Stand Up

[PongoDeMer]

Ok, I've done the training scenarios, so now is the time to have a stab at an ACTUAL scenario. Firstly, let me introduce myself. The name I use on this forum - PongoDeMer - should give a pretty good indication as to who (or what) I was. Let's just say that the uniform I used to wear was green, not blue. I think it's fair to say that I have a pretty good idea of how things work on land. Sea and air are an entirely different kettle of fish. To say I am not confident of the outcome of this particular scenario would be an entirely accurate statement. Anyway, here goes!

1. Define the mission.
Ok, this looks like an attempt at power projection by the Argies. Whether or not this is a raid or an attempt at something more serious such as an invasion is unknown. I think we have to assume the worst case scenario which would mean that it is the latter. This means that my mission is one of denial. It can be summarized as follows: A) to stop any/all Argentine attacks on Mount Pleasant. B) Stop any/all attacks on HMS Clyde/RFA Wave Ruler and give them protected passage to Port Stanley. C) Destroy all hostile forces. D) Defend the Falkland Islands against all attacks until reinforced.

2. Evaluate Enemy capabilities to thwart the mission.
"Intelligence indicates"... Yeah, right! In my experience, intelligence is either wrong, incomplete, or a combination of the two. For want of anything better, we'll have to take this at face value though - well, almost! What most concerns me here is that "a detachment of A-4ARs from the 5th Air Brigade have been forward based at Rio Gallegos." The crucial nugget of information that Int. have left out is HOW MANY aircraft are in that particular detachment? I think we can assume that there are a lot - perhaps as many as 30, which means that we are likely to be heavily outnumbered. More bad news - if the Argie pilots are anything like those that flew against us in 1982, they are likely to be damn good! The good news is that the A4 Skyhawk is positively antique, the ground strike weapons carried will be day only and these things are probably held together with black gaffer tape and bailer twine. They will also be operating at the extreme limit of their range, they don't have stand-off weapons and they don't seem to have any anti radar capability. There is one nagging worry though. In '82, the Argies were able to deliver Exocet missiles via Super Etendard aircraft. It would seem reasonable to surmise that they had a similar capability today. Int. (of course) says nothing, however, for planning purposes, let's assume the worst case scenario. Finally, let's take a look at the Argie SAG that has been spotted heading our way. The good news is that it consists of a wheezy 70s/80s era frigate and a couple of equally decrepit old corvettes that we somehow failed to sink the last time round. True, they have up to a dozen early Exocets between them, but the range of those things is only 35 miles or so, so provided we keep them at arm's length, we should be ok.

At this point, if we were following the briefing format I am familiar with, there would be a heading of 'Situation Friendly Forces.' There seems to be no mention of this in the book I have been reading, but I am going to ask all you purists to humour me. My fossilised green brain is hard-wired to receiving information in a set order to enable it to determine what the hell to do next. So...

Situation Friendly Forces
I haven't got enough of anything. My key platforms are one two three four - YES FOUR - Typhoon fighters. Two have AMRAAM loadouts with quick turnaround enabled, the remaining two have Paveway II. Unfortunately, quick turnaround is not enabled. For the rest, I have a C130 Hercules, which for the purposes of this scenario seems to be as useful as tits on a mule. I have a single functioning Sea King Air-Sea rescue chopper, which could be pressed into service for recce purposes, and (much more useful) a VC10 tanker. On land, I have a couple of Rapier batteries plus radar, and last but not least, there is the Mount Pleasant Airbase itself. This has 24 AMRAAM and ASRAAM reloads for the Typhoons plus 16 Paveway IIs. Intriguingly, there are also 24 Brimstones, but unfortunately there isn't a loadout option for them on the Typhoons. I suppose we're meant to chuck them out of the rear door of the C130! At sea, we have HMS Portland, a type 23 guided missile frigate armed with 8 Harpoons. She also has a very useful surface to air capability. Hopefully, she will prove a lot less vulnerable than her ill-fated predecessor HMS Sheffield. Of less use is the SAG consisting of HMS Clyde and RFA Wave Ruler who are armed with point defences only. The only thing to be done with them is to keep them out of trouble and get them to Stanley without incident.

3) Assess the geography in the area of operations.
The key factor here is the Argie airbase Rio Gallegos. This is where the main threat is going to fly from. The good news is that the strike radius of the Skyhawk (ok, Fightinghawk, but a pig with lipstick is still a pig) is only 420 miles. Rio Gallagos is 400 miles from Mount Pleasant which makes for a very slender margin of safety. If those things have to use their afterburners, they won't have enough fuel to get back. Even better, they won't have the luxury of attempting to attack from an unexpected direction. They simply don't have the range. These guys are going to have to come the direct route. The Argie SAG has a lot more options. I am assuming that they are going to try to hit Stanley. My guess is that they will take a scenic route, hoping to evade detection, looping round from the west, or (more probably) from the east, taking out our own SAG in the process. Fortunately, the Almarinte Marcos base is the thick end of 560 miles away, which (hopefully) is too far to worry about.

