Desertfox

Some RFPs are robust. Others have some room improvement. The defense contractor is over a barrel sometimes to incorporate changes when a command-level program sponsor puts in a wish list.

Are you prepared to say that all the admirals, generals, DOD commissions, etc. are not allowed to make changes to design, ranges, speeds, equipment list and parts suppliers? Because almost all major contracts are plagued by these. Also congress gets into the act to change what's in a military program. The Bradley Fighting Vehicle was a prime example of this. It was modified so much that it bore very little resemblance to the armored personnel carrier that it was supposed to be. The JSF is in danger of the same issue of they keep adding stuff onto it. Every time it gets a few pounds heavier it gets that much slower and shorter-ranged.

So, would you rather see a different plane? Forgetting the stealth, and going back to something like a modernized F-15 or an upgraded F-18? That been suggested down here in the States as providing more bang for the buck.

Well, at least I started a discussion. Yes, I should have put a Spoiler Alert on it. Brad, I am glad to see new and interesting scenarios being created. And keeping them challenging is good too. I just wanted to discuss a few issues on this one, and see if maybe a couple of tweaks were in order. As to a few of the comments. Use a sub to attack the ships at ZJb. Yes there is a sub available. My patience at maneuvering a sub in from a distance of 200 miles or so is not very good. Also I was concerned about the survival of the Blue bases if Red had an easy path in from the direction of that base for several hours. Some of the Red planes are coming with attack loadouts (keeping vague on this for spoiler reasons). I'm not up-to-date on weapons loads on the ships. Is it reasonable for an Aegis DDG to have that many SM-3 missiles on it? I'm currently using the HCDB-110304. The planes are definitely targeted by the SM-3 at Hi or Med altitudes. I did discover, due to desperation at imminent destruction, that diving a plane group down to Low altitude when still a few miles inside the max. range would usually cause the missile to miss or fizzle out. Not a tactic that one would like to have to count on. As to the F-35s. Yes there are planes available with longer ranged AAMs. But they are not in the right locations at the start. And they are painfully few. After some rearranging of assets it could be interesting to see how that works out. I want to hear how some others do on this. But there are several times more F-35s than the high-end Blue planes like the SU-35 and SU-50. The comment that the few strike aircraft with long-range standoff weapons being intentional. Yes, I figured that, but it's a bit painful. A commander always wants more strike weapons, don't they?? And if just a couple of flights of these planes are lost the mission is over. Again, it will be interesting to see how others fare on this. I do think that the ships at least should be in their own Surface Group instead of part of the formation for the base. The targeting is too much of an issue. And will a sub even be able to attack? Or will it get the same land-attack issue. As to concealing the ships, they are not visible until a radar asset gets close enough. But that big red circle at 200-mile radius kind of gives it away in HCE.

