Four Ounces Can Move a Thousand Pounds - has anyone played that as JMSDF?

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

As per thread subject; quite some time ago I played that as the PLAN and didn't have much of a problem with any of the missions as per scenario orders. I guess I have won this, sunk Hibiki and its entourage, mined what was to be mined -- well, it was some time ago indeed. So after all that time I returned too that to try it as JMSDF as both sides are mentioned in the scenario description as playable. I wonder if it is - and how - winnable and achieavable as Japanese since I cannot make it. Japanese destroyers expend all of their SSMs and Harpoon, scoring one DDG badly damaged at best or their frigate sunk - I am talking about their Southern SAG - and then they are either badly mauled or destroyed in detail if not escape quickly enough. On one instance I took severe losses to finish off the Chinese wrecks with deck guns and then a Chinese sub must have attacked us with its SSMs since we didn't know what hit us before virtually everthying was vaporized aapart from Hibi which was detached and the Japanese subs which were of not much use, either unable to detect the enemy in the west approach or engage them in the north.

I saw only one guy on the net who claimed he had played tthat as JMSDF and had fun, but did not go into ny details.Anyone? ...

[AlexGGGG]

Guns Guns Guns. Missiles are rather useless, but it would probably be good to concentrate all missiles in a single salvo towards two enemy ships who have longest range guns. There are only two of these, I believe, who have gun ranges larger than you have (Sovremennys?).

I also changed WRA on SAMs to fire one missile per any missile-type inbound, and do not fire at helos at all. Helos I killed manually when they were like very very close, think five miles maybe. This proven to be good enough, because the missiles mostly arrive piecemeal.

Average 1070.

SIDE: PLAN
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
3x Type 054 Jiangkai I [525 Manshan]
4x Z-9C Dauphin 2
2x Ka-28 Helix A
3x Type 053H2G Jiangwei [539 Anqing]
1x DDG 138 Taizhou [Pr.956ME Sovremenny]
1x DDG 136 Hangzhou [Pr.956E Sovremenny]
1x Type 039G1 Song
1x Type 918 Wolei [814 Liaoyang]


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
76x RGB-NM-1 [Passive Omni]
60x SA-N-12 Grizzly [9M317]
10x HQ-7 Crotale [FM-80] Naval
9x 100mm/55 H/PJ-87 HECVT
8x AK-630M 30mm/65 Gatling Burst [400 rnds]
6x Generic Flare Rocket [Single Spectral]
3x SA-N-11a Grisom [9M311K]
16x SS-N-22M Sunburn [P-270 Moskit]
18x YJ-8A [C-801]
235x AK-130 130mm/54 Twin Frag Burst [2 rnds] <--- that was not nice
2x 30mm Twin Gatling Gsh-6-30K Burst [375 rnds]
16x PK-10 Chaff [SR-50]
4x PK-2 Chaff [TSP-47]
4x YJ-82 [YJ-802Q]
8x 37mm/63 Twin Burst [20 rnds]
32x Generic Chaff Rocket
4x Generic Acoustic Decoy



SIDE: JMSDF
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
3x SH-60K Seahawk
1x DD 101 Murasame <-- lost to sub-launched missiles; was dead in the water after gun battle


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
366x J/HQS-33B DICASS [AN/SSQ-62]
16x RGM-84D Harpoon IC
24x SSM-1B [Type 90]
54x RIM-66M-1 SM-2MR Blk III
19x RIM-7M Sea Sparrow
402x 127mm/54 HE-CVT [HiFrag]
349x 76mm/62 Compact HE Burst [4 rnds]
2x 20mm/85 Mk15 Phalanx Blk 1 Burst [300 rnds]
316x 127mm/54 OTO Melara Compact HECVT
116x 127mm/54 OTO Melara Compact HiCap
2x Mk46 NEARTIP Mod 5
4x UGM-84D Harpoon IC
2x Type 89 [G-12]

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

Thanks a lot; apparently much better results that I have ever achieved, but that may be at least partially due to my careful approach in the way I handle things.To my estimation you must have destroyed both Northern and Southern SAGs and the minelaying group; the guns may be indeed a key to success and that something which helps to have some luck on your side. In a gameplay of mine the Japanese kept launching SAMs at Chinese ASW helos in range and they never hit any. I was stupefied to the core with that alone.

[AlexGGGG]

First of all I brought two groups together. I was driving flank speed all the time, and I detached and sent that stupid slow aux ship away. Then, I overwatched each SAM/SSM enagagement and assigned additional missiles wherever I saw fit, but that was like maybe three Sea Sparrows manually fired in all game. Then I got gun damage, that looks hardly avoidable, and Sovremenny guns hurt. However this damage is not listed in results. Actually I got one ship sunk and probably two badly damaged.

