Indian Ocean Fury 8 - Red Sea Rumble 27/2/94

[fitzpatv]

In this last published Indian Ocean Fury scenario, the oilers that have escaped the Persian Gulf need to be convoyed through the Red Sea into the Mediterranean (where things have, presumably, quietened down), along with eight freighters (six grouped off Djibouti, the others still E of Socotra) and the Jeanne d’Arc group. NATO also aims to capture the Eritrean Dahlak Islands (even though this has already been done in an earlier scenario) and raid a Yemeni-Soviet base on Kamaran Island (near the Yemeni coast), while maintaining air superiority in the region.

For whatever reason, the Ark Royal task group has disappeared, presumably re-deployed elsewhere, so you are left with limited air cover. The convoy has a close escort of a destroyer and three frigates, with two more frigates racing to catch-up. The Jeanne d’Arc and her light frigate and oiler consorts are very vulnerable but only a modest distance W of the convoy, with the French DDG Jean de Vienne and frigate Floreal further away (and forbidden to move NW of the Bab al Mandeb). The Peleliu task group is NE of Djibouti, with the helicopter carrier accompanied by the Belknap CG Biddle, a destroyer, a frigate and four amphibs. The frigate Crommelin is positioned to link-up with the trailing freighter Cape Mollini, while the other straggler, the Don Juan, must rely on the nearby British SSN Trenchant.

Up in the Red Sea, the DDG Lancaster is in her usual exposed starting position with no support, while the Italian SSK Primo Longobardo is some way SE. The SSN Columbus is in the Gulf of Aden and has two of the four TLAMs assigned to the mission, the others being on the destroyer Nicholson, with the convoy.

A minesweeping group of five vessels is poised to enter the Bab-al-Mandeb narrows and has potential support from two Sea Dragon choppers based at Djibouti. There are otherwise numerous light naval units controlled by the AI, milling around the Straits.

The two main NATO air groups are at Djibouti, where there are Harriers, Mirages, Breguet Atlantiques and choppers and on the Peleliu, which has a few Harriers in addition to its helicopter fleet. You are otherwise limited to helicopters on the destroyers and frigates and some Orions, recon types and largely redundant tankers on Omani bases and Socotra. None of the NATO fighters carries anything more potent than Super, Magic or Sidewinder A2A missiles and there is a shortage of ASW loadouts – I had to cycle two Orions from Socotra to Masirah to collect ammo, as they were unable to use Djibouti due to the latter’s runway limitations.

As for the enemy, Yemen is down to MiG-21s, infantry and low-medium SAMs and AA. Eritrea still has some MiG-21s and has somehow come-up with a squadron of Italian-made MB.339 light attack planes. They also have a few Goa sites and infantry with MANPADs can be expected on the Dahlaks.

The Soviets still have their base at Sana’a, Yemen, where they have Fulcrums and Floggers that your fighters would be ill-advised to tackle. Mostly, these stay on CAP over their base unless provoked, backed-up by Grumbles and other SAMs. There is a risk that the Soviets and Yemenis might try some kind of sneak attack using midget subs and infantry. Badger recon types are operating out of Sudanese bases. At sea, there is a Charlie SSGN, probably in the open ocean and handicapped by its lack of decent sensors and at least two diesel subs in the Red Sea.

Sudan has a large force of MiG-21s and MiG-19s, with a few Flogger H attack planes. They have no air defences beyond Grails and AA. In general, armed dhows and other small craft can be expected, but not in the plague proportions seen in earlier scenarios.

While preparing my forces, I noted that the LPD Cleveland has no boats capable of loading ANY of her 76 Cargo points, nor is there any mechanism for transferring these elsewhere. As usual in Indian Ocean Fury, the convoy escort USS Gallery has no SAMs mounted.

27/2/94 08:00Z: I assigned Crommelin to escort Cape Mollini, Trenchant to Don Juan and sent the trailing frigates Scylla and Cazadora after the convoy at Flank. Jeanne d’Arc turned NE and moved to link-up with the convoy, with Jean de Vienne and Floreal heading in the same general direction. The MVs off Djibouti stayed put and awaited the main convoy’s approach, with a Breguet providing cover against any interloping Kilos. All possible efforts were taken to maximise ASW loadouts, regardless of the readying times. Lancaster was sent NE towards the Saudi coast, then back towards the convoy’s objective area in the Northern Red Sea, to reduce her vulnerability – she could always be committed later. A Sea Dragon was sent to support the minesweepers as they began a systematic attempt to open a channel through the minefield in the Straits.