[CV32: SPOILER ALERT] Karafuto scenario - AAR report of difficulties I downloaded and saved the Karafuto scenario. Opened it up and it looked very interesting. I have started and played it part-way thru 3 times now. I see some issues to discuss as the scenario as presented is difficult or impossible to win. This is designed to be run from the Blue side which is Russia. Blue victory conditions are: mininum -get the amphib surface group to station around the Burevestnik port. Total - minumum condition plus destroy one red Base. My assumption is that the red base should be one of the 2 Northern ones at ZJb or ZXa (Chitose). Problems in competing as Blue. At the Red base at ZJb on the island, one of the ships is an Atago(BMD) DDG which is a Japanese Aegis-type system. This ship has a loadout of SM-3 SAM missiles about 25 of them. These have an air range of 200 MI and a speed of 6,000 mph. Yes, 6 thousand. It's nearly impossible to get close to this ship. Also the base at Burevestnik is INSIDE the SAM range. At med or high altitude these are brutal. Once the SM-3 is fired it can't be outrun unless very close to the edge of the range circle. The only way to approach closer is to stay at Low altitude all the way in, below the radar horizon. That way one can get in to 80 miles or a bit closer and fire the longer-range standoff missiles of Harm or Surface strike varieties. And the problem is a shortage in the planes that can do that kind of strike. At base ABa - Petropavlovsk - there are 2 SU-34 bombers that can do a loadout of 150-mile missiles 2x HARM + 2x of Land strike. But just 2 planes. Also at ABa are 2 TU-22m3 Backfire bombers that can do several loadouts of anti-ship, HARM or surface strike missiles. Best is the SEAD-LR loadout with 2x ARMs and 2x Surface strike or the AsuW loadout with 3 of the big shipkiller missiles. Again only 2 planes and they have to be reloaded from ASUW-LR first. At the AAa base at Burevestnik, available strike planes. MIG-29a have an available SEAD loadout of 66-mi range ARM missiles. There is a group of SU-25 strike planes but no loadout with more than a 5 mile offset, therefore useless until SAM are destroyed. At base ADa near the coast there are SU-25s again with no long-range offset strike weapons. The SU-27sm Flankers can take a loadout with AGM weapons with a 55 mi range. At Ukrainka back in the interior there are very good and excellent interceptor planes SU-35 Flanker x4 and SU-50 Pak x2 (love that 94-mi range AAM). There are 2 MIG-29a that can do the SEAD loadout with 66-mi range. So that makes a total of 4 strike aircraft nearby and 4 that can do a SEAD loadout. And 2 more with SEAD loadout that can be brought over from Ukrainka. After doing a first strike with the SU-34s and the Backfires, while waiting for reload I was reduced to using a flight of 2 Flankers to do manuevers near the edge of the range circle of the SM-3 to try and use up some missiles. First fly in at High alt Low speed until the Atago fired, then turn out and use afterburner until out of range. This worked a couple of times to use up some of the missiles. Until I got a little too far inside the range and got shot down. The other problem is that the ships can't be fired at! When I did get in range for the anti-surface missiles, it won't let me fire at the Atago or the CVH. The ships are not in their own surface group, they are in the formation of the port and base. The message was "there are no land attack weapons available". Kind of a handicap for Blue, you could say. The other problem is the F-35 Lightning. Red has been given a supply of these. I guess this scenario is in the future since these are not deployed anywhere yet. There are 6 F-35 at ZJb and about another 40 at bases farther South. The F-35 has AMRAAM missiles with 60 and 44-mile ranges as AAM weapons. Also it is rather stealthy. The Blue interceptors don't match up well with these. When trying to get close at ZJb from the Burev direction, pairs of F-35 would pop up suddenly usually within range already of Blue. Or else they would be in range of the 60-mi weapon but Flankers would be out of range. Also the AMRAAMs seemed to be stealthy also as they would show up only at the last second or not at all before hitting. So the F-35s were almost untouchable and my Flankers were getting steadily picked off. As well as the MIG-29s trying to deliver a SEAD load. I went to the Scenario Editor and modified a bit. Removing the F-35s from the ZJb base and some of the other bases, and adding in some other interceptors as compensation. Also doubled the SU-34 group to 4 planes. On playing from that start, it looks like it will take a LONG time to keep striking the ZJb position with the long-range strikers until Red runs out of that incredible missile. Are you sure this is a valid loadout? There is a battery of I think Patriot missiles at the port are too. I lost the MIG-29s because I did not give them an escort and they got jumped. Blue needs an AEW mission in that area, more planning on the Blue commander's part. And the F-35s started showing up from the more distand Red bases and firing HARMs and JASSMs at the AAa base. I often did not even see the planes before seeing the missiles. I guess if I back off to just trying for Min Victory and getting the SAG around to the target, and pick off all the aircraft that I can, it might be possible. But those F-35s are deadly. It looks like Blue will run out of interceptors first and then that SAG would be a sitting duck as it does not have much for AAM weapons. Any comments? I'm sure some will do better than I was doing, but this one looks Very Difficult to me. And maybe needs a little balancing.

Let me correct my original message. The focus of the unit window jumps when changing the zoom level on the *UNIT* window. I was back in a scenario last night to verify that

This is becoming a daily story with a 'to be continued' teaser . But it's fun, please continue! I'm trying to remember where v1.51 came in. I think the earliest version that I had, which came in a bargain bin for $9.95, must have been about here. It had HDSIII battlesets If I recall, but definitely not EC2000.

