Hot Start with tovarich Tupolev, JFK in the Med 1988.

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Broncepulido
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Joined: Thu Sep 26, 2013 6:12 pm

Hot Start with tovarich Tupolev, JFK in the Med 1988.

Post by Broncepulido »

My latest Harpoon HCE/HUCE scenario, based in one of the High Tide Harpoon book:
Hot Start with tovarich Tupolev, JFK in the Med 1988.
A Harpoon Commander's Edition scenario for EC2003 Battle for the Mediterranean Battleset and the HCDB2-170909 (or later) 1980-2025 era Platform Database. This scenario is designed with Advanced Scenario Editor Build 2017.013 and to be run with HCE 2015.008+ or later.
This scenario is designed to be played from the Blue/NATO side or from the Red/Soviet. You should play a few times first the Blue side to avoid spoilers, and only later play the Red side.
Image: An aerial port bow view of USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), with embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 3, conducting high speed manoeuvres, circa 1989 and depicting the same air wing displayed on this scenario. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) photo, # 300-CFD-DN-ST-89-02161, took by a serviceperson on duty and in consequence on public domain.
This scenario was initially based on that titled Tattletale of the Admiralty Trilogy’s recent book “High Tide” second edition.
But as usual my personal research of the scenario and my “rivet counter” syndrome made me complicated it, adding a great number of historically correct Soviet Long Range Aviation and Naval Aviation units to balance more the scenario.
The Soviet supposed strategy was to neutralize the UScarrier in the Mediterranean in the first hours or the first day of an open WWIII in the 1980s.
The idea is a surprise attack from the scenario start with Soviet naval forces, trying to damage USS John F Kennedy (CV-67), exploiting the lack of readiness of her air wing the first hours of the conflict.
Later, supersonic and subsonic Tupolev bombers of many types should finish the carrier, attacking her with long range and big supersonic missiles, with the stockpile of anti-ship missiles probably exhausted after the first three attack waves or similar (as saw in the Russian Invasion of Ukraine).
Overflight of Greeceand Turkiye are guaranteed by the usual Soviet nuclear menaces and blackmail against both countries, with only some few Greek empty airbases present.
The Soviet target is clear, to neutralize the US aircraft carrier.
The NATO target is even more clear, survive the aircraft carrier beyond the first day of war.
This scenario is for me balanced, winnable for both sides, and very interesting, because the very asymmetrical forces.
As sidenote are supplied two almost identical variants of the scenario, one with and one without Soviet AGI ships (adjusting the victory conditions by the presence of more ships), marking with their presence the relative zone of Soviet SSGNs and “aiding” on their anti-ship missile targeting, in case someone is using a game version previous to 2024.006.
Enrique Mas, November 24, 2024.
Download it at:
https://harpgamer.com/harpforum/files/f ... -med-1988/
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