Northern Fury 6: Keflavik Capers - a CMANO AAR

[Airborne Rifles]

As the supersonic Kh-22P missiles ignited under the wings of the approaching Tu-16 and Tu-22 bombers, Keflavik began to prepare for another round of the treatment the airfield had received yesterday. However, the radar operators in the picket line around Iceland quickly realized that the targets of these missiles were not the airfield facilities, but rather the radar picket line itself. 

The big Soviet radiation-seeking missiles streaked in from the north and west. The first radar destroyed was the one covering the northwest peninsula. Its crew had been too slow to shut their radar down, and the technicians paid for their mistake with the destruction of their powerful sensor. The crew of the radar on Iceland's northeast was able to switch off their systems in time to confuse the Soviet weapons, enough so that the Kh-22 fired at this site crashed into a snowy hillside more than a mile beyond. Warned by the other attacks, the radar crew on the southeast coast of the island shut down their sensor as well, foiling the Soviet attack on that site.

The Soviets had suppressed the radar net, however. Two more formations of Tu-22s, coming in behind the first two northern groups, now loosed stand-off missiles of their own, this time aimed at Keflavik. The big weapons lofted into a supersonic ballistic arc, headed south.
The technicians on the E-3 flying racetrack patterns to the southwest of Keflavik tracked the inbound wave of missiles as they neared their targets. As the Russian weapons closed within seventy kilometers PAC-1 missiles once again streaked out of the SAM battery's boxy launchers and arced northward. 

On the tarmac, airmen were scrambling to get the military families still waiting to board a MAC flight into shelter before the missiles struck. The Patriots almost prevented this from ever happening. The air defense missiles did well, knocking down most of the incoming threats, but the earlier engagement with the Soviet fighters had expended a large proportion of the battery's ready missiles, and as the last PAC-1 container emptied it became clear that there would be leakers. The shorter-ranged HAWK battery was poorly positioned to intercept any more.

Three missiles made it through the defenses. Two plowed into the end of the runways and exploded, throwing snow, ice, dirt and concrete out of two deep craters. That runway would be closed until those craters could be repaired. The third missile plowed into a empty hardened aircraft shelter, shredding the remaining equipment inside the structure but otherwise doing no damage. The all clear began to sound around the base, then abruptly ceased as another wave of missiles, launched by the second group of Soviet bombers, was detected by the E-3's radar.

The control tower at Keflavik had been working to get every possible aircraft off the ground at the start of the Soviet missile attack. This resulted now in several F-15s orbiting over the base as tankers and MAC flights rumbled down the one operational runway, took off, and banked to head southwest. The Patriot battery had expended all of its ready missiles and would be out of the fight until these could be replaced. As such, the controllers on the AWACS ordered the Eagle pilots over Keflavik to use their missiles to engage the incoming Russian weapons. A pair of F-15 pilots had attempted to intercept the missiles of the first wave mid-flight, but the Russian weapons had been too high and too fast for an effective Sparrow engagement. All hoped that intercepting the missiles at their destination would prove more fruitful. 

The Russian missiles nosed down over Reykjavik and began their terminal dive towards the NATO base. The American fighter jocks, circling at low altitude south of the airfield, turned north and formed into a picket line to engage the incoming threats. As the Russian missiles dove down through 40,000 feet the Americans began to launch AIM-7s and then AIM-9 Sidewinders as the vampires drew closer. The Sparrows proved more effective against the straight flying missiles than they had against the maneuvering Soviet fighters, but even so the engagement window was very small and two of the incoming Kh-22s got through. This had apparently been intended to hit at the Keflavik munitions reserves, as both missiles plowed into ammunition revetments and exploded. In each case, the Russian weapon penetrated the frozen earth around the ammunition facility, but failed to penetrate the concrete inner shell. Base firefighting teams rushed to both impact areas and extinguished the fires before they could cause further damage. The cratered runway, however, would take more time to repair. Above, the American fighters turned north to intercept Russian bombers, which were following the missiles in over northern Iceland.

