Northern Fury 9.2: Changing of the Guard - a CMANO AAR

Started by Airborne Rifles, October 01, 2016, 03:13:42 PM

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mirth

"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

Sir Slash

DAMMIT! I just got so excited I spilt my coffee. AB, Do you cover dry-cleaning for this AAR?
"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

Quote from: Sir Slash on October 06, 2016, 02:50:56 PM
DAMMIT! I just got so excited I spilt my coffee. AB, Do you cover dry-cleaning for this AAR?

I'll be sure to devote a portion of my proceeds from this AAR, say...58.23%...towards dry cleaning bills  :D

Airborne Rifles

Now the American fighter pilots ran from the oncoming Russians. The Soviet pilots bored in, their radars burning through the jamming from the EA-6Bs and allowing their AA-10s to begin scoring kills. Two more Hornets fell to the Soviet weapons before the Tomcats that had initiated the engagement with their Phoenixes turned to cover the withdrawal of the other jets with their remaining Sparrow missiles. IN the ensuing exchange the sides exchanged a Tomcat for a Flanker, but bought time for the remainder of the American jets to break contact south.   

The Flanker drivers pursued until...until their look-down radars began to reveal the blips representing the ships of the Enterprise battle group. A ring of dots materialized on their screens surrounding one large blip. The American planes continued south, passing on either side of their home carrier. A minute later, the Soviet jets swept overhead, slowing and beginning to circle when their reached the airspace over the American ships. 

Below on Enterprise, the task force commander, Admiral D'Amada, sent out a message to his captains, "Do not engage! Save your missiles. Those fighters can't hurt us."

Now a bizarre situation developed. The savaged formation of Soviet fighters held sway over the airspace above an American aircraft carrier, whose escorts still possessed the missiles to shoot them down. However, the general shortage of missiles kept the ships from engaging. The Soviet pilots, realizing this and also lacking any anti-ship munitions, remained at high altitude where the ships' guns could not disturb them. Thus, an uneasy calm existed, the Soviets at high altitude, the Americans on the surface, with their own warplanes circling to the south.   

The Soviet fighter jocks did possess one weapon they could use, however: their radios. The call went out to the Russian control aircraft circling far to the north, just south of Iceland, who repeated the message to the bombers, lurking nearby, and to the captured airfield at Keflavik. 

Aboard Enterprise, Admiral D'Amada heard the report called from the ES-3A, "Surface-search radars approaching from the northwest..."

The Soviet long-range maritime strike regiment had departed the Kola hours before and passed through the Denmark strait, west of Iceland. The Russians had anticipated that the Enterprise would move west during the night, not east as the carrier group had actually done, and now the Backfires and Blinders were out of position, though not irretrievably so. Upon receiving the report of the carrier's true position, the commander of the regiment ordered a course change, and the twenty-four big jets turned had turned southeast.
















Airborne Rifles

The crew aboard the ES-3A were the first to detect the oncoming Russian heavies. Four old Tu-22 Blinder bombers (confusingly similar terminology as the larger and more capable Tu-22M3 Backfires) spread out in a line abreast, radars and powerful jammers on and radiating, and streaked southeast to get their own fix on the American carrier's position.

Aboard Enterprise, the CAG, in the uncomfortable position of giving orders to his airborne fighters to the south while being beneath Soviet fighter cover over the fleet, considered his options. He only had a few surviving planes in the air carrying the long range Sparrow missiles. The rest were down to just Sidewinders. The Sparrows would have to do. He ordered a quartet of F-14s with six AIM-7s between them to head northwest on an intercept course.

Minutes passed as the Blinders and Tomcats closed with each other. Behind the Tu-22s the western E-2C was starting to pick up through the electronic haze the formation of a full regiment of Backfire bombers. When in range, the Tomcat RIOs switched on their powerful radars and began locking their radar-homing missiles onto the oncoming screen of Blinders. Missiles leapt of the F-14s' rails, but even as they engaged flights of Su-27s were turning west to pursue the impetuous Americans. 

The first AIM-7 completed its flight to the Blinders...and missed in the confusion of jamming and chaff. The American pilot immediately reengaged with his last remaining Sparrow. The next two missiles connected, causing the Tu-22s to fly through deadly clouds of shrapnel which shredded their cockpits and engines, sending the big aircraft tumbling towards the vast ocean below. The third Sparrow also missed, but the last Blinder fell to the last AIM-7 carried by the airborne portion of Enterprise's air group.

Now the controllers on the E-2 called to F-14 jocks, "Come southwest and kick it! You've got Flankers inbound at three o'clock!"

The half dozen dangerous Soviets interceptors came on, the Russian pilots launching AA-10s as soon as they were within range of the fleeing Americans. The effect, even if their missiles did not connect, was to force the Americans away from the oncoming flock of Backfires. Of the first volley of Russian air-to-air missiles, all missed. However, the Russians were able to close the Range as the American fighters maneuvered to evade. 

The Soviet pilots were just locking their radars onto the now closer American jets to fire a second, more effective volley of AA-10s, when the American aviators heard over their radio nets, "This is Red Rippers lead, I have the bogeys on my scope. Tallyho! Fox Three!"

