Herman Hum
28 May 06, 18:22
Here's another After-Action Report re-printed with permission from the author.
AAR: The Clock is Running [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon 3 scenario
By Paul Bridge
Report By Freek Schepers
In 1958 the long time Dictator President Marcos Perez Jimenez was overthrown and Perez fled the country.
Venezuela found its way to Democracy with Romulo Bertancourt as the new President, but times were hard due to most of the treasury had been emptied prior to Perez fleeing the country.
With the Venezuela on the verge of another civil war in 1960 , the new President demanded the return of the Dutch Antilles and cut all trade routes with it, hoping this would bring the country together.
Holland having lost most of her Colonies after WW2 was not going to agree to this, and with Venezuela banging the drums of war, the Antilles Military forces in the area were strengthened with Sabre and Thunderstreak jets to provide some form of air Support if the situation got hot.
Onroute from a recent Exercise was the Carrier Karel Doorman and Escorts,due to the threat to British interests in the area HMS Bulwark was attached to the Doorman group with Dutch and Royal Marines embarked.
The UK West Indies Squadron had also been detached from Bermuda with the South Atlantic Guard ship HMS Crossbow which had been on a port visit to Belize sortied too.
The Situation is grim for Dutch Forces on the Antilles the Carrier Groups are still 200nm from them and Intelligence suggests a massive Air and Amphibious assault is likely to take place within the next few hours!!
For the first time since the Slag in de Java Sea in 1942 a joint UK/Dutch TF was going to war under Dutch command.
Our mission was to prevent an invasion of the ABC-islands and reinforce them with marines.
Initial operations went easy. Venezuala appeared to remain neutral and only some C130s were detected. US Navy recon units were out in force.
I started flying my recon planes to find the two invasion forces that my intel had reported might be under way.
I detected some patrol craft and a few separate destroyers and after 2 hours my recon plane was fired upon by a destroyer. The fight was on.
I quickly despatched two groups of patrol craft using my bombers now ready at Hato airfield and started shooting down the C130s as they came close to the Karel Doorman. The first generation sidewinder missiles proved nearly useless and the pilots, who had trained solely at unloading their missiles and the RTB for more, had to be ordered manually to engage with guns. Gunnery proved to be by far the best weapon against both aircraft and ships.
Karel Doorman stumbled on a submerged contact which was quickly attacked with depth charges. Some hours later the ineffectiveness of the sidewinders was brought home when the Venezualans started carrying out massed attacks against Hato-airfield and Dutch ground units. Although several planes were shot down, Hato's ammo dump was destroyed forcing planes to rearm at alternate fields.
This attack coincided with attacks by my rocket, bomb and MG armed attack planes on the two detected amphibious forces. The amphibs and DDs from the Westernmost group were sunk in two coordinated airstrikes. Other strikes killed the eastermost amphibs, but my sub was lost trying to intercept the remaining DDs still heading for Curacao
My planes and AA-guns took their toll from followup strikes but slowly Hato was being degraded in spite of all defences.
Then disaster struck; a U2 flew right above an attacking group of vampires and I accidentally hit the 'U' key and in fact declared was on the US-Navy! The US forces remained calm but their SAG proceeded to the same anchorage at Curacao as my CV needed to reach.
It appeared I had arranged a 'meeting engagement' at curacao. The British destroyer squadron arrived first (due to its high sustained speed) and although it tried to defend Hato, its guns proved ineffective against aircraft. The Venezuelan destroyers arrived next and a fierce gunnery battle ensued, with a Dutch korvet and a British destroyer sunk in exchange for all three Venezuelan destroyers.
Karel Doorman stumbled upon a real sub firing a real torpedo and boxed it before continuing on to its mission.
However the US surface group managed to arrive at the Curacao anchorage first and though the US had shown great constraints in spite of the Dutch errant declaration of war (some shots had been exchanged but no US forces hit), I decided to forego victory and stay out of the gunnery range of the US squadron. Nato might not have survived a gunnery battle! So I lost the game.
Thanks for a nice game with multiple sides! Early sidewinders were obviously pretty useless, and I also noticed that many times my planes needed to be re-given speed orders as some planes had pre-programmed cruise speeds of zero and would only move at full.
Freek
SZO file archives (http://www.xtreme-gamer.com/forums/downloads.php?do=cat&id=30) - Home of the Harpoon3 PlayersDB
http://img271.echo.cx/img271/7972/badger0ma.th.jpgFilesOfScenShare (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/FilesOfScenShare/) http://www.taitennek.nl/site-pics/website-logo.png (http://www.taitennek.nl)
http://img108.exs.cx/img108/5898/hgbanner33xr.jpgHarpGamer.com (http://www.harpgamer.com) - Home of the HCDB.