It could be time to begin dropping leaflets over these target areas. Warning that it "could be hazardous to your health" to linger around military targets. And that bombs will fall the next time. This could get the crews to abandon the weapons as well as the civilians

I find the games behaves best for me if all windows are fitted so that *none* overlap. Because I don't want anything blocked out or have to click a window to get a view. I play on a 22" wide-screen monitor which allows the group window to be quite large and the unit screen a bit smaller. My only complaint with the current version of HCE ( I'm on 2009.042 ) is that the unit screen jumps to a new location when changing the zoom on the group screen. Seems to be random. So I have to re-locate it. Not a big issue but maybe could be looked at.

Nice pics of the De Gaulle and the Canadian jets. Thanks for posting.

Judging by the brown color in 2 of the explosions, I think they hit dirt instead of the river. Need more practice.

I think this thread has been killed and run over. But I will add one more item about the original refueling topic. When I do a scenario that requires refueling, I am usually eager to get the refueling done and send the tanker(s) home. So I don't wait for the Staff Assistant to remind me. I guess I don't entirely trust that the reminder will happen. If you watch the group of aircraft after the refueling has begun, within a short time the bingo fuel number will jump. After that you can split off the tanker and send it home. Now this may be gaming the game, rather than reflecting real life. But it works in HCE.

I have to wonder how hard it would be to build the missing trigger mechanisms for MANPADS use... Until they do, they will be easier to spot and take out on a truck.

This is not to knock the Harrier, which is an amazing plane that can fly a lot of missions off of a small flight deck. But it would not be flying missions over Libya now except that the Libyans have almost nothing left to shoot back at the aircraft. Maybe some AAA. No surprise that the Marine brass want to lobby for their version of the F-35. It has had a tortured development, with each service wanting to hang all of 'their' options off of the supposedly common airframe. What is the per-plane cost up to now?

I will check that out. My setup has been to store downloaded scenarios in a 'Scenario' folder under HCE. The battlesets are under HCE where the game install puts them. Looks like the save games are going to the Scenarios folder also.

Problem is with seeing the orders when playing from a saved game. Situation: I started a user scenario, played for a while, then saved it. In this case in the Westpac battleset, the Duel_v2 scen. I come back later and load the save. I cannot call up the orders to review as HCE says it can't find them. Judging by the error message it appears to be trying to create the file name for the orders based on the *save file* name and not the original scenario. I've seen this behavior too in other scenarios, always a user scenario. Saves from a campaign scen do not seem to have this problem. Is there a fix or a work-around for this ?

Tanker operations comments from one that mostly tries to avoid them (too much micromanagement although it has improved in the more recent versions). - A tanker can only refuel somewhere around 4 aircraft and that's a REAL tanker like a KC-135. A KA-6 is only going to be good for 1 or 2 planes. It is best to fly missions that will need refueling in groups of 4 or less. - Don't fly the tanker(s) with the strike mission. Fly them out to a rendezvous point where they will meet. If the tankers are slower than the mission aircraft or they are taking off from a more distant airfield, they will need to be launched first. And after refueling, split the tanker(s) off again. Either when the SA asks you to. Or by using the split group command. So that the mission aircraft can fly at their best speed and range. The numbers that you reported for range don't seem to add up. If the loadout for the mission planes has a range of 1168 nm, then that's total flying distance. There and back. So the maximum range to a target is half that or a bit less. Say around 550 nm. If the distance to the target was around 1000 nm then it was too far. Almost the entire fuel load was used up to get there (and only if all at cruise speed) and a refuel would be mandatory either right before or right after hitting the target. So the tankers would have to go all the way to the target too. Almost. A risky mission plan even with enough tankers for the number of planes. In Real Life (referred to as RL around here I believe), such a mission would need one refuel on the way to the target, and one on the way back. Which I really try to avoid as it takes more planning than I usually want to get into. Or more tankers than I have available.

