Northern Fury 2: X-Ray Station - a CMANO AAR

Started by Airborne Rifles, May 18, 2015, 10:15:02 AM

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Sir Slash

"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Airborne Rifles

Once again, thank for the kind words. This has been a lot of fun for me and I certainly plan to keep going indefinitely. The pace, as I'm sure you can tell, has slowed down significantly. The real US military for some reason wants a return on the investment they made by paying for me to go off and get a masters degree for the past two years, and my new job is taking up significantly more time than my graduate studies did (and the wife just popped hot with kid number four on the way!).

All that to say, I should be posting the conclusion to this AAR in the next couple days and starting the next one shortly after. I've already played about half way through the next Northern Fury scenario and it has been a blast!

mirth

Thanks for sticking with it, AR. They've been great reads and awesome promos for CMANO.
"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

Dimitris

Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations
http://www.warfaresims.com/Command

MetalDog

While I will never play this game, I will read anything you choose to write, AR.  Outstanding stuff and a great style!
And the One Song to Rule Them All is Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones


"If its a Balrog, I don't think you get an option to not consent......." - bob

Sir Slash

A fourth child on the way? Dammit man, you don't have time to write great AAR's. You gotta start boiling some water. Of course with 4, you probably keep water boiling all the time. Just in case. Anyway, a big CONGRATS on the impending newborn  O0 and thanks for squeezing in the time to keep us entertained here.
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

OJsDad

This proves my point, you need to start writing professionally to support those 4 kids and a wife.  The world needs a new Tom Clancy with Russia, China, NK, ISIS, there is too much good work to be going. 
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

Airborne Rifles

Commander Daniels and USS Baltimore had passed a quiet first night of the war since detecting the westward moving Soviet SAG in the hours after receiving their war warning. Baltimore had continued on their southeast course across the center of X-Ray station without encountering even a frigate or patrol corvette. That changed in the early hours of 14 February, the first full day of World War III.

"Conn, sonar, we've got a faint submerged contact off our port bow. I can barely make it out, but I'd say it's at least ten miles away."

Daniels spoke quietly. "Helm, slow to just enough so that we have steerageway. Let's assess who this is."


Aboard the Soviet Sierra I-class submarine Kostrama, Captain Dovgan was receiving a similar report from his sonar room. "Tovarich Captain, I detected a very faint contact just now to our port bow. It was there for just a minute, and then it disappeared."

"Can you be sure? What is the range?"

"I could not get a range my captain, it was too faint, and then it vanished."

Dovgan thought for a moment, then decided, "we will continue our current course. I doubt he would have heard us if we only heard him so faintly." Dovgas was less sure of this last statement than he tried to sound. "We are very quiet. I we maintain our current slow and quiet speed we will be able to use our towed array as we slip past him to detect him...if there is anything there."

"Yes captain," the sonar officer responded.

Kostrama continued on a northwesterly course at five knots, her captain growing increasingly uneasy.


Back aboard USS Baltimore the situation began to become more clear over the next hour.

"Conn, sonar."

"Sonar, aye," responded Commander Daniels.

"Sir, we've got a firm track on this guy. He's cruising at five knots on a reciprocal heading to us, just above the layer. He's a quiet SOB. I can't get a firm fix on type or even nationality right now. He's going to pass us to port at a range of about 6 miles."

"Trafalgar is supposed to be north of us," Daniels responded, "but she should be in her own PZ. Any sub in our sector should be hostile. Still, I'd like to get a better fix on him before we take the shot, just to be sure. We'll wait until he passes us, then turn and get into has baffles to close the distance."

And that is precisely how it happened. Over the next two hours USS Baltimore slipped around behind the unidentified submarine and picked up speed to 8 kts until she was following at a range of under two thousand yards.

"Conn, sonar, I still can't give you a solid fix on who this guy is. He sounds Russian to me, and if I had to guess I would say he's one of their newer boats, maybe an Akula. He's just too quiet for me to be sure sir."

"Very well, we'll continue to follow. :et me know if he makes any course changes."

"Aye sir."


Aboard Kostrama, Captain Dovgan couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. He submarine had continued silently, trailing his new towed array, but his operators hadn't heard a thing since their initial contact nearly three hours previous. His orders were to break out into the north Atlantic to support the fleet's operations there, not to hunt submarines here in his country's home waters. In light of that, he planned to continue on as steadily and silently as he could so as to avoid any engagement that could compromise his primary mission. He had confidence in the ability of his Project 945 Barracuda class boat. Still, he couldn't shake his uneasiness. The sonar room was beginning to think that they hadn't heard anything at all, but Dovgan didn't agree. The Americans were out there...


By now Baltimore had been following Kostrama for over six hours. Commander Daniels was satisfied enough by the target's course and speed that he was not in fact following any NATO boat. He didn't have a classification, but anybody behaving this way in this part of the world had to be Russian. Daniels made his decision.

"Weps, I want to Mk48s on this guy, with two more ready to go if need be."

"Aye sir," the weapons officer responded, the turned and gave the proper orders to his torpedomen.

"Tubes two and four ready sir," he reported a few seconds later.

"Very well, match generated bearings and shoot!"


It took Kostrama's sonar operators several seconds to detect the torpedoes closing from directly astern. By then it was almost too late. Almost.