09:00Z: Jeanne d’Arc linked-up with the convoy and Don Juan with Trenchant, which increased speed to match the freighter’s 20 knots. So far, 13 mines had been swept in the narrows, though I was well aware that these were all floating mines and that my Sea Dragon was powerless against the deeper moored variety.

10:00Z: I found that Peleliu’s CH-53s were useless with Cargo loadouts, so switched them to Marines38x. The mine count was up to 17, rising to 19 in another hour.

12:00Z: Re-starting from a Save, I found that all of my minesweeping gear had been switched-off – the setting had simply not been saved, which is symptomatic of the state of minesweeping in the game.

12:30Z: We received a briefing update on Kamaran Island. Apparently, Yemen had a SIGINT bunker there, which they might be using to tap into cables beneath the Red Sea and gather intel. We were ordered to capture and hold the bunker for four hours to extract as much data as possible. Given the proximity of the Soviet fighters at Sana’a, any attempt to do this with aircraft looked highly risky, so an amphibious landing (with very limited capacity, due in part to the bug with Cleveland) backed by SAMs and shore bombardment seemed the way forward. The Peleliu group would need to get within range to do this.

A recon Mirage scouted the Eritrean base at Assab, finding that the airport had taken damage. There was no sign of enemy aircraft and the shipping at Assab port and offshore appeared to be Neutral and harmless.

13:00Z: No mines had been found for a while and our minesweepers had traversed the minefield from SE to NW in line abreast without any problems, so I sent the Peleliu group through, with a Breguet scouting ahead for subs and a minesweeper proceeding directly ahead of the helicopter carrier. Despite all my efforts and attention to detail, the result was a total disaster. Biddle hit three moored mines in quick succession and was damaged 68%. Peleliu spotted a row of mines ahead that the sweepers had unaccountably missed (and, indeed, sailed directly over). She tried to evade, only to hit another mine and lose 29 aircraft...at which point I quit.

Possibly, the moored mines were deep enough that the shallow-draught minesweepers didn’t set them off, but I can think of no other explanation. They should, at least, have found them. Frankly, minesweeping in this game does not work at all well and it is vital in this scenario. Minesweepers are appallingly inefficient and, if you give them a Mine-clearing Mission, they promptly head for the Gulf of Guinea, due to a long-standing bug. The Sea Dragons work well under manual control but simply can’t deal with moored mines. There’s also the issue of how the minefield regenerated so effectively despite NATO’s ongoing efforts in the previous scenarios and in the interim. It might have been a decent scenario without it. As it is, I don't see how I could get a better result.

So, I am done with Indian Ocean Fury which, as Bart has said, needs revision as and when the game is stable enough to allow him to do so with confidence. I’ll try Mediterranean Fury next in the hope that this provides a better experience.

[Gunner98]

Thanks for sticking with the series Vince. I know these weren't your favorite scenarios.

I can say that the minesweeping did work at one point, not sure what is happening with it now. You will find that the Kilo lurking in the area is short on torpedos as it had re-seeded the minefield. The surface mines were local but the deep mines were eggs laid by those nasty Russians.

The first of the Med series is a bit of a monster, hope it is all still working

Thanks again.

B

[fitzpatv]

Well, never say never. For better or worse, I can’t put a problem down and, a couple of days after abandoning the game, I was hiking along the NE coast of Scotland when it occurred to me that my minesweepers might not have had their damned sonars on!. When I got home, I checked and this proved to be the case, regardless of all the other minesweeping functions being active. As previously surmised, they must have survived sailing right over the mines due to being shallow-draught or having some kind of immunity in the rules. So I resumed before the Peleliu ESG entered the minefield and gave it another go…

14:00Z: As the minesweepers set about clearing the moored mines (now mostly visible), I found that having a Minesweeping mission no longer seems to send all allocated units to the Gulf of Guinea, so thanks to whoever fixed that. With some persistence, the job slowly began to get done. Peleliu was still some way ahead of the convoy, so could afford to wait.

Off the SW coast of Socotra, a Charlie SSGN suddenly let fly with two Starbrights and sank the MV Don Juan, which cost 250VP. Not much for it but to assign two Orions to seek vengeance.

17:00Z: All visible mines had been swept (21 floating, 16 moored and 14 dummy). I waited a little longer before committing the Peleliu ESG.

19:00Z: An Orion found and sank the Charlie, scoring 10% of the value of the freighter. In truth, it was worse than that, as I’d been denied 100VP for getting Don Juan to the Convoy Area, too.

