AAR: Nicobar Vengeance [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic Gold scenario
By Mark Gellis


How do you find a submarine that doesn't want to be found? Well, at least I had a surfeit of ASW assets. Wow, a full complement of helos on my 2 little ships; my Horn-of-Plenty was certainly overflowing.

Since a Bear can stay up all week, I launched it right away. I intended to ferry my fighters over to Port Blair and refuel them before going out on patrol. However, a pair F-16 lurkers were spotted approaching my ships and the Bear. As my Rules of Engagement [ROE] forbade me from initiating hostile action, my beautiful long-ranged Air-to-Air missiles were simply going to be dead weight. I moved my escorting Flankers to interpose themselves between my Bear maritime reconnaissance plane and the approaching Falcons. As good bodyguards, they set themselves up to "Catch the Bullet" for their Charge de Protection. It was a dangerous game of cat and mouse, but the Falcons let loose with 4 AIM-9L Sidewinders at near point-blank range. My pilots immediately returned fire with AA-11 Archers. Since the Archers were slaved to a helmet-mounted sight, they could be fired without requiring the pilots to be directly pointed at their targets. This meant that the Flankers could turn away more quickly after releasing their own infrared-homing missiles and this fact saved them from loss after the Falcons exploded in twin fireballs.



The Flankers retired to India for refueling while the Bear pressed onwards in hopes of locating some clue to the whereabouts of the submarine. She saw nothing but a passing freighter. Instead, she issued a Mayday call that was cut off in mid-transmission. Her last reported position was just north of Sumatra. HQ listed her as "Missing and Presumed Lost" and I still had no idea where that sub might be lurking. All that I knew was that there were lethal air defences active in the region.

I sent my Sea King aloft for surveillance of the local area when a sub contact was returned from ZYR Nagala. (I think it is a game bug.) So, I guess luck cuts both ways. She was in the vicinity of the last reported position of the Bear so I was expecting things to get very HOT. It turned out to be a Neutral sub (definitely a game sonar bug).

I had the Flankers ferry over to Port Blair, re-fuel, and then ordered them to investigate the disappearance of the Bear and look for possible survivors. They found a Searchmaster on patrol and 2 Hawk Mk 209s on a course to intercept them. Another game of chicken ensued. Once in visual range, the Hawks fired 4 AIM-9P Sidewinders at the Flankers. The Flankers returned fire and turned the Hawks into chicken soup before they went to Bingo fuel status and had to return to Bangalore. On their return leg, they stumbled over a pair of Mandau gunboats and reported them to the approaching frigates.

The submarine contact was reported as a Cakra Type 209. Indian intelligence knew that these subs were in the Indonesian Order of Battle. I was baffled as to why it was evaluated as neutral, but I had to watch my step in possibly firing on neutral vessels.

My Flankers, again, ran into a counter-air patrol of Hawk 209s over Banda Aceh. I got the distinct impression that the Indonesian military did not want any interlopers in this area. Another exchange of missiles and 2 more Indonesian pilots joined there ancestors.

Two Skyhawks emerged from the Indonesian airbase on a course that would take them near my approaching ships so I ordered the Combat Air Patrol [CAP] to investigate. As they came within visual range, they were engaged with gunfire so they returned fire and 2 more Indonesians would not see the next dawn.



The Mandau gunboats were beginning to stir and approach my frigates. As they had exhibited no overtly hostile actions, I could not take them under fire with the superior range of my Surface-to-Surface missiles [SSMs]. Instead, I positioned my Flanker CAP between the ships in hopes of him being able to shoot down any enemy missiles should they be fired. The Mandau turned away at the last instant and a confrontation was avoided. This time.

My little task force continued to comb the area, but could not re-establish contact with the Cakra. They did walk all over a wandering whale, but never found the sub again. Time expired and victory was denied.

A nice little scenario with an interesting setup. Having to perform Combat Air Patrols [CAP] at the limit of their endurance was definitely a challenge.

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AAR: Foothold [Spoiler Alert] - Blue
By Daren Lorentz



The Strait of Gibraltar has been a natural choke-point for centuries. With its narrow width and fluctuating currents, it was a perfect place for lurking submarines to hide. I held my breath as the convoy made its transit of the Strait. I was just breathing a sigh of relief when a sub was detected after leaving Gibraltar. Three Lynx were ordered aloft to interdict since she was well within the declared 150nm Exclusion zone. However, a Sea King already on formation patrol got there first and dropped her torpedoes on the Sugar Skunk. One struck aft of the sail. Another nasty surprise was revealed -- a second sub! The three Lynx were re-tasked to prosecute this second Sugar Skunk and caught her 80nm away from the convoy. A sole Stingray torpedo was enough to put her on the bottom. It looked as though the convoy's transit was going to be opposed throughout its journey.



Shortly thereafter, a mixed force of missile boats and frigates was detected by an EH101 on patrol over Cagliari. They were well within the 150nm exclusion zone as set out in the ROE [Rules of Engagement]. A strike of six AMX from Cagliari left 3 missile boats burning and sinking in their wake. A second strike would be needed.



Meanwhile, FF Montrose reported an explosion soon after a force of missile boats were detected. The boats were only detected by their ESM signature so the convoy immediately turned away from the potentially hostile contacts until they could be properly evaluated. I suspected an SSM strike, but was not certain. All calm one moment, and then BAM! And the Montrose was in danger of sinking. Sure enough, the Lynx confirmed that the missile boats were the culprits, indeed. A salvo of Harpoon missiles put paid to these ambushers. The convoy and the limping Montrose continued onwards at a reduced pace.

A second visit to the missile boats off of Cagliari completed the destruction of the force. It appeared to be a long and uneventful transit when a Sea King on patrol reported a MAD contact. She immediately dipped her sonar and found a submarine. Two Stingray torpedoes were dropped and both struck home. The entire sequence took only 4 minutes. Real Quick Draw McGraw.



Yet another sub was detected 30nm later. Two more, in fact. The Libyans appeared to be very, very serious about this convoy not reaching her destination. Both subs were detected early enough that they could be prosecuted relatively safely. As the convoy was passing Bizerta, two more Kilos detected just off of Cape Bon. These modern subs could have been lethal but they were easy prey for the helos on patrol.

Just as the convoy was approaching its destination, one last surprise was encountered. A minefield was detected at the doorstep of Sousse. The convoy immediately slowed to a dead crawl while the escorts scrambled to deal with this threat. After the mines were swept, the convoy made landfall and victory was awarded.

An enjoyable scenario and excellent job for your first production. I certainly look forward to many more scenarios. Thanks for sharing it with us.


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AAR: Third Idea [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte



After reading the Order of Battle arrayed against the Japanese Self-Defence Force, all JSDF fighter-bombers were re-configured for Air Superiority operations. The sheer number of enemy aircraft was staggering to say the least. CVBG Bush went to full speed and raced for the Japanese home islands in the hope that she would arrive in time. Her CVW [Air Wing] was ordered to ferry to Japan with whatever loadouts they had available. Since the JSDF and the USN both used AMRAAMs, they could re-load from Japanese stockpiles. The JSDF was going to need every helping hand they could get. Guam was a long way away so the Air Combat Command bombers stationed there took to the air right away.

As the Airborne Early Warning [AEW] aircraft launched, they immediately detected an aircraft carrier in the northern Sea of Japan. The Hawkeyes were quickly counter-detected and the CV had interceptors out after them right away. Japan was surrounded by bases on three sides. The air combat group based at Shemya in the Aleutian Islands was tasked with the suppression of Kamchatkan bases Petropavlovsk and Yelizovo while the Guam forces would try to relieve the pressure from the southern flank by concentrating on the destruction of Naha.



Tsuiki radar suddenly reported DF-25 SRBMs inbound! Defending PAC-3 Patriots opened fire, but could not stop the attack which cost the JSDF five aircraft when their hangars collapsed upon them. However, the runways were only slightly damaged and the base was, therefore, functional. This would prove significant in the ensuing battle. Barrier Combat Air Patrols [BarCAP] positions were assigned and the F-4EJ, FS-X, and F-15Js hurried out to them in their attempts to stem the waves of anticipated Sino-Russo aircraft. Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Forces hoped to keep a low profile and remain hidden under EmCon [Emissions Control]. They would allow their helicopters and the dedicated AEW platforms to keep them appraised of the situation through their data linkages.



The Su-33D Flankers from the carrier were attracted to the AEW planes like flies to honey. The initial four interceptors were easily killed by the FS-X escorts, but their replacements were quickly launched and each successive wave drove the defenders back a bit more until the AEW was forced to re-position herself over the island of Hokkaido.

While defending the Hawkeyes, the JSDF could only watch the approach of many aircraft low on the deck. These planes were turned out to be Su-25 Frogfoots in from the Kuriles and they were heavily supported by jamming aircraft. They were only detected when they were nearing their release points. It mattered little. There simply weren't enough assets to intercept them. The large number of attacking groups quickly soaked up all of the defending air patrols. At one point, the exasperated commander had to simply choose the groups that he was going to intercept and allow the others to simply attack unmolested because he ran out of forces. At one point, Hokkaido was attacked from three separate axes.



One of his pilots was Kazuo Musashi, a direct descendant of Nippon's most famous swordsman. Today, he would no longer fall under his ancestor's shadow, but would shine in his own luminescence. Musashi was piloting an F-15J armed with eight Sparrow/Sidewinders. He and his wingman were appraised of the situation by their friendly eye-in-the-sky. Five separate groups were looking to kill the Hawkeye and he was the only CAP that was, as yet, unengaged. Musashi had considered himself a warrior of the old ways - a Samurai - in every sense of the word. He practiced with Katana and Wakizashi religiously when on the ground. Today, his Eagle would serve as his steed, his Sparrows were his Katana, and his Sidewinders were his Wakizashi.

As he approached his first targets, he controlled the rhythm of his breathing in order to focus his Kiai. And then he struck. Both he and his wingman sent a pair of Sparrows out to kill the first attacking group before wheeling around to face another Flanker pair. Like the master swordsman, he lunged with his Eagle and parried the enemy's Alamo missiles before sending him down in flames with salvo of Sparrows. With his Katana out of action, his flight was seriously outmatched by the remaining three groups of Flankers. However, as his Sensei had taught him, "There are no dangerous weapons. Only dangerous men." He still had his Wakizashi.

Musashi would approach each group and entice them to fire before quickly turning to evade the missiles. It was a very tricky dance, but well rehearsed by the Samurai. Soon, both sides only had their short-range missiles remaining. The ultimate battle between Flanker and Eagle was played out over Hokkaido. After a series of punishing high-G manoeuvres, feints, parries, and slashes, Musashi and his wingman slew all six of the remaining Flankers, but not without cost. Musashi landed at the aerodrome alone after his wingman failed to shake off an AA-11 Archer.



Meanwhile, the strike from Shemya was fighting its way towards Kamchatka. They peeled the layers of air defences like peeling an onion and equally unpleasant. The defending Flankers, Fulcrums, and Foxbats died, but they also sapped the missile inventory of the attackers. As fresh replacement fighters rose from deck to challenge the approaching Falcons, Eagles, and Raptors, the package commander decided that the mission could not be completed. He simply lacked the combat power to breach the defences. He ordered a withdrawal after the launch of a few HARMs [High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles]. A second strike would be needed.

Over the Sea of Japan, the aerial waves were slowly, but surely beaten back and some breathing room was gained. Unfortuately, SAG Myoko was detected and became the focus of the enemy's main strike efforts. First came the Shipwreck SSMs from the CV group. These were promptly intercepted by the Kongo's Standard missiles. Then multiple flights of Frogfoot fighter bombers rolled back the defences and soaked up the SAMs. Once the Aegis destroyer's SAMs were depleted, the little group was a sitting duck as successive waves of AShMs [Anti-Ship Missiles] were launched from maximum range by Backfire bombers. The big missiles sank the major units LPD Osumi, DDG Kongo, DDG Takanami, LST Osumi, and AOE Tokiwa. Only a few escorts and the minesweepers survived the onslaught.



The JSDF was beginning to win aerial superiority over the Sea of Japan when the first of forty ALCM launched by B-52s from Guam arrived at Naha and left it a smoking ruin. Evidently, the enemy commander was disheartened by the loss of Naha because victory was granted to the JSDF. A very nice (and welcome) surprise, indeed.

A very fine scenario. I was paddling like mad just to keep my head above the water!


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AAR: Foothold [Spoiler Alert] - Red
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Daren Lorentz


Well, the orders were clear enough. Sink the convoy or don't bother coming back. The Colonel certainly had a way of motivating people.



I ordered my Bear AEW assets to spot the Convoy and coordinate for the subs. Unfortunately, the first one was killed by marauding fighters as she passed Cagliari. I would have to give that base a wide berth in the future. I sent the second Bear far to the south. She spotted the convoy making it's transit of Gibraltar and issued intercept vectors to the Rajs Hadi Mubarek and Dzik.



Rajs Hadi Mubarek ate a torp on her approach. Dzik was detected and had a torpedo dropped on her, but she broke contact and raced in. No time to be stealthy. She was barely able to get into range before another torp was dropped on her. She salvoed her 8 torpedoes at two escorts and ran for her life.



Three struck a Sheffield-class frigate and blew her right out of the water. The other four torpedoes cleanly missed the Duke-class FF they were aimed at. However, they did get a consolation prize. They converged on an unsuspecting merchant and put her on the bottom. Dzik had very little time to enjoy her victories. Another helo dropped two more torpedoes on her and both struck. The score was even. Two subs were exchanged for an escort and a merchant.

I ordered a mixed-group of fast missile boats and frigates to full speed. I wanted them to try and widen the hole in the screen so that the submarines could penetrate more easily. However, as they were making their approach, three of them just EXPLODED! Curses, they must have fallen prey to roving ASuW (Anti-Surface Warfare) patrols from Cagliari. The sole survivor was a Sirte-class torpedo boat; more of a liability than an asset. She might be effective against unarmed merchantmen, but she could not stand up to any of the escorts. Only if the remaining escorts could be killed, would she be useful.

The next submarine to make her approach to the convoy was the Foxtrot-class Wilk. She received reports from the orbiting Bear and could see the thick cloud of ASW helos on patrol. The patrols were well-spaced and she would not be able to approach from an oblique angle in order to avoid the screen. Even at flank speed, she could only match the convoy's speed of eighteen knots. A very difficult decision for the skipper. Eventually, he elected to try and penetrate the screen where the Sheffield had already been killed. He would pray and trust in Allah that his boat would survive long enough to deliver her torpedoes.

After a quick sprint, she was in! However, her fortune was short-lived. Helicopters outward-bound to replace those already on patrol must have caught her scent and immediately dropped torpedos on her. Since she had already been detected, there was no further need for stealth. She went to flank speed and kept her trust in Allah. Wilk was able to launch 4 torpedoes at the Montrose, a Duke-class frigate. She barrelled in towards the convoy's centre in hopes of delivering her other four torpedoes into the merchants. However, her luck had run out. A torpedo struck her and she carried her remaining torpedoes with her to the bottom. The crew did not know, but Allah did not forsake them. The four torpedoes struck and sank the Montrose a few minutes later. The score remained tied at 3:3.

A flotilla of missile boats and frigates was annihilated as it attempted to make passage around Cagliari. The next submarine to make contact was the Lada-class boat. There was a gaping hole in the screen, however, the helos were still present. They had been thinned out a bit, but were still very dangerous in their reduced numbers. The Lada elected to try the same daring approach and attack from the front. She was detected and attacked by no less than four helos with a total of 10 torpedoes. After another torpedo exchange, she was killed and her 3 USET-80 torpedoes missed. She would draw no blood.



Well, the direct approach did not prove successful. I only had four Kilo boats left so I decided to try and make an oblique approach from the flank and hope to get behind the screen. The excellent coordination efforts of the Bear allowed the Orzel to slip in behind the screen along with another Kilo. Once in, she approached to point-blank range before loosing her deadly cargo. She sank her 533mm fangs into the Duke escort and ravaged the formation with her UGST claws. A total of eight more ships were sunk and victory was awarded.

A super-challenging scenario from the Red perspective. I can't believe that this is a premiere effort for a new designer.

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Thanks bud i really like what your doing makes choosing a scenario alot easier

Yup, gotta love Herman's AAR's. He is probably the greatest ambassador that the Harpoon community has ever had.

You guys are very kind. I am just SO glad that someone actually reads them.

The real credit goes to all the hard work from the scenario writers. Without them, there would be nothing to enjoy or write about.

Hats off to the guys in the trenches.

I only played Fleet Command, but man, great write up. Makes me want to get harpoon.

Thanks, Operator. It really makes the effort worthwhile.

If you are still curious, I highly recommend that you grab the excellent Harpoon Classic Demo here . Most players would consider it very user-friendly. It is really easy to get started and I bet that you will get the hang of it almost immediately and it won't cost you a dime.

AAR: Roman Thunder [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis


"Merde", I thought. Those pesky colonials were acting up, yet again. Why the Republic ever granted them their independence was beyond my comprehension. However, orders were orders. In order to establish a composite radar picture of the Area of Operations [AO], I positioned my lone Sentry over the SAG [Surface Action Group] that was centred on the DDG Chevalier Paul. This way, the AWACS could avail herself of the SAM coverage and a dedicated escort would not be needed. I also wanted some AEW coverage for the Prince d'Asturias so a P-3 was assigned to her. It was not quite the coverage of a dedicated AWACS plane, but "Needs Must" in time of war. The Conte di Cavour had her own AEW helos to provide her group with radar coverage.



Four Su-24 Fencers and 2 MiG-23 Floggers quickly rose from Es Seina to investigate my Orion. They were quickly sent tumbling into the sea by an outbound flight of Hornet SEAD [Suppression of Enemy Air Defences] strike aircraft. I wanted to silence the enemy radar coverage before the strike aircraft were sent. ARM [Anti-Radiation Missile]-equipped aircraft also launched from Italy, Rota, and Albacete. The Hornets from Albacete arrived first at Es Seina and loosed their HARMs at the SA-6 batteries. Unfortunately, they were easily shot down by the defenders.



The Algerians were no shrinking violets, today. They fought viciously over the air of Es Seina. Clouds of defenders rose to challenge the air over their homeland. However, their aircraft were no match for the superior technology of the modern European fighters. With many of their radar systems degraded by jamming, they were easy prey for the waves of AMRAAM and Meteor Air-to-Air Missiles [AAMs].



The Algerians did not go gently into that good night. SAG Chevalier Paul had been detected and was garnering the attention from most of the Algerian strike assets. The colonials fought bravely and were tenacious in their attacks. What they lacked in quality, they made up for in quantity. There simply weren't enough missiles to kill them all and some managed to get within launch range of the SAG. Chinese-made AShMs [Anti-Ship Missiles] were released, but were quickly shot down by the French ASTER systems. The Algerians did not survive for a second attempt.

The MiG-29 Fulcrums of the Algerians were formidable opponents on paper. In fact, their Alamo AAMs actually out-ranged the Mica AAMs carried by the French Rafale fighters. However, in this age of modern air combat, electronic warfare is an element that cannot be ignored. The Algerians were learning that lesson this day as their fighters we quickly and easily shot out of the air by aircraft they could barely register on their radar scopes. Soon, aerial supremacy belonged to the NATO forces.

The submarine arm of Algeria proved to be more dangerous, but no more lethal. Two submarines were detected just outside the range of their torpedoes; one approaching the Conte di Cavour and other closing on the Prince d'Asturias. Neither lived long enough to deliver their 'eels' as the ASW helos swarmed from the decks.



Once the air had been cleared of the antiquated MiGs, the Hornets and EuroFighters re-armed with additional ARMs and set about blinding the ground radar facilities. In this task, they were only moderately successful. The ground batteries were notoriously difficult to shut down even after multiple ARM hits. As time was running out on the operation, I decided that additional risks would have to be undertaken. With aerial supremacy guaranteed, the aircraft could be re-armed exclusively for the ground strike role.

Armed with GBU laser-guided bombs, the flights of Hornets, Tornadoes, and EuroFighters undertook the long journey to their targets. Through careful course selection, the bombers were mostly able to fly around the surviving SAM batteries and bomb without resistance. Only in one location were the SAM batteries able to fire on the strikers. A high speed pass on afterburner allowed them to release their ordnance without loss. The Algerian construction engineers deserve much credit for their solid construction. However, in the end, the repeated strikes with heavy ordnance were finally too much even for their skill and all five complexes were destroyed. Victory was awarded soon afterwards.

Thanks very much for sharing another entertaining scenario with us, Mark.

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AAR: Thunder Dragon [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


Operation Thunder Dragon was in full effect; the hunting and trapping of an entire USN carrier battlegroup. I checked my forces and found that I had a fair number of aircraft and ships. Unfortunately, most of them were near or past obsolescence. However, to paraphrase Comrade Stalin, "Quantity is a quality in and of itself."

My patrol assets were sent aloft immediately in hopes of catching a sniff of electronic emissions from the CVBG. Intelligence had reported that there was a CVBG in the area, but could not be more specific. Almost right after takeoff, the enemy emissions were detected smack in the middle of the Yellow Sea. This was both a curse and a blessing. While she was technically 'surrounded' by my airbases, most of my aircraft would not be able to reach her. Their legs were that short. Once the general area of the CVBG was established, the Maritime Patrol Aircraft [MPA] dove for the deck. They were already in the estimated envelope of the enemy SAMs. No sense in giving them easy targets.



I decided that only a full force effort would suffice in breaching the layered defences of a CVBG. Firstly, the outer air battle against AMRAAM-armed Hornets would have to be won. Then, the ring of SAMs thrown up by the Aegis escorts would be the next layer. Finally, the short-ranged point-defense missiles like Sea Sparrow and RAM [Rolling Airframe Missile] would round out the CVBG defences. They were formidable indeed.

I decided that even if many of my aircraft were obsolescent, the enemy would still need at least one missile to destroy them. Since those missiles were going to be fired regardless, they may as well kill old planes with their cadet pilots instead of the few modern planes in the PLAAF inventory. With very few standoff weapons or ARMs [Anti-Radiation Missiles], I sent the old and slow planes toward the suspected CVBG's position. They went in at high altitude with their puny radar searching desperately for the enemy. I expected the radar emissions to attract the enemy Hornets the same way that sugar attracts real Hornets. The more modern Flankers, J-10, and bombers stole in at low level and under EmCon [Emissions Control].



I was trying to coordinate a Time-Over Target [TOT] attack that would have most of my assets arriving over the target at relatively the same time in order to swamp the defences. The employment of my sacrificial lambs worked. Most of the defending Combat Air Patrols [CAPs] were drawn to them and engaged with AMRAAM from maximum range. The price was high, but not crippling. Once the AMRAAMS were depleted, my Flankers were able to close and kill the defenders with their own Alamo AAMs.

While the aircraft made their approach, the flotillas of missile boats started blinking off of the screen. They immediately turned on their radar to discover swarms of inbound Surface-to-Surface missiles [SSMs]. Without any meaningful air defences, a score of the puny boats disappeared in massive explosions and still the enemy ships were hidden.

As the bombers closed the range, a contact report was received! I wanted to precede the approach of the strikers with a salvo of ARMs in hopes of taking out some of the enemy SAM defences. However, the enemy was not co-operating with my plan. They refused to radiate their radar and thus offered no targets for my ARMs. Since I had their approximate location, I decided to coax the enemy into radiating their radar by firing a few SSMs on Bearing-Only Launch [BOL]. I was hoping that they simply could and would not ignore an inbound flight of missiles. My tactic worked well beyond my highest expectations. From a flight of eight missiles, 2 struck the DDG Hopper and killed her since the enemy had elected to remain under EmCon and was thus denied many active defences. But, with every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The enemy group was now thoroughly warned and SAMs flew from the VLS magazines.

ARMs were immediately released and one managed to hit the CVN but only did 2% damage. A flight of missile-armed JH-7s tried to close and release their Anti-Ship Missiles [AShMs] but they were quickly plucked from the sky by SAMs before they could open fire. The 'sacrificial lambs' were ordered to try and blind the enemy by shooting down his AEW and helo assets. They were wiped out, but managed to distract the SAM shooters while the Beagle bombers crept in at low altitude.



