Scenario Design & Discussion

AAR: The Five-Pointed Star [spoiler Alert] By Quinton Van Zyl Wow, talk about walking into the lion's den. The Chief of Staff opined to the Admiral privately, "Pourquoi ne pas simplement les laisser prendre Djibouti?" << Why don't we just let them HAVE Djibouti? >> Of course, it was only in jest. He and the Admiral had expressed this same sentiment countless times before; on many different missions throughout the empire. The only response was the same response that had been given to him on every other occasion, "Pour l'honneur de la France." << For the Honour of France >> From the air, the Gulf of Aden really did resemble the op…

AAR: Operation Raffles - Invasion [spoiler Alert] By Paul Bridge Today was the day that Imperial forces would remove the Communist government from Indonesia. The British Empire might be on the road to granting her colonial possessions independence, but today, she would prove that the Lion Rampant still had her claws. After a quick examination of the forces available, I ordered the ready-force Canberra bombers aloft from Selatar - destination: Adisumarmo. After reading reports of how HMS Eagle was almost blown out of the water, the Badger bombers were judged to be the most lethal force in the Indonesian arsenal. I hoped that a swift strike on their home ba…

AAR: Guinea By Freek Schepers My orders were to protect Her Majesty's dominion in New Guinea, a daunting task, indeed. I started by launching most of my Maritime Patrol Aircraft [MPA] to seek out and locate the Indonesians. As with most battles, the initial phase is always about Intelligence. As my MPA spread out from Biak, I was happy to see that they possessed radar more than adequate to search long stretches of water leading me to assume that this battle was going to be a milk run. Well, as every primary school child knows, you never "assume" anything because it makes an "Ass" out of "U" and "Me". The MPA spread out on their reconnaissance duties whil…

31st Scenario posted this year! Freek Schepers has released his latest creation. This is scenario also uses the Colonial Wars database edited by Paul Bridge. Some players might actually still be able to remember the Indonesian crisis as the world held its breath. OPERATION JAYA WIJAYA When Indonesia became independent in 1949, The Netherlands held onto New Guinea, a vast island group in the east of the archipelago. The Netherlands maintained permanent army (KNIL), navy, and air force units on the islands. In the early 1960s, President Soekarno started guerrilla operations against the British in Malaysia and against the Dutch in New Guinea to force th…

AAR: Torpedo Run [spoiler Alert] By Paul Bridge After receiving our latest orders, I asked the Jimmy (First Lieutenant) to plot an estimated path from the last reported position to Jakarta. I planned to position the Oberon astride their Path of Intended Movement [PIM] at this point. If we were unable to intercept them from the front, I was dubious if we would be successful in a stern chase. As we made transit southward, we periodically rose to periscope depth to 'sniff' the air for electronic transmissions with our Electronic Support Measures [ESM]. Two small patrol boats were discovered a fair distance away, but were not a threat to us. A pair of G…

AAR: Cuban Missile Crisis By Freek Schepers After reading and re-reading my orders and the accompanying Rules of Engagement [ROE] from SACLant, I immediately double-checked to make certain that all of my units had their weapons Weapons on Safe status and were locked down. I certainly didn't want to be the initiator of nuclear shooting war! I realized that many of my vessels were a long distance from the line that the President had designated as the limit of the quarantine zone. Therefore, I ordered all vessels in Guantanamo Bay to sortie. As well, much of NavSurfLant was currently positioned near Florida and Cuba. I elected to gamble and meet the freight…

30th Scenario posted this year! Freek Schepers has posted his latest scenario. This is his first scenario to use the Colonial Wars database by Paul Bridge. We sincerely hope that it is not his last for this database. CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS In this scenario the forces are arranged as they were in the Caribbean on October 22nd 1962; the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. After the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, Cuba started re-arming with the most modern Soviet weapon systems. MiG-19 and -21 fighters armed with Atoll-AAM, SSM-armed missile boats, and SA-2 SAMs have been supplied to Cuba in early 1962. Training has been provided in the USSR and Soviet a…

AAR: The Empire Strikes Back By Paul Bridge "I can smell'em", said Commander Pettigrew. "I can just smell skunks in those straits". The Queen had been attacked and our orders were to have the HMAS Melbourne and group attack the base at Hasanuddin. The only way to do this was for us to close the distance to the base. This meant that we had to travel through the Indonesian islands in order to close the range so that our Sea Venom could reach the target. Whether or not Cmdr. Pettigrew really could smell submarines was now immaterial. Orders were orders. Orders were also issued to the Eagle TG to make best speed towards the bases in the Western part of Indonesi…

AAR: Broadsides By Paul Bridge The task force started under immediate observation by Russian Spy Trawler [AGI]. They tried to double back in an attempt to shake these Nosy Nelly. They used a tactic from Roger's Rangers: "If someone's trailing you, make a circle, come back on your own tracks and ambush the folks that aim to ambush you." TF Belfast was ordered to maintain the radar picture while Bulwark went under Emissions Control [EmCon] so that the enemy could not track her transmissions. I ordered the CAP already aloft to move to cover the TF. Enroute, their RWR detected radar and jamming. As their fuel was limited, I decided to investigate since the…

Here's the latest Installment in the Indonesian Campaign HarpoonHQ and StrategyZone Online "BROADSIDES" Date: 10th June 1966 Location: Andaman Sea Sides: UK and ANZAC Forces The Air Strikes were considered a success on the Indonesian Airbases, destroying many of the A.U.R.I aircraft in the air and on the ground. Most of the Badger aircraft have been destroyed but at least 6 still remain operational. The down side of the attacks were the numerous losses to the Vulcan and Canberra's which were badly mauled by the Mig-21's. HMS Eagle dispite her defenses was hit by single AS-1 missile and the resulting damage and fires destroyed her catapult…

