Northern Fury - H-Hour: A CMANO AAR

Started by Airborne Rifles, April 09, 2015, 11:05:38 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

OJsDad

BTW, how does it work for rearming your F-15 and Dutch F-16.  You don't have a supply of AMRAAMS.  So, once those units fire what they brought loaded with them, then they also will be out, or is it assumed that supply aircraft are bringing them more.
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

Airborne Rifles

Quote from: OJsDad on April 30, 2015, 06:55:02 AM
BTW, how does it work for rearming your F-15 and Dutch F-16.  You don't have a supply of AMRAAMS.  So, once those units fire what they brought loaded with them, then they also will be out, or is it assumed that supply aircraft are bringing them more.

You're exactly right. My US and Dutch aircraft all get only one mission during this 24 hour scenario, so I have to use them wisely.

Airborne Rifles

Throughout the course of the last ten hours of combat, the technicians on the AWACS have noted regular flights of Russian fighter bombers leaving the Kola peninsula, heading northwest along the Norwegian coast, and then northward over the arctic until they disappear off our radar screens. Later, they have been tracked returning along the same course, all at regular intervals. The air controllers hatch a plan to exploit this predictability to our advantage. Two F-15s will move north at low altitude to straddle the path of one of the returning Russian flights. They will then ambush this flight at close range in the dark and then assume the course, speed, and altitude of the dead Russians. This course takes them within striking distance of the Russian Mainstay whose loiter pattern takes it well out over the ocean. With the long reach of the F-15s AMRAAMs the pilots should be able to reach out and touch the Russian AWACS without having to expose themselves to Russian SAMs.

The initial ambush goes well. The flight of two F-15s head north at low altitude through one of the fjords and are talked onto the tails of two Su-25s returning to the Kola on a southeasterly course. The rise and close slowly and then put four Sidewinders up the Grachs' tailpipes before either enemy pilot knows he's under attack, No doubt the long night time flight over water had made them tired and complacent. The Eagles assume their new identity, settling into a southeasterly course at 23k feet and 350 kts.

While this is going on another smaller Russian raid materializes over Finnmark. Four Su-25s head west from their Kola bases at low altitude. Two Dutch F-16s are vectored to intercept, and the Russians, lacking fighter support, turn back. Even so, the Dutch pilots manage to close and down three of the four intruders before the sole survivor runs under the cover of the Russian SAM blanket.

Meanwhile my two F-15s approach the Russian Mainstay. As it turns out, this ambush is going to be spectacularly successful. The two Eagles are arriving in the Mainstay's patrol area just as a second Russian AWACS is coming on station, no doubt to relieve the first. Probably fatigue on the part of the first Russian crew combined with a lack of situational by the new one has allowed my ruse to succeed. As a bonus, a Russian Su-24 maritime reconnaissance variant is passing close by the two larger aircraft as my two fighters turn out of their course, activate their radars, and launch a spread of AMRAAMs at the three lumbering Russian aircraft. The Soviet pilots never have a chance, and just like that the enemy's most potent radar platform is gone.  No Russian fighters rise to challenge my two raiders, who move north to ensure that they don't fall prey to any SAMS.

It's now midnight, with the Russians' newfound feebleness in the air I set up a CAP north of the Kola of F-15s and one over of F-16s over Finnmark. The northern CAP manages to down a flight of four Hind gunships heading west over the water from their base in the Kola. Other than another flight of gunships further south that are supporting the Russian ground troops at Kirkenes, and some maritime reconnaissance aircraft far to the north over the Arctic ocean, the Russians have no aircraft up.

Thirty minutes after midnight my solitary Hauk missile boat (which at this point is equipped only with torpedoes) arrives off of Mehamn and acquires the Russian surviving Zubr hovercraft using thermal sensors. The captain motors into the bay slowly and looses his two homing torpedoes as the large stationary craft. The fish run true and blow the transport out of the water.

Further west along the coast a P-3C Orion has been laying a pattern of sonobuoys along the course of my two frigates heading north to take up station at the Cape. One of the buoys gets a hit off of a submerged contact just northeast of the Cape. The Orion closes in and localizes the contact, eventually identifying it at a diesel submarine. After checking to make sure that this is not the Utstein, the Orion crew makes a pass to drop active buoys to pinpoint the sub, and then makes a second pass to drop two Stingray torpedoes, both of which quickly acquire the target and close in for the kill. Two underwater explosions later and a Soviet Foxtrot-class sub is settling on the seabed floor.

Other action that takes place over the next our includes a flight of F-15Cs intercepting and annihilating a flight of four Mig-29s, the downing of the remaining Russian AWACS, and the annihilation of their maritime recon aircraft. The first twelve hours of the war in the north have been incredibly bloody in the air, but the arrival of the US and Dutch reinforcements seem to have tipped the scales decisively in my favor. Since the F-15s started running CAP I haven't lost a single aircraft. The Russians are still advancing on land, but with air superiority I think my battalion at Banak will be able to hold the Russians from moving any further east.

(At this point this scenario seems to have played out for me. The Russians are putting almost nothing into the air and I can basically cruise at the edge of SAM range without interference. I'm playing on at time compression to see if there are any more special messages about the course of the broader war, and I suspect for the story line of the following scenarios I'm not actually supposed to have been quite this successful. Overall I seem to have won a pretty decisive victory, though I think for the context of later scenarios I was supposed to suffer heavier losses and be harder pressed, with the Russians maintaining air superiority over northern Norway and pressing my bases further south. I'll post any updates if there are any. If not, stay tuned for Northern Fury 2: X-Ray Station!)

undercovergeek

#48
brilliant - very clancy to go after the bombers

i can blame you for resparking my interest in this game and i thank you for that.


Airborne Rifles


Freyland


mirth

It's been great read AR. Clearly you've 'won', but it was a nailbiter throughout!
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

OJsDad

Great reading Northern Fury.  Really makes me wish for someone to write a good, multi book on a modern WWIII.

Now, onto X-Ray Station!
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

jomni