Reckall
16 Mar 05, 18:23
“The Boomer Bastion Raid” is third scenario in the “WWIII in 1985” series by Ragnar Emsoy. I have already played the first two, but since I see that there already are AARs, and that mine would not be much different, I’ll start with this.
[I really liked the first two, anyway! – The first was almost a role-playing game, since the simple victory conditions were actually an expedient to give you the feeling for a shock invasion of Norway by the Northern Fleet. The second one was lively.]
I actually managed to play “Bastion” on the second attempt. The first one was done at “full realism”: I gave orders and patrol zones to my SSNs, and promptly they disappeared under the waves, never to be heard again. The end. So I reloaded and played with auto-datalink on – promising myself to respect a “roleplaying” rule: every boat was on her own, with no conscious “sharing” of infos. As it turned out, they patrol zones never overlapped, so my advice is to play “Bastion” with auto-datalink.
My battleplan was simple. West, the Narval made for the boomers patrol zone at 15 Kts. South, the first Los Angeles approached at 10 Kts. North and west, the English Conqueror and the second Los Angeles would creep at 5 Kts – since they were already near the patrol zone.
After a few minutes (I ran the scenario from 1 sec = 5 sec to 1 sec = 15 mins, according to the situation) the Conqueror detects an unknown submerged contact bearing south-southeast. She maneuvers to get a better solution, and after a few more minutes the contact firms out as enemy – mainly because there is a torpedo in the water coming from it! The English SSN manages to avoid one, then a second Russian torpedo, and then fires a Tigerfish of her own at the enemy – which is now revealed to be a Victor III attack boat. The English torpedo swims true, killing the Victor, but not before the enemy skipper manages to fire a third torpedo at the Conqueror. Three is a charm, and the valiant Englishmen do not have the option to swim to the surface. 20 mins into the engagement, and my attack party is down to three SSNs.
Meanwhile, to the west the Narval detects a submerged contact south-southwest, and a surface contact south-southeast. The boat slows down and slips northwest at 10 kts., avoiding contact and continuing towards the bastion zone. After a while the tracks fade out.
Eastward, the second Los Angeles find herself between two submerged contacts, just inside the lower right corner of the bastion. The contact to the west is classified as a Delta, and a Mk. 48 takes care of her. Thinking that the eastern contact could be an attack sub escorting the Delta, the Los Angeles turns into her, but – surprise! – she is revealed as a second Delta. Two Mk. 48 sink this second menace to the peaceful western hemisphere, and the Los Angeles reprises her northbound patrol at 10 kts.
After a while, the southern Los Angeles detects two surface contacts north-northeast – apparently patrolling the southern approach to the bastion. After a LONG time, they are classified as two “Kanin” class destroyers – two old ships, but with ten torpedo tubes each! This is the beginning of a comedy of errors, since the Los Angeles first tries to avoid them, then fires two Mk. 48 BOL (missing both times), then again tries to slip away, only to be chased by the destroyers.
All of sudden, the Narval – which was now steaming at 15 kts going westward, but still well outside the boomer area, and quite oblivious of the fracas happening elsewhere, finds herself bracketed by three – count ‘em – three torpedoes, coming out form nowhere. After a few seconds, a surface contact is detected to the west. The Narval fires a BOL Mk. 48 and then dies – the results of her counterfiring remaining unknown. Before gurgling down, her skipper’s last thought is that they must have encountered an ASROC armed ship, maybe an Udaloy, acting as a roadblock on the western approach to the bastion – and that sprinting at 15 kts for such a long time maybe was not so bright. Two SSNs down: another one, and the game is lost.
The southern Los Angeles loses her patience, and fires another BOL Mk. 48 at the Kanins. Finally an hit is managed, and the boat slips away from the surviving destroyer by going northwest, then north, at 10 kts.
The rest of the game was actually quite simple and anticlimactic. The two Los Angeles combed the patrol area, finding four other Deltas among them and sinking them all – without much reaction from the enemy. I never encountered again patrol ships or attack subs. The scenario ended with a Narval, a Conqueror, a Kanin, a Victor III and six Deltas sunk – just what was needed for a victory.
OBSERVATIONS: I expected more enemy activity in the bastion itself. Maybe I was just lucky, but all the dangerous action happened *outside* the area. I didn’t encountered fast attack boats, ASW ships, helos or even mines inside the bastion, and after entering it the game become a walkover for the two surviving SSNs.
The SOSUS array went totally unused: it was not able to detect even a single contact.
Playing this sub-only scenario I was amazed by the resemblance that a sub-only H3 game has with the old Sid Meier classic “Red Storm Rising”!