[Airborne Rifles]

The US fighters flew north and northeast, low on missiles after their defense of Keflavik. Two groups of Soviet bombers were approaching from these vectors. One was set upon by a pair of Eagles whose pilots performed a high speed head-on approach, launching Sidewinders and then 20mm cannon rounds into the oncoming Tu-22Ms, sending four of the supersonic jets trailing flame and smoke into the snowscape below. The pilots of the northeast group of approaching bombers, realizing their fighter screen had been destroyed, turned back and accelerated out of range before the Americans could close with them.

As the air battle lulled, more troubling developments signs began to arrive at the Keflavik base HQ. With the ongoing attacks and damage to one of the runways, the evacuation of military families and non-essential base personnel would only be mostly complete by nightfall, though MAC flight were again rumbling down the one operational runway, passing frantic efforts to repair the craters in the other. In Reykjavik, the Icelandic government reported that they would still have 35,000 civilians to evacuate by the next day, despite a constant stream of charter flights leaving the city's airport.

As if the situation wasn't complicated enough, with MAC and charter flights leaving the island, small aircraft and helicopters bringing evacuees to  the capital from the rest of the island, international flights still passing overhead, and intense air combat in the skies throughout, now another message arrived at Keflavik HQ. Danish Air Transport (DAT) flight 745 out of Copenhagen, which had been diverted from its original destination in the Faroes due to a threat there, was reporting an emergency and requesting permission to land at the Hornafjordur airport on the south coast, near one of the NATO surveillance radars. The Icelandic Coast Guard granted permission, and the plane approached. Most of the F-15 pilots had been directed to return to base ro rearm, but one of the two remaining airborne teams was vectored to escort the civilian aircraft in. 

Minutes later, another troubling call came in from Bakkafjordur on the east coast of the Island. Before being cut off, the caller had reported a surfaced submarine in the harbor and several boats with armed men in them making for the shore. At the same time, the Icelandic Coast Guard called saying that they had received a cell phone call from aboard DAT 745 reporting that the aircraft had been hijacked and that the flight crew were dead. In the confusion, the air controllers were forced to decide if the aircraft, full of civilians as well as enemy combatants, apparently, should be shot down by the escorting Eagles. In the end, the commander at Keflavik elected to leave the aircraft alone until the situation became more clear.

Then an official phoned again from Bakkasfjordur, reporting that armed troops were taking control of the town, its port facilities, its airport, and also that a group of the invaders had departed the village in captured vehicles at high speed. Clearly the Soviets were making a play to capture the Island's outstations. Their game became clear in the coming minutes.

[Airborne Rifles]

Over the next hour, the list of locations under attack by small groups of Spetznaz and Naval infantry grew ever longer as the Soviets seized one small airstrip after another along the north and west coasts of Iceland. DAT 745 landed and immediately disgorged five men armed with AK-47s and explosives who took control of the tower at Hornafjordur. In Reykjavik the telephone exchange and broadcasting station came under attack by teams of Soviet special forces. The base commander at Keflavik dispatched a platoon of Marines to assist the Icelanders the fight taking place in the streets of their capital. The suspicious fishing trawler that that had reversed course in the Eyafjordur entered the harbor at Akureyri and people uniformed Soviet naval infantry began unloading boats. 

The ICG Tyr was still too distant to interfere, more than halfway up the fjord, but its embarked helicopter came close for a look at the ongoings. As the aircraft completed its second circle of the site, reporting on naval infantry climbing down into the boats, a team of two soldiers dashed out of the trawler's superstructure carrying a long tube. One soldier knelt, oriented his weapon upwards, and launched an SA-7 SAM at the coast guard bird. The Icelandic crew never had a chance. The shoulder-launched missile exploded feet from the craft, spewing hot shrapnel that shredded the small helicopter, which dropped burning into the dark icy water below.  Nearby, the Soviet assault force sped towards the Akureyri port facility in their high speed RHIBs.

