New Scenario for testing Mediterranean Fury 3 Casbah Crunch

[Gunner98]

Fore something different its time for a Mediterranean Cruise:

Overall situation:

14 Feb 1994. The second day of World War Three, this is a companion to the Northern Fury series and the Northern Fury background document will give you a lot of the detailed history.

In the Allied Forces South (AFSOUTH) Area of Operations (AO), the Soviets attempted an airborne and amphibious assault on the Bosporus in the opening hours of the war. This failed but it was a bold and bloody fight (Med Fury 1, not yet built), and linked to an attempted coup of the Turkish Government. Ankara is in lockdown and it is unclear how successful or not the coup actually was, news footage of street fighting, explosions and aircraft circling the city are airing around the world but the president of Turkey is still claiming power via radio broadcasts. Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary have joined the fight, seemingly reluctantly, and are contesting the airspace in Eastern Europe and the Balkans

Nearly simultaneous to the attack in the Black Sea, a Container ship transiting through Port Suez exploded and caught fire; quick action by the local authorities pushed and towed it out to open water where it burned to the waterline and sank, but the Suez Canal remains open.

During the first night of the war Syria made a surprise and somewhat uncoordinated attack on Israel through the Golan Heights supported by Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Beirut government has decried the violence but unrest is rapidly spreading and it very likely Lebanon will quickly plunge into a renewed civil war. (Med Fury 2, not yet built)

NATO Situation: Although the situation is desperate at the moment, NATO is quite strong in the Mediterranean.
• USS Eisenhower CVBG was conducting a training exercise off Corsica, several ships in the BG are dispersed but a long range ALPHA strike against the assaulting Soviet forces helped to stabilize the situation in the Bosporus.
• USS Iowa TG along with the USS Bataan Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) are patrolling in the Eastern Med off Cyprus.
• FS Clemenceau has now sortied from Toulon.
• ITS Giuseppe Garibaldi is patrolling off the Croatian coast in the Adriatic Sea
• HMS Illustrious is north of Libya, returning to Gibraltar from a port call in Cairo
• Although most of the Turkish, Greek, and Italian Air Forces as well as USAF elements in Italy have been drawn into the fighting in western Turkey, and the Balkans; reinforcements are on the way.
• Land forces in this AO have not yet been decisively engaged. A single Bulgarian Division was involved in the attack on the Bosporus but most Eastern European forces are still mobilizing.

WP Situation: Most of the Black Sea Fleet, except those ships that supported the amphibious assault started the war in the Med. The helicopter carrier Moskva is in Syrian waters while the Leningrad is stationed off of Tripoli in Libya.

WP aligned Nations: Both Libya and Algeria are neutral but have received significant support from the USSR over the past 5 years. It is vital that they remain neutral but should hostilities begin, their capability to affect shipping or air travel in the Med must be neutralized.

Many other nations in Africa, but particularly in East and West Africa are beholding to the USSR and it is critical that that this war does not spread through the continent.

NATO aligned: Egypt is the only country in Northern Africa that is supportive of NATO. However, there are caveats – they wish to remain neutral towards Libya and The Sudan. Currently they are allowing NATO overflight and passage through the Suez along with basing for pre-agreed forces. Operation BRIGHT STAR has been approved and the 366th Air Expeditionary Wing (AEW) will deploy to Cairo West airbase, but so far only for defensive operations and limited offensive actions against Syria. It is very possible that 101st (US) Airborne Division as well as a couple wings of C-130’s will deploy there in the coming weeks. 9th (US) Light Infantry Division may also deploy to Egypt but may be committed to other contingencies in Northern Germany or the Pacific.

Neutral: Both Morocco and Tunisia have announced their neutrality. Violation of their neutrality would be difficult to justify and would bring down the wrath of the State Department and the White House! Our friends in this region are few, and we need to prevent making more enemies. That said – it is very likely that at least some information will be passed from these countries to their neighbors. We’ll have to launch a full salvo of diplomats nastily in their direction!