The Beagles ran through the gap created by the destruction of DDG Hopper. The commander of PLAAF Bomber Squadron 8 ordered his command of 15 Beagles to ignore the enemy and concentrate on 'putting their pickles into the target'. He and his crew died in a fireball seconds later. The rest of his command continued to close on the enemy carrier. One by one, they were torn from the sky by Sea Sparrows and Standard SAMs until there was only one left. The last Beagle doggedly flew on and had just released its bombload when it was destroyed by a SAM. The crew would never know that their stick of bombs had fallen just short of their target. All of this action was witnessed by Ensign Gai as he floated in the water after being one of the first planes shot down. He would watch the rest of the battle from this front row seat. He never knew that this battle was happening exactly 65 years after another famous battle, The Battle of Midway. The date was June 4, 2007.

After his rescue, Ensign Gai would learn that the sacrifice made by his squadron was not in vain. The enemy had exhausted many missiles to destroy Bomber Squadron Eight. A follow-on flight of Beagles were able to release their 10 AShMs which all struck the CVN and left her ablaze from bow to stern. The CVBG was basically dead in the water and limping along at only 5 knots. This allowed the flotillas of the East China Sea fleet to close the distance and launch their Seersucker and Sardine SSMs which promptly sank the now defenceless survivors. Over 7,000 sailors and airmen died this day in ironic contrast to the Incredible Victory won 65 years prior around Midway Island.



Thanks for another cool scenario. I enjoy playing the Red side. It was a huge challenge to go up against the might of a US CVBG and survive! The situation really reminded me of the old spaghetti westerns where an embattled wagon train (or Custer) is surrounded by swirling masses of indians.

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AAR: LaGrange 6 [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


The crisis had arisen almost too quickly for the newspapers to report. Military intelligence was caught behind the curve and failed to provide sufficient warning of impending events. When the pot boiled over, few units were ready and those that were ready were dispersed throughout the Mediterranean theatre.

The Makin Island PhibRon was, literally, caught between a rock and a hard place. She found herself neatly sandwiched between the immense Russian base of Krasnodar and the Romanian base at Kogalceanu. A Fencer E jammer was immediately despatched to cover the Makin Island PhibRon. Hopefully, her powerful ECM systems would keep the enemy blind to the whereabouts of the vulnerable PhibRon. As they had only been on an exercise, the PhibRon only had a single Aegis cruiser as an escort. Flankers were assigned to cover her front door while Fulcrums would watch the Krasnodar threat axis.



Ramat David was a LONG ways away, but the commander elected to gamble and launched relief / evacuation flights immediately and hoped that there would be some place for them to land. The apprehension level rose as the first SCUD attack arrived on the Freedom Beachead. The "balloon" had gone up and the enemy was planning to wipe out the tiny commands scattered throughout Europe. The truck evacuation convoys were ordered to put the "pedal to the metal!". "Drive like your lives depended on it because they do".



Gripens launching from Prevov, Czech Republic, came under immediate missile attack from Fulcrums over Slovakia. Even though the two republics shared a common history, today, they would find themselves on opposite sides of the fence. The Gripens returned fire with AMRAAM and knocked the Fulcrums from the sky. Furious airbattles broke out throughout Eastern Europe as soon as planes launched due to the close proximity of the bases.



SSN Ambush detected an enemy group sitting directly astride the Strait of Otranto. This was the evacuation route for the ships currently awaiting the evacuees' truck convoy at Beachead Freedom in Yugoslavia. The Adriatic was, essentially, bottled up. Ambush would try and release the cork.



Falcons from Poland rushed towards Belgrade. The airport was the only link to the outside world. It could not be allowed to fall. An enemy column was detected approaching Belgrade and subsequently destroyed by Falcons/Gripen using Maverick AGMs and GBU-10 LGBs. Another was charging for Tuzla where WAH Apaches demolished them with Hellfire AGMs.



A Falcon passing overhead reported minefield and obstacles directly in the path of the evacuation convoy bound for Freedom Beachead. Detours were immediately ordered for both truck convoys. The enemy evidently anticipated the planned evacation route. The truck convoys would take more circuitous secondary highways in hopes of avoiding these ambuscades. It was a "dog's breakfast" over Tuzla; much like the political situation.

The situation in the Black Sea was just as desperate. Odessa came under AS-16 Kickback attack from bombers based at Krasnodar. Her radar was destroyed and the follow-up missiles did major damage. The Makin PhibRon looked like it was going to be crushed between the two bases. A flotilla of missile boats unleased a hail of Surface-to-Surface missiles [SSMs] that were brought down by the Aegis system. They were well timed and covered by a Fencer E that provided jamming support. Only luck allowed the flotilla to be spotted in time by a Fulcrum in overflight. Another flotilla was detected in the other direction. Some sailors began to grimly refer to their PhibRon as Fort Apache.



Luckily, the timing of the attacks by the two flotillas was not perfect. This allowed them each to be destroyed piecemeal by the Su-25 Frogfoots and Su-24 Fencers based at Odessa. A third flotilla showed up to the Southeast. Without a coordinated effort from the two groups already destroyed, she stood no hope of success and the little ships died under a storm of Kh-29T Kedge AShM [Anti-Ship Missiles].

The evacuation of Eastern Europe consisted of many foot races. The evacuees scheduled for a maritime departure were hurried along by anxious ship captains. The 'Cork' that had been at the head of the Adriatic had moved down into the bottle and was heading towards the vulnerable beachead. If they could destroy the docks, the evacuees would be stranded in Yugoslavia and subject to destruction at the hands of the superior Yugoslavian ground forces.



The truck convoy arrived with only an hour to spare. They quickly loaded onto the surviving transports and the convoy immediately set sail, much to the relief of the Admiral in charge. This relief was short lived. The approaching carrier battle group consisted of the Conte di Cavour CVH and they had some very dangerous SSMs aboard the group. Instead of risking a direct confrontation with the more powerful CVHBG, the evacuation fleet ran UP the Adriatic until the aircraft could even the odds. The Sea Skua-armed helos easily dealt with a flotilla of Sparviero missile boats. However, any attempt to launch a helo-borne attack against the surface group was deemed suicidal as it was protected by the Sylver SAM system. Repeated HARM strikes from distant Poland finally degraded the Italian SAM defences sufficiently that the Harpoons from the convoy's escorts could penetrate and sink the SSM-armed vessels. With no further opposition, the convoy ran for the relative safety of the Mediterranean.



One group of evacuees was safely on their way. However, another was just about to face its crucible. Another sizable armoured force was converging on Belgrade. Unfortunately, the tank-busting Apaches were based at the airfield in Tuzla and they had just finished off another mechanized force threatening their airfield.



The tank force was heading to the airfield. The transports were inbound and they had already passed the point-of-no-return. They simply had to land at Belgrade. There were no other options. If the tank force could close or destroy the airfield, the second group of refugees from Petrovec would be stranded. The Apaches were ordered to eliminate the armour. It was a very close race, indeed. The Apaches arrived just as the tank column began deployment onto the road to the airport. They were destroyed at the very approaches to the runways in a hail of Hellfire AGMs. Races do not get ANY closer than that.



Without realizing just how close they came to having no landing field and running out of fuel, the planes of the evacuation landed and loaded up with grateful refugees. Once re-loaded, they quickly made a hasty departure for Ramat David. As they flew over the Aegean, victory was awarded.

Another very fine scenario. The situation of Fulcrum vs. Fulcrum or AMRAAM vs. AMRAAM will likely be more and more possible as these weapons are sold to countries that were formerly allied with East/West blocs.

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AAR: Roman Thunder [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis


"Merde", I thought. Those pesky colonials were acting up, yet again. Why the Republic ever granted them their independence was beyond my comprehension. However, orders were orders. In order to establish a composite radar picture of the Area of Operations [AO], I positioned my lone Sentry over the SAG [Surface Action Group] that was centred on the DDG Chevalier Paul. This way, the AWACS could avail herself of the SAM coverage and a dedicated escort would not be needed. I also wanted some AEW coverage for the Prince d'Asturias so a P-3 was assigned to her. It was not quite the coverage of a dedicated AWACS plane, but "Needs Must" in time of war. The Conte di Cavour had her own AEW helos to provide her group with radar coverage.



Four Su-24 Fencers and 2 MiG-23 Floggers quickly rose from Es Seina to investigate my Orion. They were quickly sent tumbling into the sea by an outbound flight of Hornet SEAD [Suppression of Enemy Air Defences] strike aircraft. I wanted to silence the enemy radar coverage before the strike aircraft were sent. ARM [Anti-Radiation Missile]-equipped aircraft also launched from Italy, Rota, and Albacete. The Hornets from Albacete arrived first at Es Seina and loosed their HARMs at the SA-6 batteries. Unfortunately, they were easily shot down by the defenders.



The Algerians were no shrinking violets, today. They fought viciously over the air of Es Seina. Clouds of defenders rose to challenge the air over their homeland. However, their aircraft were no match for the superior technology of the modern European fighters. With many of their radar systems degraded by jamming, they were easy prey for the waves of AMRAAM and Meteor Air-to-Air Missiles [AAMs].



The Algerians did not go gently into that good night. SAG Chevalier Paul had been detected and was garnering the attention from most of the Algerian strike assets. The colonials fought bravely and were tenacious in their attacks. What they lacked in quality, they made up for in quantity. There simply weren't enough missiles to kill them all and some managed to get within launch range of the SAG. Chinese-made AShMs [Anti-Ship Missiles] were released, but were quickly shot down by the French ASTER systems. The Algerians did not survive for a second attempt.

The MiG-29 Fulcrums of the Algerians were formidable opponents on paper. In fact, their Alamo AAMs actually out-ranged the Mica AAMs carried by the French Rafale fighters. However, in this age of modern air combat, electronic warfare is an element that cannot be ignored. The Algerians were learning that lesson this day as their fighters we quickly and easily shot out of the air by aircraft they could barely register on their radar scopes. Soon, aerial supremacy belonged to the NATO forces.

The submarine arm of Algeria proved to be more dangerous, but no more lethal. Two submarines were detected just outside the range of their torpedoes; one approaching the Conte di Cavour and other closing on the Prince d'Asturias. Neither lived long enough to deliver their 'eels' as the ASW helos swarmed from the decks.



Once the air had been cleared of the antiquated MiGs, the Hornets and EuroFighters re-armed with additional ARMs and set about blinding the ground radar facilities. In this task, they were only moderately successful. The ground batteries were notoriously difficult to shut down even after multiple ARM hits. As time was running out on the operation, I decided that additional risks would have to be undertaken. With aerial supremacy guaranteed, the aircraft could be re-armed exclusively for the ground strike role.

Armed with GBU laser-guided bombs, the flights of Hornets, Tornadoes, and EuroFighters undertook the long journey to their targets. Through careful course selection, the bombers were mostly able to fly around the surviving SAM batteries and bomb without resistance. Only in one location were the SAM batteries able to fire on the strikers. A high speed pass on afterburner allowed them to release their ordnance without loss. The Algerian construction engineers deserve much credit for their solid construction. However, in the end, the repeated strikes with heavy ordnance were finally too much even for their skill and all five complexes were destroyed. Victory was awarded soon afterwards.

Thanks very much for sharing another entertaining scenario with us, Mark.

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AAR: Qian Kong Kuai [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


I launched my AEW assets to try and get a grasp on the situation over the Senkaku region. While I had ample resources under my control, many of the aircraft and ships started near Japan, fairly far from the action. My first move was to bolster the defences at Naha. I saw that a number of aircraft were already slated for the Ferry mission, but I elected to arm them before launching them. This would prove fortuitous.



My amphibious force was clearing the Strait of Tsushima when a hostile three ship SAG [Surface Action Group] consisting of Maanshan-, Luda-, Jianghu-class vessels was detected moving to intercept them. I launched the F-2 strike aircraft and they executed an attack "en passant" before heading to Naha to land. A flight of F-2 armed with ASMs killed the Maanshan and the Jianghu frigates while a follow-up Orion finished off the Luda with Harpoons. Just as they were about to land, an ALCM [Air-Launched Cruise Missile] attack arrived at Naha, too. Some of my first fighters had already landed and were out of play. This attack was very nicely timed by the enemy. If I had not delayed the departure of my assets from Japan, they would all have been caught on the ground re-fueling at Naha. Instead, they were able to shoot down the ALCMs just before they entered the landing pattern.



Meanwhile, the AEW escorts killed a number of marauding Flanker fighters, but the Chinese hordes kept up the pressure. One CAP went Winchester [out of weapons state] and broke off to re-fuel and re-arm. The second patrol was left to try and parry the probes by the enemy interceptors. A little deft aerial judo sent most of the PRC Flankers into the sea. However, there simply weren't enough missiles to kill all the interlopers. The Sentinel was driven off-station but wasn't killed.



At the start of hostilities, all friendly tanker traffic had been ordered out of the region. However, the Takashi had just finished loading from the rig and was late in her departure. Her tardiness cost her the lives of her crewmen as she was caught and killed by something huge, lethal, and nasty. The fighters were so busy defending themselves that they were unable to extend any protection to the civilians in the area. Subsequently, a Houjian missile boat was able to close and sink the Oil Rig operating in the area. A strategic loss along with a heavy cost in lives.

A number of JH-7 'materialized' on the doorstep to Naha from the direction of the occupied islands. Thankfully, a flight of Phantoms was not yet in the landing pattern and were able to dispatch them. The little buggers were almost invisible on the near-useless radar of the Phantoms. I re-routed the E-2 Hawkeye to provide much-needed coverage for Naah. A second raid by 14 JH-7 from the mainland was nicely timed over Naha. Only a few fighters were available, but the lack of LR AAMs on the strikers allowed the defenders to close and kill them with Sidewinders. Slowly, but surely, Sakashima was isolated from aerial contact with the mainland.

As an aerial cordon was being set up around the islands, torpedoes were detected inbound on the Sasebo PhibRon. Seahawks (only 2 of them available) launched immediately. Luckily an Orion was in the vicinity enroute to a Anti-Surface strike with its Harpoons. It was quickly re-tasked to this more urgent need. Sonobuoys were dropped as the helos flew outbound and were quickly able to pinpoint the inbound torpedoes. By triangulation and backtrack, an estimated launch point was determined and all three hunters raced to the datum. Soon, the water was filled with ASW homing torpedos as a succession of these weapons finally killed the now-identified PRC Kilo. However, the PhibRon still had to evade their own torpedoes. Shimakaze and Takanami both survived and, again, took up positions at the head of the PhibRon.



Once the F-15Js were able to establish an air-tight perimeter around the islands, the F-4 Phantoms and F-2s were able to exterminate a re-inforcement convoy from the mainland. With no further challenges from the mainland, the strike assets re-armed for air-to-mud action. A full strike of 20 Phantoms and 17 F-2s were easily able to demolish the facilities on the disputed islands and victory was awarded.

Thanks for another challenging scenario. Check it out on:

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AAR: Crimean River [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


The loss of weapons-grade nuclear material is the greatest modern-day fear of most Western leaders. That fear would become a reality if this mission were to fail. With only four Harriers in the entire operation, the heavy lifting was going to be left up to the pilots of the helicopter gunships and the Marines and Special Operations troopers in their slicks / Osprey.



The Harriers were launched in order to clear a path for the air assault elements. Unfortunately, the pair of Harriers assigned to Simferopol air base declared mechanical problems and immediately returned to base. This meant that 50% of the available fixed wing assets were now declared unflightworthy and grounded indefinitely. This was a potentially crippling blow to the operation. The raid commander, in the finest tradition of Ranger "Can Do" spirit, elected to try and continue the mission without these vital assets. All "For Want of a Bolt"...



The situation looked grim, indeed. Numerous Surface-to-air missile [SAM] sites were quickly picked up by their distinctive transmissions as well as three armoured columns were also detected approaching Simferopol and the two bridges needed by the ground elements to cross into the Crimea. The Apache, Super Cobra, and Little Bird helicopters were able to quickly destroy this threat with rockets and Hellfire AGMs. The operation still looked feasible.



As the raid moved towards the nuclear sites, four Su-25 Frogfoot fighter-bombers attempted to intercept. The Harriers intercepted and destroyed three of them before the fourth was dispatched by a Super Cobra with a Sidewinder. The situation still looked nominal. The Harriers summarily dumped their load of bombs on SAM units in order to try and open up a breach in the defences. On their egress, both were shot down by the hideously lethal Grison-19 SAMs.

The Apaches then took to destroying most of the defending armoured forces and many short-ranged SAMs surrounding the bases. However, once they tried to approach the bases, they were quickly and helplessly shot out of the air. The Pantzir and SA-19 Grison systems easily out-ranged the 4nm range of the Hellfire missiles. The Apaches tried to swarm the defending SAMs in hopes of overwhelming them in sheer numbers. Their lives and their helicopters were thrown away for no gain.



Still, the commander tried to press the attack. His slicks had to get within 1nm in order to disgorge the assault troops. Sadly, they proved to be meat on the table for the voracious SAMs. After losing 30% of the assault element, the commander ordered a full retreat. To add insult to injury, a second wave of Su-25 Frogfoot fighter-bombers was launched from Russian bases. As they chased the retiring helos back to base, many more helos and Ospreys were shot down to them. Once they landed, National Command Authority ordered a full withdrawal from the region. They would have to get the fissile material another way.

Thanks for another challenging scenario. Still don't see how I could have done any better, but then, again, not all battles can be won. Just like in real life.


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AAR: Resolve [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


A very interesting mission this is: to suppress the enemy without causing too much damage. How ironic can orders be? This scenario is fraught with real life Rules of Engagement.

I launched my Ready +5 fighters immediately with supporting AEW units. I also launched my SEAD aircraft while re-arming others for the SEAD role because I didn’t want to inflict any more damage that absolutely necessary. I calculated that if I could keep the enemy blind, my bombers could penetrate without opposition.

One Hawkeye was assigned to cover Taiwan, who was lacking in any kind of AEW support. She looked pretty naked and open to attack. I also transferred my B-2 Spirits and B-1 Lancers to Taiwan in order to minimize their fuel demands.

Meanwhile, my CVBG had to play an offensive lineman’s role. [The designer of this scenario must be a football aficionado.] I was going to open a hole in China’s defensive line so that my running backs [B-1s and B-2s] could penetrate and run like crazy for the goal line, the ICBM base. The orders stated that the bombers had to make their ingress between the bases of Longyou and Beihai. I selected a point between Sek Kong and Beihai in order to create a rift in the IADS. This was the widest stretch of territory between all the bases. I hoped that I could escape detection and any roving air patrols.

My CAPs constantly encountered roving enemy air patrols of various sizes. These were easily dispatched from long range with BVR missile engagements. The enemy continued into the face of the missile fire without regard for their personal safety and were summarily butchered.

The SEAD planes were also enjoying success. Their volleys of decoys against Suixi, Ganghou, and Sek Kong coaxed the defending SAM batteries to radiate with active radar. These systems were quickly silenced by HARM-equipped aircraft following behind the decoys. Once a major breach was established in this new Great Wall of China, my fighters were able to hold the breach open whilst the stealthy bombers stole in on their mission.

After going ‘feet dry’ over the coast of China, the bombers plotted a circuitous route to the Datong ICBM complex in hopes of avoiding enemy contact. One nebulous radar return from any one of them could ruin their entire day.

As the strikers approached from the SW, all four aircraft separated to attack individually. This was done for two reasons. The multiple axes of attack allowed for the units to triangulate on radar contacts and also allowed for the possibility that if one or more elements were intercepted, the survivors could continue the mission. A Phalcon AEW unit was operating directly over the ICBM complex. This was very bad news as any radar return received by them would alert the entire region and the bombers were essentially defenceless.

The ‘escorting’ B-1 Lancers pinpointed the defending SAM batteries at 20nm range. There were a lot of them so they concentrated on the most lethal ones, the SA-10s and the LY-60s. They lofted their JSOW munitions and followed them in. If the B-2 strikers were detected, they would have to sacrifice themselves in hopes of drawing off any interceptors or SAMs. Brave men they were, indeed.

The JSOW weapons were easily shot down without inflicting much damage. Now the pucker factor was intense. The bombers closed on their targets, the command bunkers. Sweat was rolling off their brows as the radar intensity levels increased as more waves were reflected off of their aircraft. Would they be as invisible as advertised?

One Spirit found itself within range and loosed its Penetrators towards the bunkers. She immediately tried to pull off target but, being unwieldy aircraft, could not execute her turn quickly enough and carried on over the target. Ground defences identified her and killed her with SAM/AAA fire. Luckily, her bombs found their targets and demolished all three bunkers. The second B-2 was not needed. It was now time to get out of Dodge.

The surviving strikers were still on the egress portion of their flight when Victory was awarded over their radios. The ICBM command complex had been destroyed for the singular loss of a B-2 Spirit. It was expensive for the aircrew but cheap in terms of the entire war.

Thanks for an interesting and challenging scenario.


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AAR: Stage Fright [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte

Barrackpore was just launching its routine patrols when a hangar containing three aircraft exploded in flame. INCOMING! There had been no warning whatsoever. So, the Chinese were trying to implement their own version of Pearl Harbour. Well, we would teach them, the Bangladeshis, and the Burmese that their new friends in Beijing are a long ways away.



Port Blair was looking pretty exposed and understrength so all Flankers from Bangalore were immediately ordered to ferry over to bolster her defences. Airborne radar coverage over the Eastern provinces was desperately needed. Hopefully, the Phalcon AWACs would arrive in time to still do some good. An immediate alert warning was issued to all air bases: "Mother India is under attack. All commanders take all measures consistent with the preservation of your commands."

Chabya was looking pretty exposed as the easternmost base. She was surrounded on three sides by bases now known to be hostile. Her commander elected to get his Combat Air Patrols [CAP] up and stack them over the base and pray for reinforcements. As the AEW assets were in distant Delhi and Bangalore, the Fulcrums launched from Hasimara and Cuttack to act as mini-AWACs for the less capable Fishbeds. This was quite ironic since the Fulcrums were originally designed to act in cooperation with Russian Mainstay AWACs.

The fighters were swarming up from their bases in Burma and Bangladesh. The treacherous Chinese must have been plotting their dastardly attack for a long time. Savage air battles were fought over Hasimara and Barrackpore air bases. It was punctuated by fireballs from exploding aircraft as aircraft from both sides fell from the air. The little F-7 Airguard favoured by our enemies was notoriously difficult to detect. Our own MiG-21s were just as stealthy. However, the fact that our fighters were supported by their Fulcrum cousins, allowed the Fishbeds to claw most of the Airguards out of the sky. It was not without loss, but the price of victory was minimal. The furious dogfights between these two diminuitive fighter classes would later be known as the "Battle of the Gnats". Round one was won by India as the air was cleared of most of these pesky planes.



On the southern flank, Su-27 Flankers from Henzada tried to mob the CV Vikramaditya. Defending Fulcrum fighters were able to beat off the larger Flankers, but all of their missiles were expended in the effort. Multiple waves of strike aircraft followed the fighter sweep and pummelled the facilities at Port Blair. There were serious concerns whether the reinforcements would even have a place to land after their long flight over water.



Back over the sub-continent, attacks by Chinese-led forces were held, but just barely. The enemy's forces were totally fearless. They would advance stoically without regard to their own safety. While this accommodated the defenders' firepower, it soaked up all of their Air-to-Air missiles. Soon, every fighter had depleted their missiles and were forced to return to base. And still the Chinese came on. While the ground crews feverishly serviced the newly returned aircraft, the strike aircraft advanced inexorably. Chinese air strikes were preceded by Anti-Radiation Missiles [ARMs] which easily knocked out the defenders' SAMs before the masses of the PLAAF dropped their ordnance. Most bases were only damaged, but Chabya was hammered so mercilessly, that she was totally destroyed. With her demise, Total Victory was awarded to the Chinese and their Burmese/Bangladeshi co-conspirators. This round would go to the Chinese. However, one battle does not make a war.

Thanks for kicking my butt with this very fine scenario.

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AAR: Hungry Lion [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis



I was quite disheartened when I examined the forces under my command. With only 2-3 escorts for each convoy, I did not think that I had sufficient forces to screen the merchants. Instead, since all the convoys had the same destination, I decided to group them together so that they could share the escorts. This would make the single convoy a big, fat, and juicy target, but what choice did I really have? All three convoys were ordered to make a rendezvous just off of St. John's, Newfoundland.



From the orders, I expected an ALCM [Air-Launched Cruise Missile] attack on French and British bases. There should be plenty of fighters to defend the bases, but only if the Sentry was able to detect the attacks in the first place. I positioned the AEW right over the North Sea and prayed that she would get lucky. To support her, the EC-130 Compass Call was transferred to England and staged out of Portsmouth.



