Black Gold Blitz 2017

[fitzpatv]

I’ll be playing the next part of Northern Fury very soon, but needed a change. I own all of the Command LIVE scenarios, but was wondering when I would ever play one of them. So I started with Black Gold Blitz, which simulates a confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran in November 2017. Simply because they were the default choice, I opted for the Saudi side.

This is an air battle, with both sides keeping their navies in port. The objective is to wreck as much of your rival’s oil and other energy infrastructure as possible while avoiding damage to your own as far as you can. Of course, this would be ruinous to both economies, which has to be one of the main reasons things have not yet come to blows, other than via proxies.

Most Saudi installations are covered by a formidable array of Patriot and I-HAWK SAMs, but three groups of oil wells in the East Central part of the country aren’t. Iran also has large numbers of ballistic missiles, which stand a decent chance of getting past the defences and can’t realistically be intercepted by aircraft. You also have plenty of radars and both they and the SAM sites have active EMCON by default.

The Saudis have just four ballistic missiles available, though more can be requested via the Special Actions box, at a cost in Victory Points. Iran has lots of SAM sites and radars, but apart from Gargoyle batteries defending Tehran (rather than the oil infrastructure), they share a common vulnerability to low-flying aircraft and weapons.

Iran’s main defence comes from numerous F-14 Tomcats armed with Phoenix missiles, which outrange anything Saudi has and pose a serious threat. They otherwise field MiG-29 Fulcrums and older Mirages, Phantoms, Fencers, Fitters, Frogfoots and even antique Tiger IIs and Freedom Fighters. A major handicap for them is a total lack of AEW aircraft and tankers.

Against this, Saudi Arabia has a balanced, modern air force. There’s a squadron of 14 Eurofighters, 6 armed with Meteor missiles and 8 with AMRAAMs, but they are at Taif, near Mecca, where they have been engaging Houthi rebels in Yemen, as have 18 F-15 Eagles based there and at Khamis Mushayt in the far SW.

At Dhahran on the Gulf coast are 16 more F-15s with a mix of AMRAAMs and Sparrows, plus 22 Tornado strike planes. Four of the latter have very useful Storm Shadow cruise missiles with a land attack range of 215nm, twelve carry a pair of Paveway IV guided bombs with a range of 15nm and the others have ALARM anti-radar weapons.

Tabuk airbase, in the NW, is home to six F-15s with Sparrows, while al-Kharj, near Riyadh, is the support base, with a selection of tankers, AEW and ELINT planes. You also have a vacant airbase at King Khalid Military City, N of the capital, which lacks stores but is a useful staging post for operations.

It’s worth noting that all Saudi pilots are rated as Novice standard, no doubt in an effort by the designers to bridge the aircraft quality gap.

I decided that the best strategy was to absorb the initial Iranian attacks, gain a degree of air superiority and then think about counter-attacking. I moved the Tabuk planes up to King Khalid, put four Eurofighters on CAP near the vulnerable oil wells with tanker support and made sure that I had a good selection of support aircraft launched early and out of the way of any Iranian ballistic missile strikes. I kept all radar and SAM sites switched-on and used Sentry and Erieye AEW planes for mobile air search, with fighter radars defaulting to dark. As usual, I turned Auto-Evasion off and set all fighters to Winchester, with their missiles at one shot per target.

This is how it played-out:

20/11/17 16:00 local time: Iran played the ballistic missile card straightaway and loosed 72 of the things at the main Saudi petrochemical centre at Abqaiq, near Dhahran. To my relief, no attempt was made to hit grounded aircraft and the missiles were poorly directed, most of them being aimed at low-value oil tanks under the Patriot umbrella. ABM tech has some way to go before it can protect against such onslaughts and the Patriots only intercepted 15 of the incoming Vampires. Damage sustained came to an oil refinery, which cost 50VP, 8 AvGas tanks for 10 each and a Patriot launcher, which cost nothing. It could have been a lot worse. Nonetheless, it left me well within Disaster territory on -130.

I retaliated with my four DF-21 missiles and these took out a couple of refineries for 100VP each. Perhaps I was over-cautious and should have aimed at four. The rationale behind the VP awards is that Saudi can repair lost infrastructure more easily than Iran, as it has more access to trading partners. As you need +2,000VP to win, I still had a long way to go...

A swarm of 14 Fencers then came across the Gulf, aiming for the most exposed group of unshielded Saudi oil wells. Spotted in good time and lacking escorts, these were easy meat for CAP, which scrambled from Dhahran and splashed the lot without loss. Iranian planes, however, score no points.

One thing to watch is that the Iranians have a Gammon SAM site at Busheyr, near their main oil complex on Kharg Island. This has a range of 155nm and can potentially interdict you over the Saudi coast. I tried to keep out of its reach but, in the event, the Iranians were very cautious with their SAMs and radars and mostly kept them switched-off, with ruinous results for them.

