[RELEASED] Russian Civil War; May, 2004

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jmarso
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[RELEASED] Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by jmarso »

These are three scenarios based on the old Janes F/A-18 game, adapted (as it were) for this game. Seen from the viewpoint of the admiral instead of a pilot at the deckplate level, the Red Russians have seized the Kola Peninsula and are threatening to get their hands on WMD assets- serious business. The scenario recaps are as follows:

Phase I: A three day campaign which sees the hostilities kick off; the job here is to peel back integrated air defenses like an onion, enforce a blockade, and destroy the enemy air force when it comes up to play.

Phase II: Defend the strike group against a myriad of threats that show up at inopportune times as you carry out a two day campaign to deny/destroy WMD assets to the Red Russian leadership. A lot happens in the two days: SEAL ops, mining missions, dealing with blockade runners, ASUW, AAW, surgical strikes, and a final series of alpha strikes against a well defended position.

Phase III: You've done so well in the first two phases that the Red Russians are about to fall, but they've got a little kick (and maybe a surprise or two) left in store. The USS ESSEX ESG has joined you in theater, and your mission here is to extract your SEALS, insert Force Recon, and then conduct an amphibious raid to draw Red Russian forces north and hasten the collapse.

Although they can be played singly, the best way to play these is in order, in order to enjoy the full effect of the story. Tasking is given in-game via message, and I've tried to present some interesting tactical conundrums to solve. Managing your assets effectively is a must- they are finite. In the second scenario there is even a Nagumo-at-Midway like choice the player must make, and how they make it and how quickly can have a big effect on the outcome. I've play tested these pretty extensively and they should be good to go. Where player actions are required, I include 'execution' sections below the tasking orders to outline how these things can or should be done, for those who aren't well versed with the game. Don't be surprised if it takes a couple tries at each scenario to get a satisfactory result, but victory is possible! Let me know how you like them.

GAMEPLAY NOTE:

A lot of tasking and information is given via message in-game, and once you close those boxes you can't get them back. I recommend either keeping a notepad handy to jot down details you might need later, or playing in editor mode where you can access the messages in the 'actions' section of the event editor. All the message actions are marked "MSG:" and normally include the time and a subject header so you know what you are looking at.

UPDATE: 6/5/2015: REV 2 FILE ATTACHED
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Vici Supreme
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by Vici Supreme »

Downloaded and played the first two hours. Really fun to play! Looking forward to its final release. [:)]

Some things you might want to look over:

1. Clear the Message Log!!

2. I noticed that all Player air assets have their unit proviciency set to Ace while the Russian proviciency remains Regular. For gameplay and realism reasons, I think having the US at Veteran and only very few at Ace would be adequate.

3. USS Normandy (CG 60) is currently represented by DBID #411 - CG 52 Bunker Hill. I suggest you use #978 - CG 59 Princeton for USS Normandy.

4. What i found missing in the briefing is that little is said regarding overflight rights. Especially in Phase I, it's important to know wether US aircraft are allowed to fly into Norwegian airspace or not. Having some regulations here would be cool!

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magi
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by magi »

This sounds cool.."
jmarso
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by jmarso »

ORIGINAL: Supreme 2.0

Downloaded and played the first two hours. Really fun to play! Looking forward to its final release. [:)]

Some things you might want to look over:

1. Clear the Message Log!!

Wasn't sure what you meant at first, then looked into it. Are you talking about clearing the log right at scenario start?
2. I noticed that all Player air assets have their unit proviciency set to Ace while the Russian proviciency remains Regular. For gameplay and realism reasons, I think having the US at Veteran and only very few at Ace would be adequate.

I did this deliberately; the Red Russians in 2004 are supposed to be a bit ramshackle, while the Reagan CSG represents the cutting edge of US capabilities. (First deployment of the superhornet, and such). I also found that setting things more at parity can end up in degrading the air wing so much in Phase I that it would make phases II and III unrealistic to complete. In future updates, I may release two versions representing 'normal' and 'advanced' difficulty levels by altering the proficiencies. Of course, the player can also do that with the editor.
3. USS Normandy (CG 60) is currently represented by DBID #411 - CG 52 Bunker Hill. I suggest you use #978 - CG 59 Princeton for USS Normandy.

I'll look into that on the next revision.
4. What i found missing in the briefing is that little is said regarding overflight rights. Especially in Phase I, it's important to know wether US aircraft are allowed to fly into Norwegian airspace or not. Having some regulations here would be cool!

Also noted for action. Thanks!