As the merchants began to gather, the CanASWGru [Canadian ASW Group] was the first group to come under attack. Torpedoes were detected inbound. Three Sea King helos were immediately launched. With that much dipping power on hand, I did not expect much chance for a sub to escape. Unfortunately, as they dipped their sonar, they discovered that they were under attack by Type 65-76 torpedoes. The phenomenal range on these weapons likely meant that there would be no chance to out run these massive weapons. Surely enough, two of these 650mm brutes locked onto and ran down HMCS Annapolis and snapped her like a twig.



Retribution was not far behind. The superb range of these weapons meant that they could have been fired from as far away as 40nm. That was a huge area to be searched, even with three Sea Kings. The trio just started working their way outward from the Task group and randomly dipped their sonar while also leaving a sonobuoy to mark their previous dip points. Just as luck was against the Annapolis, luck was with helos and a sub was quickly detected by sonobuoy. With three sub hunters angrily buzzing around her, a series of torpedoes were fired until enough finally managed to catch the Akula and send her to a reunion with the crew of the Annapolis. Although victorious, the three crews returned to the task group sullen over the lost of their crewmates.



SSN Key West was next to detect a subsurface contact. She elected to call in a P-3 Orion on patrol nearby instead of claiming it for herself. The skipper reasoned that it would be easier for the P-3 to re-load torpedoes from base magazines than to expend ordnance from the limited inventory aboard the submarine. With cues from the SSN, the Orion quickly and easily prosecuted the submarine with two Barracuda torpedoes.

Another Akula was detected south of Ireland. Luck was with the Irish, this day. A Nimrod MPA [Maritime Patrol Aircraft] was only 40nm away. She quickly pounced on the contact and there was one less obstacle for the convoy.

The next group to score was the French ASW group. Sonar reported a contact and three Lynx were sent aloft to localize it. This particular skipper was very skilled indeed. After all six torpedoes were expended from the helos, he was still able to evade. A number of explosions had been registered, but he was still making sprints at 30 knots. The two Lynx helos held back in reserve were launched to relieve the original three hunters. They were finally able to localize him and put him down with their final torpedoes. Although the French were admiring a skilful operator, they were still anxiously relieved to have been able to kill him. A skipper of such skill could easily have wrought havoc from within the convoy formation.

Once the convoy cleared the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, the voyage was mostly uneventful. Two Bears were encountered, but they were quickly killed by Eagles on long-range CAP [Combat Air Patrol] over the convoy. For quite some time afterward, the convoy sailed with baited breath over the possible appearance of Backfires armed with AS-4 Kitchen anti-ship missiles. As it turned out, none appeared so the Bears may have been killed in time to prevent them from sending a report to headquarters.

As the convoy was sailing along, only one ship had her radar emitting. This was done in hopes of denying the enemy full awareness of the convoy's contingent. Suddenly, the radar picket ship reported "Missiles Inbound!” Quickly, the convoy went to Air Action stations and defensive SAMs began to fly. Slowly, the number of Shipwreck missiles dropped. Unfortunately, the number was not falling quickly enough and an escort and four merchants went up in tremendous fireballs. Without any long range ASW assets available, the convoy could do little to search for the attacker. The entire action was over within three minutes of the alarm being raised.

The rest of the journey to Portsmouth was made without incident and all the survivors made port. However, victory was not granted since insufficient numbers of submarines had been hunted down to destruction. It was going to be a long, long war.

Thanks for sharing another scenario with the community.

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Very nice reads Herman. Your time in making and compiling the AARs are appreciated.

And thank You very much.

It's folks like you that make all the effort worthwhile.

AAR: Emerald Action [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis


Lieutenant O'Malley was fuming as he walked out of the radio room. He had just received his orders from HQ ashore. "Locate Norwegian fishing vessels in your vicinity and handle with extreme prejudice." Although he didn't necessarily agree with their implied violence, he could obey them. The next part of his orders were what gave him gastronomic upset, "Norwegian frigate Narvik believed to be in your Area of Operations [AO]. Exercise extreme caution." Now how the heck was he supposed to deal with that? Did the REMFs ever bother to compare the range of his 76mm guns to the range of the Narvik's Surface-to-Surface Missiles [SSMs]? He said a quick prayer for himself and his crews and walked the short distance to the bridge to begin the operation.

His two small vessels were more attuned to fishery management and not a stand up fight with a naval frigate. More depressing was the fact that his forces were nearly blind as they were only equipped with short-ranged radar. A small consolation was the assignment of three SF260 aircraft from Shannon. However, these aircraft were nearly as blind as the ships as they had no active sensors. It would be the ultimate game of "Marco Polo". To actually find any ships on this sea was going to require blind luck, indeed. To help hide his vessels, O'Malley ordered his ships to engage their radar only sporadically. Hopefully, this would prevent the frigate from establishing a firm contact on him from Electronic Support Measures [ESM] alone. It was the only card he had to play.



As the planes flew back and forth over the wide ocean, one stumbled upon the St. Lucia, a trawler registered in Stavanger. The Niamh was immediately ordered to intercept and attempt to board her. Unfortunately, as Niamh closed on her, the Frigate was detected dangerously close to the Niamh. The Niamh was chasing a vessel doing 14kts, she was doing 22kts, and she was being chased by a vessel running 25knots. O'Malley had the image of a small fish being devoured by a bigger fish who was in turn being eaten by a yet larger fish.



Well, whatever their fate, O'Malley was determined to catch the St. Lucia before she herself was caught. The other patrol vessel, Ciara, could make 25kts and decided to stay well clear of the frigate's path. Ciara made contact with another trawler, Katerina, who serendipitously appeared in front of her. As both Irish vessels ran for their lives, they also closed on these merchant intruders. When they reached a distance of 1nm, the Norwegian ships were ordered to halt for fishery inspection. When they refused to do so, they were ordered sunk by gunfire. For reasons unknown, once the trawlers were sunk, the frigate disengaged from her pursuit and victory was awarded. The luck of the Irish had held today.



Thanks for an interesting little encounter. I think that my success was more due to luck than skillful deployment.

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Check it out in the StrategyZoneOnline file archives .

Here's another great AAR by Brad Leyte (a.k.a. CV32). It is re-printed here with permission from the author.

AAR: Black Valour – [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis


Romania was unhappy with Turkey, and its big brother, Ukraine, had promised to show up on the playground if there was any trouble. This time, the playground was the Black Sea.

Realizing that a large portion of my front line TuAF fighters (F-16 and F-4) were sitting on the tarmac with no weapons loaded, I immediately set about arming them for air-to-air and suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) missions respectively.

The ex Perry class frigate Gediz and a pair of FPB57 fast attack craft were patrolling in the western Black Sea, but I did not want to reveal their positions just yet by energizing their radars. Rather, I launched two reconnaissance aircraft, an RF-4 and a CN-235MPA, to investigate the general area, and a pair of F-4 Phantoms to provide CAP for them.

It wasn’t long before lookouts aboard the Gediz reported a pair of MiG-21 approaching at low altitude. Once it was certain they had spotted the ship, and yet continued to close the distance, Gediz activated her radars and defensive systems, and splashed both Fishbeds at very short range.

A Naluca torpedo boat was spotted to the north, and a pair of Harpoons from Gediz quickly dispatched it. Almost immediately, a trio of Osa I missile boats were detected closing from the northwest, but Gediz withheld further ASuW action for the moment.

Another pair of MiG-21s strayed within Gediz’s lethal anti-air warfare (AAW) envelope, and these too were claimed by Standard missiles. The orbiting Phantoms joined the rapidly crowding airspace, claiming a pair of L-39 Albatros light attack aircraft and a pair of Beagle bombers.

Two pairs of Su-27 Flankers arrived on the scene, obviously Ukrainian and obviously hostile. My reconnaissance patrols chose to bug out in the face of this new threat, but the CN-235MPA was too slow and ate an Alamo just a few scant miles from its home airfield.

At last, the vaunted F-16s were ready for action, and two were launched immediately to deal with the Flankers. Using the RF-4 as “bait”, they quickly claimed both pairs of Flankers.

Meanwhile, the two F-4s claimed four more Albatros and a pair of Beagles. Again these aircraft types were detected flying together in loose formation, and I wondered why the Romanians would choose to pair them. The passengers aboard a nearby civil registered Boeing 737 – its pilots apparently oblivious to the sudden outbreak of hostilities between Turkey and Romania - were close enough to see the fireballs created by the exploding missiles and aircraft. I could only imagine how many faces and digital cameras were pressed against the fuselage windows. The burning wreckage of these Romanian aircraft fell into the sea very close to the Osa I missile craft.

To the east, the Turkish F-16s, low on fuel and missiles but full of adrenaline, buzzed the luxury yacht Cassiopeia while returning to base. They were scolded by their superior, but not reprimanded – he was much too proud of their performance for that.

It wasn’t long before another furball erupted over the Turkish and Romanian ships at sea, both sides closing rapidly with the other. An antiship strike had been launched against the Osa group, and the escorting F-16s dropped a MiG-21 and an Albatros with AIM-9s, and two Ukrainian Flankers with AIM-120s. Gediz splashed another MiG-21 and Albatros with Standards.

Another Naluca torpedo boat that was closing the distance with Gediz was obliterated with a Harpoon.

To the south, not far from Istanbul, the RF-4 practically ran head long into two pairs of MiG-21 that were approaching at low altitude and radar silenct; the RF-4 escaped their lethal zone on afterburner, but they were slow to respond and then turned for home, having lost their opportunity to bag the recon plane.

Just now, the three Osa missile craft came within range of the Gediz, and let loose with their Styx antiship missiles. Three salvoes were launched within minutes of each other, but one by one they were splashed by the orbiting F-16s, F-4s and Standards launched from Gediz. The last missile was brought down a few hundred meters short of the Gediz.

Meanwhile, the strike that had been launched at Kogalniceanu air defences was nearing the coast. The lights of Constanta were now visible in the distance, but so were the blips on the escorting F-16 radar scopes as numerous Romanian fighters launched to intercept the incoming intruders. Three MiG-21s and an Albatros were claimed before the Phantoms were able to penetrate to launch range. Four SA-6 Gainful SAM batteries, but the two closest ones were now targeted for attack. Eight AGM-78 Standard ARM were launched, four at each. At least five of these struck their targets, or exploded close enough to inflict damage on the SA-6 radar systems. The SAM sites were hurt, but not out of the battle.

On the egress from Kogalniceanu, two more ship contacts were detected and identified: a Tetal II and the Marasesti, about 75 nm northeast of the coast and (strangely) heading north. The transit home was not uneventful, however, and two F-4 strikers were jumped by a lone MiG-21, that was then itself taken out by a barrage of AIM-7F Sparrows.

The antiship strike, meanwhile, timed to coincide with the egress of the SEAD mission, arrived at its objective without incident. Two of the three Osa were blown up by Mavericks, and six more MiG-21s were downed as they struggled to defend the airspace above their ships. The surviving Osa was dispatched with a Harpoon from the Gediz, though it did manage to fire off a couple of Grail SAMs in futile self defence.

Perhaps responding to the strike against their sailor comrades, the Tetal II and Marasesti were noted as now changing course and moving south to close the distance with Gediz.

Four more MiG-21s would be downed by F-16s and the Gediz before the Turks turned their attention to the new naval oncomers. Yet, the strike conducted against them yielded disappointing results; only two hits were achieved with six Mavericks against the Marasesti for 25% damage. A follow-on attack put four more Mavericks into the Marasesti and shot down her Alouette helo. Gediz launched its own helo to finish off the Marasesti group, but as it was closing to firing range, the Marasesti blew up. One helicopter then turned to the secondary target, the Tetal II, and inflicted 25% damage with one successful missile hit.

With the Gediz now out of Standards, the pair of FPB57 missile craft arrived on the scene to support her. The crippled Tetal II was sunk with a couple of Harpoons launched from near maximum range by the Turkish missile boats.

With no further opposition arriving from the Ukrainians, the Turks were able to turn their full and undivided attention toward Kogalniceanu. Another SEAD strike was launched to soften the defences around the Romanian airfield, and as a result, three of the four known SA-6 batteries were damaged.

Complacency is a killer, though, and three F-16s were smoked by an unknown assailant as they orbited off the coast – the price of loitering in an area for too long. It wasn’t long before two Romanian MiG-21s were discovered lurking nearby, and both of these were claimed in revenge by Phantoms.

Finally it was time to hit the airfield, one of the most dangerous missions of all. The two SA-6 batteries that had been emplaced closest to the base, previously damaged by Standard ARM hits, were finished off with Shrikes, Rockeyes and 70mm rockets. The airfield’s control tower, hangars, and parking aprons were pasted with GBU-16 LGBs and Rockeyes, inflicting 64% damage and (hopefully) eliminating any further air activity by the Romanians. A second strike, utilizing 500 lb Mk 82 and 1000 lb Mk 83 dumb bombs, finished off Kogalniceanu, and awarded Turkey its minimum victory.

Thanks for another great scenario, Mark. It was exactly the kind of Christmas gift I like.

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AAR: Black Valour – [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis


The forces under Turkish command were caught mostly unprepared. The fighters on the airfields at Ankara and Merzifon were unloaded and empty. Orders quickly went out to the ships currently on station in the Black Sea. They were to head back to shore for better protection since nothing in the orders stated that they were needed to maintain their present patrol positions. The only available fighters were the Phantoms based out of Topel. A flight of three was sent for CAP [Combat Air Patrol] over each of the surface groups. An RF-4C Recon plane was sent to scout the area over the Black Sea as HQ was essentially blind in the region.



A number of MiGs were soon detected. Their intentions were unknown. So, one flight of Phantoms was ordered to investigate and ascertain their posture. After dancing with a pair of the agile fighters, the Romanians behaved themselves and took no aggressive measures towards the Phantoms. Still, the flight leader allowed his charges to train at the expense of provocative, yet currently non-belligerent, Romanians by allowing his less experienced wingmen to close on the MiGs and manoeuvre into their "six-o'clock" positions. He was even tempted to taunt them over the international guard frequency with, "If we were serious, you'd be dead, now." However, he was a fighter pilot and fighter pilots are nothing if not well disciplined. After tracking them for a few minutes within their cones of vulnerability, he was certain that they 'got the message' and the Phantoms broke off to investigate a second flight of MiGs.

The second flight of MiG-21 Fishbed N was much more bellicose. They turned directly towards the Phantoms and began trying and get behind the Turks for their AA-2 Atoll missiles. "Well," thought the flight leader, "if that is what you want, that is what you will get." He split off from his flight and allowed himself to act as Missile Bait and ordered his wingmen to cover him. Sure enough, the Romanians were seen to fire AA-2 Atolls! The flight leader immediately went to afterburner and took evasive action all the while deploying flares. Meanwhile, his two wingmen struck back quickly with a pair of AIM-9L Sidewinders targeted on each of the MiGs. The Atolls came very close to the Phantom, but they simply could not catch a fighter on afterburner. The Sidewinders each tracked a MiG and tore them apart in quick retribution.

The flight re-formed and went to chase the first flight of Fishbeds. If they wanted to play roughly, then Turkey would oblige them and play along with them until someone cried "Uncle!" A repeat performance was played out when the second flight got 'frisky' with the Phantoms. This time, the flight wingmen were fired upon and the Flight leader killed both MiGs; one with a gunnery pass and the other with his two 9 Limas.

The RF-4C had detected two frigates, Tetal and Marasesti. While Tetal was only armed with old-fashioned gunnery, Marasesti was dangerous with four SS-N-2c Styx AShMs [Anti-Ship Missiles]. A closer second look was certainly warranted. As the Phantom closed on the Romanian vessels, his "guy-in-back" suggested that they make a quick camera pass and let the photo interpreters do their job. The pilot agreed that there was no need to stay within their AAA envelope any longer than absolutely necessary. He lit his afterburners just four miles away from the target and engaged his cameras.

The second CAP [Combat Air Patrol] did not fare as well. The less experienced flight leader was jumped by a pair of MiGs and shot down in a lightning-quick slashing attack. His wingmen were barely able to shake themselves out of their shock from the loss of their commander. However, just as the MiGs were about to pass out of the AIM-9 engagement envelope, both wingmen loosed a pair of Sidewinders at each of the bushwhackers and managed to destroy them. No parachutes were seen from any of the three planes and the vicious combat was over within two minutes.

The first flight was rejoicing in their skill and luck when Flanker radar was detected. Perhaps they had spoken too soon. The Su-27 Flanker was a totally different beast from the antiquated MiG-21 Fishbed. She had powerful radar to complement her awesome AA-10 Alamo missiles' 47nm range. The Sparrows on the obsolescent Phantoms only had a range of 31nm. The flight leader decided that they had used up their allocation of luck, today, and decided to run for home. "Let the pilots in their fancy Falcons and AMRAAM deal with the Flanker," he thought. However, his Ground-Controlled Intercept [GCI] officer ordered all the airborne Phantoms to close on the Flankers since the Falcons were still not ready for flight operations. Sullenly, he ordered his wingmen to keep a sharp lookout for Alamo smoke trails.

At a range of 32nm, the accompanying RF-4C reported, "They've locked you up! Incoming Alamo!” The Phantoms immediately executed a Split-S manoeuvre and thundered away from the approaching missiles on afterburner. This time, range and alertness prevented any loss to the Romanians. Now that the Flankers had exhausted their missiles, the Phantom flight sought revenge. After closing to 31nm, the Flankers were easily dispatched with Sparrows.

The Flankers had obviously been covering another attack flight. Two H-5 Beagle were visually detected coming in low and on the deck towards FFG Gediz. The Phantoms suspected that they were up to no good and closed to investigate. Although they had already exhausted their missiles, they still had their gun ammo. When the Beagle gunners took them under fire, the fighter pilots shredded the lumbering bombers with gunfire of their own. This would prove to be the most successful combat sortie in Turkish history. Eight victories were recorded for no losses.



Two bogies were detected approaching the Gediz. The wounded flight of Phantoms was ordered to close since the other flight had already left for home after exhausting their weapons. After visually identifying the L-39 Albatros, they were engaged and decided to return the favour with Sparrow missiles that quickly brought down the Albatros. However, this flight has also been escorted by a pair of MiG 21 Fishbed. After dealing with the Albatros, the Phantoms closed on the MiGs. Before they were able to ascertain their intentions, both Phantoms of the hard-luck flight were killed by AA-2 Atolls.

More Flankers were detected, but, this time, AMRAAM-armed Falcons were ready to handle them. Although the AMRAAM only had a range of 40nm, this was still far superior to the 31nm range of the Sparrow.

Two more flights of Albatros tried to attack the Gediz but were quickly shot down by the guardian flights of Phantoms now positioned over the ship. The Phantoms would be used for close-in defense while the Falcons would take care of long-ranged threats. The arrangement was working very smoothly as two more flights of Flankers were dispatched after engaging the Falcons with AA-10 Alamo. The fire-and-forget ability of the AMRAAM allowed the Falcons to turn away after missile release while the Flankers were forced to keep their radar focused in order to have any chance of success. The math was simple. Four Flankers went down for no commensurate Falcon losses.



FFG Gediz appeared to be the 'belle of the ball' and garnered all the attention. Currently, there were three Osa-class missile boats chasing her along with two Naluca-class torpedo boats. Without much in the way of air-to-ground attack assets, the Tigers out of Istanbul were ordered to re-arm with Mavericks to take out the surface threat. The Romanian boats were all moving in excess of 35kts and the Gediz could only make 29 knots. There would no chance of her running away from her determined suitors. A pair of Maverick / target was all that were needed to kill each of the Naluca / Osa torpedo / missile boats. Gediz turned around and sent her eight Harpoon missiles into the frigates Marasesti and Tetal to leave them burning wrecks.



With the aerial situation over the Black Sea appearing to be well-in-hand, Turkish HQ ordered the RF-4C to reconnoitre Kogalniceanu and attempt to locate the ballistic missile launchers. Four SA-6 batteries were seen protecting the base so the pilots decided to circle the base and look for a chink in the armour before making their final approach. As they were looking for an opening, a slew of MiG-21s were detected rising from the runways! The RF-4C beat a hasty retreat and called on her Falcon and Phantom escorts to deal with the interceptors.



A lone pair of Falcons was soon facing six pairs of very agitated Fishbeds. However, the pilots were non-plussed. In this high stakes poker game, they were holding AIM-120 AMRAAMs and AIM-9L Sidewinders over AA-2 Atolls. The only question would be if they had enough missiles to do the job. They managed to bring down eight fighters before the backup Phantoms arrived to finish the job with AIM-7 Sparrows.



With the airborne threat silenced, the RF-4C was once again facing a single dimensional threat from the SA-6 batteries. She elected to make her ingress from the SW where there appeared to be a gap in the SAM defences. The Phantom went to full speed and streaked in on Kogalniceanu. As she neared the base, a SA-6 rose to challenge her. The pilot increased speed to afterburner and attempted to turn away. However, when travelling at 1300+ kts, turns are very slowly executed. He ran to the NW in hopes of evading further SAMs. "Luck" was with him as the SAM forced him to over fly one of the DF-25 sites! However, luck often cuts both ways. Another SA-6 was rising towards him. This one also missed him as his burst of speed carried him from the area. Four TEL units had been detected on his egress. Now, if only his fuel would hold out until he left the area, he promised that he would be a devout Muslim for the rest of his days. Allah must have agreed with him as he left the area unmolested.



When his report was received back at base, Turkish HQ ordered all the Phantoms and Falcons to re-arm with Rockeye CBUs [Cluster Bomb Units]. The strikers took circuitous routes around the SA-6 batteries so that they would only be vulnerable on the final leg of the attack run. All four DF-25 launchers were destroyed for the loss of a single Phantom. Once the SRBMs were destroyed, the attack moved on to Kogalniceanu airbase. One swift, decisive attack and the base was levelled for the loss of one plane. Upon their return the base, victory was awarded.

Thanks for a unique and interesting scenario on the Black Sea.

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Havent played Harpoon before but the AAR has me very interested.

One question the screenshots look like two different games. SOme look far better than others. WHy is that?

Thanks

You are absolutely right! There are two types of computer Harpoon.

This AAR is written for the Harpoon Classic branch of the game.

The other branch of the game is the Harpoon 3. I'll leave it to you to decide which one provides for 'better' screen shots.

I won't lie to you. These games are over years old and their graphics are just not going to be as detailed or intense as contemporary games.

You might prefer one game's visuals over another. However, I think that both Harpoon Classic and Harpoon 3 are more of the "Tell me what is happening"-type of games than "Show me what is happening"-type of game.

Go ahead and grab a demo and see for yourself from AGSI .

Here's another great AAR by Brad Leyte (a.k.a. CV32). It is re-printed here with permission from the author.

AAR: Crete Convoy – [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
by Mark Gellis


So, I had to get a convoy through possibly hostile waters. Well, lotsa experience doing that, so her goes ...

I had very little fixed wing air support, so that meant I would need to use my two helicopters sparingly and carefully. I moved into the Strait of Sicily at a decent cruise speed of 16 kt without energizing any radars or launching any helos. No sense in letting an enemy know my position too early ...

It wasn't long, however, before I figured it was getting a little too dangerous to be cruising along blind. In fact, a neutral oil tanker had reported on open channels about being overflown by a military aircraft moving at high speed. Libyan, no doubt.

My Seasprite spotted a Osa II missile boat south of Sicily, again undoubtedly Libyan, and moved closer to investigate. Once its identity had been confirmed, the helo pivoted to make the return trip to the Knox class frigate Jesse Brown. The Osa II turned to follow.

Once the Osa II was getting to dangerous missile range, the skipper of the Jesse Brown made the call that it was hostile, and launched a pair of Harpoons to negate the threat. One missile connected, and the Osa II disintegrated.

Perhaps having had time to report the incident, the Osa II's friends showed up soon thereafter. Six L-39 Albatros light attack aircraft swept in from the south. All were downed by Standards from the Charles Adams destroyer Robison, but the Libyans had pressed the attack hard enough to shoot a few rockets and drop a few iron bombs near the Jesse Brown, inflicting minor damage.

Next, a pair of MiG-25s arrived, and although I had moved an orbiting Seasprite to the far side of my formation, it wasn't enough to protect him from the fast movers. I traded the Seasprite for a Foxbat, a trade I wasn't particularly happy with.

Two more L-39s arrived on the scene, but these were both shot down before getting close enough to make their own attacks. Brave pilots, dumb tactics.