Closer to Keflavik, the Rockville radar station at the point of the Keflavik peninsula came under mortar fire. Another of the airbase's defense platoons was dispatched to sweep the area west of the airfield. They blundered into a Spetznaz unit shifting their mortars from one target to another and a fierce firefight ensued. The American security force was able to pin down the Russians, but the rest of the airfield's defensive force had to converge on the threat before the last Soviet commando was killed.

In quick succession, the towns of Hofn, Vopnafjordur, Husavik (with a 1600m runway), and Sauderkrokur all reported approaching small teams of armed men before going off the air. And more ominous signs were developing in the skies northeast of Iceland. Two more bomber formations were approaching, as well as several pairs of slow moving contacts from out of Jan Mayen that could only be transports. The ground crews at Keflavik had managed to rearm several F-15s, and the pilots of these jets now taxied back on to the one available runway, punched their afterburners and rocketed upwards t once again defend the Icelandic sky. 

The ICG Tyr finally arrived at Akureyri harbor. Enraged by the loss of his helicopter and its crew, the captain of the cutter ordered his machineguns and 76mm cannon to engage the trawler and the RHIBs. Shot peppered the fishing boat, shredding the superstructure, and machinegun fire destroyed two of the four RHIBs. But the Tyr was not a warship, and ammunition began to run low rather quickly. That fact, and some ineffective RPG return fire from the Russians ashore, convinced the captain to withdraw back up the fjord.   

Anticipating another missile attack, the air controllers on the AWACS opted to keep the airborne F-15s orbiting at low altitude directly over Keflavik. The Patriot battery only had six missiles remaining. These were now all loaded onto the launchers, but wouldn't be enough to defeat another wave of the supersonic Kh-22s, and the HAWK battery had yet to successfully intercept a single missile. The Americans lacked the numbers to both protect the base adequately and venture out to intercept the approaching pairs of light transports from Jan Mayen. Indeed, the crew aboard the E-3 watched their scopes helplessly as a Yak-141 flew over northeast Iceland and destroyed the radar site that had managed to evade the longer ranged ARMs launched by the first wave of bombers.

As the situation was developing, a Flash message came in from US 2nd Fleet HQ. The Admiral had been monitoring the ongoing battle on Iceland and elsewhere. Prompted by the attrition among the F-15s as well as the Soviet occupation of many of the communities on the north and west sides of the Island, the message ordered the commander of Keflavik to immediately begin evacuating the base and destroying its stores and infrastructure. A major Soviet airborne assault on the island was expected within the next several hours, and the Admiral did not believe NATO had the strength to hold. 

As such, TG 84.1 would pull off its ASW patrol in the Denmark straight and proceed to the Keflavik peninsula to provide air defense for the evacuation. The LPD USS Trenton, transiting south of Iceland, would change course and steam north to take on the base's helicopters. Darkly, the Icelandic government would not be informed of the evacuation until it was nearly complete. The base commander finished reading the order as klaxons sounded once again. The incoming Soviet bombers had released another wave to Kh-22s...

[Airborne Rifles]

The Russian missiles came on as before, lofting into supersonic arcs that nosed over to dive onto the remaining operational runway at Keflavik. If this strip were sufficiently cratered it would trap a large number of aircraft, tankers, a priceless E-3, the remaining MAC C-5s and C-141s, several Air Force and Coast Guard C-130s, a pair of P-3s, and the remaining F-15s on the runway. The crews of all of these were frantically preparing their aircraft for the evacuation, but it would all be for naught if the Russian missiles got through.