"Go to full power!" ordered Captain Dovgan. "Eject two decoys, one on either side, on my mark." He waited as his sonar room called back the relentlessly decreasing range to the torpedoes even as his own submarine worked up to its full speed of 35 kts. "Now!" he ordered as the pings of the Mk48s began to become audible through the hull.

Two noisemakers ejected from Kostrama, spinning and crating clouds of bubbles to confuse the Mk48s. Dovgan had gambled by maintaining a straight course, but he had a theory about the effectiveness of his countermeasures. He thought they might prove to be more effective if he presented as small a target to the enemy seekers as possible. His gamble paid off. Both Mk48s plowed through the noisemakers bubble clouds and passed by the Russian submarine, one to either side. Suddenly, their seekers had no more targets and they continued on into the empty ocean.


Onboard Baltimore, Commander Daniels had been first gratified as his sonar room identified the surging submarine as a Sierra-I class boat, then frustrated as his weapons closed without the expected explosions at the end of their run.

"Conn, sonar, our torps missed. They are now more distant than the target. He must have managed to lure them away somehow, sir."

Daniels clenched his fist. "Fire tubes one and three, he ordered."


Dovgan was just about to order his boat to slow and turn to fire a torpedo back down the bearing from which the enemy weapons had come when his sonar room reported two more torpedoes inbound. His successful evasion gave him hope. If he could repeat this performance then he would have gained enough range on his tormentor that they might be unable to take another shot without increasing their own speed and thus making them audible to him. If they did that, he could fight back. If they didn't, well, he could continue at flank speed away from the enemy hunter. His boat was faster than anything the Americans, except those new Seawolfs...

"Maintain course and speed," he ordered, but take us below the thermocline layer. We will evade these just as we evaded the last too."

Kostrama repeated her previous maneuver, with the same results. Both enemy torpedoes passed her to port this time. Dovgan was gaining confidence.


Commander Daniels was flabbergasted. How had this SOB managed to evade four Mk48s?! These were supposed to be the most sophisticated torpedoes in the world! Now the enemy submarine, evading at flank speed, was nearly beyond the effective range of his weapons. He had one more shot and then his chance was gone.

"Weps, this time maneuver the fish so they come in at an angle," Daniels ordered.

"Aye sir."

"Fire tubes two and four."


Captain Dovgan was really beginning to believe he would survive this engagement despite the fact that he now had a third attack inbound to his baffles. His boat was making 35 kts in the deep, and he had easily evaded four of the best weapons the Americans had. He felt confident he would do the same to these last ones and then he was sure he would be out of danger. The he would go shallow and radio for the Maritime Aviation units who were supposed to be sanitizing the sea around him to come and hunt down his tormentor.

Everything unfolded as before until, "Captain, the torpedoes are diverging behind us! They are going to bring them in at an angle this time."

Dovgan's blood froze. How had he not anticipated this? He hadn't calculated how his tactic would work from an oblique angle, and the geometry of the enemy attack meant that at least one weapon would attack him from the side if he turned to put the other directly behind him. In the end, he decided his best chance was to continue straight.

It was the wrong decision. Both Mk48s bored in, this time ignoring the siren calls of the noisemakers. The explosions crumpled Kostrama's hull like a tin can, sending her to the bottom and cutting short the lives of Captain Dovgan and his sixty crew.


Commander Daniels was gratified to finally hear the death of what should have been an easy prey under the circumstances. He had been forced to expend a large proportion of his weapons, and he coulnd't be sure that he wouldn't need those torps in the coming days. But it was a victory. He turned his thoughts towards the east as Baltimore came about and cleared datum.

Airborne Rifles

Histories of the Battle of X-Ray Station would generally record the first day of WWIII as a smashing victory for the NATO forces in the Barents Sea. The Red Banner Northern Fleet had lost its flagship, the carrier Kuznetsov, as well as one of its powerful battlecruisers, two destroyers, two amphibious transports, and two attack submarines, in addition to the helicopter carrier Baku being put out of action for the duration of the conflict, and the carrier Varyag receiving minor damage. However, the Soviets still possessed a powerful force heading into the north Atlantic to prosecute the war with a creative strategy that would present the allies with daunting challenges.

On the other side of the ledger, the allies had lost the Los Angeles-class submarine USS New York City while attacking the Varyag battle group. Worse was to come. In the late morning hours of 14 February Soviet naval aviation was able to detect, localize, prosecute, and sink the most successful American submarine to date, the USS Boise, killer of the Kuznetsov. The loss was tempered because much of the Boise's crew, including her captain, Commander Morgan, survived the ordeal. After receiving a mortal hit from an air-dropped Soviet torpedo, the stricken submarine performed an emergency blow, surfacing the boat and allowing the surviving crew to abandon ship. They were subsequently rescued by Soviet patrol frigates and spent the remainder of the war as POWs.

The remainder of the Red Banner Northern Fleet, wounded but still powerful, re-consolidated and reorganized, and proceeded into the north Atlantic via the Norwegian Sea...

mirth

Does this mean we're on to Northern Fury 3?
"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

Airborne Rifles

Quote from: mirth on July 17, 2015, 10:24:16 AM
Does this mean we're on to Northern Fury 3?

Yes...well actually Northern Fury 4. Gunner98, the scenario designer, is still building NF3. NF4 is a smaller scenario. I've played about half way through it so far and it has been a lot of fun. It plays a connecting role in the storyline from the big battles on north Norway and the Barents sea to later big battles farther south.

mirth

Excellent. Looking forward to your next AAR!
"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