Colonial Wars DB (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=257730)
AAR: The Clock is Running [Spoiler Alert]
A Harpoon 3 scenario
By Paul Bridge
Report By Freek Schepers
In 1958 the long time Dictator President Marcos Perez Jimenez was overthrown and Perez fled the country.
Venezuela found its way to Democracy with Romulo Bertancourt as the new President, but times were hard due to most of the treasury had been emptied prior to Perez fleeing the country.
With the Venezuela on the verge of another civil war in 1960 , the new President demanded the return of the Dutch Antilles and cut all trade routes with it, hoping this would bring the country together.
Holland having lost most of her Colonies after WW2 was not going to agree to this, and with Venezuela banging the drums of war, the Antilles Military forces in the area were strengthened with Sabre and Thunderstreak jets to provide some form of air Support if the situation got hot.
Onroute from a recent Exercise was the Carrier Karel Doorman and Escorts,due to the threat to British interests in the area HMS Bulwark was attached to the Doorman group with Dutch and Royal Marines embarked.
The UK West Indies Squadron had also been detached from Bermuda with the South Atlantic Guard ship HMS Crossbow which had been on a port visit to Belize sortied too.
The Situation is grim for Dutch Forces on the Antilles the Carrier Groups are still 200nm from them and Intelligence suggests a massive Air and Amphibious assault is likely to take place within the next few hours!!
For the first time since the Slag in de Java Sea in 1942 a joint UK/Dutch TF was going to war under Dutch command.
Our mission was to prevent an invasion of the ABC-islands and reinforce them with marines.
Initial operations went easy. Venezuala appeared to remain neutral and only some C130s were detected. US Navy recon units were out in force.
I started flying my recon planes to find the two invasion forces that my intel had reported might be under way.
I detected some patrol craft and a few separate destroyers and after 2 hours my recon plane was fired upon by a destroyer. The fight was on.
I quickly despatched two groups of patrol craft using my bombers now ready at Hato airfield and started shooting down the C130s as they came close to the Karel Doorman. The first generation sidewinder missiles proved nearly useless and the pilots, who had trained solely at unloading their missiles and the RTB for more, had to be ordered manually to engage with guns. Gunnery proved to be by far the best weapon against both aircraft and ships.
Karel Doorman stumbled on a submerged contact which was quickly attacked with depth charges. Some hours later the ineffectiveness of the sidewinders was brought home when the Venezualans started carrying out massed attacks against Hato-airfield and Dutch ground units. Although several planes were shot down, Hato's ammo dump was destroyed forcing planes to rearm at alternate fields.
This attack coincided with attacks by my rocket, bomb and MG armed attack planes on the two detected amphibious forces. The amphibs and DDs from the Westernmost group were sunk in two coordinated airstrikes. Other strikes killed the eastermost amphibs, but my sub was lost trying to intercept the remaining DDs still heading for Curacao
My planes and AA-guns took their toll from followup strikes but slowly Hato was being degraded in spite of all defences.
Then disaster struck; a U2 flew right above an attacking group of vampires and I accidentally hit the 'U' key and in fact declared was on the US-Navy! The US forces remained calm but their SAG proceeded to the same anchorage at Curacao as my CV needed to reach.
It appeared I had arranged a 'meeting engagement' at curacao. The British destroyer squadron arrived first (due to its high sustained speed) and although it tried to defend Hato, its guns proved ineffective against aircraft. The Venezuelan destroyers arrived next and a fierce gunnery battle ensued, with a Dutch korvet and a British destroyer sunk in exchange for all three Venezuelan destroyers.
Karel Doorman stumbled upon a real sub firing a real torpedo and boxed it before continuing on to its mission.
However the US surface group managed to arrive at the Curacao anchorage first and though the US had shown great constraints in spite of the Dutch errant declaration of war (some shots had been exchanged but no US forces hit), I decided to forego victory and stay out of the gunnery range of the US squadron. Nato might not have survived a gunnery battle! So I lost the game.
Thanks for a nice game with multiple sides! Early sidewinders were obviously pretty useless, and I also noticed that many times my planes needed to be re-given speed orders as some planes had pre-programmed cruise speeds of zero and would only move at full.
Freek
SZO file archives (http://www.xtreme-gamer.com/forums/downloads.php?do=cat&id=30) - Home of the Harpoon3 PlayersDB
http://img271.echo.cx/img271/7972/badger0ma.th.jpgFilesOfScenShare (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/FilesOfScenShare/) http://www.taitennek.nl/site-pics/website-logo.png (http://www.taitennek.nl)
http://img108.exs.cx/img108/5898/hgbanner33xr.jpgHarpGamer.com (http://www.harpgamer.com) - Home of the HCDB.
Colonial Wars DB (http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=257730)