[Scenario Underway - SPOILERS] Chains of War - Scenario 2 - God of War

[Stalintc]

After kicking the North Koreans around in Blue Dawn, it was time to move to the second scenario of Chains of War which is played this time from the Chinese perspective.

Situation:

Upon launching the scenario and reviewing the briefing, it is clear that there is a huge swaith of Chinese air force units under my command along with a smattering of naval forces. From the outset it is obvious that this will be a scenario based heavily around co-ordinating large numbers of aircraft, something which I personally find daunting and one of the most mentally taxing tasks. (Might just because I am a bit slow... who knows...)

The situation laid down before me is the requirement for the destruction and degradation of the following components of the Vietnamese military.

- Modern airforce fighter regiments (SU30 x 3 and SU27 x 1) and airforce strike regiments (SU22 x 1)
- Modern air defences, SA20 and SA17 appearing to be the most dangerous and high value of these.
- 5x Kilo class submarines
- 2x Tarantul class warships

When reading the briefing further, the threats hosted by the Vietnamese include SA2, SA3 SAMs and aging MiG21 interceptors.

On to the map and it seems that the largest concentration of Airforce and Air Defences are located in the North around Hanoi. lesser defences can be found moving South along the coast. Corellation of the map and briefing reveals something interesting and quite worrying, the SA20 and SA17 sites are nowhere to be found, the only assumption to be gleaned from this is that these systems have their radars powered down. This will make things difficult as the most dangerous air defences are going to be a huge surprise and could very well bring any plan I make to grinding halt. What we do know from the briefing however is that these systems are based in the North and the South.

Another potentially annoying factor is that the target Airforce regiments are mainly based in the South, the North is covered by 2 of the target SU30 regiments and 2 MiG21 regiments, meaning that I will have to expend ammunition on a large number of targets which will not count towards victory.

When reviewing the available Chinese assets, it is pleasing to see that I have access to more modern J-20 and J-10 aircraft with long range P-15 missiles. This will be the aircraft of choice for facing the SU30 aircraft.

The rest of the Chinese airforces is made up of sturdy and reliable Chinese variants of Flankers (J-11B), Flounders, Badgers equipped with land attack cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles. And a large helping of MiG21 copies.

Support aircraft are Cub variant and aimed at OECM, ASW, ELINT, AEW type operations.

So without further ado, lets make a plan and get on with it. I have decided to split the scenario into three distinct phases. Each one will be described in planning and outcome during this AAR.

Phase 1

Since nearly all aircraft launched against Vietnam will be from airbases close to the border with Vietnam or need to pass near Vietnam to get South, priority number one is to shut down any interference from the Vietnamese airforce or air defences to these operations.

Even if this means expending ammunition on the MiG21 aircraft or older SAM systems which do not count towards victory.

The plan which I have decided to go with is relying heavily on the decision making of the AI and will be a high stakes gamble. But the way which the plan has been constructed maximises the chance of success in such a dense threat environment hopefully overwhelming the defences.

Plan

ELINT

A support mission is created Northwest of Hainan island just off the coast and used to station the Y-8 ELINT aircraft. This will intercept ESM signatures coming from the Hanoi region, hopefully picking up the feared SA20 and SA17 systems.

AEW

The Y8-W aircraft will be station on a support mission over Hainan to watch over the Hanoi region of Vietnam for the fighters being launched in response to any assault launched by me. All three available aircraft are assigned to the mission with 1 being kept in the air at all times. EMCON is set to use radar only on station.

DEAD

A large part of the success of this phase is to shut down EWR and SAM systems which can impact or disrupt the destruction of the SU30 regiments based in the Northern region of Vietnam, the Vietnamese can use the dense SAM coverage to their advantage when defending against the planned fighter sweeps.

Also due to the dense SAM coverage, I have decided here that an all out no expense spared DEAD mission is required, the number of missiles needed to take down the SA20 and SA17 systems if and when they are found will be high. The timing of the DEAD strikes will also have to be close together to maximise this effect.

To achieve this I have setup support missions inside Chinese airspace one to the North of Vietnam, one to the North East and one just off the coast of Hainan near the ELINT patrol area. These support missions will be used to marshall all of the DEAD aircraft and their escorts before ordering them inbound.

The actual SEAD missions themselves are created using SEAD Patrol mission types. Three of these missions will be created with the patrol area defined as a small sqaure just inside the Vietnamese border\coastline, in a direct line from the three staging areas. Prosecution zones for the patrol are then placed as three rectangles which slightly overlap covering the whole of the Hanoi airspace, ensuring that even numbers of SAMs are within each rectangle.

Hopefully with this setup there will be aircraft which can respond to ANY popup SAM threat which might appear.

To keep things simple the closest Krypton armed aircraft to each staging point will be assigned that staging area and DEAD zone. The aircraft type is not important here.

