New Scenario for Testing - Operation El Dorado Canyon, 1986

[Kushan04]

NOTE: I have rebuilt this scenario from the ground up for Command: Modern Operations. If you have it I highly suggest downloading that version as it has significant changes. You can get it HERE.

After a lot of research, a lot of starting and stopping, and more then a little frustration at times; my Operation El Dorado Canyon, 1986 scenario is finally ready for testing. I've tried my best to recreate down to the smallest detail the 1986 US raid on Libya. For the most part it should play out historically but some events have outcomes that may alter the outcome.

This does require Chains of War.

Situation: 14 April 1986

On 5 April terrorist supported by the government of Libya detonated a bomb in a Berlin nightclub causing the death of one American soldier and injuries to several others. the united states government has proof that this incident was directed by Libya Gadhafi. In addition, evidence is mounting that the government of Libya is attempting to develop a global terrorism campaign against Americans and us interests. The USAF and USN have been directed to execute retaliatory operations as a result of these developments.

Look forward to comments and critiques.

Warning, this is not a scenario for the feint of heart. While the opectives are relatively simple, coordinating the multiple aerial refuelings can be more then challenging.

Overlays are available HERE

11-15-2019 - Updated to Release Candidate 2

[Andrea G]

Great subject,
my father was working in Lybia in those days; he was even questioned by the police because of a telex he sent to the company stating that the night before it rained heavily on the construction site; the police thought that it was a coded message about the US bombing.

[Maromak]

Thanks for creating this scenario. The Google Drive link is not working for me.

[Whicker]

the text of the link is correct but the actual href= here for some reason.

[CV60]

href= here for some reason

I concur-The scenario link is working, but the overlay link is broken.

[Dragnaath]

Which folder do the overlays go?

Thx

[mikkey]

ORIGINAL: CV60

href= here for some reason

I concur-The scenario link is working, but the overlay link is broken.

try this link: Operation El Dorado Canyon - Overlays

[mikkey]

ORIGINAL: Dragnaath

Which folder do the overlays go?

Thx

Dragnaath, you can save it into the "...CMANO/Overlay" or "...CMANO/AttachmentRepo" folder.

[Kushan04]

Oops, my mistake. Overlay link should now be working.

[Trainzak]

Could you please make a version that wouldn't require Chains of War DLC?

[Kushan04]

ORIGINAL: Trainzak

Could you please make a version that wouldn't require Chains of War DLC?

Sorry but as of right now, no I'm not.

[Fido81]

Hey Kushan04, I'm interested in the systems check you implemented on the F-111s before ingress to the target areas, because I'm interested in implementing similar functionality for a scenario I'm trying to create.

Especially in light of your decision to use CoW, why did you choose the fidelity level of general systems degradation as opposed to doing a deeper dive into F-111 systems? Was there a reason you opted not to use Lua to damage/destroy aircraft systems if the systems check failed?

[Kushan04]

ORIGINAL: Fido81

Hey Kushan04, I'm interested in the systems check you implemented on the F-111s before ingress to the target areas, because I'm interested in implementing similar functionality for a scenario I'm trying to create.

Especially in light of your decision to use CoW, why did you choose the fidelity level of general systems degradation as opposed to doing a deeper dive into F-111 systems? Was there a reason you opted not to use Lua to damage/destroy aircraft systems if the systems check failed?

I was originally going to use lua to damage aircraft systems. I still have the scripts somewhere. I decided not to use them for two reasons.

1) I found that even if you damage or destroy the AN/APQ-44 Radar/FCR, the aircraft can still attack. This may have been a bug and I'm pretty sure I reported it at the time. It may have changed now.

2) After thinking about issues 1, I realized in my case it really didn't matter. What mattered in my case was that I give the player a reason to follow their ROE ie. abort attack run if the aircraft suffered system degradation. Given that that was my goal I still had to have the points loss event if the player continued to use an F-111 that had suffered a failure. I could still use lua to damage the FCR and have the points damage event, but I opted not to for simplicity. There's already a lot going on and I have a really bad habit of over complicating things that should be simple.

Had I really wanted to be accurate I would have a chance for that damage event to fire anytime you where in Libyan air space. I decided not to do that because if it fired and the plane was then blown away by an SA-2, the player really didn't disobey their ROEs. Not sure the way I decided on was the best or most accurate but it was the best I could come up with.

Part of what took this so long to finish was I got frustrated with lua and not having any better ideas put the scenario down for a bit at different points. Eventually Bostonmyk was the one who suggested just activating a point loss event with another event and I facepalmed at how simple it was.

I decided to use CoW for the aircraft damaged if it was hit by enemy fire. So if it got hit by AAA there would be a chance it would still be flyable and could limp back to Rota.

Hope that link winded response answered your question. Let me know if I can be of any more help. I love discussing CMANO scenario design.