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Gunner98
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by Gunner98 »

I like the set up. When checking things out noted the following:

-This is a very strong CSG. Probably double the number of Burke's from a standard CSG. Not totally unreasonable giving the situation but worth a mention in the briefing

-The CVW is also about 50% larger than standard for F-14/18s. The exact CVW can be found here: http://www.gonavy.jp/CV-CVN76f.html, Again, this is not unreasonable in this situation but should be noted in the brief. The additional two squadrons could also be Marines which might have more deployment flexibility than USN Sqns.

-The Carrier magazine is doubled up. I noted that air weapons were visible in the 'Group Weapons' window, so opened up the magazine and noted that many weapons were loaded into the '12.7mm' magazine as opposed to the 'carrier magazine'

-I also tend to agree with 'Supreme' above. Giving the majority of USN pilots 'Veteran' status is not unreasonable due to advanced schools and time in the cockpit, with probably 1-3 aces per Fighter squadron. This would also give quite a combat edge to the USN, if more is needed some of the oppositions could be made novice or cadet, considering the state of flux during the civil war, this may be more believable. Considering that Aces have historically been associated with 5x Combat kills makes it difficult to connect with some of the support type AC's and unreasonable to think that a front line Sqn would be able to keep that many top pilots.

-AOE 6 'supply' would likely have MH vice SH type Helo's. Generally used for VERTREP not ASW.

Looking forward to this one.



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Primarchx
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by Primarchx »

I'm liking it so far, though I think I've shot down every flyable Foxhound in the Russian inventory and then some. As has been said this is a big CSG with lots of ord. However given the circumstances, duration of the scenario and the presence of an AOE, I'm just assuming stocks have been brought up to full operations level. I also detached a small surface group to move inshore to provide extended SAM coverage to the carrier group.
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by jmarso »

Heh. Magazine mgmt is one of my very few gripes with this mission editor. You guys don't know how many times I've accidentally loaded stores into the wrong magazine and had to go back and redo a bunch of stuff. I'd love to see carrier magazines in particular auto-populate with 'stores' loads based on the aircraft you place aboard. There are so many variants of the various weapons and ECM pods etc that you wind up spending an inordinate amount of time sifting through that stuff- for me the easy solution was to stuff the damn carrier full of everything. Which brings me to the points below:

Maybe you guys can help me out with a couple points: Yeah, I've got the carrier magazine loaded for bear because I kept running out of ordnance mid-stream and the UNREP function is either not working right (unlikely) or I'm doing something wrong with it. (Very likely.) If I put weapons in a support ship magazine and then tell the carrier to unrep during the mission, the carrier magazines SHOULD repopulate from the supply ship, right? Only I was never able to make that happen the way it was supposed to, it seems like. I made a small test-mission with one CVN and one supply ship, cleared the CVN magazine and gave the supply ship some munitions, put them together in a group, and the carrier won't take munitions from the supplier no matter what I try. Clearly I'm missing a step or doing something wrong, and the manual has nothing on it other than that it should happen automatically if that box is checked on the doctrine page.

I also forgot that later air wings (after the Superhornet showed up) only had one squadron of Tomcats aboard- that's why the air wing is too big. In the next revision the Pukin Dogs may be headed back to Oceana. ;) Actually, it may be the Black Lions because I've got the Dogs set up to do the TARPS passes in Phase II.

Based on popular demand, I'll probably kick the good guys down to 'veteran' proficiency in the next update. However, I'm not going to bother trying to change individual units to 'ace.' The whole shebang will be veteran. I should probably also pare down the number of Foxhounds, replacing them with some sort of fighter that's a little more numerous. I didn't really research the Russian OOB in 2004 before generating the scenario- I just plugged a bunch of planes into the bases. The whole thing is a work of fiction, after all.

Keep the feedback coming, guys. One thing I definitely intend to do is update the briefs to confirm overflight rights for Norway and Finland, and perhaps comment on the augmented size of the strike group.
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by AlexGGGG »

Well, looks like I will manage to run out of double load of ordnance mid-stream. Scenedit takes care of this quick, though. Otherwise great. I'm doing far better than I was doing in Jane's :)
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by Gunner98 »

Great scenario so far. About 3 hrs in and a fur ball is ongoing. Used the editor to set a couple Tomcats with TARPs as I wanted to get a better idea of the various layers to the onion [:'(]

Well the Mig-31's took offence to that so things heated up pritty fast. Sent a squadron of AMRAAM toating Superhorets south and they did some good work sweeping away the Foxhounds but the quick TLAM strike from the Sub was disapointing. A few more points, mostly minor and window dressig:

