Alternative Naval Prelude to Desert Shield, 2 August 1990: Alternate History Scenario.

Alternative Naval Prelude to Desert Shield, 2 August 1990: Alternate History Scenario.

A Harpoon Commander's Edition scenario for The Middle East Battleset and the HCDB-150928 standard 1980-2015 Platform Database or the HCDB2-170507 new standard 1980-2025 Database. This scenario is designed with advanced Scenario Editor and to be run with HCE 2015.008+ Game Engine or later.

Image: USS David D. Ray (DD-971) firing an ASROC from the VLS circa 1991 after her Improved Spruance conversion. Original photo published in All Hands magazine, February 1992, US Department of Defence photograph, and as consequence in public domain.

This scenario is designed to be played from the Blue/US side or from the Red/Iraqi side. To avoid a few spoilers you should play a few times first the Blue side, and only later play the Red side.

This scenario is basically a transliteration for Harpoon HCE/HUCE of Andy Doty's Harpoon 4 (paper rules) scenario "Desert Storm 1990", published in Naval SITREP 49 (October 2015), and with the original author permission.
An almost pure modern naval scenario, Andy Doty's scenario was inspired by his personal experience on duty in USS David R. Ray (DD-971), on her first cruise after the Improved Spruance with Vertical Launch System (VLS) conversion. In concrete at the dawn of 2 August 1990,when USS David R. Ray was in patrol in the northern Persian Gulf, and was called to investigate rumours of Iraqi warships in the Persian Gulf, just when Saddam Hussein was concentrating Iraqi troops in Kuwait border.

Enrique Mas, 20 November 2015.