20:00Z: The Peleliu ESG got through the minefield this time, though there is always one more mine and USS Gary struck it, taking 8% damage.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese mounted a search-strike, looking for Lancaster, but she wasn’t where they’d hoped and the AI managed to crash all four of their Flogger H attack planes in the process. Why it keeps doing this (specifically in the Fury series) remains a mystery. They scored 1VP each.

21:00Z: We were given a new mission. The Yemeni regime was bolstered economically by exports of salt and grain from the port of Salif, near our existing target at Kamaran Island, so we were ordered to hit a range of targets there, without damaging adjacent civilian infrastructure. I decided to use my four available TLAMs (on Columbus and Nicholson), timing them to arrive together, as these were as accurate as any weapons I possessed. It should have been safe enough, but the blast still managed to wreck a civilian grain storage facility as well as the approved export pier, an overhead conveyor and five port cranes, which left me with a net loss of 50VP...

28/2/94 00:00Z: A Blackhawk, checking for mines further up the Red Sea, found a semi-submersible craft being used by Soviet special forces for some purpose. In the absence of better targets for USS Biddle’s Harpoons, I opened fire with them. One malfunctioned, a second lost lock because the chopper turned away while it was inbound and sailed past and the third finally got the job done, though it scored nothing. The Blackhawk also found a small pier, which was probably the craft’s base.

01:00Z: I’d sent the minesweeper Cephee ahead of the Peleliu group, leaving the other sweepers in the Straits and she duly found another moored mine near an island in mid-channel. Peleliu stopped while Cephee and the Blackhawk carried-out a search.

04:30Z: With three mines cleared and the convoy, followed by the six assorted merchantmen from Djibouti, preparing to enter the Straits, we were given a further mission. A Yemeni infantry battalion was preparing to advance on the NATO forces NE of the Bab from a place called Yarim, just S of Sana’a (which took a bit of finding), so we were ordered to destroy it. I sent a recon Mirage to investigate and it duly found the numerous enemy but was ambushed and shot down by rapid-fire 57mm AA before it could respond to my order to evade, costing 5VP.

05:00Z: It looked like another suicide mission, as Yarim was much too close to the nest of Fulcrums and Floggers at Sana’a and we had no fighters which could take them on under present settings. Against my better judgement, I sent-in three Super Cobras from Peleliu, hoping that stealth would help them. Two Yemeni MiG-21s promptly took-off from Hodeida, to the NW, but headed over the fleet and were downed by Biddle’s RIM-67s. The choppers reached the enemy troops and managed to take-out a platoon, 57mm AA gun and Grail unit, but the targets were robust and took a lot of ordnance to kill. Bombs and AGM-65s (the other options) would just have pin-pricked them. Worse, each whole unit destroyed scored just 1VP and, when eight Soviet fighters came screaming in, the lead pair of Super Cobras had no chance. The third, further back, just managed to escape, but the net result was a loss of 7VP. Particularly in view of the large numbers of AA guns and MANPADs, the mission simply isn’t worth the risk. In any event, it turned-out that the Yemenis stay put, whether you attack them or not.

06:00Z: As the surviving chopper struggled back to the carrier, two more Yemeni Fishbeds sortied and suffered the same fate as their predecessors.

The convoy started through the Bab and Peleliu through the second mined area.

07:00Z: There’s ALWAYS another mine!. The luckless frigate Gary struck it and sank, costing me 45VP. Everything else got through.

09:00Z: USS Fletcher’s Seahawk found and sank a Yemeni midget sub, purpose unknown, scoring nothing.

10:00Z: A fishing boat, positively identified as Neutral, suddenly opened fire on USS Biddle as she passed close-by. Before I could blink, the cruiser had lost her helipad (she carried no choppers), her RIM-67 mount, diverse other systems and, to cap it all, her engines!! Overall damage came to just 0.5%, but the ship was left dead in the water. All this was done by light cannon, RPGs and 7.62mm machine-gun fire!. I have long felt that the amount of systems damage ships can take from trivial hits is totally excessive, but this was the worst example I’ve ever encountered. With three more disguised ‘spy boats’ rushing-in at 25 knots, Biddle retaliated and quickly sank the lot (no VP, of course) but the damage was done and she had to be left behind.

11:00Z: Another nine suspicious vessels, identified as Yemeni Go-Fasts, approached the Peleliu ESG at high speed and were wiped-out by Biddle’s remaining Harpoons (no point in conserving them) and a HOT-firing Gazelle from Jeanne d’Arc. One got close enough to be sunk by the LPD Barbour County’s 76mm gun. The Gazelle followed-up and sank an armed yacht near Hodeida. All of this scored 30VP.