-I think in this situation the AC on the CV should be in Surge mode
-It would be useful to have the formation of the CSG sorted out. Ships are a bit out of place and all pointing North. Recommend you set up the formation you want. Save the formation in Export. Open up a blank scenario, import the CSG. Run the game for a few min to get them all pointed in the correct direction. Save the CSG in export again. Open up your original game. Delete the CSG. Import the saved CSG and it pointing the right way with a decent formation.
-I think that basic missions for both sides would be in the air at start, at least ASW, AEW and BARCAP
-There dosn't seem to be any ALQ99's for the EA-6Bs - I would have at least 2 of them with that loadout. They are powerfull jammers and very good for SEAD
-There should probably be some Hornets with TLADs loaded
-I think a couple Tomcat's with TARPs would be a reasonable call as well
-you may want to start the CSG a bit further away. Where it is the Sov's would be swarming it with Bears from well before game start
-You may want to consider putting about 10% of your AC on Maint or at least Reserve with a long ready time to simulate the nature of carrier ops (espesialy the Tomcats)

UNREP should work fine, I think the problem you’re having is secondary to having a bunch of stuff in the non 'carrier' magazine, that will cause UNREP to fail. The CVN comes with a standard load for the Magazine for the year you chose in the DB. It does take some cross checking to make sure things are all sorted but the base load is already aboard.

Off to see Mad-Max tonight so won't be playing but will be at it again in the morning.
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by Vici Supreme »

ORIGINAL: jmarso

Wasn't sure what you meant at first, then looked into it. Are you talking about clearing the log right at scenario start?
Yes, simply press Ctrl+L and everything is fine.
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by Primarchx »

I transferred most of my AAW legacy Hornets to decoys and kept the ARM ones as is. One squadron of Super Hornets went to short range ARM and short range LGB for taking down SAM sites. Other squadron of Super Hornets and both Tomcat squadrons are AAW all the way.

Once I get some semblance of temporary air superiority I'll launch a big wave of TLAMs against SA-2/3 sites followed by a large SEAD strike to go after the double-digit SAM sites. Then pull back and assess.
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by AlexGGGG »

Primarchx,

seems to me you have it backwards, no? send HARM shooters first, then clean up whatever left with TLAMs? the distances are pretty small, so you can use Short-Range HARM loadout and have 4x HARMs per aircraft.
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Primarchx
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by Primarchx »

ORIGINAL: AlexGGGG

Primarchx,

seems to me you have it backwards, no? send HARM shooters first, then clean up whatever left with TLAMs? the distances are pretty small, so you can use Short-Range HARM loadout and have 4x HARMs per aircraft.

Not really. We have 300+ TLAMs to play with. By sending a substantial wave of them in a little ahead of my SEAD strike they act as 'bubblewrap' to soak up air defense attention that might otherwise be focused on my aircraft. I'd rather have a Flanker shooting all of it's Alamo-Cs at a Tomahawk than firing at my aircraft. If my CAP is doing its' job, they come in and clean up, too.

Also I haven't been able to generate a precise location for the SA-10 sites. This means I may need to send in some a/c to get a radar/EO fix and kill them. Again, if those SAMs are sending missiles after TLAMs, they're not shooting at the a/c hunting them.

Or at least that's the theory. [:D]
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by AlexGGGG »

I got some problem with event, "NATO and Reds go hostile" fired at 1d 19h to go when I already killed everything that moves or shoots. I'm not sure what I did to cause the event though.
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by AlexGGGG »

My bet is "HARMs first" is still better in terms of targets destroyed per missile fired, while losses are negligible in both cases.

1. Longer-range SAM has PH of around 1% at the edge of the range. So as long as you not wander close in, that's pretty safe.
2. My SEAD flight has 56 HARMs, and I'm firing 6x per SAM target (no matter what type SAM), and 2x per radar. HARMs act as a "bubblewrap" for more HARMs.
3. I don't know a way to have TLAM specifically target a radar rather than TELs. HARM will target radars only, and normally hitting a radar renders SAM inoperative, at least at long range. So I need less vehicles destroyed to silence the SAM site if I go after radars.
4. Firing HARMs against outer layers of the onion will have the effect that subsequent TLAM strike will suffer less attrition while passing through outside layer. At least in this particular scenario (phase I) you can attack outer layers of IADS without risking being shot down.