Four F-14Ds, which had taken off from the USS Carl Vinson eight hundred miles to the southwest, formed the lead flight of the entire inbound Red Rippers squadron. They had launched from the other carrier upon the first signs of a coordinate Russian strike upon Enterprise, refueled halfway from Air Force tankers out of Goose Bay, and now were joining the fray with full loads of Phoenix missiles and Sparrows.

AIM-54s ripped into the Russian formation. Those Soviet pilots who did not die in the initial onslaught turned tail and ran as the fresh American fighters pressed.

The timely arrival of the Vinson's air group was enough to save Enterprise's embattled air cover, but what about the carrier itself. To the northwest, the first Tu-22M3s had reached launch range for their AS-4 Kitchen anti-ship missiles. The Russians had been sweeping southwest and been forced to reorient to the southeast to attack the American battle group, meaning that the Backfires came on in a stream rather than a line. In pairs, one after another, the Soviet bombers launched their massive missiles and then turned northeast for home. Vinson's fighters had arrived too late to interfere, and forty missiles now streaked towards the American carrier.

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

The quartet of F-14s from the Vinson now, at the direction of the crew aboard the western E-2C, broke off their pursuit of the surviving Flankers and instead started targeting the stream of AS-4s burning towards the Enterprise group at almost mach 5. More Phoenixes leapt of the rails of the big Tomcats, arcing northeast into the flank of the missile stream. The acute angle of the attack degraded the effectiveness of the American weapons, and the AIM-54s knocked down only a handful of the AS-4s, called Kh-22s (X-22 in Cyrillic) by the Russians.

The American pilots closed to engage with their Sparrows, but now the surviving Su-27 pilots turned and made another run at their antagonists. AA-10s and AIM-7s crisscrossed the sky with contrails in the air above the big anti-ship missiles as the Soviet and American fliers battled each other. Two more Sukhois fell at the cost of one F-14 before the rest of Enterprise's air group joined the fray, finally driving the few surviving Russians north for good. The brief Soviet dominance of the sky over an American carrier was over, with over ninety percent of the advanced interceptors that had participated in the attack destroyed. Even so, they had accomplished their mission. Other than the initial Phoenixes fired by the oncoming Tomcat-drivers from Vinson, the American fliers had been completely unable to interfere with either the Backfire bombers to the northwest or the missiles they had launched. It would be up to the carrier group's depleted defenses to protect Enterprise from the remaining thirty-six incoming weapons.

As the E-2C controllers reported the lead Soviet missiles entering the engagement envelope of the carrier's consorts, the crews of the Aegis cruisers USS Cowpens and USS Anzio energized their powerful SPY-1 radars. They quickly detected the missiles approaching from the northwest, and SM-2 missiles began exploding out of the VLS cells on both ships. SAMs and anti-ship missiles closed with each other at incredible speed, and then the American missiles began to explode, filling the air in front of the AS-4s with expanding clouds of shrapnel.

The accuracy of the American missiles was good, but not perfect. Several of the Soviet missiles required re-engagement, which took attention away from the more distant Russian weapons in the stream. More importantly, the misses taxed the rapidly diminishing supply of SAMs among the escorts. Cowpens was the first to empty her diminished magazines, followed soon after by Anzio, and still several of the big Russian missiles remained, coming on relentlessly.

Now the Sea Sparrows aboard Enterprise and the escorting Spruance-class destroyers joined in, but Cowpens, closest to the incoming missiles, was too distant to benefit completely from their protection. Two missiles headed for the cruiser. One fell to a Sea Sparrow from Enterprise, but the second bored in. Now the cruiser's Phalanx CIWS went into automatic mode to defend the ship. The twenty millimeter rotary Vulcan cannon rotated and tracked on the incoming target. When the targeting computer judged that the weapon was oriented correctly, the barrels began to rotate a moment before an intense BRRRRRRRRT announced six thousand rounds per minute tearing downrange.

The short burst by the cannon sent several hundred rounds arcing towards a calculated intercept point with the missile. Of these, two connected, the second of which detonated the AS-4s warhead while it was still half a kilometer away from the ship. Cowpens was safe, but several missiles still headed for other ships in the formation, three of them targeting the carrier. Enterprise Sea Sparrow launcher emptied, and these shorter-ranged missiles ended the threat to the flagship. Crews aboard the Big E now worked to reload the awkward launchers as fast as possible. The last incoming missile headed toward the old cruiser Yarnel, whose crew shot it down with one of their SM-1ER missiles. And then the the sky was empty of incoming threats, the few surviving Sukhois fleeing north, and the remnants of Enterprise's air group, joined by growing numbers of reinforcements from Vinson, returning the the sky above the carrier to reestablish control over their floating airfield.