My convoy was now moving through the somewhat confined waters south of Sicily, and I made a decision to avoid the Malta Channel, which would be a great spot for a submarine to hang out, and navigate instead south of the island of Malta. It would take me closer to the Libyan coast, but at least I had a better chance of seeing the planes and ships coming. A submarine might be a different story.

An Assad missile craft was soon detected patrolling in the Gulf of Sidra, not far from Qaddafi's old Line of Death. But it was still pretty far away.

At this point I decided to launch some Greek fixed wing air support to show the flag and try and protect the convoy. The Libyans weren't impressed. MiG-25 Foxbats ate three of my elderly Phantoms alive.

Hmm, maybe this wasn't such a great idea. Oh well, too late now. Press onward.

A Combattante IIG missile boat was spotted and promptly sunk by a pair of Harpoons from the Robison. Almost immediately thereafter, however, four incoming Vampires (later id'ed as Otomats) were detected moving in, low on the horizon. Two of the attacking missiles were shot down by Robison's Standards, and luckily, the other two missed their run on Jesse Brown. Phew.

Another Combattante IIG, perhaps the perpetrator, was spotted and sunk with another pair of Harpoons from Robison at about 20 nm.

Another four Otomats arrived. Hmmm, over the horizon targeting. Was there a helo out there ? Or were the orbiting Foxbats calling targets. The crew of the Jesse Brown would never know. Two Otomats were splashed by Standards, but this time, one hit Brown and exploded, and the ship quickly came apart.

A pair of Assads soon appeared on the horizon. Why didn't somebody thinking of arming the Seasprite with a decent air-to-surface missile ?

One Assad was sunk by a pair of Harpoons, and the other by 127mm gunfire, both angrily launched by the vengeful crew of the Robison.

Things seemed to quiet down after that. The convoy pressed onward. And the skipper of the Robison took some comfort in the fact that satellite recon had spotted a Libyan submarine on the surface in the Malta Channel. Was it better to have lost only a few friends rather than many ? He would have to think about that one.

My convoy arrived in safe waters off southwestern Crete but not quickly enough. The game clock had run down and the battle was declared a draw. Oh well, I still had fun, and ya can't win em all.

Thanks, Mark. B)

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AAR: Constant Glance [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


"They're fighting over gas!?!", Bradford exclaimed? "I can't believe that they are fighting something when my brother-in-law has such a vast oversupply." A few grins lit up across the room at that. It was intended to lighten the mood and was only partially effective. The entire staff at US-Eastern European Task Force [EETF] HQ could see the dire situation they were in.

Odessa had just launched her aircraft in what she would hope to be a lightning quick strike into the Crimea. With luck, they would be able to suppress the lightly defended airbase near Kerch before the Russians could respond effectively. The airlift into Forward Operating Base at airfield AFa was sent immediately. "No time like the present", Bradford liked to say. He hoped that his optimism would not come back to bite him in the keester.

The HSV Spearhead was ordered to turn around and join up with the slow-poking MPS ships following behind her. It was all fine and dandy to be running around at 38kts in times of peace, but if the balloon went up, her speed was going to pale in comparision to the AShMs [Anti-Ship Missiles] that the Russians were known to use. The little group was protected by a lone FFG, but some protection was better than none at all. The tiny Romanian frigate force along with the Ukrainian Black Sea Patrol squadron was sent to lend what aid they could. Everyone expected the transports to receive a hot reception. They were prime targets and only lightly shielded. Kogalniceanu sent two CAPs [Combat Air Patrols] consisting of MiG-29 Fulcrums aloft in a bid to offer some early warning and interdiction. What a strange new world it was when MiG-29s were providing CAP for Perry-class frigates.



The armoured groups near Sebastopol reported attacks from unknown assailants. "Well", thought Bradford, "that tears it. Fight's on." More reports were filtering in from the Crimea. The artillery groups were ordered to detach and evade. Evidently, the enemy knew their location so they had to immediately displace. Nothing could be done for the fixed bunkers and several were destroyed. Hopefully, some of the artillery train would survive.



The Russian helos were appropriately named Havoc for they lived up to their namesake. They wrought havoc throughout the Crimea. In the company of Hind helos, they smashed several bunkers and much of the forward artillery before being brought down by the Fulcrum and Flankers just arriving on the scene. As usual, it was a matter of closing the barn door only after the damage had been done. Nonetheless, eight attack helicopters were caught as they tried to flee the field and were slaughtered by the incredibly effective AA-11 Archers.



A window of opportunity opened up and there was a gap in the Russian defences. The Su-24 Fencers and the Su-25 Frogfoots from Odessa did not pass it up. They swooped in and hurtled themselves at the forward air base near Kerch. A few desultory SAMs were fired in their direction, but no losses were sustained as they laid waste to the airfield. As they made their egress, victory was granted. Evidently, the bold move had the correct one. The Russians were willing to flex their muscles. However, with the destruction of their forward base near Kerch, they lost heart and decided to settle the issue diplomatically.

Thanks for a unique scenario tied in with contemporary news headlines.

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AAR: My Pet Dragon [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte



I don't often get a chance to play the red side. So, when I saw that this scenario was playable from either side, I jumped at it.



As the PRC prepared for the impending assault, the general vicinity of the CVBG was revealed. Ground-based radar was able to detect the distinctive emissions from an E-2 Hawkeye. Although they didn’t know the exact location of the carrier, they knew that it could not be far away and decided to re-configure the aircraft to defend their bases, first.



In accordance with the orders, the PRC would not take any offensive actions in hopes that a diplomatic solution would be found. However, the Vietnamese were the first to get aggressive by blatantly violating PRC airspace around Hainan Island. Until the diplomats were able to get a handle on things, Vietnam would be considered hostile. They came snooping around sovereign Chinese airspace, were warned, and then shot out of the air.

They continued their belligerence around the convoy centred on the Charles de Gaulle. She also splashed the Fishbeds that had nosing around the declared Exclusion zone surrounding her. A volley of Dong Hai 10 ALCM [Air-Launched Cruise Missiles] was sent to Hanoi to remind them who the biggest wolf was in the region.

One of the few things the PRC leadership truly feared was the American TLAM. They had carefully analyzed the use of TLAM in the Middle East and were in awe of its fearsome striking power. Even now, a wave of TLAM could be approaching the PRC and they wouldn't know about it. So, they kept a substantial proportion of their ready assets in the air in hopes of spotting these deadly missiles. They were much relieved when this threat failed to materialize.

Instead, the Americans sent their forces in piecemeal while the PRC was able to hit with a mailed fist. Growlers tried to jam the radar, but they, in turn, were easily identified, located, and killed. Hornets were also detected conducting probes of the defences, but they were all killed quite handily before they were able to deliver any type of attack.



Except for a startling SRBM attack on Lingshui and Shantou, the Americans seemed to be offensively ineffective. Once the PLAN decided that no attack would be forthcoming, they quietly re-armed their Flankers with AShMs [Anti-Ship Missiles]. The Maritime Patrol Aircraft [MPAs] had positioned themselves around the Hawkeye in a semi-circular pattern and just outside the estimated radar coverage. While the bombers were launching, they all converged on the Hawkeye in hopes of locating the carrier.



Without any opposition from Combat Air Patrols, they were able to close and pinpoint the carrier. The strike elements were then able to time an excellent time-over-target attack. Anti-Radiation Missiles were launched at maximum range and they were followed by the strike elements. When the entire task force turned on their radar to engage the ARMs, they revealed themselves entirely and set themselves up for AShM attack.

Within a matter of minutes, the carrier was left a blazing wreck and many of the SAMs had been expended. A late-arriving group of Badgers gave the survivors the coup de grace.

Meanwhile, off the coast of Vietnam, the SSN Amethyste detected another carrier task group centred on the Chakri Nareubet and had crept inside the Thai formation. From a distance of only 3nm, she unleashed a full volley of torpedoes towards the carrier and dove deep to evade. The group did not even appear as though it had detected the attack for it just kept sailing along blissfully. Amethyste recorded three explosions as she made her escape. Once clear, victory was granted. Now, the Americans would think twice before venturing back into the South _China_ Sea.

Thanks for the scenario.

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AAR: Waking the God of the Dead [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte

Captain Goldman was re-examining the map for the umpteenth time. Where would be the best points for ingress and egress? It seemed as though any point he chose would likely be covered by one of the numerous airfields dotting the Iranian landscape. "Well, that's why they call it an INTEGRATED Air Defence System," he chided himself as base S-2 walked up to him.

Benjamin Dayan asked him what ordnance he planned on using. To which Goldman asked, "What can I have?".

"Anything you like. It's been approved by the Prime Minister, himself," replied Dayan.

"Well, I'll make it simple for you, then. Load the F-16I Soufa with Spice Mk 83s, the F-15 Thunder with AMRAAM, and the F-15 Baz with Have Nap," said Goldman.

Dayan winced at the request and reminded Goldman that there weren't all that many in the entire inventory to which Goldman responded with, "What are you doing? Saving them for a rainy day?"

Dayan relented and set about making arrangements for the munitions. In his mind, he agreed with Goldman. If this mission failed, there probably wouldn't be much use for the bombs if Iran got herself an atomic bomb.

The entire mission launched at 0103 Lima time in hopes of the darkness giving them an additional cloaking effect. Goldman had decided that they would make their ingress between Basra and Baghdad. He planned the mission in stages. In Stage one, they would open a hole in the IADS and then return through that very same hole multiple times. The place where they would punch their hole was the air base at Dezful.



The entire group crept in low on the deck. To ease logistics, each aircraft type was accompanied by two tankers. The strike was escorted by Nachshon EW and AEW aircraft that were also at low altitude. Goldman had been hoping to reach the release point without detection, but they accidentally bumped into an Iraqi C-130 flying out of Basra. The plane reported the incident to its ground control and inadvertently notified Iranian command headquarters. Mossad had already warned the IDF that anything the GCC states knew, the Iranians would know, too, because every state bordering Iran had been thoroughly penetrated by Iranian intelligence. Although detected, the strike remained under EmCon [Emissions Control] and immediately changed course in hopes of spoofing the Iranians. With luck, they could be lost again before the Iranians could react.

It must have been a factor, as no interceptor radar was reported until the strike was 200nm away from Dezful. The Nachshon hung back, climbed, and activated its radar. Immediately, it detected interceptors drawing a bead on it. However, controllers calculated that they should be able to conduct the strike and escape before more than a few flights would be able to catch them.



Thunder flight led the way and only had to kill a single pair of F-14 Tomcats before the Falcons and the Eagles reached their launch points. The Falcons aimed all of their weapons at the airfield while the Eagles released theirs at nuclear facility #2. The airfield sustained over fifty hits, but the nuclear plant was unscathed. Dezful would be closed for the duration. The orders said that defences could be suppressed. Although the base was flattened, it still fit Goldman's definition of 'suppression'. The entire strike group fled together. Like the Wild Bunch, they had ridden in, taken their pleasure with the women, shot up the town, and now, were riding out before a posse could form up in pursuit. Their American cousins would have been proud.



Once re-armed, the strike launched, again, and hoped to make use of their newly created breach in the Iranian IADS. Luck was not on their side this time around. The same(?) Hercules ran into them and, this time, more Tomcat interceptors were waiting. The eight F-15 Thunder were riding shotgun and managed to splash all the Tomcats with deft manoeuvres after exchanging AMRAAM and Phoenix. The Iranian missiles were quite antiquated and scored no hits while the AMRAAM brushed the Tomcats from the sky.

This time, the Falcons arrived at the Isfahan nuclear facility ahead of the others and were able to release their ordnance before the rest of the strike group. After release, they retired and held open the sides of the breach so that the Iranians were not able to pinch off the penetration behind the strike group. The target was severely damaged, but the F-15 Baz were able to put the nail in the coffin of the nuclear plant. Without further adieu, the strike group withdrew and collected each element as it returned to base.



The third wave would be the most difficult. The group was going after nuclear facility #3, the most distant of the three possible targets. The group made its ingress through the same gap. However, this time they faced far fewer Tomcat fighters. Evidently, their previous visits had hurt the Iranian air force severely. Many flights of Phantoms were encountered, but they were easily brushed aside by the plentiful Derby AAMs carried by the Soufa Falcons. Although it was the longest mission of the day, the resistance was only moderate as the strikers delivered their high explosive ordnance. Leaving behind a smoking ruin for a facility, the Israeli air force withdrew. The Knesset had demanded that two targets be destroyed and the air force had, once again, risen to the occasion. Hopefully, it would be the last visit of the IAF to Iran, but Goldman knew otherwise in his heart.

Thanks for a stimulating scenario.

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AAR: My Love is Vengeance [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


"Revenge is a dish best served cold." Many years had passed since the Cole was bombed, but there were still many men aboard her who remembered that fateful day. When the Captain announced the mission to his crew, everyone could feel the electricity in the air. Every man swore an oath to himself. Today would be the day that the Cole balanced the books. It was Retribution day.

With only a 24hr. time frame for the operation, the aircraft from Diego Garcia were immediately sent aloft. I didn't have a target yet, but DG was a long ways off. Better to have them on hand and not needed, than call for them and find them still on the ground.

Without any airborne radar support, I ordered the Cole to radiate and try to give me a picture of the situation. I would simply have to trust in her Aegis defences to keep her safe. Immediately, reports were received of MiG-29s rising from the airfield on Socotra. Even these older versions of the famous Fulcrum were dangerous and, likely, more capable than the Harriers aboard the LPD San Antonio.



Two F-5 Tigers were detected approaching the task group; one from Aden and the other from Socotra. I decided that the Harriers could engage these planes with a margin of safety. A lone Harrier was sent to intercept each. However, the Harrier flying towards Socotra received a nasty surprise. Three more Tigers were following the first. Hurriedly, two Harriers already loaded for Air-to-Ground missions were hastily launched. They jettisoned their ordnance and raced after the new threat and splashed them with AIM-9 Sidewinders before their victims even knew that they were in the area.



The attack from Socotra kept the Task Group occupied. A flight of Su-24 Fencers suddenly appeared from the direction of Al Ghaydah! The Tactical Action Officer [TAO] immediately declared, "Weapons Free! Air action North". Almost immediately, the Fencers released their first weapons, AS-12 Keglers. The last two Harriers were configured for Close Air Support [CAS], but they still had their Sidewinders on the rails so they were sent aloft to counter the Fencers. The TAO ordered them to intercept the AShM [Anti-Ship Missiles]. Along with the Standard SAMs from Cole, the raiders were peremptorily shot out of the sky. Unfortunately, all the assets had been committed and no reserves remained. So, when two Flogger Fs followed behind the Fencers, the TG had to rely solely upon the Cole's SAMs for protection. Both Floggers were brought down. Now I had to wonder if the SAM magazines were going to be sufficient.



Eight AShMs were suddenly detected from threat Axis [Socotra]. The launching platforms weren't even detected. The attack was defeated, but it soaked up the remaining long-range SAMs aboard Cole. Four Su-25 Frogfoots tried to sneak in behind the AShMs, but were detected and destroyed before they were able to release ordnance. Socotra was beginning to be a real Pain.

Right on the heels of this attack, four more Fencers appeared from the direction of Ataq. The Task Group was being buffeted by attacks from many directions sequentially. With no more air assets unavailable, the Fencers were able to close the distance unmolested and release their Anti-Radiation Missiles [ARMs]. As she was already out of SAMs, the Cole was ordered to EmCon A status (radar silence) in hopes of spoofing the Keglers. Luckily, the Cole was close enough to the San Antonio so that the LPD's Rolling Airframe Missile [RAM] defences were able to bring down the Keglers. With the air situation stabilized, the Predators were launched from Djibouti in hopes of finding the terrorist.

A SeaHawk was also launched in hopes of getting better Airborne Early Warning. Without her long-ranged missiles, these attacks were becoming very dangerous unless better warning could be found. Her report was none too optimistic. Flights of MiG-29Es were soon detected along with an HY-1 Surface-to-Surface missile [SSM] battery. The ground strike missions could not engage the SSMs without first running the gauntlet of super-lethal Adder AAMs that the MiGs would likely carry. A real dilemma was presented. Sure enough, a Fulcrum came snooping around the TG and forced the SeaHawk to return to the deck or be shot out of the air.

Two missile boats were detected near Aden. The tank-busting A-10s from Djibouti were tasked to kill them. The aircraft from Diego Garcia were ordered to flatten the Socotra base in order to eliminate at least one threat axis. The Warthogs didn't even get halfway to their target when they and one Predator were suddenly blown out of the sky. There was something lethal in the air and there was no indication what it might be!



Fortuitously, just as the strike elements were approaching Socotra, the MiGs that were detected on Combat Air Patrol [CAP] must have run low on fuel and turned to land. A perfect opportunity presented itself. The BuFFs [Big Ugly Fat "Fellows"] were ordered to try and silence this pesky island base. The F-15s released their AGM-130s and the B-52s timed their approach so that they could follow the big missiles in. It worked like a charm. The air defences were pre-occupied with the missiles and the BuFFs were able to slip in to kill the defending SA-3 and SA-6 batteries while also seriously damaging the base. However, she was still operational and would thereby require a second strike. The Cole also noticed that the other Fulcrums were heading back to their base at Al Ghaydah, too, so she elected to unleash her 24 TLAM in hopes of catching them on the ground. The TLAMs and the JSOW from B-1 Lancers flattened Al Ghaydah.



With the air threat severely curtailed by the destruction of the Fulcrums, the Harriers were sent to smash the SSM battery. No self-respecting pilot would admit it, but everyone had a deep-seated respect for the nimble Russian fighters. Once free of their Air-to-Ground ordnance, the Eagle pilots turned their attention to the MiGs. They were able to bring down several before their AMRAAMs were exhausted and they had to return to Dee Gar.

The U-2 Dragon Lady could now search to her heart's content once she was relatively free from the MiG threat. As she traced the road between Al Ghaydah and Ataq, she quickly found a convoy of six trucks speeding towards the now-ruined Al Ghaydah. This MUST be the terrorist they were looking for! Immediately, the Marine helos were despatched from the San Antonio. The Super Cobras were quick to destroy the accompanying SAM unit so that the Marines in the assault element could surround the convoy and apprehend the terror mastermind. He surrendered meekly. Once he was in custody, the trucks were destroyed and the architect of the terror in Yemen was now on his way back to the United States for trial.

Thanks for another truly realistic and enjoyable scenario.

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AAR: Prelude [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Christopher Stoner



Most of my units had specific orders for deployment, but no particular orders were issued for the Sea King based at Labuan so she was sent to Swallow Reef to give them a modicum of search capability. As I was operating essentially in the blind, I ordered my only Thunderhawk and MD 500 Defender helicopters into the air for a quick look around. The Thunderhawk quickly spotted a number of PLAN ships from their distinctive emissions and was ordered to run down their lines of bearing in order to localize them.



There were several surface contacts. Many turned out to be Neutral vessels. The Thunderhawk was able to localize them and plot an estimated course for each PLAN group. Once this was accomplished, she landed to refuel and kept re-launching to maintain tabs on the PLAN without revealing the location of the FF Kang Ting, her home base.

While this was happening, the facility on Taiping was suddenly attacked and destroyed by a flight of Badger bombers. The AAA [Anti-Aircraft Artillery] located around the base got one Badger. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much that I could have done to prevent it as I had absolutely no air defence assets.



The Filipino ship, Tomas Batillo, was detected by PTM Tze Chiang racing in at 40 knots. However, she was still 26nm away from Taiping so I could not engage. Instead, she ran back to get inside the 12nm limit. If the Batillo followed, then she would be fair game. Batillo followed and was soon inside the 12nm limit. After repeated warnings, she continued to violate the sovereignty of the Republic. The Tze Chiang could easily have destroyed her with Hsieng Feng SSMs, but elected to deal with her the old-fashioned way. She changed course to 272T to close and ordered surface action stations to her gun crews. Her 40mm mount had a range of 3nm while the Filipino guns could only reach 2nm. If she was careful, she could safely destroy the enemy patrol boat without exposing herself to danger. However, luck was not with her, today. The Filipino boat turned back soon after penetrating the 12nm limit. The Tze Chiang could not chase her faster opponent. Seething with rage after hearing the reported destruction on Taiping, the captain ordered a single Hsien Feng fired. The speed of the missile was more than sufficient to catch the Batillo and left her sinking. It was small consolation to the smoke rising over Taiping base.

Not long afterwards, two Hercules transports were shot down by Tze Chiang as they overflew her in their attempt to drop paratroops onto Taiping.



Another Batillo-class gunboat chased the Tze Chiang, but turned back at the 14nm mark. She never knew how close she came to eating a missile. However, just as curiosity killed the cat, so did it doom this Filipino gunboat. After a series of feints and withdrawals, the gunboat finally ventured into range of the Tze Chiang's guns. Seven rounds of 40mm fire were sufficient to destroy the over-inquisitive intruder.



Meanwhile, two pirate raiders, accompanied by the Philippines’ Emilio Jacinto, were spotted approaching Swallow Reef. The Wasp aboard the Musytari was ordered aloft. Although she only had a torpedo payload, she could still provide invaluable observation of the intruders. They were well within the 12nm limit and were free to be engaged. The brigand vessel, Pulau Mas, fell first to 100mm gunnery. Then the Jacinto came into range and was similarly dealt with. The lone surviving pirate vessel maintained speed and course to intercept the Musytari, but could not survive for long under the iron hammering from her guns. Soon, all three ships were ablaze and sinking within visual range of Swallow Reef.



Three PT boats had accompanied a Jiangwei frigate from the mainland. They had been shadowed by the FF Kang Ding throughout their voyage. The Jiangwei was going to be a hard nut to crack as she carried SS-N-8 Saccade SSMs with 65nm range. This was 50% longer range than the Hsieng Feng carried by the Kang Ting. It would be interesting to see if Kang Ting could survive long enough to get into range for her missiles.



The Tze Chiang was forced off her station near Taiping in order to avoid falling under the PLAN’s SSM umbrella. I decided to try and kill the Jiangwei with the Penguins aboard the Thunderhawk if that group ever got close enough to our exclusion zone. However, the little flotilla carefully and cunningly avoided the 12nm boundary and stayed 15-16nm away from Taiping. Eventually, the Thunderhawk had to retire from lack of fuel. The Kang Ting kept running in order to keep pace and shadow the PLAN flotilla.



They did a good job driving the Tze Chiang off her station over Taiping. In her absence, a Shanghai II-class gunboat made her unseen approach to Taiping. Only the presence of mind from an alert gun crew manning the 35mm twin Oerlikon battery prevented any further damage to the island. They spotted her and opened fire from long range and left the Shanghai-II adrift.

The PLAN flotilla made a close pass by Swallow Reef and was finally in violation of the 12nm limit. The Thunderhawk immediately pressed an attack and her two Penguin ASMs struck the Jiangwei leaving her burning, but still under steam. Follow up barrages by the Kang Ting broke the Jiangwei in half and left the little group without a meaningful ASuW capability. Return visits by the Thunderhawk easily dispatched the little gunboats one-by-one.



A new surface contact was detected approaching Taiping. The PTM Houxin passed nearby, but never entered the 12nm range so she couldn't be engaged under the current ROE. This made for a very funny situation. Her long-ranged missiles were a potent threat to all vessels in the area, but since she had not violated the 12nm exclusion zone, she could not be rightfully engaged. However, if she were to fire her missiles first, they would most certainly swamp and destroy any target she chose. The only tactic available was to avoid her totally until she committed some act that would warrant her destruction. It was kind of ironic that the ships all had to manoeuvre in order keep their distance from her.

In the end, her destruction was unnecessary. The additional troops and supplies arrived at Taiping from the home island and were successfully unloaded. Once this was accomplished, victory was granted.

I really enjoyed the unique Rules of Engagement. They were very believable, realistic, and presented an excellent challenge for the sparse assets available to me. It was very nice to see, once again, that it doesn’t take a large number of platforms in order to make a fun and demanding scenario. Thanks for a stimulating exercise.

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AAR: Allegro [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Christopher Stoner [a.k.a. DarkNite]


PTM Tze Chiang had been the hero of the opening act in what would soon be known as the Spratly Affair. Her four victories over two Batillo-class gunboats and two H-6 Badger bombers made her the must successful command in the history of the Republic of China’s armed forces. However, Lieutenant Zhao knew that luck was a finite quantity and he firmly believed that he and his crew had used up all of theirs in the first scene. She was currently paired up with the frigate, Hsi Ning off the coast of Labuan.



