fitzpatv
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In this two-day Community Pack scenario, Britain intervenes on behalf of the Yemeni Royalists in their 1960s conflict with Nasser’s Egypt. As tends to be the way in CMO Cold War scenarios, this draws-in the USSR on the opposite side. You can only play as the British.
Britain has an airbase at Khormaksar, Aden, hosting Javelin fighters, Hunter and Canberra attack planes, Shackleton ASW and some transport and utility aircraft. There is also a battery of early Thunderbird SAMs. Offshore in the Gulf of Aden are the carriers Eagle and Victorious, with Sea Vixen fighters, Buccaneer strike planes, Gannet AEW/ASW aircraft and Wessex choppers. They are lightly escorted by a destroyer and two frigates, the former having half-decent Sea Slug SAMs to supplement the less-impressive Model 1 Sea Cats. Near the entrance to the Red Sea, six minesweepers are tasked with clearing mines laid by the Egyptians, with the cruiser Lion and two escorts providing gunnery support. Three frigates form an ASW Group to the E of the carriers, but lack the choppers and modern weapons to do a decent job. Finally, there’s the diesel sub Auriga off Aden and three auxiliaries needing protection outside the port. Various land units are dispersed around Yemen, but play little part in the battle.
Egypt has large numbers of MiG-15s, 17s and 19s at her bases at Sana’a and Hudaydah, along with Badger, Beagle, Sukhoi Fitter and veteran Lancaster bombers. At sea, a convoy escorted by destroyers and patrol craft is bringing reinforcements and supplies to Nasser’s troops, while a swarm of torpedo craft and three dangerous Komar boats with Styx missiles guard the Red Sea narrows. Soviet support consists of Echo and November-class nuclear subs, the former having Shaddock cruise missiles which pose a deadly threat to 1960s warships with limited SAM protection. There are also some Egyptian Whiskey II subs with a tender in support, supposedly somewhere off Djibouti.
The British are charged with defending Khormaksar, neutralising the Egyptian airbases, destroying the convoy, sweeping the narrows of mines and destroying the sub tender. You are authorised to attack Soviet units on sight before they attack you.
Clearly, there are a lot of things that can go wrong for the British. Shaddocks, Styxes and even conventional airstrikes have the potential to ruin your day. Given the vulnerability of my ships, I kept all radars dark as much as I could, relying on the Gannet AEW planes to spot enemy ships and aircraft. I decided early on that attacking the airfields wasn’t a realistic proposition. The Javelins at Aden lack the endurance to escort strikes and it would be suicide to send subsonic bombers in against the numbers of MiGs deployed as CAP by the Egyptians. While the Sea Vixen carrier fighters have more range (and have limited tanker support from a quartet of Scimitars), they are lumbered with Red Top rear-aspect missiles, which are going to be difficult to use because the MiGs can out-turn them. While the Egyptian Atoll and Alkali missiles are also rear-aspect and useless below 5,000’, the endurance problems prevent you from taking full advantage of this. Worryingly, your own fighters’ missiles are no use against targets below 200’, like Shaddocks and Styxes.
Unless you want to waste ammo on false targets and biologics (there are lots of these), it is best to switch all ASW planes to Weapons Tight. I also made sure that all fighters had Doctrine set to Winchester Weapon State instead of Shotgun so that they didn’t RTB after one engagement – thanks to the guy who told me about this.
Initially, both sides put-out recon planes and I probed the African side of the Red Sea with a Gannet to look for the convoy. A number of contacts on the coast to the South proved to be Somali Fairmile patrol craft, which mind their own business if you leave them alone.
I had an early example of the deficiencies of the Sea Vixen when a pair failed to intercept a Beagle recon plane near the narrows, being unable to pinpoint her altitude properly with their radar.
A swarm of obsolete guns-only MiG-15s made a suicidal sweep towards Aden, possibly carrying bombs and rockets. All 16 were shot down without loss by Thunderbirds and point-defence Javelins. Neither they nor anything else score VPs in this scenario, which is not for anyone who wants to know clearly whether they’ve won or lost. In this way, it closely resembles the contemporary Operation Vantage.