I soon detected a Tomcat CAP patrolling inland from Kharg Island near the city of Shiraz. Again, the fighters kept their radars off by default…

18:00 : With the initial Iranian attack staunched, I began using my Storm Shadow Tornadoes. One headed NW from Dhahran over Iraq and loosed from a safe distance at the Kermanshahr oil refinery, dismantling it for another 100VP.

19:00 : Two more Tornadoes popped-up from Dhahran and zapped a couple of power stations across the Gulf. These also scored 100VP each. With radars off, the Tomcats did not intervene. Encouraged, I used the last Storm Shadow plane to destroy the Kharg Island oil refinery – again, unbelievably, the Iranians were asleep and suffered accordingly. It scored no more VP than anything else, so there’s no need to concentrate on Kharg, despite the briefing.

20:00 : Next-up were the Tornadoes with Paveway IV guided bombs. The best target for these was the array of oil wells around the Shatt-al-Arab/Khuzestan near the Iraqi border. It was possible to fly these planes inland over Saudi territory, around a no-fly zone imposed by Kuwait (but ignored by Iran) and then approach from the W over Iraq. The oil wells weren’t guarded by SAMs, as I ascertained from sending a single plane in first, so it was perfectly possible to come-in at 3,600’, potentially hit two wells per plane, then escape before any Tomcats could intervene. Painful experience taught me that it was necessary to re-base the Tornadoes to King Khalid on the way in, as this stopped them trying to fly back over the Gulf and expose themselves to all sorts of dangers. King Khalid lacked weapons for re-arming the planes and was also constrained on the number of Ferry missions it could support, but that still left scope for landing aircraft there and then routing them back to Dhahran later. The wells were worth another 100VP each.

After six wells had been destroyed, making the score Average on +1,070, a great swarm of aircraft took-off from further N and came after my retiring strike planes. At this juncture, I discovered that four Eurofighters I’d landed at Kharj were now on Reserve loadouts, despite having fired none of their missiles. This was really odd, as the Tabuk F-15s, now based at King Khalid, suffered no such handicap, despite the latter base having no stores at all.

21:00 : The Iranians were a mix of Fulcrums and Tiger IIs. I got my Tornadoes and support aircraft out of the way and sent-in some CAP. The Fulcrums broke-off their chase, while the Tigers flew-in to attack Saudi oil wells. All eleven of the latter who made the attempt were destroyed before they could attack.

22:00 : CAP then went after the MiGs and downed nine, plus another Tiger, without loss to clear the airspace over the Shatt-al-Arab.

23:00 : Tornadoes returned to the attack and demolished another seven oil wells. Several Tomcats pursued them well into Saudi airspace, but were avoided until they RTB’d.

21/11/17 01:00 : Tornadoes trashed two more oil wells. Another used Storm Shadows to wreck the Bandar Abbas oil refinery, far to the E, discovering several intervening SAM and radar sites and avoiding them by flying via the narrow gap between ‘no-fly’ zones declared by Qatar and the UAE. These again caused some issues with establishing a sensible return flight path.

02:00 : A Tornado fired a Storm Shadow at a power station near Shiraz, destroying it despite several Tomcats nearby, which kept their radars off – the AI’s ineptitude was breathtaking. Meanwhile, the Paveway strikes took down two more wells and it would have been four but for weapon malfunctions.

03:00 : Storm Shadow strikes destroyed the Doroozdan Dam and more power stations in Khuzestan and near Shiraz. The score was now +2,670 and a Major Victory. Paveways accounted for three more wells, with another malfunction keeping me short of a Triumph.

04:00 : A message reported major falls in global stockmarkets due to the interruption in oil supplies, but this had no effect on the score. Two more power stations were destroyed near Bandar Khomeini to take the score over 3,000. All Storm Shadows were now expended.

05:00 : A lone Tornado improved the margin by destroying two more wells.

09:00 : Another Tornado strike wrecked a further well. Eight Tomcats pursued and two penetrated deep into Saudi airspace before turning back. A pair of Eurofighters pursued them on Afterburner and shot both down. This prompted a news report, but scored no points, emphasising that it is best not to tangle with the dangerous F-14s.

10:00 : Four Frogfoots tried a low-level attack on the most exposed group of Saudi oil wells. I scrambled what proved to be an excessive amount of CAP and shot them down with time to spare. Meanwhile, a Tornado destroyed yet another oil well.

16:00 : I then ran-down the clock for a Triumph, with a final score of +3,570. Saudi Arabia lost a refinery, 8 AvGas tanks and a Patriot launcher, all in the initial ballistic missile strike. Iran lost 5 refineries, 7 power stations, a dam, 24 oil wells, 2 Tomcats, 9 Fulcrums and 30 assorted attack planes. No Iranian aircraft or SAM site fired a shot all game.

As should be evident, this was a very one-sided game. It would probably be more challenging as Iran but, to make it so for the Saudis, the AI needs to be a lot better prepared. I’m sure I can look forward to that in the next Northern Fury scenario!!

[Gunner98]

[:D]I'm sure you can.

I seem to remember this one being more of a stand up fight. Perhaps some changes in the game over the past couple years have neutered it a bit. I do remember those BMs making me sweat a bit in the first few min of the game.

B