Scenario

This scenario is playable by NATO only and the main mission is to sink the CVH Leningrad without forcing Libya into the war

Your mission is to sink the Soviet Ship Leningrad, hopefully without causing war with Libya. This is a delicate task and you have significant force at your disposal, but your forces are very dispersed and if Libya enters the war, the balance will equalize quickly.

Edit: Ver 1.1 uploaded

Edit: Ver 1.2 uploaded

[Coiler12]

I'm getting a "page not found" result in the download popup when I try to download it.

[Gunner98]

Fixed
- this is getting a bit annoying, tested the link right after I posted to make sure as well. Grrr

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[Coiler12]

Don't worry, now I got it.

[alghblag]

Looks great, but for whatever reason the KC-135s at Sigonella and E-3s at Aktion can't seem to take off.

[Gunner98]

Right

Now I see that the Runway at Aktion is long enough but there are no Very large Runway access points - easy fix.

And the Runway at Sigonella is one size too small for the KC's, bugger. Was trying to simplify things. Will put them up at Rome.

Thanks for that.

here is a Fix for those two issues.

If you are already well into the game and don't want to restart I can walk you through how to fix it on the editor.

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[lamboman43]

Have any Matrix people said anything about fixing the constant upload errors? It has been happening for a long time. It's quite irritating.

[AndrewJ]

Any word from intel about Soviet/Warpac sub activity in the Med?

[Gunner98]

Subs - yes, I'll add some of this to the brief

Black Sea Fleet:
Soviet - 3-5 SSK - Kilo and Tango, at least one in the Black sea, remainder likely in the Med
- 3-6 SSN - Victor types, 2 known to be in the Med, 1 in drydock, 3 unknown
Bulgaria - 1 x Romeo (Pobeda class), in the black sea 3 weeks ago, undetected since but unlikely in the Med
Romania - 1 x Kilo, not detected for over a month, possibly in the Med

WP aligned:

Libyan - possibly 1 x Foxtrot, probably not functioning
Algerian - probably 1 or 2 Kilo

Two Turkish ships were sunk in the Black sea by torpedo yesterday (13 Feb) so sub activity high. At least one torpedo engagement of a Greek DD in the Aegean, probable SSK. Two Merchants sunk in sea of Marmara, probably SSK which was probably sunk.


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[AndrewJ]

I'm partway in, and I'm not sure things are working as intended.

At first the enemy fighters come out, in unfriendly orange, and I send some of my fighters out to meet them, but hold fire. They do not shoot at me, and they proceed to overfly my ships and rendezvous with my aircraft, all without firing. My thought is that they are just identifying my units. Soon I've got fighters essentially parked on top of all my airborne units.

Then I start seeing large formations forming up and headed in from the direction of Libya. However, none of the Libyan fighters are shooting, even though they easily could, so they clearly don't consider me hostile yet. The formations get closer and closer, but still the Libyans aren't shooting my fighters, so I know we're still not hostile. I start to wonder if this is some elaborate bluff or provocation, so I hold fire. So do the Libyans. This continues until the attack planes arrive and start orbiting over my ships. Still no shooting.

Then enemy aircraft start running out of fuel. I get a message saying we're at war with the Libyans (presumably triggered by the loss of the fuel-starved plane, even though it wasn't destroyed by hostile fire), but they still remain orange, and still do not fire, and and still do not head home. So far 79 of them have fallen out of the sky, and more are soon to follow.

Has anyone else seen this behaviour?

[Gunner98]

OK that is not working - tested that bit yesterday, and changed up a couple things, perhaps I brook it. What is the game time?

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[AndrewJ]

Currently 15:20 local.

[Gunner98]

OK, it is a timing issue, tinkered with one thing and missed fixing something else.

Sorry about that but thanks for picking it up.

Here is a new version.

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[Primarchx]

Man, I had to do about an hour of prep before even starting the scenario. Define where everything is, then determine where it has to go and by when. Then review all the air bases to see what options exist for re-basing aircraft with regard to their munitions stores (...as far as I can tell no a/c in the scen use AIM-120A but there's a bunch of them at Sigonella). Then I revamp the missions to my liking - usually keeping the OEM ASW ones and changing the others.