I tried attacking some of the torpedo craft beyond the narrows with rocket-firing Hunters, but they proved hopelessly inaccurate. I also lost two Sea Vixens defending the attack planes from MiG-19s, whose superior manoeuvrability proved decisive. Canberras using 1,000lb bombs were more effective, sinking a torpedo boat and damaging a minesweeper.
At this point, I was told to evacuate civilians to al-Masirah in Oman, using Argosy and Beverley transports. Given the limited range of the MiGs, this was safe enough, especially routing planes out to sea, so everyone made it out safely.
Stung by the airstrikes, the dozen or so Egyptian torpedo boats made a rush for the narrows and the Lion escort group. It didn’t go well for them, with more being sunk by their own mines (!) than my Canberras. One made it far enough to be obliterated by Lion’s 6” guns.
An upsurge in enemy air activity began with three recon Beagles overflying the narrows and falling victim to patrolling Sea Vixens, which could out-turn them if nothing else. Six venerable Lancasters then tried to hit Aden, but were slaughtered by the Javelins and SAMs. Perhaps tipped-off by Lion switching her radars on to fight the torpedo boat, a posse of Beagles came-in from the NW. The cruiser went dark and the bombers, thrown into confusion, began milling in circles. Farcically, my Sea Vixens couldn’t find them and both sides abashedly withdrew. One Sea Vixen was lost to MiGs.
Patrolling Shackletons then found an Echo-class sub off to the E and began to hunt her, finding their foe an elusive quarry. She was eventually disposed-of after a long search, Shaddocks and all.
An Okean-class spy ship then appeared off Aden. Whether this was the reported sub tender or not, I don’t know. With excessive fumbling, some Canberras and the Auriga combined to (eventually) send her to the bottom.
While my attention was elsewhere, the Egyptians mounted an airstrike against Royalist troops in North Yemen and knocked-out some infantry and 105mm guns. Somehow, they lost eight Su-7 Fitters in the process, perhaps because the AI botched its Bingo Fuel calculations.
By now, the convoy had been located and I began to attack it, first with Hunters and then with Buccaneers from the carriers, both groups using Bullpup anti-surface missiles. These need to be watched onto the target and work much better with aircraft radars on. Mindful of the MiG threat and lack of escorts, I had considerable frustration managing with radars dark. For all this, the Egyptian ships were almost defenceless against air attack and the result was a massacre (especially when I switched on the radars at the end). Five destroyers, five supply ships, an LST and a subchaser were sunk for one Hunter which got too close to the MiGs on the way back. Mostly, the Egyptian fighters’ lack of decent radar made it fairly easy to avoid them, especially coming-in from the African side of the Red Sea. Further airstrikes with Bullpups cleared the Red Sea of all remaining Egyptian shipping, including the three Komar boats and some minesweepers.
While this was going on, a second Okean showed-up near the Somali coast. She was nothing if not lucky and it took eight individual sorties by Hunters and Buccaneers to sink her with bombs and rockets, eventually going-in at 2,000’ and risking the target’s defensive MANPADs. Either she was the sub tender or I never found her.
A wave of eight Badgers, with a recon Beagle, tried to hit Aden, but were wiped-out without loss.
Day One of the battle ended with two more recon Beagles downed over the narrows.
Overnight, the minesweepers began their operation to make the straits safe for shipping. Quite why the Egyptians had mined them is a good question, considering that their possession of the Suez Canal made the Red Sea impassable, anyway. I set-up a Minesweeping mission and turned the ships’ sonars on while keeping radars dark. Each ship has an MCM/Pod Eq box and it seemed advisable to click this and tick all mine countermeasures boxes Active on the resultant window. To my surprise, it actually worked!. A couple of mines had avoided the Egyptian torpedo boats and were duly located and swept.
After an entertaining first day, Day Two was mostly a tedious business, but there was a late highlight when a second Echo sub appeared off Aden and was sunk by two relieved Shackletons. Otherwise, there were lots of false Goblin contacts and the Egyptians somehow managed to lose 20 Crate transports, presumably by running out of fuel.
So, despite the ‘Average’ score of zero (!), it was a comprehensive British victory. Overall, it made a change to have to use old ‘60s technology after a series of games with modern high-end kit.
Next time, Northern Fury…..
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Aden 1965 - 
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