I ordered CAP [Combat Air Patrols] aloft over all of the task forces under my command. Flankers and Fulcrum would guard the Spratlys while Mirage and Ching-Kuo were positioned over the transports. Tze Chiang reported aircraft approaching from the Philippines. Their signature identified them as Airguards. MiG-29 Fulcrums from Labuan moved to intercept. Instead of wasting their precious long-ranged Alamo missiles on them, they were each killed with a pair of AA-11 Archers. Another pair of Airguards approached the Amphib's Screening force and were summarily handled in the same way with short-ranged Magic AAMs.



The Fulcrum had such short legs, that I decided to re-base the tankers out of Labuan since they appeared to need the most support. It was a good thing that the Fulcrums and Mirage had not expended their long-ranged missiles on the first available targets as the Philippines and PRC soon sent up their first-class fighters, Flankers. These aircraft were far superior to the Mirage except for the MICA-EM. Those were fire-and-forget missiles. After exchanging missiles with the Flankers, the Mirage could turn away. Instead, the Flankers had to keep their radar aimed at their targets. When the MICA arrived first and wiped them out, the Alamo lost their guidance and dropped into the sea. This was a very hazardous tactic, but the only one available due to the short-ranged nature of the MICA.



An IL-38 May MPA [Maritime Patrol Aircraft] out of Huiyang kept tabs on the Amphibs and their escorts. I desperately wanted to destroy this all-seeing platform, but I couldn't get near enough to kill it due to the LR AAMs of her Flanker escorts. Soon, Mirage, Ching-Kuo, and Flankers were exchanging missile fire all around the Amphib task groups. Although the PRC and Filipino Flankers were killed by the Mirage CAP, they were able to tie up the fighters long enough for the bombers to complete their mission. Additional PRC Flankers behind the leading escorts were able to launch their AShMs [Anti-Ship Missiles] along with XH-7 from the Philippines. While the Amphib screening group was able to bring down all of the missiles, the Kidd-class destroyer depleted her entire long-ranged SAM inventory in doing so. Since the screening group no longer had any area-defence capability, I ordered them to join the Amphibs which still had a full inventory of SAMs.



While the Amphibs were re-organizing, the Tze Chiang and Kang Ding were under air attack from Subic Bay. Before they realized it, missiles were slamming into the Kang Ding and she was left an inferno as F-5 Tigers continued to close on her. The Tze Chiang’s gunners promptly shot them out of the sky as they thought to themselves, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Unbeknownst to them, their luck really had run out. Soon afterwards, a flight of OV-10F Broncos were sighted approaching from the same direction. The gunners of the Tze Chiang threw up a curtain of steel, but it was all in vain as the strikers pressed home their attack. The little PTM was totally ripped apart. In war, the victors can become victims in the blink of an eye. In this case, the Broncos were, in turn, shot out of the sky by late-arriving Fulcrums as they made their egress. Just like the PTM, they had changed from victor to fish food in the flash of a missile's eye.



After the Fulcrum re-fuelled on Labuan, there were sent after the Searchmaster and Phalcon patrol aircraft stationed over the Spratlys. I hoped that by blinding the enemy, I could help keep the Amphibs hidden and secure. Both targets were easily destroyed. The escorting Flankers arrived too late to protect their charges and were killed, too.



Two Jiangwei-class frigates were detected skulking around the Spratlys. Malaysian Hornets were re-armed with Harpoon missiles and sent after them. Without proper air cover, they were easily overwhelmed by four Harpoons each and left burning.

With relative aerial superiority gained over the Spratlys, the Hornets, Fulcrums, Flankers, and Hawks began to re-arm with air-to-ground ordnance. In order to assist the process, I ordered the frigates Jebat and Kasturi to close on the PRC installations in hopes of shelling them into oblivion with their long-ranged naval guns. This would turn out to be a monumental blunder on my part.

As they made their approach, a lookout on the Kasturi suddenly reported, “Smoke trail bearing 310!” The ship’s crew was still hurrying to air defence stations when the first missiles slammed into the frigate and detonated her magazines. Evidently, the PRC had been able to deploy an SSM battery to the island. The Jebat did not hesitate or linger to search for survivors. She immediately turned around and ran for her life. However, her air search radar quickly reported helicopters rising from the island and the world has yet to see a ship win a race against a helicopter. Soon, multiple contacts were detected separating from the helicopters. The big CSS-N-8 Saccade missiles quickly ate up the distance to the Jebat and swarmed over her meagre defences. There would be no survivors from this debacle.

I was not going to make the same mistake twice. Instead of risking any additional ships in NGFS [Naval Gunfire Support] missions, the air force would have to suppress the missile batteries and the airfield. The short range of the Hornets and Fulcrum meant that they had to arm, ferry to a field in range of the Spratly targets, land, re-fuel, conduct their strike, and then return to their home field in order to re-arm. This long and arduous process was only possible since the Amphibs were such a long ways away. As they made their transit, the island defences were hammered into submission due to their lack of air defences. SAMs and AAA claimed only a few of the strikers. Soon, clouds of smoke were rising from all the PRC-occupied islands. The only thing remaining was to land the troops.



The Amphibs made their transit unmolested aerially, but there were three separate SAGs [Surface Action Groups] along their path. The first group was able to fire their Saccade SSMs at the Amphibs, but these were easily shot down by the Mirage and Ching-Kuo on CAP over the group. In retaliation, the PLAN task group was met by Super Cobras and a wave of Hsieng Feng SSMs [Surface-to-Surface Missiles].



While the missiles were in flight, a submarine was detected to add to my troubles. The PLAN had executed an excellently timed submarine attack to coincide with their SSMs. While the PRC SSMs were shot down, my own SSMs all but wiped out the ships so I could concentrate on hunting down this obstacle to my transit. After a through search, the submarine was classified as a Song-class SSG and it was apparently commanded by an adept captain because he skilfully dodged nearly every torpedo dropped on him. However, it takes just one torpedo to ruin your day. Only after every helicopter in the group was committed to the attack did a torpedo finally track and hit him. One torpedo hit out of five attempts was abysmal, but only the final result mattered.



Two more SAGs were waiting in ambush. However, to be forewarned is to be fore-armed. The Hornets in distant Malaysia were ordered to re-arm with Harpoon missiles. Once ready, they launched to the attack. The distance that they had to travel meant that they had to be tanked on both their inbound and egress routes, but, like UPS, they ‘delivered the goods’. Ships with the best air defences were specifically targeted. Once they were sunk, the Super Cobras from the amphibs was able to slowly and methodically sink the survivors with short-ranged Hellfire missiles.



Soon after the SAGs were cleared, the transports arrived at their destination and began disembarkation of their passengers. Although at a high and bloody cost, round two in the Spratly Affair would also go to the Taiwanese.

Thanks for another fun and challenging scenario.

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AAR: The Java Sea Incident [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis


I had no idea where the convoy was coming from. Intelligence and my orders hinted that it might be coming around the east side of Borneo, but I could not be certain. Therefore, I had to plan for patrols on both sides of Borneo until it could be located. Even in the age of satellite photography, it isn’t easy to locate a convoy of ships that don’t want to be found.

Tengah quickly launched her E-2 Hawkeye as it had the best sensors around. I couldn’t allow it to venture far from Tengah since her poor speed and the low loiter time available for her escorts would leave her easy prey to any roving Indonesians.



Sure enough, two flights of Falcons came snooping around Tengah. As per orders, they were challenged when they came within 12nm of Tengah by ground controllers. When they refused to leave the area, ADF Falcons shot them out of the air with AIM-9 Sidewinders.



The Brisbane Task Group also launched one of their S-70 Seahawk helos. It was instructed to stay within the SAM bubble provided by the two frigates. An N-22 Searchmaster MPA [Maritime Patrol Aircraft] was detected snooping around the Brisbane group. Because she was capable of carrying ground attack rockets, she was warned not to approach closer than 6nm. When she ignored these warnings, she was summarily shot out of the air by a Standard SAM upon reaching the 6nm mark. I couldn't take chances of her attacking the group.

More Tigers were detected coming out of A. Saleh. They quickly launched a Maverick attack on the Brisbane. Both were shot down soon after weapon release. The Mavericks were dangerous weapons, but easily shot down, as well. Soon afterwards, two OV-10 Broncos from Pontianak tried to fly over FFG Brisbane. They were warned, but continued their flight profile and were shot down 4nm away.

Although the western end of my AO [Area of Operations] was well covered by the Hawkeye, I was operating essentially blind in the east. The range from Tyndal to Borneo nearly excluded any possibility of MPA coverage. Instead, I had to use the Aardvarks for reconnaissance since they could be re-fuelled in mid-air and the Orions could not. Also, the lumbering Orions would be easy prey for any marauding aircraft operating out of Pontianak. Several flights had already been shot down flying attack profiles on the Brisbane group.



After twice performing tanking operations, the Aardvarks arrived near Borneo. A convoy of at least ten ships was soon detected in the Strait of Makassar. Now I had a target. The convoy was accompanied by a Sovremennyy-class destroyer so she had a significant ASuW punch. I ordered all of my ships and SS Otway to move into the East Java Sea at best possible speed. The convoy would be met with force. The Brisbane group moved in closer in order to better shadow the convoy with her helos. I couldn’t let the helos get too far from her SAM coverage as they had no defences.



Surprisingly, the convoy turned around after the challenge was issued. ACS Brisbane would continue to shadow the group to ensure that they did not change their minds. She would only engage if they tried to force entry into the Java Sea.



I wanted to shadow with Singaporean Hawkeye, but the risk was too high since there was no possibility of an escort that far away from Tengah. The Convoy appeared to not be able to make up her mind. She would change course back and forth as if trying to find a path into the Java Sea before finally setting a course that would take her into the Java Sea.



An Il-38 May MPA was detected approaching the Dutch frigate, Banckert. The plane was capable of carrying USET-80 torpedoes with a range of 7nm that could be used against ships. It was decided that if she approached closer than 10nm, she would be shot out of the air after her final warning. Her path did not waver as she closed on the Banckert and she was blown out of the air at the 9nm mark.

The Indonesian navy was making an entrance of their own. Frigates Fatahilah and Tiyahahu were quickly approaching the Brisbane group from the southwest. The Exocet carried by the Fatahilah were considerably shorter-ranged than the Harpoons aboard the RAN frigates. I had some discretion and room to manoeuvre and decided that the Indonesians would be allowed to close to 30nm before I would engage them.



The Indonesians must have been reluctant to close the distance for they wove back and forth before finally moving into 30nm range. The ships received their final warning and then Seahawk 702 released her single Penguin AShM [Anti-Ship Missile] against Fatahilah. The missile struck directly amidships and started an inferno. Evidently, the damage control capabilities of the Indonesian navy were lacking. In an attempt to preserve life, Tiyahahu was warned, once again. This time, the frigate appeared to heed the ultimatum. She turned away and was spared for the moment.

However, the belligerence of the Indonesian navy had not passed completely. A Mandau-class PTM was approaching the Brisbane group from the west. She was running at 31 knots and gave all appearances of trying to execute an attack run for her SUT torpedoes. The range on those weapons was reported by Intelligence as 16 nm, so she would be allowed to close until 20nm away. Amazingly, she closed to 27nm before finally turning away. The TAO [Tactical Action Officer] suggested that the manoeuvre was simply an act of bravado in order for the Indonesians to save face. The task group commander said, "I don't care what they do so long as they stay at least 20nm away and out of torpedo range."

There were other problems looming on the horizon. FF Ahmad Yani had decided to join the party. She was armed with RGM-84 Harpoons and they had a 75nm range, far greater than anything my Australians carried. She would have to be watched very carefully. A call was put into RAAF Tyndal for the Aardvarks to make ready for an ASuW [Anti-Surface Warfare] mission. If she decided to make a nuisance of herself, the RAAF would have to take care of her. Unfortunately, Tyndal was over 1200nm distant. There would be nearly a two hour lag from the time she crossed the 100nm exclusion zone and the arrival of the Aardvarks. A lot of things could happen in the meantime and not a single one of them was good.

At 13:10h Lima, FF Yani was ordered one last time to turn back, but she ignored the warning and continued to close on TG Brisbane. The call went out to Tyndal and the Aardvarks promptly took off. Two hours later, the Aardvarks arrived and promptly slammed four AGM-84D Harpoons into the frigate which exploded in turn.



The Convoy was just approaching the entrance to the Java Sea. At 20:08 Lima, after a final warning, FFG Adelaide let loose with a volley of four Harpoons against the Sovremennyy. They were easily shot down. The Banckert had teamed up with three Sovereignty-class missile boats and made their way into the eastern Java Sea. As they made their approach to the convoy, the Banckert suddenly exploded! I could easily do the math:

1 unexplained explosion + 1 sinking ship = 1 lurking submarine

The missile boats immediately scattered in all directions. They had only limited sonar and decided to trust their survival to their speed. No other ships were lost. However, a wave of SS-N-7 Starbright sub-launched AShMs was soon detected. These were shot down by the massed defences of the boats.

One by one, the ships closed the range and fired their Harpoons against the guided-missile destroyer. Two hits were registered, but she wasn't sunk. Only after the Aardvarks arrived for a return visit did they finally deliver the coup de grace.



The accompanying Orions then sank the Kashin and the Krivak escorts. Once isolated, the merchants valiantly sailed onwards totally naked to aggression. The RAN frigates closed the distance until they were within gunnery range and then hailed the convoy commander to spare the lives of his crew. "Stop your engines and abandon ship; I intend to sink you." The convoy sailed on so the RAN frigates began sinking the vessels one by one. After sinking three merchants, the convoy’s commander finally saw the futility in his stubbornness and relented. Victory was granted and prize crews were placed aboard the survivors and the ships were sailed to Australia where they were impounded.

Thanks for an interesting scenario.

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AAR: Blame it on the Kellys [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


As the orders arrived from Canberra, all that I could think about was the poem that went, "For want of a nail..." When were the pongos ever going to learn that the pointy end of the spear is pretty damned useless without the beans, bullets, and gas needed to get them there? Now, due to a shortage of spare parts, no ASW helos could be operated from the frigates that depended so heavily upon them. Well, the bean counters finally got their way. I just hope that they are the same ones who have to count the bodies that result from their parsimonious conduct after this operation is over.



The few available Seahawks at my command were based at Townsville and they were virtually stranded there as they had no range to even get near the AO. Instead of operating from the fantail of frigates, they were now grounded. The RAN was basically naked to submarine attack. As a stop-gap measure, I allocated a pair of P-3 Orions to each TF to them give a modicum of stand-off ASW capability. Unfortunately, this meant that one of my primary LR patrol assets was being wasted babysitting the Amphibs. But, as in any conflict, the primary mission was still the safety of the transports. Without the men and supplies aboard, all the fancy planes just sit on the tarmac.

Until the forward bases at Dili and PNF [Papua New Guinea] could be made ready, the only assets I had capable of LR strikes were the F-111 Aardvarks out of Amberley. They were order to try and interdict the Indonesian airfields on PNG. They couldn't destroy them quickly, but they might be able to impede their sortie rate.

Richmond sent her contingent of C-130 Hercules to get the base at Dili and Scherger prepared while Port Moresby sent her supply-laden transports to PNG [Papua New Guinea]. Now it was a race against time. Australia may be an island continent, but she was a BIG island continent to cross.

The Wedgetail AEW planes and tankers re-located to Tyndal so that they could cover the Celebes and Coral Seas. Until the forward bases were operational, Task Group AKS was on its own.

Since the Hornets could not displace to Dili before the arrival of the base engineers, they were re-armed for Counter-air missions and ordered to conduct a sweep of the southern Indonesian PNG base. They could barely reach it and hoped to cull some of the anticipated fighter coverage before the arrival of the Aardvarks.



Meanwhile, Indonesian Hawks and Beagles hammered the mine facilities. The mine superintendent was screaming for help over the sound of bombs dropping over his head. However, there was nothing to do but watch. At least they provided good intelligence. The mine security team leader was a former soldier and thus able to identify Flankers and J-10s in the strike groups.



Task Group AHS detected four Flankers and two Tigers rising out of Hasanuddin and heading directly for them. From the profile that they were flying, it was quite certain that they were up to not good. The TG commander opened fired at maximum range. They used up most of their LR SAMs, but killed all six strikers. The group had to reposition the escorts since they only had SR SAMs left. It was a gamble, but he felt that he needed to get them away from the MEUs [Mission Essential Units] so that they could have a longer engagement sequence. If he mis-judged the Threat Axis, then the transports would get mauled.



The fighter sweep over PNG was a resounding success as J-10s, J-11s, and then Su-30MKK Flankers all took their turn in trying to intercept the Hornets. They were all smashed to the ground with LR AMRAAM engagement without loss to the Hornets. However, matters were becoming dire in the West. Task Group AHS came under AShM [Anti-Ship Missile] attack from six Badgers. SAMs were used up at a tremendous rate. It was only hoped that they would last long enough until the cavalry arrived. After the missile attack was defeated, the Chief of Staff reported that they were critically low on SAMs. "Well, would you rather take them home with us?" replied the Commander? The six Badgers were a bit too anxious to evaluate the effectiveness of their attack. They drifted into range of the Sea Sparrows and all six were subsequently killed. Hopefully, there would be no repeat of that potentially devastating attack.



Four Searchmaster followed the Badger attack. Intelligence reported that they were only capable of rocket armament that had a maximum range of 3.5 miles. FFG Perth easily plucked them all out of the sky, but exhausted her remaining Sea Sparrows doing it.

The C-130 transports arrived on PNG without incident and immediately began transforming the base for operations. After the offensive fighter sweep, the Hornets from Tyndal retired to the jungle strip on PNG. Enroute, they managed to kill a number of attack helos and Hawks to relieve the pressure on the beleaguered mining encampment.

The airstrip on Dili was another story, altogether. There, the transports almost had to fight their way into Dili. If not for the Hornet escorts, who performed the snowplough duties through the flights of fighter patrols from Hasanuddin, the Hercs would not have arrived, at all.



Once forward bases secured, it was only a matter of time. The Hornets were operating at the long end of their logistical shoestring, but they managed to get by, even if just barely. The endless shuttle flights between the larger bases were able to maintain a constant flow of supplies sufficient to maintain the operational tempo. On PNG, several Indonesian truck convoys were ravaged as they attempted to approach the mine and seize it from the civilians.

Slowly, but surely, the Aardvarks chipped away at the base defences. Once they were suppressed, the airfields were shut down in one quick strike and PNG was isolated from the Indonesian high command.

The situation in the Java Sea was also solidifying. After fighting their way into Dili, the ADF was able to bring that base into operation quickly and then was able to station a CAP [Combat Air Patrol] over the near-defenceless Task Group. However, they proved unnecessary as no further attacks materialized.

While the transports were making their respective transit to the Java Sea and to Port Moresby, a Wedgetail patrol reported some strange emissions north of PNG. An Orion was sent to investigate and found an Aircraft Carrier! Evidently, the Chinese were extremely serious about this operation for they had sent out their one and only Varyag-class carrier. Luckily, no fighter radar emissions were detected as the crew of the Orion dove to the deck, turned off their radar, and beat a hasty retreat. The Hornets re-armed from their mud-moving missions and were re-configured for anti-ship strike.



A full squadron strike caught the carrier group unawares. They had been operating with their radar silent and paid for their error as they were unable to maximize the number of engagement cycles against the incoming Harpoon wave. As a result, the majority of the missiles managed to slip through the defences and lay waste to the carrier. The pride of the PLAN was listing 23 degrees to port as the Hornets retired from their mission of mayhem.

During their egress, the Chinese embassy in Canberra issued a request for a formal cease fire to the Australian Prime Minister. Evidently, the price of the uranium had just been too high for Occidental tastes. The day belonged to the RAN, the RAAF, and the RNZN.

Thanks for a neat little hurly-burly in the southwest Pacific theatre.

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AAR: Operation Thistle - EC2003 GIUK - [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis
I examined the forces available under my command and surmised that the subsurface threat would be high due to the fairly high number of ASW-capable platforms. I hoped that my units would actually be able to detect the submarines in the first place. Since the orders allowed for it, I re-configured my fighter assets to full defensive mode with the AMRAAM in lieu of the less effective SkyFlash AAMs.

My AEW assets were positioned north of the Faeroe Islands and well north of the Norwegian bases. They immediately detected EW emissions but could do nothing about them since I had no EW assets of my own.

A flight of Fencers stole in and detected my Oslo-class FF right away. This earned her a salvo of SS-N-12 Sandbox missiles which promptly blew her out of the water.

SSN Valiant caught scent of a submarine and quickly called in an Orion to prosecute it. Unfortunately, it turned out to be just a whale wandering by; a nice diversion. However, the Orion was armed with Harpoons so immediately put in an attack on a nearby SAG centred on the CG Slava to no effect. A Norwegian diesel submarine was also ordered to intercept along with all available ASuW forces on the air bases.

Meanwhile, the Norwegians, Swedes, and British fighters were slowing winning the aerial battle. The position of Harstad made it very challenging. It was forward enough to allow the Fulcrums based there plenty of manoeuvring latitude. The EW environment was really knocking my aerial picture for a loop but must have done similar things to the Russians as I was often able to sneak in and fire deadly AMRAAMs and escape without any return fire even though the Russian missiles had greater range than my AMRAAMs.

An attack from ALCMs was detected near Gardermoen and easily defeated. However, I worried that it was going to be a very long day since the AI could conceivably fire unlimited numbers of these stealthy missiles. It only takes a few to ruin anyone’s day so I moved my AEW assets ever closer to the Russian bases on the Kola peninsula in hopes of earlier detection. Unfortunately, this move garnered the attention of Foxhounds on patrol and the Sentry was sent scurrying for friendly air cover. This was going to prove a difficult exercise. Eventually, I was able to determine a point that was just outside the patrol range of the Foxhounds. I was pretty certain that my AEW aircraft were out of range but it still disconcerting every time I saw the interceptors come rushing at the Sentry only to turn back from lack of fuel.

Roving groups of Fencer bombers were detected and dispatched with Sidewinders relatively easily. It would prove to be the only easy part of the afternoon.

Sure enough, successive waves of ALCMs were detected approaching Bergen but picked up early enough to ensure each was destroyed.

The Time-Over-Target strike on the Slava SAG was perfectly executed and resulted in the destruction of the Slava and another cruiser. A nearby Tornado promptly destroyed the ASW helo coverage and set the stage for the diesel submarine to penetrate the screen. Kobben unleashed her torpedoes and killed DDG Udaloy, DDG Kashin, and CG Kresta while biting off a piece of the CG Kara.

The Sentry positioned over the Faeroes got the surprise of their life when a flight of Fulcrums ‘materialized’ right next to them and unleashed a volley of Alamo AAMs. They quickly beat feet while screaming for cover. Luckily for them, a flight of Tornados was in the vicinity to dispatch the intruders. It was very unnerving to count down the seconds as the missiles closed on my Sentry; all the while praying that they would run out of gas. To add insult to injury, it happened again! Those Fulcrums are bad news. My AEW survived the second raid, too.

With the Slava SAG pretty much destroyed, a second, more powerful SAG, was detected on the horizon. This one was centred on BCGN Lazarev. The Orion that detected it quickly loosed 4 Harpoons and was rewarded with 2 hits on a Kara-class cruiser as the SAG was operating under EmCon and thus did not detect the ASMs until it was too late. A second ASuW effort was organized and launched.

The BCGN was a real threat since my oil rigs were already under its offensive SSM umbrella. My only hope was to keep the enemy blind as to the position of my vessels or else I could expect another barrage of those super lethal projectiles. The SSN Valiant crept to a position in front of the SAG and waited. She loosed her torpedoes and ran for her life but could not evade the 12 torpedoes fired back at her. Her consolation was to destroy the BCGN and 2 DDGs with her weapons.

The second airstrike destroyed the remainder of the SAG and the rest of the game was spent maintaining barrier CAPs and hunting down submarines attempting to approach the oil rigs. As expected, intermittent ALCM attacks kept the defenders on their toes and victory was granted with 2 hours remaining on the clock.

Thanks for a very enjoyable scenario.

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AAR: Crete Convoy [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis


“Why is it that the Beans and Bullets brigade is always sucking hind-tit?” Commander Russell opined to himself as he passed from his stateroom to the bridge. “Don’t those Rear-Admirals understand that without their precious supplies, they wouldn’t be able to conduct this war for more than a few days?”