12:00Z: A second Gazelle came under fire from another ‘Neutral’ fishing boat that it just happened to fly over. It escaped damage and sank the offender. Quick as you like, though, the spy boat had tipped-off the Soviet fighters at Sana’a. The Fulcrums lost track of the Gazelles, but came over the fleet and downed the duty ASW Seahawk just before it managed to RTB. It cost them four MiG-29s for 3VP each, with another damaged. As a result, though, the Peleliu ESG, deprived of Biddle’s battery, were getting worrying low on SAMs. Also, with two Seahawks having gone down with the Gary, ASW choppers were also in short supply, so a Breguet had to be summoned from Djibouti to make-up the difference.

As the ESG approached Kamaran Island, another dodgy fishing boat was identified. Not feeling merciful, Fletcher culled it with a Harpoon.

13:00Z: Recon by the Breguet (inaccurately) revealed no enemy forces on Kamaran, so four Sea Knights were sent to the SW tip of the island, dropping-off Marines. These then moved carefully forward towards the Yemeni base, trying to spot for the supporting warships’ guns. Two more fishing vessels were identified as hostile and were sunk by Fletcher and the Italian diesel sub Primo Longobardo, which I’d moved to the area in support. A Fulcrum then intervened, was too late to catch the transport choppers or the Breguet, but got really lucky and just managed to detect a Blackhawk at the limit of its radar range (it was en route to scout the island). The chopper never had a hope and was lost for 15VP as a ‘high value aircraft’.

Fletcher then bombarded Kamaran airfield, wrecking three Yemeni utility planes spotted by the Marines and scoring 9VP.
Meanwhile, Peleliu’s Harriers finished the job at nearby Salif. Iron bombs proved, counter-intuitively, to be more accurate than TLAMs and, along with some AGM-65s, cleared-up the remaining targets without collateral damage, though it wasn’t enough to erase the overall VP loss.

14:00Z: The advancing Marines found four Yemeni ground units around the base, so stopped and let the ships scour them away for a point each. More units, mostly AA, a Gaskin and some MANPADs, were then unveiled and suffered the same fate. A single Marine platoon then took the base for 25VP. We were told to hold it for four hours while a SIGINT team analysed the data at the captured Soviet bunker.

Yet another dodgy fishing boat approached at speed, so Fletcher hammered it with 127mm fire. Unlike Biddle, it wasn’t stopped efficiently and, rather than waste ammo, I eventually left it flooding and on fire. Peleliu herself then used her 127mm battery to deal with another Go Fast, which proved to be the last Yemeni ship.

A bug made Fletcher non-selectable and was resolved by quitting and re-starting.

15:00Z: I lost patience and had Peleliu finish-off the crippled spy boat, which refused to sink.

16:00Z: A Fulcrum came over the ESG and was downed by a Sea Sparrow.

18:00Z: Evaluation of the SIGINT bunker was completed, scoring another 25VP. There seemed little point in evacuating the handful of Marines ashore, so I left them in charge of the island and headed for the Dahlak group.

21:00Z: We were given yet another mission, this time to destroy an oil terminal at Port Sudan, which was well to the N. There were no collateral damage issues this time, but it was a long way for Peleliu to go after the Dahlak operation and most of the targets were pretty robust, so how I was supposed to do it was a good question. Perhaps I should have kept the TLAMs?.

23:00Z: By now, the convoy was past both mined zones and making good progress halfway up the Red Sea. Up-front with the Jeanne d’Arc group, HMS Scylla detected a Foxtrot off the port bow. The range was advantageous to us, as was the diesel sub’s foolish acceleration in a vain effort to close it. The escorting Breguet fell upon it and did the necessary for 10VP. The way home now seemed clear unless the Sudanese Air Force was more capable than I believed it to be.

1/3/94 00:00Z: As the Peleliu ESG approached the S channel of the Dahlaks, an Eritrean Colt recon plane came-in and was downed with a Sea Sparrow.

01:00Z: Distracted by sub-surface contacts, I almost missed the duty Breguet being spotted by a pair of spy boats, ahead of the convoy and some way to port. Two Sudanese Fishbeds were bearing-down on the MPA and she had to move smartly, with sensors off, to escape.

02:00Z: With lunatic courage, the Eritrean Navy, such as remained of it, sortied to oppose the Peleliu ESG. Fletcher used her last Harpoon to make short work of their best vessel, a patrol craft with 40mm guns.

03:00Z: Six Sudanese fighters did a sweep in pairs across the Red Sea and back, probably looking for recon and ASW aircraft to destroy, but found none. It appeared that they no longer had any strike-capable planes.