Playing Japanese, there seems to be a bug involving SAMs vs. helos. I will probably submit it later, but for the time being I worked around it by adjusting WRA.

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

At some point my two SAGSs also sped at top speed they could squeeze form their formation which I wasn't sure was quite realistic or perhaps I just prefer pinpoint all the bits and pieces of data and intel I can only and aimed at detection without counter-detection first. Not much success as as soon as I located the Southern SAG it turned out that the Chinese were flashing all they had so unless I managed to hide successfully at least one of my groups with the islands' landmass for some time they must have seen us coming anyway. Detached that ocean surveillance ship Hibiki, too and ordered the warships there to converge on the Chinese in the north along yet another axis and had a submarine in range in the north to lock them with three-pronged attack in the end - too bad the sub could not engage, apparently they had a problem with targeting the frigate - their four Harpoons wouldn't have managed to do much damage to any of the Sovremenny class DDGs. I had the other sub patrolling the passage in the west where the original Hibiki group station was, but they couldn't detect anything apart from a faint echo for two hours - must have been one of the Chinese subs in there as when I opened the save file in the editor afterwards to see what was actually happening there was that mine-laying group complete there and no detection whatsoever form the older of the Chinese submarines.

[AlexGGGG]

You can do good detection, by getting any of your ASW helos, and better yet two of them, one from each group, turn their radars on and rise to 18000 ft (they can). They will provide good coverage, and after you run them around a bit, you can build a reasonably accurate picture of what's around you without ever turning your group radars on. I went further than that, specified a reference point, attached a support mission to it, set altitudes for the mission (both station alt and transit alt) to 18000 ft, and assigned two helos to it. Since enemy happens to have no aircraft to intercept helos, this is like having a lightbulb shine on them. If you have that mission, you can have two helos loaded up for Maritime Surveiliance, this way they stay around longer. There are enough helos across your ships so you can spare two for AEW station.

[morphin]

I wonder what i missed

I have ony "minor victory" with 1530 Points....

I know i have seen one sub at the end, but i didn't chase it...
Hibi was on station at the end

but anyway it was fun. My subs did all the jobs alone. at the end my subs didn't have any muntion left!
Guide the subs with Helo and everything is good then

Andy




SIDE: PLAN
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------
2x Ka-28 Helix A
1x DDG 138 Taizhou [Pr.956ME Sovremenny]
1x DDG 136 Hangzhou [Pr.956E Sovremenny]
2x Type 054 Jiangkai I [525 Manshan]
3x Z-9C Dauphin 2
3x Type 053H2G Jiangwei [539 Anqing]
1x Type 039G1 Song
1x Type 918 Wolei [814 Liaoyang]
1x S 366 [PL-636 Kilo]


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
36x RGB-NM-1 [Passive Omni]
17x SA-N-12 Grizzly [9M317]
1x HQ-7 Crotale [FM-80] Naval
6x 100mm/55 H/PJ-87 HECVT
6x AK-630M 30mm/65 Gatling Burst [400 rnds]
7x Generic Chaff Rocket
2x Generic Acoustic Decoy
2x Generic Acoustic Decoy



SIDE: JMSDF
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------


EXPENDITURES:
------------------
182x J/HQS-33B DICASS [AN/SSQ-62]
22x Type 89 [G-12]
4x UGM-84D Harpoon IC
1x Mk46 NEARTIP Mod 5



SIDE: Neutral
===========================================================

LOSSES:
-------------------------------


EXPENDITURES:
------------------

[AlexGGGG]

EXPENDITURES:
------------------
182x J/HQS-33B DICASS [AN/SSQ-62]
22x Type 89 [G-12] <---- yeah that sounds like fun
4x UGM-84D Harpoon IC
1x Mk46 NEARTIP Mod 5

[Sensei.Tokugawa]

I didn't mention having used helos as means of safe detection because it was so obvious,especially with EMCON state A for the Japanese SAGs. Nevertheless with the Chinese equipment all on the ships piked up their radars any way and then I just used helos to triangulate precise data.

Regarding "helos guiding subs" - to my estimation I am trying to play relistically so I had lots of hope in that patch witch was suppossed to introduce lost comms into the simulation. So far I haven't found much of that, but this is an older scenario and I didn't get into COW yet. Or perhaps it was a part of the professional edition only? I have an impression it was advertised in a different manner though ... Or it's just me. All I am saying is "a helo guiding sub" to an attack is an idea I am reluctant to apply. I try to disseminate data in a careful manner so I am making an assumption no sub in such situation would be in direct touch with any of the frendlies around.

Anyway, thanks for the insights guys and sharing the lessons learnt.

[AlexGGGG]

I wonder what i missed

I have ony "minor victory" with 1530 Points....

Scoring seems a bit off for Japanese side. Unless there is another battlegroup hidden in there somewhere, which I don't think is the case.