Talk about near-naked. Only two escorts had been provided for the eight merchant vessels under his command. The Greeks said that they would help, but they are a LONG ways away. Still, a pair of F-4 Phantoms was immediately launched from Araxos to provide a modicum of aerial protection.



Two Foxbats quickly rose out of Tripoli to challenge them over Sicily. Captain Gregorii Papadopolous was leading the mission and he was glad that they would not be subject to the regular boredom that pilots experience when assigned to BarCAP [Barrier Combat Air Patrols]. However, had Cpt. P followed eastern philosophy, he would have know of the adage, “Beware of what you wish for. You just might get it.”

The two Greek pilots carefully set up their approach and took their time for Sparrow release before all eight AIM-7F Sparrow missiles were volley-fired. They were confident that they would achieve success and report their first victories of the war. However, it was very nearly their last mission because all eight missiles missed! Both pilots thought, "Oh, ****!" as they yanked on their joysticks. However, Gregorii's RIO was the squadron wag and he had the right attitude. Over the intercom, he quipped, "So, this must have been how you felt when the Wing Commander almost caught you in his daughter’s bedroom last Saturday, eh?” As they pulled into a loop to evade the fast-approaching MiG-25 Foxbats, the Libyan pilots fired their AA-6 Acrid missiles. The Phantoms fled like thieves caught by a spotlight in the act. Their final burst of afterburner was sufficient to carry them out of range of the AAMs [air-to-air missiles]. They landed badly shaken, but ‘Papa’ quickly regained his composure. "I wonder what Kristina's doing tonight?" He preferred facing Libyan missiles to getting caught by the Wing Commander.

The relief mission had been warned of the Foxbat’s phenomenal speed. They closed to point blank range before firing and managed to splash a second pair of 'Bats. While sitting on their BarCAP position, they detected an Osa-class missile boat that was attempting a blockade in the Sicilian Channel.



Right afterwards, a sub was detected by FFG Jesse L. Brown. The convoy was ordered to immediately turn away as her Sea Sprite helos were launched to prosecute the contact. Both helos dropped sonobuoys as they ran down the bearing of the contact and soon had her localized after dropping only a half-dozen sonobuoys each. The Captain had exercised his crew aggressively and they had learned their lessons well. The first and most important lesson was to get airborne ASAP in order to minimize the time a contact had to move.

The first helo went into hover and dropped her torpedo. Someone else had also been training his crew hard. The skipper of the Libyan Foxtrot had his crew honed and they were able to evade the torpedo. The second Sea Sprite moved in and dropped her torpedo from a range of 100 yards. This time, the American training regimen would triumph over Libyan practice as the Mk 50 Barracuda struck just behind the manoeuvring room. The little submarine and Libya's best crew plunged to the sea floor.



To deal with the Osa in the Strait, four Mirage were called out from Araxos but they ran short of fuel over Fontanarossa and had to abort the mission. The convoy would have to deal with the missile boat on their lonesome. However, forewarned is forearmed. As the convoy began to cross the Strait, the convoy commander ordered his helos to sweep the area. He found the Osa sitting dangerously close to his PIM [Path of Intended Motion] and decided that she could not be avoided. Two Harpoon missiles from DDG Robison (a Charles Adams-class destroyer) promptly destroyed the little missile boat before she even realized that she was under attack. The passage appeared to be clear for the moment.



Once clear of the Strait, the commander elected to take a slightly more circuitous route to Crete and angled towards Araxos in order to minimize the flight time of his aerial coverage. The voyage was mostly uneventful. Only when the convoy neared Crete did two Combattante-class missile boats appear on the horizon. A judicious application of a pair of Harpoon missiles to each of them was sufficient to nullify the threat. Victory was awarded as the convoy made landfall. Commander Russell only hoped that NATO command could do something useful with the newly arrived supplies.

Thanks for an interesting scenario.

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Herman you are so dedicated. I really appriciate your effort and your enrhusiasm. Could you explain how good is the usability of Harpoon 3 ?

Is it in realtime where you see all the icons moving on the map or is ist round based ?

I would like to buy it. I saw already i can download it for 45 $ but this isnt that cheap. This game is old. But i think its worth the money ?

Thx for any answers in advance !

Thank you for your kind words, Groove.

Now, just to be absolutely clear to you, the thread that you have posted your question on is about Harpoon Classic. I will assume that you know the difference between the games and are not confused that there are two separate computer Harpoon games, Harpoon Classic and Harpoon 3.

What do you mean by 'usability'? If you are speaking about the friendliness of the Graphic User Interface, IMO, one of the drawbacks of the H3 system is the User Interface. It's one of those things you put up with to play the game. When I first started playing and seeing that I had to re-arm a group of 36 aircraft ONE AT A TIME, I was very frustrated at the number of individual clicks required. As I continued to play, I just accepted that this is a problem and something that I would have to live with. It is still annoying at the number of clicks required to perform some functions, but the essence of the game is still pure. You might die from a Repetitive Stress Injury , but it is very challenging and detailed. A number of known issues have been posted on StrategyZoneOnline and Mantis [Username: Guest, Password: Guest]. You can take a look for yourself to see if the game is acceptable to you.

It doesn't work on turns or rounds. The game can be run in 1:1 real time. You can also set the time compression up to 1:30 minute compression. At 1:1, the icons crawl across your screen. At 1:30, they might 'skip' across your screen a bit. Some guys only play in real time [1:1] while others like more compression. At any time, you can put the game on pause, save it, give orders, think, etc before re-starting it.

Now, you ask whether it is worth $45 or not. Not much anyone can say about that. I agree that the game is old. No 3D graphics or fancy simulations. However, I think that the best comparison might be to ask, "What else would you do with that $45?"

In Canada, that translates to one night of drinking, 2 to 3 movies at the theatre, one lap-dance , 2 to 3 books, a nice meal, etc. I think that if you break it down to the number of hours of enjoyment that you might receive, I think that it is cheap. If you get the game and play only a fraction of the HUNDREDS of scenarios currently out there, you will already have spent MONTHS of your life just playing. So, that would translate to only a few cents / hour of entertainment. That's gotta be pretty cheap.

It's a shame that the demo only allows you to try the tutorials and not any real scenarios so that you can get a taste of the actual experience.

Thx for the info herman. You described me the usability really good. Could you provide me with a link to the harpoon 3 demo ? The 45 bucks are fine with me as long as i get the most out of it. I started with a commodore 64 back in 1989 so i know that graphics arent all there is

You can get the demo at AGSI . Good luck to you and go ahead and post up any questions you might have. There's lots of folks willing to give you their opinions and help you out.

AAR: Bad Moon Rising [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


I decided right away that recovery was too risky since there was virtually no possibility of air coverage of any of the surface elements. They would be too exposed in the heart of the Russian / Chinese strike range. I ordered the submarine tenders and rescue ships to stay well away from the Kuriles and gambled with the submarines.



A CAP [Combat Air Patrol] was sent up to cover the Frank Cable. They were engaged by Flankers and returned fire when fired upon. It turned out that the Russians were going to be very sensitive to any and all flights in the northern Pacific and were "defending" their airspace very aggressively. Four more Flankers were shot down after trying to engage Falcons on patrol. I thought about leaving the area to them, but these were international waters and the Russians had no right to be firing upon planes from another nation. Only after twenty Flankers and Fulcrum were destroyed did the Russians finally realize that the waters of the north Pacific were not theirs to administer. No additional confrontations were encountered for Petropavlovsk.



I tried to penetrate the Sea of Okhotsk with my Global Hawk UAVs, but they didn’t last long as the area was heavily patrolled by Flankers and Fulcrums. After two of my three available UAVs were destroyed, I held back with the third until the Raptors could win aerial superiority. Although the Raptors were operating at nearly the range of their endurance, the Russians were co-operative and eagerly sought combat. A few AMRAAM volleys were sufficient to clear most of the skies around the Kuriles. Once the fighter cover was down, the MPA [Maritime Patrol Aircraft] never stood a chance against the AIM-9X. Several May and Bears were subsequently shot down and the surviving Global Hawk did its reconnaissance of the area. Only a few patrol boats were spotted and nothing to indicate the location of the missing satellite. I ended up trading recon assets with the OpFor. He killed my Global Hawks and I killed his Mainstays, Curls, and Foxbats.



The Kuriles were very heavily patrolled. I didn't see any way of penetrating with the submarine tenders and rescue elements without calling all the attention of the Russian Eastern air force command. It was one thing to have an ‘unfortunate aerial incident’ whereby a fighter or two is shot down over international airspace, but it is quite another to shoot my way into the Sea of Okhotsk and lay waste to all the areas defences in order to do so. Pictures of patrol boats ablaze and sinking in the Pacific do not play well with the American public.



The submarines Hawaii and Cheyenne penetrated the defences quite easily. Once inside, they reduced speed to try and locate the downed satellite. SSN Hawaii detected a submerged contact and moved in to investigate. She was able to pinpoint the position of the contact, but was not able to clearly identify it. At this point, I made a guess that since it was a Red unit, it represented the satellite. According to orders, I was to stay in the vicinity for 8 hours. As she sat on the bottom transmitting the self-destruct code to the satellite, she was suddenly destroyed by an unknown assailant. At this point, the mission was declared a failure and victory was awarded to the PLAN.

Thanks for a very innovative scenario that takes into account real world conditions. I know that I could have ‘shot my way’ into the Sea of Okhotsk, but that would have appeared to provoke a war instead of preventing it.

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Very nice AAR Herman. Im still learning the tutorial

Thanks, Groove. I certainly hope that you are enjoying the learning process.

I, myself, am learning how to play Dangerous Waters at the moment. It is a real challenge to see how even the simplest things like sonobuoys and dipping sonar are modelled differently between the two games, DW and Harpoon.

Why don't you share some of your adventures as you learn the game? I think that it's great to see how someone like yourself learns a game from the bottom up. Even if you get killed every time, it's still fun to see other people playing the game. Remember, we are laughing with you and not laughing at you.

Herman, how do you take screenshots ingame ? Im using the Harpoon 3 demo at the moment.

Either use the drop-down menu under the PC command or you can use Alt+F1.

Yes, Groove. I second Herman's suggestion and observation: it is not only fun to see how others are learning and viewing the game...*I* learn from the experience also. Best of luck!

Well i tried the grab screen function but there are no screenshots at all Where is my problem ?

The screen shots show up in a folder in your C:\Screenshots. If it isn't there, do a search for the Screenshots folder and it should show up.

I use IrfanView to open the files. I can't get them to open with any other program like Paint.

Wow i found them ! Thx herman, i will write my experiences tomorrow in the SimHQ forum

ISR10A1 - Israeli scenario EC2003 MEDC - [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
by Mark Gellis
I re-set my fighter force for AAW missions and launched them in search of the convoy. I was hoping to entice the Egyptians to fire first so that I could kill them. I was not to be disappointed.

2 Falcon rose to challenge my flight of 6 Eagles. We exchanged missiles but I managed to kill them in 2 volleys. The new ATA model seems to be working a little bit more aggressively.

2 other unknown fighters (with short-ranged AAMs) tried to intercept the Phalcon AEW. They must have had very small RCS because the appeared DANGEROUSLY close to the AEW. Luckily, I had another flight of 4 Eagles nearby who were able to herd them away. Eventually, they flamed out with any need to expend precious AAMs.

Sadly, 2 Jians popped up from nowhere and killed 3 Eagles before they were even detected! Now where did they come from!?! :-) The last Eagle killed them before it was killed itself. 4 Eagles for 2 Jian is not a good rate of exchange. :-(

Detected 2 flights of Tornado IDS and localized the Ramadan PTMs at the same time. Caught the Tornadoes around Souda and killed them just before Bingo

The Shacha arrived to dispatch the PTMs with one Harpoon each.

A pair of Jians tried to intercept my AEW and another pair went after my Elint unit. One was killed just in time by the Eagles. The other pair fled but were caught and destroyed.

I re-loaded all the aircraft and re-launched in search of the ships.

A pair of AMX moved in to intercept the AEW but killed just as the escorts reached bingo fuel state. They were devilishly hard to pinpoint.

Another pair got within range of the AEW and were only detected upon firing! AAGH! The Phalcon ran for her life and managed to get out of range of the Sidewinders.

After changing their underwear, the crew continued eastward all the while screaming for support from their escorts. Thank goodness that maximum speed of the Phalcon is 604kts whereas the AMX is only 600kts so no pursuit ensued. Whew.

A flight of Eagles arrived to finally kill the AMX.

2 Eurofighters came a-calling. The escorts did the AMRAAM dance with them but no losses were suffered by either side before the EF's had to bingo.

The Convoy was detected soon afterward and the Shacha launched to intercept.

A fresh pair of EFs arrived and loosed their AMRAAM against the escort who quickly outran them.

This repeated a number of times. The EFs would fire and the Israelis had to run without firing a shot. The EFs are really difficult to pin down often would not close.

The Shacha released their Harpoons which were easily shot down.

Finally, a pair of EFs tried to press an attack and were caught and killed by the Eagles for its troubles. Yahoo!.

After a few more AMRAAM dances, another pair of EFs ran out of luck.

The last pair of EFs died of fright! They refused to engage the Eagles who then ran them out of gas on their way back to their base.

The convoy was then attacked by a combination of Shacha, Eagles, and SSMs from the SAG. The DDG did an admirable job swatting the missiles out of the sky but eventually fell victim to a secondary barrage of Gabriel SSMs. The balance of the convoy was wiped out with both gunfire and remaining SSMs.

A very nice scenario, Mark. Thanks.

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Very enjoyable readings.

Im still in the tutorial missions

AAR: Thirst for Victory [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


The first order of business was to get some CAP [Combat Air Patrols] over the precious water supplies. The water tankers were coming in from India and their loss would spell doom for the nation. However, with Malaysia and Indonesia sitting on both sides of the transit route, that was easier said than done. It would be like travelling down a straw that might be squeezed by a giant fist at any time.

I gambled and sent the Falcons from Brunei aloft right away. They were currently unarmed, but I had a feeling that I was going to their defensive / offensive punch ASAP. The sooner I got them on the ground at Tengah base, the sooner I would be able to re-fuel and re-arm them. To protect them, some Falcons were sent out to escort them in. Hopefully, they would be able to outrun any significant threat.



As the CAPs rose from the runways, a major Furball ensued over Tengah. The Malays and Indonesians appeared to be pulling out all the stops in order to force the issue. The combat controllers reported multitudes of aircraft rising off Malay and Indonesian airfields. I quickly ordered all air-ground missions scrubbed and the planes re-armed for base defence. I only hope that they would be ready in time. To complicate matters, a major land force was also detected approaching Singapore. The only assets still available were the Apaches so the task fell to them.



As the Falcons moved out to their patrol zones, missile release was detected from the Malay side of the border. Singapore was under ALCM [Air-Launched Cruise Missile] attack! It turned out that these were AGM-154 JSOW. The situation would have been humorously ironic if it were not for the fact that these deadly weapons were targeted on my bases. The same weapons that the USA sold to MAL were now being fired back at us! Luckily, they were not fired in overwhelming numbers so I was able to bring them down with AIM-9X Sidewinders.



A slight lull appeared once the ALCM attack was defeated. The Apaches took advantage of it and zoomed in to slaughter one tank battalion with their Hellfire missiles.

The battle was not all one sided. PGs Fearless and Brave were killed by Harpoon missiles fired from aircraft at the Pekanbaru airbase. The flow of battle was relentless. Although the CAPs were able to fend off the waves of Fulcrums, Hornets, and Flankers, they were using up their AMRAAM inventories at a fearful rate. At one point, I ran out of armed fighters with which to parry the enemy’s advances. The only aircraft left in the air were the Hawkeyes!

As the enemy was poised to take advantage of this vacuum in CAP coverage, a few fighters that had been re-configured for AAW suddenly reported in as ready. With a great sigh of relief, they were ordered up into the fray. The superior performance of the AMRAAM managed to beat back the waves crashing on the shore of Singapore’s air bases and the air defence perimeter was able to expand outwards.



Although Singapore was able to cope with her assailants, my Thai allies were having problems of their own. The Chakri Nareubet was caught in the middle of the Gulf of Siam. She only had two frigate escorts and a pair of gunboats nearby. MPA [Maritime Patrol Aircraft] and Gripen fighters were immediately sent to re-enforce her meagre Harrier squadron, but she was far from friendly air cover at U-Tapao. Her radar detected a number of bogeys approaching as was able to classify them as Tigers accompanied by Flankers.

The Tigers were on a direct course for the carrier. As they flew over one of the gunboats, PG Suphairin, they bombed her and continued onwards to the Chakri. A frigate, FF Taksin, lay in their path and they also bombed and sank her as they continued their approach to the Chakri. Adm. Chandrosan couldn't do anything about it since they were escorted by Flankers. His Harriers only had AIM-9 Sidewinders. They would simply be slaughtered by the superior AA-10 Alamo carried by the Flankers. He had to helplessly watch it unfold before him. They must have expended all their ordnance after killing the FF Taksin for the carrier was able to shoot them out of the sky. For the Malays, it was a good exchange. A handful of fighters lost for a full-sized frigate was a trade the Malays would welcome any day.

The attack on the Chakri was the high point of the Malay / Indonesian offensive. Once a defensive cordon was established over Singapore, the RSAF was able to beat back all attacks and slowly hammer the enemy’s bases into submission with repeated strikes by PGMs and iron bombs. However, a battle is not over until the last bullet is fired. In this case, that bullet was in the form of a torpedo volley.



As the vital water tankers were making their seemingly unopposed transit of the Malacca Strait, the sonar duty officer aboard FFG Steadfast suddenly reported, “Multiple torpedoes in the water bearing 070!” Their blood chilled. The lone ASW helo assigned to the convoy immediately took off and down bearing 070 as the convoy ran in the opposite direction.

The very first sonobuoy deployed immediately localized the torpedoes and they were CLOSE! A gunboat and a MCM [Mine-Countermeasure] vessel were on that bearing and there would be no chance for them to evade. Everyone anticipated a tremendous explosion, but the gods were smiling on the little boats, today. The torpedoes combed past the two ships as everyone aboard them held their breath and watched the feathery wakes pass both fore and aft. Later that day, the ships’ chaplain would report near perfect attendance at weekly services.

The Seahawk ran down the bearing of the attack and dropped two DIFAR sonobuoys. Within seconds, a submarine contact was pinpointed and a Mk50 Barracuda torpedo was dropped. The crew kept their fingers crossed. They only had the single weapon and the submarine would definitely escape if they had to land and re-arm. Their worries were unfounded as both sonobuoys detected an explosion followed by the sound of a submarine breaking up and on her way to the bottom.

With no further opposition, the Water Convoy completed its transit and sailed directly into Singapore.

Thanks for a fun and interesting scenario.

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AAR: United They Sail [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis
Report by Brad Leyte re-posted with permission

Transiting the Strait of Hormuz in a time of conflict is not a comfortable proposition. Particularly when one has to do so without the considerable force that can be brought by bear by Western air and naval firepower, both land and sea based.

Thankfully, however, the UAE has decided to invest heavily in its self-defence, including procurement of the F-16E/F Block 60 Desert Falcon.

Because of their presence, the Iranian F-4s, F-5s and even F-14s gave me very little trouble.

It was the naval threat, and particularly the undersea threat posed by submarines and sea mines, that worried me.

I lost the FPB fast attack craft P6201 to a coastal Sunburn antiship missile battery, mainly due to my own inattentiveness. (I often play HCCE with several other applications running on my PC simultaneously, which is both a blessing and a curse).

An CN-235 maritime patrol aircraft picked up a MAD contact in the easterly mouth of the Strait, and hunting underwater contacts without the benefit of sonobuoys was particularly difficult. Discovering it was a minefield was a little unnerving, but finding mines without the usually associated "KABOOM" is much less unpleasant.

My group eventually transited the Strait without too much difficulty, using both the MPA and fighter cover to find a suitable path and beat off the Iranian surface attackers. I made it just past Muscat when time ran out.

Thanks, Mark. Your scenarios keep me on my toes.

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AAR: Storsjoodjuret [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte


Per Magnusson read the orders that had filtered down from Stockholm. Instead of patiently awaiting the imminent Russian attack, it was decided to pre-empt the Russian Bear and meet him at the fringes of Swedish airspace. Perhaps a show of force would be sufficient to get the New Russian Bear to withdraw his claws from Aland Island. "Yeah, and maybe Santa Claus will bring me the new Porsche that I’ve been dreaming about, too," Per thought. Per had not believed in Santa Claus for a long time, either.



The fighter pilots scrambled from their airfields around the country and headed for their patrol zones in the middle the Baltic Sea. The uneasy peace was shattered when AMRAAM missile radar was detected by Per Magnusson’s Gripen on patrol just outside of Finland. How appropriate that the first shots of the upcoming battle were fired by Russian aircraft out of Rovaniemi. Rovaniemi prides itself (at least in the tourist brochures) of being Santa's workshop. However, this fact was lost on Per as he ran for his life at 1100kts. Unfortunately, the AMRAAM C5 ran at 2295kts and caught him over the cold Baltic waters. Per Magnusson’s dream Porsche would no longer be required as the plane and the man were scattered over several kilometres.



All ground missions were scrubbed effective immediately and everyone re-armed with AMRAAMs and Meteor AAMs. There weren't all that many to go around, but if there was ever a time to use them, it was now. The Russians didn't disappoint as they quickly climbed from their airfields in both Finland and Russia. The initial fighters had to hold the line while their brethren finished exchanging air-to-ground ordnance for AAMs.



Throughout the Baltic, Finnish, Russian, and Swedish fighters clashed. The Finns carried the AMRAAM C5 and it out-ranged the version currently carried by Swedish forces. As a result, AMRAAM exchanges were often carried out on nearly even terms. In most places, the Swedish Wall held back the onrushing Russian/Finnish forces. In others, the defending fighters were swept away, but not before killing their attackers at the same time. Replacement fighters were able to plug the gaps left by their fallen comrades and the wall held, but just barely.



Once the integrity of the cordon was confirmed, Gripen began to re-arm for their air-to-ground missions. The Russians kept probing for a way around the wall, but, for the most part, their efforts were fruitless. Their ALCMs [Air-Launched Cruise Missiles] were another matter. Three separate waves smashed into Lulea-Kallax, Ostersund, and Uppsala airfields. The lack of Swedish EW capability was sorely felt as most of the missiles were not detected prior to arrival at the air bases. Russian EW Fencers severely degraded the Swedish radar systems.

Although the airbases were severely damaged, they were still able to send forth a stream of strikers to Aland. A series of suppressive strikes was needed to degrade the impressive air defences erected by the Russians. But, once the SAMs were silenced, one final wave of Mjolner-armed Gripen was all it took to smash the airfield. Once that goal was accomplished, the Russians got the message that their encroachment would not be tolerated and victory was awarded.

Thanks for another fine scenario.

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AAR: Beida-La-Boom [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis


Operation Yankee Slam was underway and the Marine Expeditionary Unit – Special Operations Capable [MEU-SOC] was nearing their line of departure. Unfortunately, the only meaningful air cover was based at Aviano airfield, nearly 700nm away. The task group only had a handful of Harriers for local protection so an E-3 Sentry and a gaggle of F-15 Eagles were tasked with immediate air protection for the ships. An EC-130E also accompanied them and thoroughly jammed Libyan radar to the point of near uselessness.

The Libyans may not have been technologically advanced, but they were brave, nonetheless. Several flights of antiquated MiG-25 Foxbats and F-1ED Mirage rose to challenge the Eagles for aerial supremacy. They were easily chopped from the air with no losses. It appeared as though they did not even detect the AMRAAM hidden within the cloud of jamming. As unofficial USAF doctrine dictates, ‘Fair fights are for suckers.’

With local aerial supremacy assured, TF Kearsage unleashed a volley of TLAM towards Beida-La-Braq and Benghazi airfields. Since no interceptors were airborne, most of the TLAM arrived to hammer the runways and pretty much shut down the air force. Task Force Kearsage moved deeper into the Gulf of Sidra in order to reach the launch point for her Marines. The SSN Scranton would accompany her and screen her during her transit through the ‘Gulf of Death’, as Colonel Khaddafi referred to it.



The Libyan navy also made an appearance. Four Osa-Class missile boats along with two corvettes sortied from their base and made an attack run. Only one boat was successful in releasing her missiles before AH-1W SuperCobras from the Kearsage turned them all into Swiss cheese. The AGM-114 Hellfires were built for destroying armoured tanks and easily punched the four Osa-class boats full of holes. The Styx Surface-to-Surface Missiles [SSMs] were easily shot down by the Aegis system on the Ticonderoga cruiser escort.