As a real fan of mountaineering and Argentina's Mount Aconcagua, I elected to play side. After examining my initial dispositions, I decided that since my troop transports were virtually defenceless and I had no idea where the Chileans had positioned their submarine, I had to see to their protection first. I re-organized my CTF to provide ASW support and to escort them to the disputed zone. All available aerial assets were also launched to attack the Chilean airbase at Punta Arenas. Since there was only one Chilean base in the region, I hoped to squelch her air operations with a lightning strike. My lone, slow Dakota recon asset was sent to look for the Chilean fle…

A really nice setup. The size of the AO stretches the player to cover many bases with very limited resources. Excellent. I started by moving FFs Torquay and Lynx into positions near Akrotiri to add their limited AAA support to the base in the event of air attack from Syria. The Malta MCM squadron also set sail to rendezvous with the inbound Malta Convoy. They were limited in their combat abilities, but some ASW detection gear is better than none at all. SS Orpheus and SSN Tinosa were ordered to set up positions in order to blockade the Aegean Sea. I wanted to keep whatever surface assets that might be there bottled up tightly. Malta launched her long-range r…

I re-organized my ships in hopes of keeping as many escorts between the Queen and the threat axis. There were many unidentified vessels in the area so I had my Shackelton MPA investigate them and found many of them to be neutral. Only one vessel was from Indonesia but she was not operating in an openly hostile manner so I was not allowed to engage her. Instead, I kept a close eye on her throughout the voyage. My fighters positioned themselves as BarCap in hopes of intercepting any potential attacks from Indonesia. As the island was very large, an attack could conceivably appear from a very wide area. I kept my fingers crossed that I would have sufficient warning …

As CinCPac: The screen was studded with numerous subsurface and unknown contacts from the very beginning. I re-organized my ships within their patrol zones and immediately launched ASW aircraft to prosecute the submarines. Two subs were detected in very close proximity to the Wasp and Yorktown ASW Groups and both died soon afterwards. Subs were being detected all around the board from my sub units. I guess that they must have been tracking them already. An AGI trawler was found near the Aleutians chain. A quick visit by a lone Crusader pilot put paid to his ticket with ammo to spare. These subs had teeth. DDG Byrd detected incoming torpedoes! The Essex t…

I tried it from the Syrian side to see if I could have a different result from history. I was hoping to use the same tactic I had employed when I played as the Israelis. I wanted to have the lightly armed MCM and MTB act as "beaters" for my Osa "hounds". Unfortunately, from the disposition of the Syrian vessels, I realized that I could not use the MCM vessel as much of searcher since she was severely limited by her speed. The MTB set out at creep speed to allow for the Osa PGMs to catch up. Once they were positioned, the ships headed in a southwesterly direction under EmCon. Almost immediately, the MTB detected an Israeli ship visually. Knowing that this meant her…

I played from the Israeli side and started off by breaking up my groups into individual ships and spreading them out in hopes of getting some ESM cross-detections. I saw that the PCFG Mivtach had no SSM armament and was thus the weakest of my assets so I chose her to be my "beater" to flush the game for my "hounds". After gaining separation from one another, I set the Mivtach and 2 other ships from the flanks on intermittent active radar watches so that only one would be active at any particular time. I felt that this would, hopefully, prevent me from total surprise from the Syrians. The Mivtach increased her speed to flank since she had the duty of 'sniffing' out the…

I played from the side of the Lone Wolf first. I made it to the mouth of Polyarnyy and patrolled there for a few hours without detecting any enemy activity. I expanded my patrol zones until I detected a long-range sonar contact. I followed it up to learn that it was a Mirka patrol vessel. I then came across an entire ASW task force. Unfortunately, they were heading in the opposite direction. Humbug. All I could do was hope that they would eventually turn back towards me as it is nearly impossible to conduct a stern chase in a diesel submarine. As luck would have it, they did slow down and turn back towards me. I crept at deep depth with periodic periscope s…

27th Scenario posted this year! Dave Steinmeyer has released his first Harpoon 3 scenario. He is the 9th author to post a scenario. Congratulations, Dave, and thanks for sharing your work with the community. Lone Wolf Three NATO diesel submarines travelled north together, guarding each other during snorkel periods. They had intended to conduct wolf-pack operations near the Soviet sub base at Polyarnyy. They have been plagued by bad luck, however. First, one unit was sunk by a Tango-class SS before the other two could sink it. Then as they approached their objective, one of the remaining two boats hit a mine and was lost. The remaining ship, a Dutch Walr…

25th Scenario Posted this Year! NWCM3 - Carving Turkey When the NSC made good on its promise to deliver SA-10 Grumble SAM systems to the Greek Cypriots in the spring of 1995 despite Turkish protests, the stage was set for another conflict in Cyprus. The presence of the advanced weapons shifted the delicate balance of power as it put nearly all aircraft operating from the Turkish side of the island at risk. NATO was embarrassed when regular Turkish forces stormed the island a few months later. It had not been aware of Turkey's intent to reclaim Cyprus once and for all. Hand-in-hand with the economic boom in the NSC came military modernization and revitalizat…

Guys, With the H3DB under construction, I just want to remind everyone that the HUD2 is posted and available and there are many scenarios written for it. So give one or two of them a shot and let us know since the H3DB will have some of the elements and spirit of the HUD2. It would also be great to see some new scenarios using this db.