Admiral D'Amada took stock of his task force's situation. As reports began to come in from the other ships of the force, he heaved a sigh of relief. Not a single Russian missile had struck an American ship, despite a couple of close calls. Then his mood darkened as the ships' captains began to call in their supply status. The only ready SAMs left in the fleet were seven SM-1s aboard the ancient Yarnell, and a few Sea Sparrows on the Spruance-class destroyers Thorne and O'Bannon. Enterprise's crew would be able to reload her launchers, eventually, but this did not affect the calculus markedly; the battle group could would not be able to survive another such attack.

Sir Slash

Damn. I thought for sure they were toast with caviar all over them.  :coolsmiley:
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

mirth

"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

Crossroads

Campaign Series Legion | CS: Vietnam 1948-1967 | CS: Middle East 1948-1985

CS: Vietnam DAR: LZ Albany as NVA (South Vietnam 11/17/65)  
CS: Middle East AARs: High Water Mark (Syria 10/12/73) Me vs Berto | Riptide (Libya 8/6/85) Me vs Berto | The Crossroads (West Bank 6/5/67)  Me vs Berto

Boardgame AARs: AH D-Day | MMP PanzerBlitz2 Carentan | OSS Putin's Northern War | GMT Next War: Poland | LnL Against the Odds DIY

Airborne Rifles

With the air and missile engagement over, for now, and with his battle group's stocks of SAMs almost completely depleted, Admiral D'Amada decided that it was time for the better part of valor. "Message to all ships," he dictated, "increase speed to full and make our course one-eight-zero. We need to clear the area as quickly as possible and open the distance between us and Iceland." The ring of ships with the massive carrier in the middle turned south as they propellers churned the water behind.

To the west and southwest, two Soviet submarines had been working eastward over the past several hours, guided be reports from maritime patrol aircraft and other sensors around the north Atlantic. The northern of the two, a Sierra II, was the more dangerous, but the southern one, a Victor III, had the better angle. The battle group's turn gave the crews of both nuc boats the opportunity to close with the American ships, which had up to that point been steaming directly away. But with proximity to the American carrier came danger for the Soviet boats as well.

The air battle had briefly forced the crews of the ASW helicopters of the American screen to cease operations and return to their ships or flee south to escape the Flankers that had briefly roamed freely above Enterprise, but now they returned to their duties with determination. The crew of an SH-60, patrolling along the western flank of the task force, was the first to get a hit on the quiet Sierra, using its dipping sonar. They were soon joined by one of Big E's S-3 Vikings, whose crew proceeded to drop a pattern of sonobuoys to try to localize the target. Also joining the hunt was a P-3C Orion out of Gander. Altogether the crews manning the three aircraft flooded a relatively small area with enough sensors to achieve a rapid fix on the stealthy Soviet boat, whose captain to this point was unaware of the danger in which his command was in.

His ignorance was rectified a few minutes later when the crew of the P-3, after making one pass to achieve a MAD fix, circled back and dropped a Mk46 torpedo directly into the Sierra's wake. The Soviet crew never had a chance. In seconds the lightweight torpedo slammed into the subs spinning screw and exploded, rupturing the casing of the propeller shaft and flooding the engine compartment in seconds, which in turn dragged the rest of the boat into the depths of the Atlantic.

Farther south, the Victor stalking the formation did no better. The crew aboard the American Spruance-class destroyer USS O'Bannon, no refocused on their primary ASW role after the drama of the air battle, detected the Soviet submarine on the destroyer's towed sonar array. Soon the hull sonar had a fix as well and a pair of helicopters were converging on the area roughly triangulated by the two sensors. The addition of the helicopters' dipping sonars quickly localized the contact, and a pair of MK46s dispatched a second Soviet submarine in the span of thirty minutes.

The threat to Enterprise was not yet over, however. In the carrier's flag bridge, Admiral D'Amada heard his N2 report, "Sir, the Shadows are picking up a lot of chatter coming from the direction of Keflavik. They say it sounds like another strike coming in."

The admiral swore. Didn't these Soviets ever run out of airplanes? The bulk of a squadron of Vinson's Tomcats were not circling just west of Enterprise, and the lull had allowed the carrier's deck crews to recover the survivors from the air battle and launch some replacements, but even so another determined push by the Russians might be enough to overwhelm the task force. His ships certainly did not possess enough munitions to repel another missile strike. It was absolutely imperative that any striking aircraft be destroyed or turned back before they launched.

As the minutes ticked by more reports from the ES-3A crew confirmed that another large strike was indeed airborne and approaching from due north, the direction of Iceland. With little choice, Enterprise's CAG ordered every available aircraft with an air-to-air missile north into the teeth of the Soviets' own CAP to meet the threat as far from the flat top as possible. 

mirth

"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

Gunner98

They are flexing their muscles and trying to dominate the sea as far out from Iceland as they can.  Keeping the American carriers at bay is key to giving them time to set up a proper defence of Iceland. When I tested this one I lost the Enterprise on one occasion, a CG on 3 out of 4 tries and a DD or FFG every time. AR is kicking butt so far.  O0

Great read, thanks AR O0

mirth

"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

Sir Slash

"Hello Moscow. This is the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean calling to let you know we have your submarines and you can pick them up whenever you want".  ;D
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.