Sea Knights landed a few Marines on the shore of Dahlak main island and these began to move inland. An Eritrean Swift Boat and two armed dhows were disposed-of by the carrier’s guns.

04:00Z: Lacking other options for now, I’d risked sending HMS Lancaster to Port Sudan on a bombardment mission. She detected a gaggle of fishing vessels ahead and I plotted a course through them before turning to deal with other matters (the Dahlak battle and a helicopter strike by Jeanne d’Arc on the two offending spy boats). The Sudanese took advantage to sneak two of three spy boats into firing range of Lancaster (within the minimum range of her Harpoons). The frigate couldn’t evade, as the vermin could do 35 knots!. She Harpooned the third foe before it got close, then sank the others with 114mm and 30mm gunfire. Like Biddle, she took 0.5% damage in return but, this time, there was no systems damage whatsoever. It would have been no problem were it not for the simultaneous engagement issue. Two more spy boats raced in and were dealt-with using Harpoons.

Meanwhile, Jeanne d’Arc’s Gazelles crippled both spy boats near the convoy and USS Gallery, switching from SAMs to Harpoons and back, finished them off.

05:00Z: Using the same tactics as on Kamaran, the Marines and warships co-operated to cleanse Dahlak of the many Eritrean infantry, AA, ‘technical’ and MANPAD units around the base, taking no losses in return. Two more armed dhows appeared and were sunk by Fletcher. Shelling also disposed of a Colt and Gazelle on the airfield.

06:00Z: Having fought her way past the coast-defence boats, Lancaster bombarded and destroyed the overhead pipeline and one of the oil storage tank farms at Port Sudan for 50VP total, then withdrew, out of 114mm ammo. I considered detaching convoy escorts to finish the job, but unless I wanted to use USS Nicholson, only Cazadora and Gallery had so much as 76mm guns. It didn’t seem worth it. Peleliu was never going to arrive in time, so I left it there.

Meanwhile, the Marines took the Dahlak base. This yielded 50VP and generated a mission to move various aircraft there (two Sea Stallions from Socotra, a Hercules tanker from Masirah, a Transall and Alouette from Djibouti and an SAR Seahawk from Perim Island, NW of the Bab). It seemed likely that the Eritrean Air Force would have something to say about this… It soon turned-out that the Alouette couldn’t reach the island, so I had to abandon that part of the plan. The Transall couldn’t be re-based there, due to capacity issues, but could, at least, get there and back to score the VP.

07:00Z: More Marines landed on Dahlak to improve our position as we continued to flush-out and destroy the lurking hostiles on the island. Two MiG-21s tried to intervene but were downed by some of Fletcher’s dwindling stock of Sea Sparrows before our Harriers could get to them.

08:00Z: The SAR Seahawk reached Dahlak for 5VP.

09:00Z: All organised land resistance on Dahlak had ceased and the island was secure. The Transall arrived, scored 5VP, dropped some French paras and returned to Djibouti.

11:00Z: The Hercules tanker reached Dahlak for 10VP.

12:00Z: Both CH-53s from Socotra reached Dahlak for another 5VP each. As it happened, the Eritreans made no further attempt to raid the base and our continued vigilance proved unnecessary.

21:00Z: The convoy began to cross into the allocated zone. Escorts scored 10VP each, Jeanne d’Arc 50, the auxiliary Var, 25 and all tankers and freighters 100 each.

2/3/94 02:00Z: With all convoyed vessels safe in the escape zone, the score reached +2,021, which was enough for a Minor Victory. I settled for that and ran down the clock.

NATO lost a freighter, frigate, recon plane and 6 choppers.
Yemen lost a midget sub, 11 small craft, 4 fighters, 3 utility planes and 68 ground items.
Eritrea lost 6 small craft, 2 fighters, 2 utility planes, a chopper and 48 ground items.
Warsaw Pact lost an SSGN, diesel sub, a semi-submersible and 5 Fulcrums.
Sudan lost 4 strike planes and 2 ground items.
The spy boats lost 16 of their number.
One Yemeni civilian installation was destroyed.

So, that really does conclude Indian Ocean Fury (as currently available). I’ll now begin analysing the first Mediterranean Fury scenario, which gives the player a chance to play the Soviet side. I recall that their commander for this operation got into serious trouble for failure in the book. Can I do any better, I wonder?.

[Gunner98]

Well done Vince and thank you once again

It seems that the end game was busy and manageable. I recall building this scenario as the last gasp of failing states throwing rocks and sticks at the passing NATO force.

Med Fury 1 is indeed a complex on. I seriously hope the lua bits are still working. You will have strategic as well as operational and tactical decisions to make.

B