As the Soviet weapons closed, the remaining six PAC-1s rocketed from their launchers, destroying half of the inbounds. Now it was the Eagle jocks' turn. They banked their fighters north, lit off their radars, and launched AIM-7s and AIM-120s from the MSIP birds that had finally gotten off the ground at the incoming missiles. All the Kh-22s were downed but one by the radar-homing missiles. This last one dove at the Keflavik runway. Just as it was tipping over into its terminal maneuver, an AIM-9 from one of the F-15s exploded above it, dropping bring wreckage of both missiles onto the base perimeter fence. The missile attack had been defeated, but once again the airborne American fighters were low on missiles. 

The AWACS controllers vectored the four best-armed F-15 pilots to intercept the small transports that were approaching the airports at Akureyri and Hofnafjordur. Other transports were already landing at some of the more distant towns that had been seized, but these were beyond the capabilities of the American pilots to intercept at this point.

Over Akureyri, four Mig-23s out of Jan Mayen attempted to interfere with the American intercept. Two fell to the American's remaining Sparrow missiles while the other two engaged in a brief dogfight with one of the Eagle pilots before withdrawing. The other American swooped down on the hapless An-24 light transports. Sidewinder missiles connected with both aircraft, in each case exploding against one of the engines and causing the thin wing to fold. Both An-24s, along with their crews and a platoon of elite Soviet paratroopers, plunged into the snowfields south of Akureyri and exploded.

At Hofnafjordur, the intercept was less successful. A raid of Tu-22Ms was inbound on the same vector as the transports, and the NATO fighter pilots had to choose between engaging these and going after the transports. They chose to protect Keflavik, as holding Iceland was a lost cause now, the mission being to get as much out as possible. The Eagles tore into the bombers head on, downing several in a single pass. The others turned and fled, leaving the Eagle drivers free to attack the transports inbound to Hornafjordur. But it was not to be. The distraction of the bomber raid had been just enough to allow the Soviet transport pilots to advance their throttles and make a fast descent into the small airfield. Both turboprops made safe landings, harder than their occupants would have liked, and taxied to the tower. 

Before the planes even stopped the doors opened and Russian desantniki began dropping onto the tarmac below. They linked up with the KGB officers from the DAT flight who provided them with seized vehicles, and a squad immediately took off for the nearby surveillance radar, which even now was being destroyed by its NATO crew.

Other Soviet Desant platoons put down all over the northwest arc of Iceland on captured airstrips with less drama than these two locations. The Americans were simple spread to thin defending and evacuating Keflavik to interfere. The Admiral's judgment on NATO's ability to hold the island was looking ever more accurate as time went on. The numbers of invaders were relatively small, but there was nothing to oppose them. In Reykjavik, the attackers at the telephone exchange and TV station had withdrawn when the USMC platoon arrived, but the American platoon leader could not exploit his success, being ordered without explanation to return to base. The Icelanders watched them Americans leave in growing confusion and concern. 

South and west of Iceland, the P-3s from Keflavic began dropping sonobuoys to sanitize a path for TG 84.1 and the USS Trenton, escorted by the cruiser USS Vella Gulf to approach the southwest peninsula. Two Soviet subs, an Alfa and a Sierra, were detected transiting the Denmark straight in TF 84.1's wake, but the Orion crews didn't have enough fuel to both protect the NATO ships and prosecute the contacts and still make the long flight to Bangor, Maine. These Russians would make it into the Atlantic. Keflavik commander, who was keeping his Gulfstream as the last to depart the base, hoped to inflict at least some damage on the anticipated Russian paratroop drop. He ordered all of his fighters back to base to rearm in the hope of having a sizable force to put into the air when the time came.

[Airborne Rifles]

The Soviet planners had not intended to give the Americans time to concentrate their fighters against the massed transports carrying a regiment of the 76th Guards Airborne Division to Iceland. Shortly after the last Eagle pilot landed his fighter on Keflavik's open runway troubling signs began to appear on the screens watched by the technicians in the AWACS. Electronic jamming began to fill their scopes covering the eastern edge of Iceland. The monitors deciphered the unique signatures of at least two of the potent An-12 EW aircraft that had been causing NATO fliers in Norway so much trouble. Through the jamming haze they could also make out the signatures of powerful radars mounted on multiple Mig-31 interceptors. NATO pilots had learned to respect these aircraft and their long-ranged R-40 (AA-6) missiles.

