dylanjones

Actually Sitrep 26 had an item from Larry Bond on "Massive damage in Harpoon". The short of it is that they left out the massive damage rule from CaS in H4 but Larry says to put it back in and stop rolling ridiculous amounts of criticals - 7.2.7 Effects of Massive Damage. Even though some of a ship’s weapons may still be intact, there is a time where overall damage to a ship will prevent their operation. When a ship has only 25% of its original damage points remaining, all weapons are out of action. Light weapons that do not depend on ship’s power are unaffected. Submarines must surface. Aircraft carriers cannot launch or land aircraft on the flight deck. When a ship has only 10% of its original damage points left, all of its weapons, including catapults, are out of action.

Err, shouldn't my RWR have alerted me missiles were being fired at me when they were first launched? And my orders were to turn to course 180 degrees back at 1607 - that seems to have been ignored? Orders Slow maximum amount permitted by the rules at start of mvt phase and drop a few metres into Vlo altitude band. Try to evade the missiles. Then survivors get back on course to S008, climb back up to Low immediately.

I begin to think maybe we did this all wrong. Maybe I should have loaded the F4s up with AAMs and had them do picket duty above the Palang aiming to shoot down incoming Sunburns until he ran out. Then we close and finish off the convoy.

Yes, please use 790kts.

Even using reheat I thought an F4E couldn't do 826kts at Low altitude. I don't have sitrep 48 so maybe they adjusted the speed ratings for the F4E in it. But I thought 790kts was top speed in Low band. I'm happy to go at that speed right now. But otherwise the orders above stand with the one change that I'd like you to turn the F4s onto course 180 degrees. I've worked out that my ideal attack angle for the Sov is going to be the 30 degrees either side of his stern. So somehow I'm going to have to fly the F4s in a way to get there by the time I come in range of his AA. It will be interesting to see how he turns to meet the Harpoons.

Orders: F4s can accelerate as they like at the moment, but when they get to 20nm of S08 they need to decelerate to 650kts (at a rate of 20% of their FMP max speed per ET air mvt phase according to 3.3.2.1) as fast as possible. Note: I'm pretty sure they can't travel as fast as you currently have them going in the Low altitude band so you may want to adjust that.

No new orders.

Yup definitely time to go ballistic. Orders: accelerate to max permissable speed while carrying iron bombs. Stay at Low altitude. Fly directly at Sov. Energise radars and ECM. Take a Sparrow shot at the Hormone if we come within range.

I wanted them to orbit at or near the missile boats so about 25nm from the Sov. If the Russians shoot at me I can duck down to Vlo and their missiles go stupid.

I'm a bit confused why my F4s appear to have stopped closing with the ships several minutes ago?

Presumably you can just turn and launch remaining SM1 in the next ET as launcher is un-masked.

What is the speed of the Harpoon variant the Iranians are using in knots? I'd like to match speed with it at least initially. My plan is to come in at Low until either I pick up a SAM being launched on my RWR or I cross the 23nm mark from the nearest Soviet warship. At that point I may slow down and drop to Vlow and take my chances with driving into the sea. But I won't make that decision until I see what the defenders fire on. As to who I attack, the Sov is the priority target. But the beauty of having piloted aircraft is I can adjust that priority based on what happens. Obviously, I'll activate my ECM pods as I get within 15nm of the Sov. My plan is to climb to Medium altitude as I get to 5nm from the Sov then conduct a dive bombing attack from Medium with all six bombs from each surviving aircraft.

Don't think it matters anymore as it has crossed the radar horizon. Leave it as is unless SHUK wants to go Vlo now for some reason.

Hmm, wasn't the helo meant to go down to Vlo as it approached the convoy? Anyway, my F4s will start to move towards S010 in two-and-a-half minutes from now at 500kts and at Low level. Once they reach S010 they are to orbit again until the surface vessels are ready to launch.

Ka25 doesn't have an ESM. (one of those annoying things the Russians left off their helos until the new Ka27M) Orders Launch 4xF4s immediately. Fly directly towards S012 at maximum cruise speed (500kts) at LOW altitude (200m). That should take about 20 minutes by which time the Iranian PTGs should be about 40nm from the convoy. However, once F4s get to 55nm from the convoy they are to loiter at LOW altitude and await orders. This should put them over the radar horizon from the convoy and thus undetected as yet. Then I'll await warning from SHUK that he is preparing to launch the Harpoons. EMCON - silent.

Yup - it is a suicide mission for us. We're hoping he gets some bad luck or makes some blunders. I still can't think of a better attack strategy for us than the one we've come up with. The Sov makes all the difference. If they hadn't changed the rules to make the SM1s a direct impact weapon rather than an airburst weapon we might have had a chance launching them first at the Sov and hoping their critical hits scrub the Sovvie's SAM systems off the decks.

So by my calculations it is going to be around an hour before the Iranian surface vessels reach attack position. I'll order my aloft F4 to return-to-base immediately at FMP speed. 15mins to refuel and then relaunch along with the three other F4s.

I have the other F4s at +5 alert I believe. I will launch them when you get your ships closer.

The differences between 4.1 and 4.0 are fairly minor. You can make your 4.0 into 4.1 by incoporating the errata using documents available on the web.

Sure, I'm just mucking about until you get close enough to launch the attack.

No new orders.

No new orders. Maintain separation from Soviet vessels.

F4 to approach to 26nm from nearest Soviet ship and maintain that distance until ordered otherwise or bingo fuel. Keep searching with APQ-120 radar.

But you won't be doing a bearing only launch in this case as we have direct contact and tracking of the targets.

Keep searching with the Phantom but do not approach closer than 25nm to Soviet vessels.