All in all, a fun scenario, even if more during the first part! Now, onto the Virginian Capes against the Surge!
[I really liked the first two, anyway! – The first was almost a role-playing game, since the simple victory conditions were actually an expedient to give you the feeling for a shock invasion of Norway by the Northern Fleet. The second one was lively.]
I actually managed to play “Bastion” on the second attempt. The first one was done at “full realism”: I gave orders and patrol zones to my SSNs, and promptly they disappeared under the waves, never to be heard again. The end. So I reloaded and played with auto-datalink on – promising myself to respect a “roleplaying” rule: every boat was on her own, with no conscious “sharing” of infos. As it turned out, they patrol zones never overlapped, so my advice is to play “Bastion” with auto-datalink.
My battleplan was simple. West, the Narval made for the boomers patrol zone at 15 Kts. South, the first Los Angeles approached at 10 Kts. North and west, the English Conqueror and the second Los Angeles would creep at 5 Kts – since they were already near the patrol zone.
After a few minutes (I ran the scenario from 1 sec = 5 sec to 1 sec = 15 mins, according to the situation) the Conqueror detects an unknown submerged contact bearing south-southeast. She maneuvers to get a better solution, and after a few more minutes the contact firms out as enemy – mainly because there is a torpedo in the water coming from it! The English SSN manages to avoid one, then a second Russian torpedo, and then fires a Tigerfish of her own at the enemy – which is now revealed to be a Victor III attack boat. The English torpedo swims true, killing the Victor, but not before the enemy skipper manages to fire a third torpedo at the Conqueror. Three is a charm, and the valiant Englishmen do not have the option to swim to the surface. 20 mins into the engagement, and my attack party is down to three SSNs.
Meanwhile, to the west the Narval detects a submerged contact south-southwest, and a surface contact south-southeast. The boat slows down and slips northwest at 10 kts., avoiding contact and continuing towards the bastion zone. After a while the tracks fade out.
Eastward, the second Los Angeles find herself between two submerged contacts, just inside the lower right corner of the bastion. The contact to the west is classified as a Delta, and a Mk. 48 takes care of her. Thinking that the eastern contact could be an attack sub escorting the Delta, the Los Angeles turns into her, but – surprise! – she is revealed as a second Delta. Two Mk. 48 sink this second menace to the peaceful western hemisphere, and the Los Angeles reprises her northbound patrol at 10 kts.
After a while, the southern Los Angeles detects two surface contacts north-northeast – apparently patrolling the southern approach to the bastion. After a LONG time, they are classified as two “Kanin” class destroyers – two old ships, but with ten torpedo tubes each! This is the beginning of a comedy of errors, since the Los Angeles first tries to avoid them, then fires two Mk. 48 BOL (missing both times), then again tries to slip away, only to be chased by the destroyers.
All of sudden, the Narval – which was now steaming at 15 kts going westward, but still well outside the boomer area, and quite oblivious of the fracas happening elsewhere, finds herself bracketed by three – count ‘em – three torpedoes, coming out form nowhere. After a few seconds, a surface contact is detected to the west. The Narval fires a BOL Mk. 48 and then dies – the results of her counterfiring remaining unknown. Before gurgling down, her skipper’s last thought is that they must have encountered an ASROC armed ship, maybe an Udaloy, acting as a roadblock on the western approach to the bastion – and that sprinting at 15 kts for such a long time maybe was not so bright. Two SSNs down: another one, and the game is lost.
The southern Los Angeles loses her patience, and fires another BOL Mk. 48 at the Kanins. Finally an hit is managed, and the boat slips away from the surviving destroyer by going northwest, then north, at 10 kts.
The rest of the game was actually quite simple and anticlimactic. The two Los Angeles combed the patrol area, finding four other Deltas among them and sinking them all – without much reaction from the enemy. I never encountered again patrol ships or attack subs. The scenario ended with a Narval, a Conqueror, a Kanin, a Victor III and six Deltas sunk – just what was needed for a victory.
OBSERVATIONS: I expected more enemy activity in the bastion itself. Maybe I was just lucky, but all the dangerous action happened *outside* the area. I didn’t encountered fast attack boats, ASW ships, helos or even mines inside the bastion, and after entering it the game become a walkover for the two surviving SSNs.
The SOSUS array went totally unused: it was not able to detect even a single contact.
Playing this sub-only scenario I was amazed by the resemblance that a sub-only H3 game has with the old Sid Meier classic “Red Storm Rising”!
All in all, a fun scenario, even if more during the first part! Now, onto the Virginian Capes against the Surge!