Instead of braving the SAM [Surface-to-Air Missile] capabilities of the second group of Nanuchka missile boats, the Scranton elected to allocate one UGM-84 Harpoon to each of the corvettes. With no warning due to the intense jamming by the Senior Scout, the Harpoons slammed into the little ships and set them ablaze and adrift on the ‘Line of Death’. Colonel Khaddafi named it appropriately. He just forgot to mention that it would be the ‘Libyan Line of Death’, once again.



Everything seemed to be going well for the Americans when the sonar watch of the SSN Scranton called out, “Contact! Bearing 127 and she’s close!” Immediately, the Officer of the Deck [OoD] ordered, “All stop. Emergency back.” Intelligence had warned them that the Libyans might employ mines, but would they really have laid them in the middle of the Gulf of Sidra and in international waters?



Carefully, the sub crept up to communications depth and reported their discovery to the Operation Commander aboard the Kearsage. The two MH-53 Sea Dragon helos were immediately dispatched. Upon arrival, they quickly ascertained that these were indeed mines. In fact, the Scranton had just missed hitting one ever so closely! The Libyans would gladly sacrifice their air force and navy in order to bag one 688-class Los Angeles submarine!

The helos quickly deployed their Mine Countermeasure sleds and went to work. The mine nearest the Scranton took immediate precedence and was cleared by combat swimmers. The minefield appeared to be somewhat extensive, but very thinly laid. The Sea Dragons were able to sweep them fairly easily. The crew of Scranton proceeded on their screening mission, but none could escape the uneasy feeling of just how close they had come to a ‘submarine / mine interface’.



With most of the Libyan air force floating in the Mediterranean, the Global Hawk drone was ordered to seek out the CBR [Chemical-Biological-Radiological] facilities. A lone, SA-6 Guideline radar was detected. Even the Libyans were not crazy enough to station SAMs in the middle of nowhere, were they? The Hawk closed on the SAM site with caution. As she drew near, her IR cameras picked up telltale heat sources that were soon classified by the photo interpreters as the likely targets.

The Marines and CIA operatives were loaded into their new Osprey and older Ch-53 Sea Stallion aircraft. The Harriers were loaded for SEAD [Suppression of Enemy Air Defences]. Under the cover of darkness, the Harriers led the way and stole in flying NOE [Nap of the Earth]. Couple with the superb EW support from the Senior Scout and approaching at 100 feet AGL [Above Ground Level], the SA-6 defenders did not even react as several laser-guided bombs smashed the battery into oblivion.



With air defences flattened, the Marines quickly swooped into the compound and established a cordon. The Marines held the perimeter while a thorough search was conducted by the CIA. Only after they found what they were looking for were the buildings demolished by the heavy weapons teams. The entire operation had been carried of without a hitch or loss. The strike elements landed on the Kearsage and the mission was deemed a complete success by National Command Authority.

Thanks very much for another well-coordinated scenario incorporating surface, sub-surface, and aerial elements. Even though the Libyans were out-classed, it did appear as though they made a good effort in denying the Americans victory.

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Here's an excellent AAR. It is reprinted here with permission of the author:



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AAR: Cruise Control [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis



The Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation is likely one of the most difficult missions to undertake. Not only must the evacuation force fend off threats to itself, but it must also attend to the needs of the evacuees. This was the mission assigned to the LPD Iwo Jima.

The situation had the Cruise liner, LPD Trenton, HSV sailing independently. This meant that they would essentially be naked to aggression. With an unknown submarine reported in the area, I felt that it was just too risky to allow for them to sail alone. One torpedo would be all that was required to scuttle the operation. Therefore, I ordered the cruise liner and LPD Trenton to group together and for the DDG Gonzalez to escort them in. This wasn't a strict interpretation of the orders, but I felt that they left enough latitude to the on-scene commander. The HSV would simply have to pray that her speed would prevent any submarine from intercepting her. Only LHD Iwo Jima would have a modicum of protection from the Perry frigate escort.

Souda was a long ways away. Immediately, two Sentries and escorts were launched right away along with an EC-130H Compass Call. Hopefully, the EC-130H could jam and keep the Syrians blind to the presence of the evacuation ships. It was a longshot, but one of the few cards I had to play.



The Syrians were not having any of that. Foxbats rose from Latakia to investigate the distinctive transmissions detected from the Sentries. The Foxes fired first and AMRAAM from the Eagle escorts settled the issue. Their willingness to initiate hostilities signalled a long day of operations ahead.

In the ensuing battle, a Petya-class FFL was detected approaching the defenceless ships. AH-1W SuperCobras from the Iwo Jima were ordered to destroy her with Hellfire ATGMs. Since they were designed to defeat main battle tanks, they should prove quite adept at dealing with the thinly armoured corvette.

Two more bogeys were detected approaching. Again, the "Do not initiate hostilities" ROE still applied. They were identified as Fitters. It was very hairy. Unless they initiated combat, I felt that I would be unable to fire on them. They only carried short-ranged AAMs. If they decided to fire them, there would be very little time for evasive manoeuvres. Luckily, they fired the short-ranged AAMs at maximum range and fire was returned with AIM-9X Sidewinders. A combination of afterburner and manoeuvres saved the Eagles from any loss while resulting in the destruction of the interlopers.



Three unidentified vessels were detected SW of Cyprus. Although they had taken no provocative actions, they were certainly worthy of investigation. The vessels turned out to be Osa-class missile boats. They would also be visited by AH-1W SuperCobras.

Two MiG-29 Fulcrums that had been detailed to discourage reconnaissance over them quickly lit their fire-control radar and launched a brace of AA-11 Archer AAMs at the Eagles. Six AIM-9X Sidewinders were launched in a salvo before the Eagles turned away on afterburner. The Sidewinders scored while the Archers did not.



Five more flights were approaching the evacuation fleets and I only had a lone flight of Eagles to fend them off. Things were looking serious. It was decided that the DDG Gonzalez would simply have to take care of herself. With a little deft manoeuvring, the Eagles just might be able to engage each flight in turn.

At a range of 4nm and after a final warning, Gonzalez began to fire SM2MR SAMs and brought down two more Fitters. They were followed by two MiG-29 Fulcrum. They were given the same warning and the same reception along with two more Su-Fitters.

The Eagles killed another pair of Fulcrum. However, now the odds against them had just increased! It was now 1 vs 9 and they only had 4 Sidewinders left among the four pilots. One pilot was thinking, "Things were supposed to get easier when you shoot down the enemy, not harder!" And then the ultimate terror was detected - Su-27 Flankers!



The Flankers were covering two flights of Su-24 Fencers. The long-ranged missiles carried by the Flankers negated any possibility of interference from the Eagles. Instead, they spent their final AIM-9X on a flight of MiG-21 Fishbed before turning for home. DDG Gonzalez would have to fight the ensuing battle alone.

The AEgis defence system is called the “Defender of the Fleet” for very good reason. As the flights closed on the Gonzalez, she waited for the last possible moment before activating her SAM systems in hopes of minimizing the bloodshed and allowing the Syrians to abort their attack. The Sentries gave early warning of missile separation from the first flight of Fencers and all bets were off.

The Gonzalez began radiating and SAMs flew from her VLS tubes. The Anti-Ship Missiles [AShMs] were brought down first. They were soon followed by their Fencer launch platforms and then the Flankers. So long as there were SAMs available, the Gonzalez would be lethal. Her Standard missiles bought sufficient time for the arrival of relief flights of Eagles and Falcons and the situation was soon rectified by the quick application of AMRAAM.

Once aerial supremacy was established over the evacuation force, a Combat Air Patrol [CAP] was stationed over Beirut to stop the flights of Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters that had been ravaging the dock areas and terrorizing the refugees. Although Beirut received light damage, she was still functional.

As Task Group Iwo Jima near Beirut, the FFG suddenly reported a sub contact! The sonar watch had been alternating between active and passive sonar every five minutes or so and had now caught a submarine and it was CLOSE. The frigate immediately executed a crash stop manoeuvre and launched her ready helicopter.

The Syrians had cannily stationed the submarine under the protective SAM umbrella ashore. No sooner had the helo become airborne than Fire-Control Radar emissions were detected. The first sonobuoy dropped immediately detected the Iranian submarine, Tareq. Just as the torpedoes were prepared for launch, ESM reported that SA-10 Grumble SAMs had been fired! In their haste, the crew of the helicopter quickly dropped their ordnance before fleeing back to their ship. In this case, close was good enough for government work and an explosion was registered aboard the frigate.

No further opposition was detected as the transports made landfall to embark the terrified evacuees. Once safely aboard, the evacuation force withdrew and victory was granted.

Thanks very much for sharing this scenario straight out of the headlines.

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Kilo Crush - EC2003 MEDC - [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis
According to my orders, I was not allowed to freely engage the Kilos until they were east of Sicily. I decided that that a more pressing problem would be finding them in the first place. Therefore, I elected to employ a barrier strategy whereby I hoped to locate and track the Kilos at the narrowest point of their journey; the area between Sicily and Tunis.

I moved my surface and submarine assets there as expeditiously as possible. As DDG Luigi Durand and DD Jean de Vinne moved into the area, the DDG reported, "Transients! Incoming torpedoes". There had been no indication of submarine activity. She immediately changed course to race away from the incoming menace. However, the torpedoes were travelling in excess of 50kts and she could only run at 30kts. Slowly, the separation was eaten up. The seconds counted down as the torpedoes drew ever closer. Just as they were about to detonate in her wake, they either missed or ran out of gas. Luigi Durand was lucky this time.



DD de Vinne was also subjected to torpedo attacks. Four successive waves, in fact! Despite having her sonar suite active, she was unable to catch the faintest whiff of her attacker. Her two Lynx helos were practically useless, too. For hours, she tried to approach the area only to find torpedos shot into her face. Only because the torpedos had been fired at long range did she survive her ordeal. Finally, a helo returned a MAD [Magnetic Anomaly Detector] contact and dropped her 2 MU-90 Murene torpedoes on the de Vinne's tormentor. Both torpedoes struck the submarine and sank her. DD de Vinne assumed her position in the barrier.

Meanwhile, I had moved flights of MPA [Maritime Patrol Aircraft] into the area. The ships warned me that there were marauding aircraft coming from Libya so I was forced to escort my patrols. The most difficult part was the ROE [Rules of Engagement] which prevented me from firing unless fired upon. The beautiful long-ranged Mica AAMs on my aircraft were negated by a politician's whim.

As my Combat Air Patrols [CAP] flew their patterns over the barrier ships, several fighters emerged from Libyan airspace. I cautiously approached them and they opened fire on me. I immediately returned fire and turned away. It would be another race between missiles. Luckily, mine would arrive first to destroy the Libyan interceptors. Without terminal radar guidance, the Libyan missiles fell into the sea. After a few repeats of this engagement, the Libyans stopped sending their pilots out to die.



On the surface, various small craft began to appear in the area. As my ships were under the same ROE as the aircraft, they could not fire unless fired upon. Instead, I decided to assign CAP between my ships and the unknown vessels. My tactic worked. When the Osa PTM boats opened fire with Styx SSMs, my fighters were in position to shoot down the missiles. Return fire from my ships quickly sank the near-defenceless boats. A pair of Nanuchka PTMs also tried to open a hole in my barrier but were destroyed in the same manner.

My ships and aircraft maintained their patrols and were rewarded by a subsurface detection from a sonobuoy. A second submarine was soon detected. They were soon confirmed as SSK Kilo submarines. While I was under orders not to initiate hostile action, the was no restriction from giving them a serious sonar lashing. This way, I intended to track and trail them until they either gave up and turned around or else I would sink them once they were east of Sicily.

As I moved towards them, they both fired 53-65K torpedoes at me! My ships fled while launching helos to prosecute the submarines which had confirmed their hostility. The ships evaded but the submarines did not. Two SSK Kilos would not reach Benghazi. I was awarded victory.

A nice little scenario. Thanks for sharing it with us.

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AAR: Spanish Fury EC2003 MEDC - [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis



Task Group Andalucia immediately reported multiple air contacts rising from Algerian runways. It looked as though the Algerian government was not going to take the Spanish ultimatum lying down and were serious about defending their sovereignty. To compound matters, an unknown subsea contact was reported by FFG Reina Sofia. Unfortunately, the Senior Officer Present Afloat [SOPA], was unable to launch any helos to prosecute her as they would be flying amidst numerous hostile Algerian jets and helos simply cannot evade jet fighters. They would have to investigate the old-fashioned way and run down the contact with their hull-mounted sonar. This was a very dangerous proposition as the range of the torpedoes known to be used by Algerian submarines was much longer than the ships' effective sonar range. For the thousandth time, the SOPA cursed the bureaucrats and politicians in Madrid. "It's so easy for them to issue decrees and ultimatums and so difficult to give us what we need to enforce them." With another snort of disgust, he walked back into the Combat Information Centre [CIC].

The number of Algerian air patrols was indicative of a very determined defence. Antiquated MiG-21 Fishbeds along with high-performance Foxbats climbed to attack altitude from Es Seina aerodrome while ultra-modern Fulcrum interceptors patrolled over Ain Oussera air base. Spain would have no easy ride today. I ordered my reconnaissance elements to head for Ain Oussera just slightly ahead of the strike elements. However, the strike was postponed in the face of the large number of defending fighters. Obviously, some of them would have to be culled before the strikers could be sent in.



Not surprisingly, the enemy had his own version of the playbook. Radar aboard the FF Mendez Nunez reported missiles inbound. C.801 Anti-Ship Missiles [AShMs] had been launched by the Fencers. The SOPA immediately ordered all radar activated and all Weapons Free. Every ship began to manoeuvre wildly. When under this type of attack, it would be every ship for itself.

The missiles were intercepted successfully with a wide margin of safety. However, the bad news was only beginning. Six Fencers were still closing on the Task Group and many long-ranged SAMs had been expended. The Foxbats were doing an excellent job keeping my defending Hornets occupied. They'd launch AA-6 Acrid AAMs and force my Combat Air Patrols [CAP] to flee and prevent them from engaging the Fencers. A very nicely coordinated attack. It almost worked. One flight of Hornets managed to break free of the melee and bagged the strikers with the last of their missiles.

Meanwhile, other Hornets were vainly trying to engage the Fulcrum. The low radar cross-section of the MiG-29 kept causing them to fade off of the fighters' radar. A long-range missile exchange ensued with neither side gaining the advantage. Most of the fighters depleted their long-range missiles quickly and were about to return to base when a veritable flock of Fencer fighter-bombers was detected closing on Spain. Even if the fighters only had Sidewinders remaining, they would have to try and intercept. They got most of the Fencers but two managed to get within range of FF Andalucia and release their AShMs. The FF brought them down with her Standard SAMs.

The recon mission was re-launched to localize the enemy bunkers. On their ingress, they detected a force of three missile boats. It looked like TG Andalucia was not going to have a pleasant day. The air strike would not have a milk run, either, as no less than six SA-6 SAM batteries were detected. One RF-4C inadvertently overflew an SA-6 site that had been cunningly placed on the ingress route and was forced to evade. She was successful, this time.

After three separate attempts to penetrate the SAM bubble over Ain Ouessa and three hasty retreats all the while being chased by SAMs, the mission commander decided that the only way to penetrate the zone would be in the company of SEAD aircraft. All aircraft were recalled to prepare for a full force mission. Meanwhile, the Orions, now free from aerial interception, were able to successfully prosecute a Kilo-class diesel submarine that had been harassing the Andalucia group.



The situation should have been well in hand. Aerial supremacy had been achieved and preparations were underway to eliminate the primary targets. However, the SOPA underestimated the potency and range of the Algerian missile boats. In fact, he just plain forgot about them. The next thing he knew, missiles were detected inbound - SS-N-25 Switchblade! The tiny group fought valiantly, but their Surface-to-Air Missiles had been severely depleted in their repeated engagements with the Fencers. True to their name, the approaching missiles struck like a dagger between the ribs. All three vessels were hit by multiple missiles and slipped beneath the waves. Right away, Victory was wrenched from my grasp and awarded to Algeria; a sad day for Spanish men at arms.

Thanks for sharing another interesting scenario with a whole range of platforms new to the HCDB.

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Continental Connection - EC2003 GIUK - [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis

This scenario appears to be almost ripped from the headlines. Nuclear Proliferation.

Since I only had one base with any ability to support my meagre aerial assets, I decided that I would have to be very careful in protecting her from attack. I only had 18 Falcons at my disposal so I elected to configure them for AAW missions. Once armed, 4 were assigned as a continuous Combat Air Patrol [CAP] approximately 200 nm NE of the base and in line with the Russian base on the Kola Peninsula.

A pair of Falcons were sent north to reconnoitre for the convoy. Their Electronic Support Measures [ESM] detection equipment picked up the distinctive emissions of a KA-31 Airborne Early Warning [AEW] helo about 160nm from the coast near Tromso. They moved in to investigate but were nearly at the limits of their fuel range. Meanwhile, all ships and subs moved to close the distance.


USAF Archive Photo

The Falcons were forced to return without any additional information. On their path home, they encountered a Bear on patrol. At that same moment, FFG Hessen reported incoming torpedoes. She executed a crash stop manoeuvre and tried to turn her tail to the torpedoes while firing a torpedo back down the bearing in order to try and confuse the hidden submarine. At the same time, she launched her two Lynx Mk 88 helos to search for the submarine.

The subsea lurker was detected and identified as a Kilo-class submarine at a range of 10 miles. The torpedo was racing in at 45 knots while the Hessen fled at 29 kts. She just might survive this ordeal. The helos closed and successfully prosecuted her but did not kill her! The little submarine was struck by 2 torpedoes but did not die. Although empty of ordnance, the two helos maintained contact with her until 2 additional helos could be sent to assist them from the FF Augsburg. The four additional torpedoes were sufficient to silence this bushwhacker.

As the helo crews were patting each other on the back and returning to base, one of the systems operators sounded the alarm. "Vampires!" The ships immediately began activating their radar systems and fire-control radar. The FFG Hessen fired her SAMs but the AS-4 Kitchen missiles had obviously only been fired on a Bearing-Only Launch [BOL] attack. They passed by the ship with a wide margin. Every sailor aboard thanked their lucky stars. Had those missiles been given better targeting information, there would not have been enough left of their ship to fill a sardine can. The attacking submarine must have not been able to send complete information back to base.

Over the Norwegian Sea, one Falcon pilot could not believe his luck. The Bear recon aircraft flew, literally, right into his gunsight! All that he did was pull the trigger to claim the victory. (Game glitch. You can't stop a plane from Auto-Fire)

My initial CAP was returning to base. Their replacement were just arriving on station when 4 aircraft believed to be Fencer jamming aircraft were detected. My pilots moved to investigate when suddenly their radar screens turned to hash. In fact, they were so electronically blinded that, once again, they didn't spot the Fencers until they had run themselves into gun range. One plane triggered a snap shot and quickly killed one of the jammers. [Game glitch, again.]

As these aircraft were basically unarmed, my ROE did not permit me to destroy them. However, they kept buzzing my aircraft which continued to automatically fire on them until they were destroyed. Thus far, one Bear and 4 jammers had been destroyed. My curiosity was definitely piqued. The enemy does not send such support for nothing. What were they screening/supporting?

Soon enough, 2 Backfire appeared in visual range of the Hessen. She kept her radar under Emissions Control [EmCon] in hopes of allowing them to pass her by undetected and unmolested. Unfortunately, her automatic systems engaged and destroyed both aircraft. [Game glitch]

DDs Cassard and Dupleix were crossing the G-I-UK gap when Cassard heard the unmistakable sounds of incoming torpedoes. She put on emergency speed and ran for her life while launching her lone helo to search for the submarine. Again, no sign of subsurface activity had been seen. The waters around Vagar appeared to be heavily infested with Sugar Skunks [submarines].

The race between Cassard and torpedo was neck and neck. However, in this game, all ties are resolved in favour of the torpedo. After another tense race, Cassard came out ahead by a nose. Meanwhile, the three helos from the destroyers pounded the waters with their dipping sonar in vain. This meant that I would have to go in and draw more torpedo fire with my ships serving as bait. A very unpleasant but vital function.

Cassard and Dupleix turned to run down the bearing from which the torpedoes had come from. They slowed and activated their sonar suites. Meanwhile, the helos continued their search. Another torpedo was detected! This was confirmed as a Type 65-76 weapon. It had very long range and a carrier-killing type of warhead. We were up against the varsity as only the most capable submarines carried this lethal weapon. Once again, the Cassard ran for her life while the helos tried to find the source of their tormentor.

This time, DDG Cassard lost the race taking with her the precious Lynx helo that had landed seconds before. Curse all submarines! Dupleix decided to continue the hunt but approached the area with great trepidation and extreme caution.

Meanwhile, 3 Nanuchka FFLs had run underneath my Falcons on CAP and open fired with SA-N-4 SAMs. What a stroke of luck/misfortune. They were quickly brought under fire and sunk without loss.

The convoy was moving at a rapid pace towards the G-I-UK Gap. A quick and daring pass by a Falcon pilot determined that the group contained a Slava-class CG as an escort. The Russians meant business. This ship was lethal to aircraft and ships up to 250nm with her SSM/SAMs. This was going to be one tough nut to crack with my 6 puny ships.

I withdrew to draw up a plan of action but was pre-empted by enemy action. An intelligence trawler spotted the Dutch FF Van #%&*$# and reported her position to Russian HQ. Suddenly, she faced a veritable hailstorm of lethal SS-N-12 Sandbox missiles. Only 2 Falcons were on patrol and they were only able to shoot down 4 missiles. The other 8 detonated within her hull. There were no survivors. One problem solved the hard way. Van #%&*$# had soaked up the entire SS-N-12 supply of the task force.



I decided that while the Slava was the toughest ship in the entire Norwegian sea this day, she had her Achilles heel, too. I sent my 2 diesel submarines to neutralize her. The Dutch SS Bruinvis would arrive first. Imagine her surprise to find a submarine escorting the convoy! The F-16s on CAP tried to localize the ships and darned near got themselves shot down for their troubles. Those SA-6 Grumbles are very scary weapons to face.

As SS Bruinvis continued her surveillance, she learned that the Russian submarine was an SSN Akula, another elite unit. As if NATO wasn't already having a bad enough day, DD Dupleix found herself under torpedo attack yet again. She died from a Type 65-76 torpedo that broke her back.

I wasn't paying attention and all of a sudden had one of my submarines vanish. I don't even know what got her. U-31 would not make port again. Somehow, SS Bruinvis managed to penetrate the ASW Screen and positioned herself between the Akula and the main body. She loosed her torpedoes at the Slava, a Udaloy destroyer, an FFG Krivak, and the Akula and then ran to evade. The results were wildly terrific. Every escort was sunk. The merchants sailed onwards naked to attack.



All that my ships had to do was board them and search them. Easy to say, difficult to do. Another Bear recon aircraft had positioned herself near the convoy. She could easily spot any vessel closing on the group and call in airstrikes from the Kola airfields. The day was not over yet. However, NATO would catch a break today. They deserved at least one. DDG Tromp managed to close to 3nm before demanding that the ships heave to and await boarding. They failed to comply so she executed her orders and sank them with gunfire.

This is truly a challenging scenario. The units are not numerous. However, NATO capabilities are very limited and demand that the player get the most out of his assets. Another superb offering from one of Harpoon's finest designers. Thanks very much for sharing your work with us Mark. The only drawback was the Game Engine. The enemy always attacks whether you want him to or not and nothing that a designer can do about it.

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AAR: Operation: Island Wind [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Akula




The orders specified that I had 24 hours to accomplish the mission. That seemed like ample time to win aerial superiority before sending in the strike elements. With two Sentinels available, airborne radar coverage was not going to be a problem.



The DPRK must have known that something was afoot. Flights of MiG-29 Fulcrums and MiG-23 Floggers were detected inbound to intercept the CAP [Combat Air Patrols] and Airborne-Early Warning [AEW] aircraft. For years, the level of North Korean penetration of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces had always been suspected, but today, it would be proven.

One Sentinel was stationed over the DDG Kongo to take advantage of her Aegis SAM envelope. The other was positioned in the middle of the Sea of Japan. Several Surface-to-Air [SAM] units were detected from their radar emissions and it was decided to stay well outside of their range. The North Korean MiGs played into our hands.