Is that the original Fortress Keflavik, out of the first GIUK battleset, or one of the re-made versions? Either way that sounds like a good score. Some of the Top Guns around here probably have beat it. I'm a returning player myself. I recently reinstalled HCE on a newer computer with Win7 on it. And then updated to version 2009.042, I think it was. Runs most of the newer bells and whistles. By the way no problem running on Windows 7. Except for a problem that I caused myself. But it's fixed now. I ran the Fortress scenario myself recently as a bit of a refresher. Did not do near as well as your score. I had more like 40 planes destroyed. I made some major mistakes at the Stornoway base and patrols from it. Flankers with good AAM missiles and SU-24 with long range land-attack missiles have to be guarded for carefully. I also had a couple examples of air groups popping up on radar where they were already in firing range of my patrols.

Well it's not that important to run a scenario, thanks for checking on the condition as it shows in the Game Engine. Any idea on why the Scenario Editor would not load it??

That worked thanks. Had not looked at those entries.

The Guardian at www.guardian.co.uk is posting some good news stories on the Libya situation. You might want to check it out. Quoting one item from their 'live updates'; "Correspondent Chris McGreal has sent in some pictures of the remains of those tanks we mentioned earlier. He said that the road between Ajdabiya (which fell to Gaddafi's forces last week) and Benghazi is littered with the wreckage of burnt-out vehicles. Over 15 km he counted at least eight destroyed tanks, 12 armoured personnel carriers and dozens of 4x4 vehicles." Sounds like the French, or whoever did the attacks, are taking an aggressive interpretation of the rules.

I was experimenting in the Scenario Editor. Trying to set up airbases and assets to resemble the current situation with Libya and the no-fly zone. Could not find any Canadian F-18 to load. Is this missing from the current standard HCDB? And as an alternative, which version of an F-18 would most resemble the CF-18 ?

I downloaded and tried to run this scenario. I'm currently running HCE which has been updated to the 2009.042 level. The scenario is run from the EC2000 MEDC battleset. When I start the scen I check the Order of Battle, like I always do if I have not run a scenario before. The Blue airfields have a lot of aircraft with Attack loadouts. And only a couple of types with Interceptor loadouts. At least 2 of the bases have F-15i aircarft with a loadout of "empty". Empty? I then went to the Ready Air option and the F15is have no loadouts to use. I ran the scen for a few minutes. Reloading some F16s to air-air loadouts. And launching as many planes as I can that had air-to-air missiles loaded, like F-4 with SEAD loadout. The north and south aorbases are getting pounded pretty bad. After saving the game, I went to the scenario editor. To load the user scenario and see if I could fix the loadouts, or else switch the F15i with some other version of an F-15. The scenario gets an annex error and won't load. So something seems to be out of whack on this one. I'm using the standard database for this version of HCE. I have not got into switching databases for some of the scenarios so I usually run scens that say they work for the standard DB. Any help here ??

Gadhafi forces will need to be supplied and reinforced by way of a long, exposed road along the Libyan coast. Once SAM defenses are down, that road can be made a VERY difficult and expensive place to travel.

Bases in Italy are available. Flying from Sicily will make the distance for land-based planes much better. Seems like most of NATO has fallen in line to either participate or at least not to object. First round may be with cruise missiles but it will take more than that to do enough. SEAD missions to take out radars would seem to be next order of business. The 'cease-fire' announced by Gadhafi would seem to be as much fiction as most of his statements. If Western planes fly over artillery units on the roads heading for Benghazi, and get shot at, is that enough justification to bomb the artillery?? The Libyan army, outside of a few 'elite' brigades, is considered to be poorly trained and equipped. Unfortunately that would probably be most of the forces available to the rebels. There's supposed to be several army units in E. Libya that are not taking orders from Gadhafi, but not helping the rebels either. Maybe they can be motivated, but it could be they will just drop their weapons and melt away. I have a feeling it will come to drawing "a line in the sand" on the road to Benghazi. And stating that the Libyan army can go no farther or in the name of protecting civilians they will be targets.