4) Determine a scheme of manoeuvre.
Here is where it gets political. The lords and masters who govern us have not seen fit to shell out for any kind of airborne early warning system. Crows-nest would be nice. Even its Sea King mounted predecessor would be acceptable... but zilch, nada, just like it was in 82. Ok, we'll just have to make do with what we've got. HMS Portland is well placed to give advanced warning of any air attack. Hopefully, she is also well capable of looking after herself if attacked herself. ROEs...What it says is that "UK forces may only fire in self defence, or when it's absolutely clear they're going to be attacked." Absolutely clear... OOOOOKAY! What this means is that it's my call, but that if I get it wrong, they'll hang me out to dry! Right then. The ROE'S that I will be using are as follows. Weapons are tight. A) If any of my forces are fired upon, fire will be returned. Furthermore, all Argentine forces in the area will be treated as hostile and dealt with accordingly. 2) If any Argentine forces cross the 12 mile limit and enter British waters, they will be treated as hostile. Furthermore, all Argentinian forces in the area will also be treated as hostile and dealt with accordingly.
HMS Portland: Primary mission - piquet duty. Secondary mission - destroy Argie SAG.
Typhoons: Primary mission - AAW. Secondary mission - ASuW.
Sea King/C130: Mission - locate Argie SAG
VC10 Tanker: Mission - Emergency refuel for Typhoons if Mount Pleasant still under attack.
UK SAG: Mission - Enter Port Stanley.

5) Plan force disposition and stationing.
HMS Portland: Patrol area designated in original scenario. On piquet duty. Sensors to passive. Turn to active if attacked. When air threat eliminated, re-tasked to destroy Argie SAG.
Typhoons: Rearm to heavy CAP load-out. To be ready for operations by first light (3 hrs surge ops).
Sea King/C130: Immediate search for Argie SAG
VC10 Tanker: Loiter 60 miles E. of Mount Pleasant. Refuel Typhoons as necessary.
UK SAG: Stay out of range. Enter Port Stanley only when threat of Argie SAG has been eliminated.
Mount Pleasant Radar: Set to active.

And now to see what happens...

[mats0916@rogers.com]

PongoDeMer

Excellent and entertaining briefing. Looking forward to the AAR.

[PongoDeMer]

Let's just say that this particular scenario did not go the way I expected. I was expecting to get hit hard at first light by 30 or so A4s, so the first thing I did was to order my Paveway equipped Typhoons to re-arm with the heavy duty CAP load-out. I had plenty of time - or so I thought!

Unfortunately, the Argies didn't wait until dawn. The first thing that happened was that a chopper from their SAG flew over HMS Portland and got shot down for its pains with the result that all my carefully worked out ROEs went for the proverbial ball of chalk!! I sent HMS Portland's Merlin out to try and locate the Argies. It succeeded, but the mission turned out to be recce by death as a SAM brought it down. Before this happened, HMS Portland got a good enough fix to launch her Harpoons. The result was very underwhelming. One hit only was achieved, resulting in the loss of a single corvette. After that, the hunter became the hunted. Those Exocets that the surviving frigate were armed with were too much of a threat. Discretion proved to be the better part of valour and HMS Portland executed a tactical withdrawal.
While all this was going on, 4 Fightinghawks and an Orion got a bit too close and were brought down. A C130 was detected near Rio Gallegos... and that was about it! At about that point, I ended the scenario.

What I did wrong was to read too much between the lines in the original briefing. I was expecting a major attack when all that took place was a minor raid. What I thought was going to be the main threat - 30 or so A4s - just didn't happen. In fact, the main threat turned out to be the Argie SAG. My decision to re-arm the Paveway equipped Typhoons proved a bad one, because it resulted in me being caught flat footed, without the tools needed to do the job! What else? The Harpoons were not nearly as effective as I thought they would be. I will have to have a major rethink on their use in future scenarios. Also, two helicopters (one of theirs and one of mine) were used for recce missions resulting in the loss of both, which leads me to question whether they should be used that way at all! Perhaps a slightly more tactical approach than flying straight towards the enemy would help. Any expert advice on this would be appreciated and carefully listened to.

I re-ran the scenario, but this time I didn't mess around with any of the Typhoon load-outs. When the Argie SAG made its appearance, I sent in the pair that were armed with Paveway with the result that it was obliterated in very short order. What I clearly have to do is to develop a feel for what weapon works against what, and that can only be gained by practice. I got it right the second time round, which wouldn't be much good if I were doing it for real, but hey, that's the beauty of computer simulations. Nobody gets hurt! Oh well... As the saying goes, 'live and learn.'

On to the next scenario...

[mikmykWS]

Thanks Pongo

Your background sure sounds interesting. We've got lots of folks like that around here current and retired!

Standup was actually the first Command scenario ever made and truly was designed to be an intro along with making sure weapons hit ships (yes it goes back this far). Probably due a refit at some point[:)]

In terms of weapons effectiveness, you can find the damage point values and legal targets values in the db viewer. I still use it for some of the more off the wall weapons etc.

Command does do waypoint, off axis etc. Please do explore scenarios and documentation to learn more. Watching Kushan's, StoicFrog's, BunyapSims and Baloogan's videos are helpful as well.

Mike