While the situation to the east of Iceland was developing, the base personnel at Keflavik did their best to get every person possible off the island. The remaining military family members were crammed aboard the last few MAC transports without regard to comfort or even safety. Once these aircraft were gone, the remainder of the base's personnel began to board the KC-135s, the remaining E-3, a P-3, and SAR C-130s that departed the base as quickly as they could be readied. Three C-130s were reserved for the base defense personnel who, having eliminated the Spetznaz threat to the west, were now busy destroying as much equipment as possible to prevent its capture by the Russians, and the ground crews who were preparing the surviving F-15s for one more mission from Keflavik before they made the long flight to Goose Bay, Canada. Tankers from the US would meet them over Greenland to refuel en route. 

Even before any Soviet transports began to appear on the scopes of the NATO radar operators, events conspired to weaken the blow they would be able to land against paradrop. Two Soviet reconnaissance Tu-16 bombers were working their way around Iceland, one to the northwest and another to the southeast. The northeast Russian was coming dangerously close to detecting the Trenton/Vella Gulf group to the south. The loss of these ships would mean that the helicopters still at Keflavik would have to be burned rather than rescued. To counter the threat, two ready F-15s at the base rolled down the runway and rotated up before banking and settling into a southerly intercept course.

The Russian snooper was descending, apparently to visually identify the two NATO ships in the gathering darkness, when the lead American pilot switched on his radar and launched a single long-ranged Sparrow missile at the twin-engined bomber. The Russians knew they were under attack based on the warbling of their radar warning receiver, but the pilot was unable to locate the incoming missile. The weapon exploded into the Badger at the midpoint of the fuselage. The aircraft continued for a few seconds, the violently folded in half, the pieces falling towards the clouds and dark ocean below. 

The Americans now turned their attention towards the second snooper flying south of Iceland. The crew of this one, warned by a distress call from the pilot of the doomed Tu-16, turned back. The Americans, approaching the point where they would not have enough fuel to rendezvous with the tankers, were ordered by their controllers to turn away as well to start the long flight to North America. The Russians had lost a valuable reconnaissance platform and been denied information about NATO ships near Iceland, but the force available to confront the Soviet airborne drop was now reduced by two airframes. 

As the skeleton ground crews at Keflavic labored in their hardened shelters to ready the remaining F-15s for one more mission, a large screen of lumbering transports began to appear on the eastern edge of the circling E-3's radar coverage despite the An-12s distant jamming. A full squadron of Mig-31s was also off the coast, interposed between the transports and the American force at Keflavik. The air commander ordered all of his ready jets, six F-15s, to take off and prepare to intercept the Soviets. How they would get past a squadron of eighteen potent Mig-31s to do it, though, was a problem none of them were sure they could overcome.

[mirth]

Freakin awesome!!!

[Airborne Rifles]

The six American pilots formed up over Keflavik. The airbase was now protected within the edge of the engagement envelope for the SM-2 missiles carried by USS John Rogers, the Spruance-class flagship of TG 84.1. At the base, the US Army Patriot and USMC HAWK crews had already destroyed their equipment to the best of their ability and made their way to the airfield, hoping for a flight off of the doomed island. Four helicopters at the base lifted off, heading for the approaching USS Trenton to the south carrying as many people as each bird could lift. High above, the last F-15 pilot leveled his aircraft off at thirty-six thousand feet and the entire force turned east and accelerated.         

The American's plan for interfering in the air drop was both simple and desperate. Four of the Eagles would cross central Iceland, making directly for the masses of Soviet aircraft to the east. The two remaining pilots would drop down to low altitude, turn south, and try to use the rugged Icelandic coast to get in behind the Russian interceptor screen. Four Eagles would have to face the weight of eighteen Mig-31s, and even if they succeeded the two raiders to the south would only be able to disrupt and put a dent into the Soviet drop, rather than stop it outright. But they had to try. 