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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by Primarchx »

I'm not too worried about targets per missile fired. My aircraft and crew protection come first. I've had very good success in getting precise targetting info and air-launched weapons on target by doing a close TOT raid with TLAMs. But I also mix it up with decoys, EW and other fun. HARMS work when the radars are on. Good scenario writers will only have their SAM radars energize when they're ready to shoot. I don't want a shoot-off between my WW aircraft and an SA-10, because the SA-10 will hit the aircraft before the HARM arrives. But if radars are coming on to shoot at TLAMs, then it's gravy time for my SEAD team.
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by jmarso »

Anyone tried Phase II or III yet? :D
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by jmarso »

Repost of one point: Maybe you guys can help me out with a couple points: Yeah, I've got the carrier magazine loaded for bear because I kept running out of ordnance mid-stream and the UNREP function is either not working right (unlikely) or I'm doing something wrong with it. (Very likely.) If I put weapons in a support ship magazine and then tell the carrier to unrep during the mission, the carrier magazines SHOULD repopulate from the supply ship, right? Only I was never able to make that happen the way it was supposed to, it seems like. I made a small test-mission with one CVN and one supply ship, cleared the CVN magazine and gave the supply ship some munitions, put them together in a group, and the carrier won't take munitions from the supplier no matter what I try. Clearly I'm missing a step or doing something wrong, and the manual has nothing on it other than that it should happen automatically if that box is checked on the doctrine page.
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by jmarso »

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

Great scenario so far. About 3 hrs in and a fur ball is ongoing. Used the editor to set a couple Tomcats with TARPs as I wanted to get a better idea of the various layers to the onion [:'(]

I have a feeling I don't understand how the TARPS thing is really supposed to work in game, despite setting up a TARPS mission as part of Phase II. Mini-tutorial on the fly, pls?
-I think in this situation the AC on the CV should be in Surge mode


I'm obviously missing something here because I thought I did this- is it only fighters that can do a quick-turn? I hate to admit it but Phase I was my second go-round with the mission editor and I'm well aware I'm taking a big bite here with little experience, so the feedback is important.
-It would be useful to have the formation of the CSG sorted out. Ships are a bit out of place and all pointing North. Recommend you set up the formation you want. Save the formation in Export. Open up a blank scenario, import the CSG. Run the game for a few min to get them all pointed in the correct direction. Save the CSG in export again. Open up your original game. Delete the CSG. Import the saved CSG and it pointing the right way with a decent formation.

Another trick of the trade I'm learning as I go- I grasp what you're explaining here and I'll try to get it squared away in the next revision. When you add a unit it always starts oriented north, right? So is the trick to place the lead unit, turn on the scenario to get it driving the right way, then place the other units around it and station them either 'relative' or 'fixed'? Or is there another way to do it?
-I think that basic missions for both sides would be in the air at start, at least ASW, AEW and BARCAP


This is a personal preference thing for me. I like to set my own missions and CAP stations from the get go, so I didn't want to preset anything. I also mentioned in the brief that the tasking and op plans for Phase I were 'your discretion.'

-
There dosn't seem to be any ALQ99's for the EA-6Bs - I would have at least 2 of them with that loadout. They are powerfull jammers and very good for SEAD
-There should probably be some Hornets with TLADs loaded

As mentioned above, magazine management is KILLING ME.
-I think a couple Tomcat's with TARPs would be a reasonable call as well

See above and please edumacate me.
-you may want to start the CSG a bit further away. Where it is the Sov's would be swarming it with Bears from well before game start

I've figured out how to model 'turning someone away' and will likely model this for the Bears in the next revision. If you intercept them, they will leave!
-You may want to consider putting about 10% of your AC on Maint or at least Reserve with a long ready time to simulate the nature of carrier ops (espesialy the Tomcats)


This falls under the 'gritty realism' vs 'a game should be fun' kind of thing. Yeah, I can disable a bunch of planes for maintenance. Even better would be to just reduce the number available on the assumption that X number of birds are always down, then you don't have the 'down' birds cluttering up the menus. If I do it for the good guys, I should also do it for the bad guys. In the end I just like to leave the numbers, 'good' for both sides and figure it balances out in the end. The alternative is to have a Tomcat squadron with 9 aircraft vs 12 and a Fulcrum squadron with 14 instead of 18. I guess it would stretch the munitions stores and make the scenario more of a grind to complete, but that's all it accomplishes.
UNREP should work fine, I think the problem you’re having is secondary to having a bunch of stuff in the non 'carrier' magazine, that will cause UNREP to fail. The CVN comes with a standard load for the Magazine for the year you chose in the DB. It does take some cross checking to make sure things are all sorted but the base load is already aboard.

My test mission didn't have stuff in the non 'carrier' magazine and it still didn't work, so I'm still at a loss on this one.
Off to see Mad-Max tonight so won't be playing but will be at it again in the morning.

Can't see how it could possibly be as good as 'The Road Warrior', but I'm an 80's child. Enjoy! :)
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RE: Russian Civil War; May, 2004

Post by Agiel »

Some viewing while you play the scenarios:

https://youtu.be/sFb1Khlzafo
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