Then as soon as I go hot with an aircraft SS radar just off the Sicilian coast a couple of Libyan Floggers start bee-lining it for them. I let them get to 10nm before I splash them. Sorry, Libya, you're sheltering our enemies in a time of global war so no, you don't get to come into Italian airspace, period.

Then I see there's updates coming ... [:D]

[Gunner98]

Then I see there's updates coming

Sorry about that Primarchx, that last one was a fundamental flaw. The NATO set up remains the same except for the KC-135s moving to Rome

Those Aim-120A's will come in handy later - not to worry [:D]

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[AndrewJ]

Trying out some stuff in V1.2 leads to a couple of questions.

[s]Would the Algerians really operate over the Spanish mainland in advance of hostilities? I have some of their planes coming over to investigate the Spanish CAP in the area.[/s] Edit: Strike that. The timing may have been after Libyan hostility.

After the Libyans initiate hostilities, any shot directed at them by NATO instantly makes the Algerians go hostile, because a unit was observed firing at a friendly. Is this what you had intended? If not, I think the only way to keep Algeria out of the fight (before its own declaration) would be to make them treat the Libyans as Neutral the moment the Libyans initiate hostilities.

The NATO side currently gets a 100 point penalty if they destroy any Libyan target, even if Libya was the one to initiate hostilities. (Same for Algeria later on.) This seems a little harsh. I'd suggest de-activating those events once the Libyan and Algerians initiate hostilities.

[Gunner98]

Thanks Andrew

A couple good ideas there. The 100 point penalty should only happen once, if its happening repeatedly I'll fix that - but I was struggling with why you should get hit with that when they fire first - de-activating the event solves that.

The Algerians are meant to be semi-coordinating with Libya. They have the same intent and interests, want to help but don't have the mechanisms to do so coherently. Switching their posture might do that.

Thanks

[Primarchx]

Set up everything - kept ASW screens for aviation ship groups, removed them for singleton ships (helos reserved for response to ship sensor contacts), added MPA coverage to Clemenceau and Garibaldi groups as well as eastern/central Med choke points, moved Italian AMX/Starfighter squadrons to Sicily/Lampedusa/Sardinia, pulled the CGN out of Rota, sent ESM flights over Malta and set up some CAPs over Malta/Mallorca/E-3A Orbit.

Things staying pretty quiet for now while the US CSG steams for the straits. Lost an Atlantique to the Algerians when it went to investigate a group of PGMs off their coast but still not marked hostile. Also lost a Lynx to fuel starvation in the Clemenceau group for some reason. Sort of surprised there isn't a single NATO SSN in the Med, unless I missed one.

ETA - actually I lost 2 Lynx to fuel starvation. They were both from the De Grasse which already had one hangar space taken by a dead Lynx and a Lynx from Jean Bart. As I recall the scenario starts with these helos already in flight so maybe their ship was provisioned, too?

[Gunner98]

Thanks for the update - I thought that an SSN would over balance things for NATO. The initial task of sinking the CVH would be a relatively easy one, race the SSN in stalk the prey and shoot. There is a fairly capable SSK in the area that could do the same but without the racing in bit.

The 6th Fleet SSNs are at Rota and there is one (can't remember the name at the moment) in the eastern Med. Also a Brit SSN is in the eastern med as well..

If you feel it's needed I'll consider it.

Thanks for the update.

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[Primarchx]

ORIGINAL: Gunner98

Thanks for the update - I thought that an SSN would over balance things for NATO. The initial task of sinking the CVH would be a relatively easy one, race the SSN in stalk the prey and shoot. There is a fairly capable SSK in the area that could do the same but without the racing in bit.

The 6th Fleet SSNs are at Rota and there is one (can't remember the name at the moment) in the eastern Med. Also a Brit SSN is in the eastern med as well..

If you feel it's needed I'll consider it.

Thanks for the update.

B

Good point about balancing just strange to not see any active in the Med. Just starting to see some raid generation over Tripoli and launching AM Starfighters to meet it. Things are about to heat up.