As the American approached, the Russian Mig pilots formed their aircraft into a rough line abreast and pushed their throttles to the max. The Mig-31 was not a maneuverable aircraft, but what lacked in agility it made up for in speed. The big Russian fighters leapt forward, accelerating to nearly mach 2 as they closed with the oncoming Americans, their powerful radars tracking on the four lonely blips.

The opposing airmen closed with each other rapidly. At extreme range, the four American each selected a target from the multitude on their own scopes and launched two AIM-7s at each. Night had fallen, and shortly after their own missiles had streaked away the American fighter jocks could make out the winking of the wave of return fire leaping off the rails of the line of Russian jets in the darkness ahead. More than a dozen big R-40 missiles arced towards the American jets. The Eagle pilots, RWR warbles screaming in their helmets, gritted their teeth and kept their radars pointed at their targets, willing the outbound missiles to hurry so they could finally evade.

The American missiles exploded into the Russian formation with disappointing results. The extreme range, high speed of the targets, and jamming support provided by the An-12s combined to keep Russian losses to two Mig-31s. Fortunately for the Americans, each of the pilots killed had been directing a pair of the incoming missiles. These now lost lock and flew on harmlessly. The four American pilots now threw their jets into violent evasive maneuvers, trying to outmaneuver the big Russian weapons locked on to them. One didn't make it. An AA-6 exploded into the belly of a banking F-15, destroying both engines and causing the fighter to rapidly break up.

The surviving three Americans turned west and flipped on their afterburners, trying to escape from the oncoming wall of Migs. Now the Russian speed advantage told, as the Soviet pilots were able to close with the retreating Americans and launch a second volley of missiles. The engagement profile wasn't ideal, but one more Eagle was destroyed before the Russians turned back over central Iceland. Their run on afterburner had depleted their fuel, and several jets would have to take on gas from the tankers circling off the coast.                     

[Sir Slash]

Danm. This is good.

[Airborne Rifles]

And the conclusion. Thanks for reading!


The front of the stream of Soviet Il-76 transports carrying a regiment of the elite 76th Guards Airborne Division was now making landfall over the east coast of Iceland. The formation was composed of more than two dozen of the big, four-engine jets, and they were heavily laden with paratroopers, BMD assault vehicles, mortars, artillery, and pallets of supplies. The drop zone the Soviet planners had selected was a broad, treeless plain in the eastern interior of the island. The location had the advantage of being astride the Icelandic Highway 1, the road that circled the perimeter of the island and at this point provided quick and easy access northwestwards to Akureyri and southwards to Hofn and Hornafjordur. Best of all, it was completely undefended, as was most of the rest of the island at this point.

The pilots of the wide bodied transports banked right and began to descend to low altitude for their final approach. A Spetznaz pathfinder team from the Bakkasfjord landing had set up beacons to guide them into the DZ. This was the point when the transports were at their most vulnerable. Flying low and slow, their paratroop doors open, cargo ramps down, paratroopers standing in long lines to jump, the big jets could not maneuver or evade at this point.                                                                                                       

The other two American pilots had been working their way east along the south coast of Iceland at low altitude. When the Soviets had started their sweep over central Iceland, these two turned north, trying to turn the flank of the Russian formation and get in among the exposed transports. Almost immediately their ambush began to unravel. Six of the Soviet Mig-31 pilots had held back from engaging the Americans to the east. They now detected to two ascending Americans to the south and turned towards the threat, pushing their throttles forward to afterburner.

The Americans had no choice but to try to deal with this threat. AIM-7s leapt off the rails of the two fighters, streaking north towards the oncoming Russians. But now the American plan truly unravelled. Several of the Migs that had turned back the F-15s over central Iceland now vectored towards the new incursion, approaching the isolated Americans from the northwest and firing their own R-40s at extreme range. 