[Kushan04]

After my stream yesterday I've realized I've still got some tweaks to make. Noticed a couple of minor bugs. Going to make some tweaks to the tanker ready times. I think, with the game refueling logic, if you launch them to soon, they burn to much fuel orbiting waiting for the bombers to launch and then can't refuel later in the mission. Because of how refueling slows the tanker and the plane its refueling, it makes keeping the bombers and tankers together really difficult. Yesterday I tried to hold off doing any tanker to tanker refueling until the point where the F-111s broke off and the KC-135s where unable to refuel the KC-10s because in games tanker logic they where to low on fuel.

Another issue I saw is the Libyan air defenses are still being way too effective. They should be more incompetent. Need to find a way top slow down their firing.

Will get a new version out that fixes the minor issues I saw sometime this coming week. I'll then take a look at the Libyan AD and release a version that adjust that a little later.

[thewood1]

"I facepalmed at how simple it was."

I think this is an excellent "lesson learned" for a number of scenario authors. Command attracts people who like to do very detailed OOB builds and analysis, but don't prioritize the outcome or the human factor of large operations. I see this in the lua forum where people are jumping through hoops to build complex lua solutions when a simple trigger/action event would have worked so closely to the goal that players would never notice.

Just look at the Desert Storm scenario thread where a scenario became an encyclopedia of the OOB for the war. But the author lost track of making it playable.

[Ancalagon451]

I haven been playing it today, and I found a pretty big issue with the "systems degraded" event. Currently it gives no feedback to the player about what planes have suffered degradation and you don't know which ones must not be risked on the strike.

Also I've seen that there is no penality at all for undegraded/navy aircraft lost, and that rings me somewhat whong. After all the whole operation was a showcast of american might, and it's hardly one if half the strike package gets shot down by the defenders.

Finally I seem to remember (and please do correct me if I'm wrong) that historically, the only Vark shot down was so by a ZSU-23-4 AAA, and checking the ORBAT in editor mode I have seen none of those.

Ancalagon

[Kushan04]

Thinking of adding some special actions that would refuel the KC-135s. Its a bit of a cheat to game mechanics but not sure if there's another way around the game refusing to refuel aircraft if it cant fully refuel them.

Should have a new version available tonight or tomorrow. It'll mainly be bug fixing. Then I'll take another look at the Libyan air defenses.

ORIGINAL: Ancalagon451

I haven been playing it today, and I found a pretty big issue with the "systems degraded" event. Currently it gives no feedback to the player about what planes have suffered degradation and you don't know which ones must not be risked on the strike.

Also I've seen that there is no penality at all for undegraded/navy aircraft lost, and that rings me somewhat whong. After all the whole operation was a showcast of american might, and it's hardly one if half the strike package gets shot down by the defenders.

Finally I seem to remember (and please do correct me if I'm wrong) that historically, the only Vark shot down was so by a ZSU-23-4 AAA, and checking the ORBAT in editor mode I have seen none of those.

Ancalagon

I noticed the lack of a message pop up too. Not sure how it slipped through the cracks for son long. I've got it fixed for the next version.

As for the Navy aircraft, they operated at a much less restrictive ROE then the USAF. Something I've thought about adding is a point loss event if you lose more then 3-4 aircraft. It wouldn't be much too add but I'm actively trying to keep the creep down. Probably won't make the next version but I'll look at it for the one after.

From my reading its not really known what shot down Karma 52. I think a SAM has been suggested as the most likely. Good point on the ZSUs, should probably add some.

[Kushan04]

Sorry its been awhile everyone. My day job has been incredibly busy the last few months but I have been hard at work in my limited spare time working on the next version.

If all goes as planned, the next version will be releasing next Thursday for both CMANO and CMO.

Along with some bug fixing and things I out right missed (aircraft sufferign from system degradation messages), I have completely overhauled the Libyans readiness state. Their WRA now starts out as no automatic fire for SAMS and AAA. There is still a small chance that they will go to a higher readiness with the white house meeting and Italian warning events, but you should now have a good chance at actually being able to conduct a sneak attack before the Libyans will respond. The window is small, they did historically, respond rather quickly.

I lite that Command doesn't let SAMS blind fire, I've also slightly further reduced the chance of the SAM radars activating to compensate for how many SAMs got blind fired. I experimented with setting the SAMS to be out of comms but then I found that scripts would stop affecting the units. For a future version what I may do is look at setting them in and out of comms via lua but that will be a ways down the line. As much fun as this scenario has been I am looking forward to moving onto some other ideas.

Kushan

[mikkey]

Thanks for info Kushan

[Kushan04]

Hi everyone, Updated the download in first post with Release Candidate 2. Sorry, haven't had a chance to play this all the way through myself yet but I think everything is working right now. I've also completely overhauled the Libyans air defenses alert levels so some new scripting bugs may have cropped up.

As always feedback is welcome!

Cheers