Fighter Sweep

To take down the SU30 regiments fighter sweeps will be required. Escorts are also required for the DEAD aircraft. So for this I have combined the two roles into a single mission using an AAW patrol zone. The patrol zone placed in a similar fashion to the DEAD ones, but the prosecution area is a single sqaure covering the entire North Vietnam region.

The fighters will be staged in the same way as the DEAD missions and will push up shortly after the DEAD missions are assigned.

J20 and J10 aircraft will be assigned to the North Eastern approach, which will put them closer to the SU30 regiment at Kep airbase, this will ensure the technological and weapon reach advantage is maintained. ALL J20 and J10 aircraft are assigned to this missions in flights of two aircraft per group.

J11B aircraft from the North will be assigned to the Northern mission and will be placed as such to intercept any MiG21 aircraft launched from the Northern airbase, again keeping the tech and reach advantage over the enemy. This will also hopefully draw the MiG21s north away from the engagement between the J20s and SU30s.

Likewise J11Bs launched from Hainan will come in from the Southern approach to Hanoi to deal with the MiG21 aircraft from the South and also sandwich the SU30s providing support to the J20s and J10s.

Any SU30 aircraft launched from the far South Eastern edge of Hanoi, will be picked up and attacked by all three vectors of fighter aircraft.

As a side note the WRA for the J20 P-15 missiles has been set to roughly 75% of max range for launch. I will never trust long range missiles like these to achieve a good Probability of Kill at their max range. Same is true for SAM systems.

OECM

The same staging areas have been used for these missions as assigned to the DEAD and Fighter Sweep missions.

Support missions have been laid down just before the Vietnamese coastline South East of Hanoi and also to the North East border of Vietnam to run OECM operations against the radars of the EWR and SAM systems.

The available OECM Cub and J11 are tasked to each zone 1 Cub and 1 J11 per support mission.

These aircraft will push from the staging area at the same time as the DEAD strikers.

CAP

Since all of the best available fighter aircraft will be launched in the fighter sweep, the need for CAP is limited, but CAP is always neccessary at least as a fall back.

The remaining older J-7 MiG21 copies will be organised into 2 groups of three into a North and North East CAP zone. To catch any counter attacks and support the retreat of any Winchester fighters returning from duty.

The prosecution zones for these missions are placed around 10nm over the Vietnamese border to make the reaction feasable.

ASuW and ASW

As seen in the briefing there are a number of warships which are to be targetted in this scenario. These vessels are based around the Cam Rahn naval base. There is no current visibility of these.

The priority for this phase is to attempt to locate the vessels and begin to sortie assets into position to deal with them.

Two Chinese Yuan submarines are positioned close to Cam Rahn. navigation has been plotted for these submarines to run at 5 knots just on the layer to listen for any sub surface activity from the mentioned Kilo's in the area. These submarines will be brought to periscope depth periodically to check for ESM signatures and visual sightings of surface vessels.

The available Chinese warships have been grouped together into two groups of two and sortied towards the Vietnamse coast and then South. The group with the best AAW weapons are sent towards Da Nang to hopefully catch any aircraft launching from there.

The remaining hydrofoil groups are now sent to the nearest position off the Vietnamese coast to catch any patrolling ships with their long range missiles.

There is one regiment of Chinese badger bombers armed with anti ship missiles available for tasking. These will be left grounded for now until Vietnamese surface assets have been localised. Maritime patrol aircraft will also be left grounded until the situation in the North has been fully resolved. Any slow moving aircraft will be vulnerable to the chaos which will ensue over the next few hours of the scenario.

Execution

Now lets look at how that went, I will keep details brief and to the point and describe only the most important events that followed.

From starting the clock all aircraft which have been assigned start taking off and pushing to the staging areas as planned. AEW and ELINT aircraft are also taking off, but will take some time to arrive on station. In hindsight the ELINT and AEW aircraft should have been sortied first and not simultaniously. Nothing I can do about that now.

Things are looking good until around 2 thirds of my DEAD aircraft have reached the staging areas.... At this point I start getting ESM spikes from SU30s in the Kep Airbase region, which is not far off the North Eastern border of Vietnam. They are most likely reacting to the buildup in my staging area, maybe I positioned them too close to the border.

The only way to react now is to seize the moment and push ALL DEAD and Fighter Sweep missions while I still have some of the initiative. the OECM flights are far from being in position, but it is now or never. The missions are assigned and my J20s immediately start moving to intercept the SU30s. This is good as the J20s and their stealth profile will fair better against the SAM systems over Hanoi and they have the long reaching PL-15 missiles.

The first volley of missiles are launched from the J20s striking their tagers in the first volley with 3 SU30s dropped, they immediately follow up on the last airborne SU30 with success. All fighters are now proceeding to their patrol stations.

Very soon more SU30s are launched from Kep, MiG21s are rising from the Northern and Southern regions of Hanoi. Observing the flight paths I notice that thankfully they are vectoring towards all three of my attack vectors as liked. The J-11s are being engaged by the MiG21s and the J20s are being engaged by the SU30s! At least something is going right...