The two Americans had no choice but to dive for the deck, bank, and evade the multiple incoming threats, leaving their Sparrows to fly off into nowhere in the process. The maneuver failed for one of them. A Russian missile exploded into his aircraft's tail just as he was leveling off several hundred feet above the water, knocking the twin-engined fighter and its pilot into the dark ocean below. His wingman escaped by flying far out over the north Atlantic before turning back west. The Russians, knowing they had defeated the only credible threat to the airborne troops, were happy to let him go, returning to their barrier patrol over Iceland. 

The Il-76s proceeded unmolested over the drop zone, where thousands of paratroopers jumped into the dark night, forming long lines of gently descending parachutes. Vehicles and artillery, yanked out of the back of the transports by drogue chutes, descended under three massive chutes each. When these fully-crewed vehicles neared the ground, retro-rockets on their drop pallets fired to soften the landing. Minutes after landing, Russian BMD assault vehicles and light trucks rolled off the pallets and moved to where the troopers were assembling. Within thirty minutes columns were moving away from the drop zone in both directions along Highway 1. The drop had been a complete success, the American attempt to interfere a disaster. 

Back at Keflavik, the US commander knew now that the security of his base was measured in hours, the amount of time it would take the Russians to move to the southwest peninsula. He ordered every remaining aircraft into the air. The remaining personnel were moved to nearby fishing villages where locals were persuaded to take them onto fishing trawlers that would try to rendezvous with the NATO ships offshore. An American submarine had located the Kuznetsov battle group heading south at 18 kts, meaning that TG 84.1 had precious little time to stick around and pick up evacuees before they would have to flee south.

As the three Eagle pilots who had survived the thrust at the Soviet transports overflew the base, the remainder of the squadron took off in pairs. They all headed west to link up with tankers circling over the southern tip of Greenland to help them on their way to North America. Next the last three C-130s, carrying the personnel deemed least replaceable took off, and finally the base commander walked up the steps to his Gulfstream, entered without looking around, and ordered the pilot to take off. He had managed to get all of his aircraft out, but it was hard for him not to feel he had failed in his mission. With the departure of his jet, the last military presence for NATO left Iceland, which in a few short hours would be completely under the control of the forces of the Soviet Union.

[MetalDog]

Well done and better told, AR!  You have a knack for this.  When is your first novel due?

[Sir Slash]

Couldn't agree more. Are we sure Clancy's really dead?

[Airborne Rifles]

Thanks for the kind words gents. I'm glad you're enjoying my writing. It's a lot of fun for me to write, even more fun to play these outstanding scenarios. Playing through NF7 now, so another AAR should be coming soon (still waiting on this baby to come, though!).

[Commander Cody]

Great AAR, as usual! In game terms, what were the scenario objectives and what was the result.

Cheers,
CC

[Airborne Rifles]

Great AAR, as usual! In game terms, what were the scenario objectives and what was the result.

Cheers,
CC

Thanks, and thanks for reading!

The initial objectives in the scenario were very broad, basically inflict losses on the Soviets if they come your way and protect the evacuation of dependents and civilians from Keflavik and Reykjavik. As the more remote towns begin to fall to Soviet special forces you receive a detailed order to evacuate Iceland so your objective changes from interfering with the Soviets to purely preserving your force and getting every possible aircraft off of the ground and headed for North America or Greenland. I think this order can also be triggered by losing a certain number of F-15s. There is a naval and ASW element that I chose not to focus us (mostly because I lost my LA class sub pretty early on).

I scored a triumph, largely I think because I inflicted such heavy losses on the Su-33s and bombers, but I also lost I think 9 F-15s, so the price was steep (those AMRAAMs make a huge difference!).

In the end I got all of my support aircraft out and none were shot down, and I got all my surviving F-15s out as well, so given the situation I consider it a win.