The Eagles exchanged AIM-120 AMRAAM with AA-10 Alamo from the North Koreans. Fortunately, the AMRAAM arrived first and swept the MiGs from the sky. Once guidance was lost by the Alamo, they harmlessly fell into the Sea of Japan. This chapter was to repeat itself over and over again, this day.

The North Korean pilots did not waver in their aggressiveness. Flights of antiquated MiG-17 Fresco and MiG-21 Fishbed continued to rise from DPRK airfields. Instead of wasting the limited AMRAAM inventories swatting these interceptors, they were allowed to close to AAM-5 range before being blotted from the sky. Only one MiG-21 was able to launch a single AA-2 Atoll back at the Eagles before its destruction. Although the DPRK air force was taking horrendous losses, they were fulfilling their sworn duty of defending the fatherland because the JSDF strike elements dared not launch while they were active.



The missile boats of the DPRK would also do their part. A flotilla of four was detected by the Sentinel above the Kongo. Although the F-2s were not able to initiate their strike on Hochon, yet, they quickly re-loaded with ASM-2 [Type 93] missiles and sank all four boats before they even realized that they were under attack.



The strike planners could see that Hochon would be a hornet's nest. From ESM [Electronic Support Measures] contacts, they could see that the missile complex was well covered by SAM and AAA batteries of all calibres. However, there were no SEAD weapons in the JSDF inventory. It was going to a very bloody job. The F-2s could only carry electro-optically-guided bombs and the missile complex would be at the edge of their combat range. They would not even have an opportunity to try and fly a circuitous route to avoid the worst of the air defences nor would they have much manoeuvrability on afterburner. It was the nightmare of all aviators. They would have to fly into the teeth of the dragon and at cruise speed.



All twelve F-2s launched and were covered by six Eagles. As it turned out, the worst hazard came from the AAA as the KS-12 guns claimed two. The survivors lofted their bombs and fled the scene. Post-strike analysis determined that the launch platform was likely still 60% capable. When dealing with nuclear weapons, the possibility of the DPRK still having an operational WM D was much too high. A second strike was needed.

Once re-loaded, the second strike followed the same procedure as the first and suffered the same losses on their ingress. The surviving eight aircraft released their bombs and made their escape. Although fewer in number, their aim was better as the launch complex was left a smoking ruin. On their egress, another flotilla of missile boats was detected. The Oyashio was nearby and quickly launched a Harpoon attack on them - sinking three - to clear the way home. Although four more aviators would now be worshipped at the Yasukuni shrine, there would be no second Hiroshima.

Congratulations on your first scenario and thanks for sharing it with us.

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AAR: The Backyard - Part Two: Final Shootout [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic Commander’s Edition scenario
by Ralf Koelbach





CAG Mills had fought a pretty good war up until now. His air group had helped demolish three of the four Russian Pacific bases with relatively few losses. With success had come promotion and he'd been frocked as Air Component Commander for CVBG. Now, the task force was going after the final operational Russian base, Petropavlovsk, under his direction.

The CVBG had just finished UnRep operations and both carriers were now full of beans and bullets as the Admiral ordered a cautious approach to Petropavlovsk. Admiral Humphries wanted to get as close as possible in order to reduce the flight time for his strike crews, but didn't want to accidentally run over any subs that likely lay in his path so he ordered a leisurely 14kts speed of advance while he launched his AEW and ECM birds.



As soon as they approached their stations, they reported several radar contacts from the direction of Petropavlovsk that turned out to be Bear reconnaissance aircraft accompanied by MiG-31 Foxhound escorts. Evidently, the Russians were not strong believers in either static or reactionary defences. This looked like it was going to be a hard day for the men of CTF 77.0



The snoopers were handily executed by the Tomcats after their MiG escorts were dealt with by Phoenix missiles. Unfortunately, this soaked up all the available missiles and the relief CAP [Combat Air Patrols] had not yet arrived when the follow-up flights of Backfire and Badgers appeared. The phenomenal range of the AS-6 Kingfish allowed them to launch before they could be intercepted by the Tomcats. What was originally a fairly simple exercise of shooting down inbound bombers changed into a nightmare of missile intercepts. The outbound Tomcats were forced to waste their precious AAMs on the AShMs [Anti-Ship Missiles] instead of the more valuable bombers which could now land and re-arm for future strikes. Also, once behind the curve, the subsequent enemy bomber flights were unmolested and able to reach their launch points as the Tomcat crews feverishly tried to intercept the Kingfish. Quickly, all available Hornets were scrambled for defensive fire. Unfortunately, CAG Mills had tried to re-organize his strike crews and this meant that half his forces were still re-arming and re-fueling as the Admiral stormed over from Flag Plot to ask why more interceptors were not being launched. He said, "Okay, Mills, we might survive this one, but you'd better not let it happen, again."



Fortunately, the Hornet crews had gotten quite experienced at this stage in the war and managed to bring down all the Kingfish with their Sparrows. But, with all good news, there is a downside -- nearly all the Hornets and Tomcats were now re-loading and re-arming. Only 2 depleted CAP flights remained on station when the second wave of Soviet Naval Aviation appeared on the radar screens. Once again, they were ably escorted by MiG-31 Foxhounds. There was no way to get to the bombers without first dealing with the incredibly potent fighters. The few remaining Phoenix managed to score on the Foxhounds, but their destruction meant that they were doing their job and the bombers were not molested as they reached the launch point.



Once out of long-ranged missiles, the CAP was then ordered by CAG Mills to try and intercept the bombers. When Admiral Humphries learned of this, he quickly countermanded the suicidal orders and issued new ones for them to return and re-arm before telling CAG Mills that, "It's going to be a long f***ing war. We need every swinging dick and throwing their lives away on futile missions isn't going to help." Privately, he was starting to question the sanity of his ACC and suspected that the CAP were given their hopeless orders in some vain attempt to cover up the ineptitude displayed by CAG. Imagine ordering men into a sword fight armed with only penknives. Insanity.



The Badgers and Backfire started releasing AS-4 and AS-6 just as the strike crews were launching from the catapults. This time, they were able to shoot down all of the inbound missiles, again. Once the situation had stabilized, the A-6 attack crews were released to ply their trade. A CVBG had been detected off to the northwest and that would the first target. A perfect time-over-target strike resulted in the CVHG Baku exploding before she could release more SSMs at the CTF 77.0



Unwilling to retire from the battle, the group continued towards CTF 77.0 Makishio moved to intercept this still formidable group. As she made her approach from the starboard bow, it was certainly an impressive site with all the ships arrayed in front of her. Although she would have preferred to fire from closer range, she could not expect to do so without increasing speed and likely revealing her presence. In the world of submarine warfare, you get the first shot, so make it a good one!



At her point of closest approach, Makishio fired her Harpoon missiles at the nearest Udaloy destroyer in the screen and 4 torpedoes each at CG Slava, BCGN Frunze, CG Azov and a pair each at two escorts. These cruisers were the three most dangerous targets with their multiple SA-6 mounts and Shipwreck/Sandbox SSMs. Out of weapons, she attempted to cruise out of the away. The Harpoons surprised the Udaloy and promptly sank her. The torpedoes were not detected for quite awhile and thus managed to close the range significantly. Once the torpedoes were counter-detected, the Russian formation immediately turned to flee. However, the torpedoes were running at 65kts and caught both the Slava and Frunze to leave them sinking on the high seas. The rest of the formation just kept running. Admiral Humphries ordered his staff to let them "run all the way back to Vladivostok if they want." They were a mission-kill.

Once the situation appeared to have stabilized, CAG Mills ordered his Hornet crews to, once again, re-arm for ASuW operations. Two additional KUG surface strike groups had been detected and he did not think that the Intruder squadrons would be sufficient to handle them. As the planes were mid-way through the staging process, Shipwreck missiles were, once detected on radar. Once again, Admiral Humphries asked, "Where are the interceptors and why aren't we shooting those bastards down?" When he learned the reason, he simply exploded at his soon-to-be-former ACC. "You stupid #%&*$#! If it doesn't start with an A-, it isn't ATTACK!" said the former strike pilot. CAG Mills was promptly placed under arrest for gross incompetence and relieved of command. This was small consolation to the crews of DD Setoyuki, Shirane, Fletcher, and Kirishima as the thousand-pound warheads on the missiles slammed into their vessels.



There was nothing to do but press onwards. However, the tribulations of CTF 77 were not over, yet. Not long afterwards, the surviving screen members reported, "Transients, inbound torpedoes!" The submarines that had launched the SLCMs had now followed up with Type 65-76 torpedoes. These were monster weapons with extraordinary range. The CVBG turned to run, but it was only capable of 25 kts while their pursuers were making 50 knots. The screen, once more, bore the brunt of the attack. Frigates Ishikari, Kauffman, and the cruiser California were blown out of the water while CVN Carl Vinson sustained 70% damage, putting her out of the strike picture. With a much-depleted screen, CTF turned back towards Petropavlovsk.

The A-6 squadrons were able to sink the two newly detected KUG strike groups before turning their attention to Petropavlovsk. Instead of being distracted by the target-rich environment on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the attack crews concentrated solely on the base facilities and only suppressed the SAM defences in order to accomplish their goal. After several missions with stand-off munitions, the base was left in smouldering ruin and victory was gained.

Thanks for a magnificent playing experience. It's been years since I've had a carrier sustain such damage or lost this many ships.

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AAR: There's No Place Like Home [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Patrick Howard





As a student of history, I had read about Xenophon and the 10,000 but never really felt that I understood it until I was faced with the same situation. The Kuznetsov group was operating off the Irish coast when she received orders to return to the Kola Peninsula. Unfortunately, receiving orders and actually carrying them out can be very different things. All I could see was an entire wall of potentially (probably) hostile bases. The more I looked, the grimmer things appeared. The previously powerful forces of Soviet Naval Aviation had fallen from regiments of Backfire and Badger bombers to only 5x Tu-22M Backfires, 2x Tu-95H Bear, and 4x Tu-160 Blackjack bombers on call to assist in the voyage home. Soviet doctrine called for regimental strikes by SNA against the American carrier battle groups and I had barely one squadron's worth of bombers.

Soon, Elint reports started coming in from two surveillance trawlers in the North Atlantic. E-2 Hawkeye radar had been detected. Where there are Hawkeyes, there is a carrier. I couldn't localize the ships, but the AWACs gave me an idea of where they might be. As all routes back to the Kola seemed to be blocked, I decided that the only chance I had would be to blast my way through the carrier group so I shuttled all available aircraft down to Kaliningrad in hopes of re-inforcing the Kuznetsov for a combined attack. It was my only hope.



I also ordered the BCGN Petr Velikiy out to lend assistance, but her meagre screen of two Udaloy destroyers was promptly engaged and sunk by torpedoes. The Ka-27 Helix got a measure of revenge by sinking one of the submarines, but there was no way that the BCGN could be risked to travel on her own through such treacherous waters so she was recalled.



Once the bombers landed and re-fuelled at Kaliningrad, they had to fly a very careful profile out to the Atlantic. In order to avoid interference from the EU fighter patrols, they stayed at low altitude to avoid the radar from the UK as well as Lechfeld air base. Once past the radar fence, they made their ingress towards the suspected position of the carrier group.



As they made their approach on the deck, the lead reconnaissance Bear reported that the strike group had been counter-detected by the Hawkeyes. Now, it was a race between the pride of Russia and the American Combat Air Patrols. All of the planes increased speed to full military power and activated their radar in hopes of surviving long enough to reach their release points. Today, luck was with the Russians as a Very Large contact was soon detected. With Bears approaching from different angles, it was fairly easily localized through triangulation. ESM also detected emissions from 2 Ticonderoga cruisers and one Arleigh Burke destroyer. This was going to be one tough nut to crack.



As soon as they came into range, the measly strike force of 7 bombers released their AS-4 Kitchen missiles from maximum range in hopes that some might survive. The Blackjacks, armed only with shorter-ranged AS-65 missiles, tried to close the distance and were promptly shot out of the sky by SAMs. One Oscar-class SSGN was also in range and threw her 20 SS-N-19 Shipwreck missiles into the fray. Attacking three AEgis-equipped vessels with only 40 missiles seemed like hopeless odds, but the attempt had to be made. The escorts must have been distracted in their hurry to destroy the Blackjacks as the AS-4 Kitchens raced through the screen and promptly demolished the carrier! Victory was awarded right away.

I wanted to see if I could make the trip all the way back to Russia so I continued onwards. It was a good thing that I managed to sink the carrier as the Kuznetsov was hit by at least two torpedoes on her voyage home. She limped along at 8kts with 77% of her flotation destroyed and never made it back to home waters before the scenario expiration.

A really superbly challenging scenario. I can't wait to try out the next one. Thanks for sharing it.

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AAR: Oubliette [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Brad Leyte





The navigator plotted a course for Point Echo Zulu northeast of Sakhalin Island at coordinates 51 29 N 145 12 E. At our current speed of advance (8kts), SSBN Tennessee should be able to arrive at her designated deterrent patrol station in time. Since the SSN Tullibee was already in the Sea of Okhotsk, I would use her to scout the area before the SSBN's arrival. The nearest base was Naha, over 1500nm away. This meant that there would be no air cover as none of the P-3 Orion MPA had sufficient range to reach the area. The only plane able to reach the Sea of Okhotsk was the EP-3 Elint platform and she was unarmed.



As she set out on her mission, SSN Tullibee immediately detected a submerged contacted. After working up a TMA [Target Motion Analysis], she generated a firing solution and launched two Mk 48 AdCap torpedoes at the target. They were counter-detected when they got within 2nm and the submarine raced to evade. It turned out to be a Tango-class diesel, but the Mk 48 torpedoes were easily capable of 40kts+ speed and they easily caught her. First on the scoreboard was the USN!



I ferried my aircraft assets over to Naha from Andersen air field to give them just a bit more range and ordered the SSBN Tennessee and her escorting SSN Chicago escort to cross the Kuriles and into the Sea of Okhotsk. Soon, the SSBN detected several surface contacts. They tried to avoid contact and just let them pass, if possible, but the enemy wasn't playing along. The group consisted of a Mirka-class corvette and a Krivak-class frigate. Both had reasonable sonar systems that would be effective if they got too close. I decided not to risk detection of the SSBN so the Chicago engaged the Mirka with two Mk 48 torpedoes at a range of 7nm. Both vessels detected the weapons close to the Mirka and turned to flee. The Mirka was caught and one detonated under her keel, snapping it. The Krivak kept running and was a mission-kill as far as I was concerned for it cleared the way for the SSBN.

After re-fueling at Naha, I ordered the EP-3 Aries to reconnoitre the region. She carefully and cautiously scouted and detected several Tu-142 Bears, Be-12 Mail, Il-38 May active in the area along with several hunter-killer ASW groups. She wove and weaved among them until her ESM detected Foxbats rising to intercept her. Pucker time. She dove to the deck and slunk out of the area, grateful to have escaped with her own skin. It was certainly a nervous time, but worthwhile since it gave me an indication of the forces arrayed against the SSBN.



Not soon afterwards, the Chicago detected another submarine in her path. Although she never fully classified it, it was close and could not be allowed to get any closer. Two more Mk 48 torpedoes settled the issue and no return fire was detected. Unfortunately, someone else was having a spot of luck. The SSN Tullibee had detected a submarine in the SSBN's patrol area and was moving to investigate when she suddenly struck by a weapon without warning for a total loss of boat and crew. Sometimes, the enemy does something right, too.



Chicago and Tennessee continued their ingress and soon came across a KPUG (Russian ASW group) centred on the CVHG Kiev. They tried to box around it and soon encountered a submarine in their path. Both subs slowed to a crawl in hopes of allowing their hunters to pass them, but Russians were not giving up so easily. Suddenly, the KPUG turned in their direction and all hope of remaining invisible disappeared. Chicago decided to engage the CVHG first as she carried most of the deadly Helix helicopters. Three Mk 48 AdCap Mod 5 were sent after her and two hits were sufficient to leave her dead in the water. Unfortunately, the KPUG refused to quit so the Chicago was forced to engage one escort after another. Next to die was the CG Kara as she sailed blissfully to her doom. She was soon followed by the DDG Kashin and then the FFG Krivak. Although tempted to sink the surviving valuable replenishment vessels, they were not part of the mission and torpedoes were limited. The sailors aboard Chilikin, Andizhan, and Kazbek would never know how lucky there were this day.



With the primary threats sunk, the submarine group arrived intact at their deterrent patrol position and total victory was awarded.

A nice challenging submarine scenario. Thanks for sharing it.

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AAR: Minnows [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic Commander's Edition scenario
By Patrick Howard





With only a meagre number of air assets available, I carefully husbanded them. I launched an Atlantic to get a quick situation report. It was ordered to evade radar and try to take a circuitous route, but was detected by EMB-145 and Flankers from Jamnagar as soon as she launched. There would simply be no way to avoid a fight with Indian interceptors. Instead of trying to avoid them, I decided to pull a bait and switch routine, instead.



I ordered the Atlantic to high altitude and to activate her radar. The air crew complained strenuously, but I had to offer the Indians some enticement. I promised the aircraft commander that there would be friendly air cover nearby. The Atlantics performed their role as bait magnificently. As planned, the Flankers, MiG-27 Bahadur, and MiG-21 Bison all came snooping. I had my JF-17 Thunder waiting low in the grass to ambush them and the plan worked like a charm. Flight after Indian flight when down in flames without returning fire. After the long-ranged air patrols were decimated, the EMB-145 AEW planes were meat on the table for the Falcons who cleared enough breathing room for the Atlantics to manoeuvre, but just barely.

It seemed that nearly every plane in the Indian air force carried the super-lethal AA-12 Adder - Bahadur, Bison, Flankers. I would not have been surprised to find the Mainstay had them, too! Every plane in the theatre seemed to be drawn to the Atlantics like moths to open flames. Even Hawks from distant Oman came to try their luck before being shot down in flames.

Although the EMB-145 from Jamnagar were handled somewhat easily, the Mainstay was detected over Bombay and there was no way to get at her since my fighters would no longer enjoy the support of land-based radar at Karachi. It was pretty much a Mexican standoff, but my main ships were exposed the Mainstay's radar.

Meanwhile, down south, a Dauphin launched from FF Zulfiqar for a quick peek without success and got jumped by Harriers for her troubles as she tried to return to base. It was hard-won intelligence, but now I knew that there was a carrier around. The life expectancy of the frigate dropped precipitously and I was not disappointed. Soon, a Bear appeared and reported her position. Not long afterwards, she simply exploded and sank without a trace; never even detecting the weapon that sank her.



With some breathing room around Karachi, the Orion was sent out again. Flying below the enemy's radar coverage, it found unknown group her infrared sensors. Rather than risking one of my sparse assets with long-ranged radar, I sent Falcons in for a look and they found the frigates Vindhyagiri and Shivak along with a number of very large ships. They made their egress on afterburner while chased by SA-17 Grizzly and shot down 2 helos to help blind the group.

They re-armed and attacked with Mirage carrying ARMs. The escorts were quickly sunk followed by the tankers. It looked to be a pretty good war up to this point. Unfortunately, the situation changed quickly and not for the better. The Atlantics were operating a bit more distant from Karachi and paid the price. They were out of range from ground-based Karachi radar thereby allowing the Indian Flankers to close to Adder range undetected. Before they knew it, AA-12 Adder were detected. Scratch one Atlantic.

Another Atlantic was ordered aloft. As she crept to her patrol area at low altitude, she stumbled upon an Arleigh Burke destroyer! The crew vainly tried to escape, but 2 Standard SAMs put a quick end to that foot race. My surface group was nearby and itching to take on the Americans, but their orders were not to attack and to concentrate only on Indian merchant shipping.



SS Hurmat detected the Viraat carrier group. Although she was a mouth-watering target, she allowed them to pass since they were not the objective of the mission. At this point, my sole surviving reconnaissance asset was the Orion and it blinked off the screen. I never even knew what got her. Now, I was operating pretty much blindly and it showed.

My surface group stumbled over DDG Rajput. Although they managed to sink her handily, the jig was up and Indian forces converged on them from all compass points to wipe them from the face of the earth. With only two surviving submarines as my striking power, I gambled that all the northern shipping targets had been sunk and ordered them to patrol near Bombay. Once on station, they soon detected two unescorted ship groups consisting of tankers and freighters. Three were immediately dispatched with torpedoes and victory was awarded.

Another great scenario from Patrick Howard. Thanks for sharing it.

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AAR: United We Sail [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon Classic scenario
By Mark Gellis

The United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) was blessed with a fairly modern military. The Emir was considered by many to be a thoughtful and wise man for looking out for his country’s future. Unfortunately, this did not apply to his grand nephew, Dhargan, whom he had appointed to the defence ministry. In fact, many of the country’s military officers derisively referred to him as Dhargan, the Dotard. Worse yet, he had been left in charge of military procurement. So, the military was armed with fine aircraft, ships, and missiles that were all visually stunning. However, they lacked a significant military system for mine or anti-submarine detection. Dhargan had skimped on its purchase simply because it did not look as cool as the AMRAAM for the air force. Today, the country would find out exactly how Dhargan got his nickname.

The Iranian mullahs had been threatening military action to close the Strait of Hormuz. Now it would be a test of wills. The four tankers of the Emirate would have to survive and make their journey to India. The little task group was escorted by the corvette Baynunah. A missile boat would precede the group and give additional early warning.

Right away, the Iranians were determined to stop the transit. Two Combat Air Patrols [CAP] consisting of F-16 Falcons were stationed over the convoy. These were immediately engaged by Phantoms operating out of Bander-e-Abbas. However, the arms embargo against Iran proved to be telling. The Phantoms engaged with Sparrow missiles that were at least one generation behind the AMRAAMs carried by the Emirate’s Falcons. An exchange of missiles soon left four Phantom crews floating in the water. Additional flights of Fencers and F-5 Tigers fared no better and Darghan was feeling pretty impressed with himself for having seemingly provided the right weapons for his warriors.

A number of Pasdaran Boghammer boats were manoeuvring aggressively against the missile boat. Since the navy was still operating under orders of “Do not fire unless fired upon”, the captain could do little. Although he had air support overhead, he felt that he could handle the small arms normally found on a Boghammer. As the first gunboat approached, a mass of small arms fire suddenly erupted from the Boghammer. Worse yet, the fire was superbly effective! The first salvo was able to totally knock out all the defensive and offensive systems on the little missile boat. The FPB was totally defenceless. Quickly, the captain ordered the loitering Mirage strike fighters to attack the gunboat as his own boat continued to be shot to pieces. Only the timely intervention of the fighters prevented their annihilation as they laid a stick of bombs right over the little Boghammer. After seeing the deadly result from a single Boghammer attack, the air force tracked down and destroyed two additional Pasdaran craft before they got anywhere near the convoy.

With no more air or surface opposition, the convoy approached the narrowest part of the Strait. Shore batteries near Bandar-e-Abbas detected them and launched four SS-N-22 Sunburn missiles. Two Falcon CAP were still on patrol and swatted them quite adroitly with AIM-120 AMRAAM.

The air force and navy had performed well thus far, today. However, the only sub-surface detection system was carried by the Alouette helicopter aboard the Baynunah. It was a Magnetic Anomaly Detector. This device detected the sub-surface disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field caused by large metallic bodies like submarines. Unfortunately, there was only one of the devices and only one helicopter to carry it. A patrol was set up whereby the helo made continuous sweeps in front of the convoy’s Path of Intended Movement [PIM]. This was akin to having a blind man trying to guide you across a cattle paddock through the use of his white cane to avoid the cow flops. Theoretically, this is possible, but if he misses one, it could certainly get messy.

Just past the narrowest point, a MAD contact was reported. As, it was not moving, it was determined to be a mine. Explosive Ordnance teams were flow out of Abu Dhabi and they successfully cleared two mines and allowed the convoy to proceed towards India. However, just as the convoy was about to enter the Arabian Sea, the Alouette ran low on fuel and had to land. With no replacement available, the convoy proceeded on course. However, fate would not smile on the Emir’s forces this day as soon after the helicopter landed, two torpedoes fired from an undetected Kilo submarine smashed into the corvette and turned her into a massive fireball. Twenty-five seconds later, two more hammered the previously damaged missile boat. With the only two naval vessels exterminated, the convoy of unarmed tankers turned around and headed back to the UAE. The day would belong to the Iranians.

Thanks for another fun scenario.

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