damage (I attribute this to poor maintenance, which is realistic), arming them would take something like 20 hours (!). Similarly, the Fennec on the flagship had a Ferry loadout, and again due to damage, it'd take a very long while to have it ready for any meaningful purpose.
2) I ordered a P-3B Orion to take off from the northern airbase on a maritime surveillance mission. They were the ones who eventually detected the HMS Portland sailing west of the islands.
3) Since the Portland was a top-of-the-line frigate, I didn't want to expose my aging warships to modern surface-to-surface retaliation. I decided to go old-school sea-skimming bombing and scrambled the two A-4AR Fightinghawks with Mk 82 loadouts. A tanker Hercules would take off afterwards to maintain station between the strike location and the mainland.
4) The attack itself was surprisingly effective, sinking the frigate with two solid hits, though only when the bombs were away did I realize the British didn't consider my forces hostile until then. A Sea Wolf fired in the last moment downed an A-4AR, and the other returned to base after refuelling.
Overall, I'm not sure just how effective my plucky strike fighters would've been should the Portland have considered them hostile all along. I thought flying 244 metres above sea level was pretty stealthy, but seeing how quickly the frigate fired off a missile in the scant few seconds the bombs were in the air, I'm not so sure. It's not 1982 anymore.
5) Afterwards, I redirected the Orion around the islands, steering well clear of the RAF airbase and its air defenses. The Wave Knight and Clyde were spotted eventually, making their way back to port.
Around this time I noticed both Orions (I had the second one take off as well) had 95% damage. A bit much even for poor maintenance. They would have over 2 days of downtime afterwards, once they returned to base.
6) The Spiro was ordered to intercept at flank speed. I still feared the appearance of a British sub (estimated Trafalgar-class, given the year and briefing), but after realizing my torpedoes were absolute rubbish, useless in the event of an actual engagement (35 kts, 3 nm range), I decided to remain loud and maximize my chances of accomplishing my mission objectives.
7) I meant to fire 2 Exocets at each target, but the HMS Clyde's radar lock remained uncertain, and all 4 Exocets opted to go for the Wave Knight. 1 miss, 1 malfunction and 2 hits: the supply ship was heavily wounded, severely affected by fires and flooding. It took basically all my deck guns' stores to knock the Clyde out of action.
The Clyde didn't sink immediately despite the barrage of 40 and 76mm rounds. It did end up with heavy damage and flooding, and eventually sank, but this is one of the things that strikes me as off with direct surface combat: first there's this very high hull resilience, and then there's the very poor accuracy even against stationary targets (the Clyde eventually stopped moving). And this isn't just this scenario: I remember being appalled at the accuracy playing the tutorial, having to task the quite modern USS Truxtun with destroying static artillery positions. Something like 90-95% of the shells missed, even if being close-ish and illuminating the targets helped a bit.
8) By this time, I was expecting the enemy Typhoons to come down on me at any moment, yet the only British unit which willingly put itself in harm's way was, surprisingly, the Wave Knight. Heavily damaged, burning up and taking water, it crept towards the Spiro amidst my frustration with surface gunnery and desire to finish off the Clyde first. The cargo vessel fired two long salvos at my corvette, and even though hull damage was quite light, it managed to knock her engines out and damage half her systems to some extent. Then the Knight sank. Had to salute those brave sailors.
9) The Spiro was dead in the water, and as I withdrew all my other forces back to the mainland, I expected some form of retaliation. I was expecting counter-attacks throughout the scenario, but nothing really came my way. The scenario ended with a triumph for Argentina, having only lost one A-4AR versus three ships and two aircraft destroyed.
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Seems this turned out a bit like a mini-AAR.
So overall the British felt quite passive, and while that could be tweaked, I'm not sure to what extent it could be without making things extremely hard for the Argentinian side. The air-to-air Fightinghawks armed with AIM-9Ls were scarcely a match for the Typhoons, which could pick them off from a safe distance with their AIM-120s. While the HMS Portland would always be at risk due to the initial British ROE, the Clyde and Wave Knight would've never been detected if the Typhoons had been truly active.
To be honest, they could technically wipe out the entirety of my air presence if they had been on patrol instead of just reacting to specific detected targets. The latter appeared to be their default missions when I switched sides at the end of the scenario, to check what was up. Not sure it was working, though. I don't think the British aircraft ever took off.
So what's the plan, from the scenario designer's point of view? Are the British purposefully gimped when playing the Argentinian side, to make the objectives achievable? It seems there can be no middle ground.
Conversely, I assume the scenario is similarly a cakewalk when played from the UK side and making full use of the available assets.
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Thoughts on Stand Up scenario - 
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