As the situation unfolds, the DEAD are practically unchallenged by any interceptors, with any launching aircraft being promptly downed. The first salvos of Kryptons are launched almost at the same time from all three attack vectors. Defences around SA2, SA3, EWR and ZSU23 assets are all engaged equally in and around Hanoi and Kep AB.

With the missiles now in the air the moment I have been dreading occurs. two SA20 sites turn on their radars, one North and one Central with overlapping WEZs, almost at the same time a further two SA17 sites come online further South East of the SA20s again with overlapping WEZs. These SAMs promptly starting launching on both the Kryptons and the DEAD planes.

With the engagement now heating up, the DEAD planes which had not yet reached the staging areas are now targetting the SA20 and SA17 sites!! The tactical map has now become a spaghetti of missiles and aircraft. I am now trusting the AI fully to look after themselves and get out alive, no micro managing will solve anything here.

The first volleys of SAMs inflict losses on some of the inbound Kryptons, but thankfully zip past all of the DEAD groups without incident.

The "Late" DEAD aircraft are now in range and beging launching on the deadly SA20 and SA17 sites, just as the first Kryptons are reaching their targets removing a good number of the older SAM systems from the fray, a few ZSU23's and a number the EWR sites. To my surprise the EWR sites are contributing to my scenario score, which I had not expected, this has been noted for further engagements.

The SA20 and SA17 sites appear to have gone quiet as the follow up Kryptons streak towards them, the last few missiles they had in the air have struck 1 of my J-11s and 2 Flounders, so far my only losses.

During the Chaos my Northern group of Hydrofoils heading to the Vietnamese coast have picked up a coastal patrol vessel. While it is not one of the scenario targets, I order the firing of two anti ships missiles. The first missile misses, while the second hit the target dead on blowing it out of the water.

Splash splash splash, to my total surprise the Kryptons aimed at the SA20\SA17s have hit their targets all four sites have taken serious losses and no longer appear to be radiating!

By this time all of my DEAD aircraft are now egressing North, North East and South East to their homeplates. While still a respectable number of the SA2\SA3 sites remain, the battle is now for the air with the South Eastern SU30 regimient getting into the mix. The SU30s being launched from Kep AB appear to have been attrited, looking at the kill count for SU30 aircraft this is around 16, which should be a full regiment or at least close to. (I am no expert...)

OECM assets have now arrived on station, too late to have much impact from this point now. However they will remain on station while the fighter sweeps are continuing.

With the Vietnamese MiG21 sqaudrons now almost fully depleted the SU30s streaming in from the South West are now being hammered by all of the remaining fighters, J20s, J10s and J-11s combined. Just as the seemingly last SU30s are knocked out of the sky, all remaining aircraft over Vietnam go BINGO and start heading home. I order the fall back of OECM aircraft to their home bases.

The J-11s retreating to the North are almost caught by any unexpected launch of MiG21s from the Northern Vietnamese airbase. The importance of the J-7 CAP is now being realised, they quickly sprint South to meet the MiG21s, dispatching them with their longer range all aspect missiles, no merge of the flights even took place.

Now that the action is dying down over Hanoi, I review the naval actions to the South of Vietnam. The two groups of ships that I have sent South along the coast to Cam Rahn are proceeding without incident.

The two Yuan submarines have closed distance on Cam Rahn, no sightings have been found thus far, which is mildly frustrating as I had hoped to be queing them up for strike in Phase 2.

To end the phase I now clear down the missions list and leave the CAP, AEW and ELINT missions intact. Time to start planning the second phase.

Phase 2 will be considered underway once DEAD aircraft have been fully rearmed for the next strike.

Outcome

As a conclusion to Phase 1 the following achievments have been made.

- All SA20 and SA17 sites in the North have either been seriously damaged or totally shut down.
- 50% of the older SA2 and SA3 sites have had their radars knocked out.
- Numerous EWR sites have been struck and knocked offline.
- Two regiments of SU30 have been totally destroyed.
- Two regiments of MiG21 have been totally destoryed. (Although not counting towards scenario goal)
- One Vietnamese patrol craft have been removed from service.

The following losses have occured. Each loss removing 2 points from the scenario score.

- 1 J-11 Flanker lost
- 2 J-8 Flounders lost

Despite the early problem with not all aircraft being on station, this worked in my favour providing a second follow up salvo of missiles against the pop up threat of SA20 and SA17 sites. The late arriving fighter sweep also helped to ensure enough ammunition and aircraft remained in the air to beat off the SU30 interceptors from the South West.

A disappointing outcome is that I have so far failed to pinpoint any of the Kilo submarines or any of the target Vietnamese surface vessels around Cam Rahn. The search will continue until Phase 2 begins.

To be continued.....

[mikmykWS]

This is great. Thanks!

Mike

[mikkey]

Nice detailed AAR, thanks!

[Zaslon]

Fantastic AAR Stalintc, very interesting.

[T Rav]

Did you do anything with your SSMs? I didn't see any success with them.

T Rav