Silent Hunter UK

From the official Russian military TV channel (h/t Alert 5)

Those of you who enjoyed my Command After Action Reports... and those of you thought they were completely awful... are in luck, so to speak. I'm going to do be doing some of these in my own inimitable style (he says) for Command. The plan is going to be to write them in Google Docs and post the link here, so you get them all in one glorious place. The first report will be ready when it's ready.

http://www.australiandefence.com.au/news/bae-systems-offers-queen-elizabeth-carrier-design-to-india

Here is the single document. Please PM me with any typos etc. that you spot.

21 December 1970? Elvis met Nixon... (I did a search) I'm planning to do some Command for a while, maybe write-up some stuff on that.

When is 4.2 due to come out?

Summary: Ten Things I 'Hate' About H It’s been over eight years; not exactly every Sunday by a long chalk - I’m not the most self-disciplined person about especially when the task has only a self-imposed deadline. Anyway, it is done now and I present the whole thing for you to read. I’m going to conclude with some key ‘findings’ of this playthrough. The graphical quality of these games isn’t exactly the highest around, but you don’t by these games for the fancy art but instead for the simulation quantity. How accurate these games are, especially the early versions, compared to what would happen in reality is a fundamentally unknowable thing and some cases, it’s a good thing that we never found it because it would mean many of us would not be breathing. All wargaming is at its heart making educated guesswork and abstracting complex real-life processes for ease of gameplay. This game does not hold your hand very much. The Staff Assistant may stop you from doing things that are impossible and prompt you about the need to turn on your radars, but it doesn’t tell you that isn’t a good idea to attack a frigate with four transport helicopters… or that your AWACS shouldn’t be so close to enemy airspace without a proper escort. For someone whose brain can remember obscure facts but lacks the innate strategic thinking and prediction capability more useful in this field, this isn’t very helpful. The lack of a consistent in-game date setting, unlike in ANW, is a minor nuisance. A decent air defence system can stop most missile attacks. However, there is no guarantee that you will have one and some missiles can do considerably more damage than others. For a successful attack on a base or a surface group, you need a lot of missiles. More than you generally think. I’ve yet to figure out how to use submarines effectively. Any speed needed to keep up with a group is one that is likely to get you detected. The logical move is to get in front of the surface group, but you don’t honestly know where they’re going. You never have enough aircraft for your needs. Pilots are very dumb in this game. They don’t tell you that they’ve not got enough fuel to fly at low altitude all the way home for one thing. The scenario briefings can be very hard to understand fully. A huge problem in allocating forces and setting destinations. Feel free to comment on your own findings... Thank you very much for reading and happy Harpooning. **** While I've copied all my write-ups to a single document, I still need to sort out all the formatting and typos. If anyone wants to help, please PM me.

Three enemy fighters turned up at 0626. Three minutes later, the F-15s engaged those aircraft and downed three MiG-23MLs. Then a recon Bear turned up, followed shortly after by seven large aircraft over Sweden and a bunch of fighters. All while I only had seven of my own fighters in the air to deal with them. I was however, able to engage the large aircraft, which turned out to a bunch of bombers and two Su-17s which were downed relatively easily, with the result that I decided to quote Jake Peralta from Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Then things went quiet again for a bit. A Krivak turned up off Norway and I sent a strike group to attack it. Three aircraft were heading for that and I pulled off the F-16s to intercept them. The aircraft turned out to be ten Backfire bombers and I was able to down nine before running out of missiles. The F-16s were then engaged by a ship I couldn't detect, which destroyed the entire group. My Tornadoes and Jaguars got into range at 0824, launching 14 Sea Eagles. Two hit home and sunk a Sovvie, but the entire group was destroyed on its way back. Some F-16s were sent to attack a new air contact, but being a Foxbat-D at VHigh altitude, they couldn't engage it. Some F-15s were sent to intercept it, but it managed to dodge every missile fired at it. Four AS-4s were launched at Keflavik in two braces and while the F-15s were unable to intercept the second pair due to lack of fuel, the Patriots shot them down. The final aggressive act on my part was Amethyste spotting two surface contacts in its convergence zone and firing missiles at them. It then lost contact and the missiles splashed harmlessly into the ocean. I picked up a Tarantul III on SOSUS at 1055, but that was the last event in the battle. At 1121, I got the minimum victory conditions message and felt a massive sigh of relief. The final tally is attached. **** After nearly eight years, my walk is complete. I will do one final post summarising my experiences so far and then put all of this together in a single document for your easier reading. Thank you for your patience. I hope you enjoyed it.

There are about eight in-game hours left to chronicle in this final write-up. Don't worry, it will be over soon. In the meantime, to thank you for your patience, here's some potatoes: I discovered some new air contacts and sent F-16s to engage them. They turned out to be MiG-23MLKs and the Flogger-Ks proved to be a very tough customer. In this and the following the fight, I lost eight F-16s for six enemy fighters. Partly down to having some very tough customers, partly for leaving one unit's radar off... I did actually do another standoff attack shortly after this, sending five aircraft armed with Harpoons to attack the Soviet carrier group. I also must have launched some F-15s in a counter-air sweep at some point, because I downed two Flanker-Ds and three helicopters; two of the latter were AEW Helixs, so that was a useful bonus. However, Suffren came under attack by Sunburn missiles. Downing one didn't exactly mitigate the damage of the other four and that vessel sunk. Shortly after, Cassard came under AS-17 attack and it too succumbed. My standoff attack managed to launch 12 Harpoons at the carrier group, but all were downed. I lost an E-3 half an hour later. At 05:52 the strangest engagement of the battle occurred, when an air combat between MiG-25s and F-16s went into gun range, after one of the latter had been downed by AA-6s. The battle ran a grand total of 17 and a half minutes; my notes show an increasing incredulity at the situation. Eventually, the F-16s (who I tried to withdraw) finally down the Foxbats and I was also able to dock some of my ships.... At 0621 I reflected it had gone rather quiet. Guess what happened five minutes later...

At 0052, I managed to find the carrier group at the same time as I detected a Backfire bomber. Half an hour later, I launched four Harpoons at the carrier on a bearing only launch. They were all shot down. Shortly after that, four Kitchen missiles were shot at Keflavik. These were all shot down. Three MiG-31s were spotted near Bodo. These were all shot down... although I did lose an F-16 in the process. Then things got a bit more serious. A batch of AS-17s were detected heading for the French surface group. These managed to sink Aconit and Georges Leygues, so I was down two frigates under the French classification, but a frigate and a destroyer each under more standard reckoning. A mass air battle soon took place over Norway as the strike force heading was intercepted. The Su-27s proved to be very tricky and effective customers; one K version downing no less than five aircraft before being downed itself. Elsewhere, I took out 5 Badgers and a Bear-D. The strike group launched its missiles at 0255, going to VLow altitude with one pilot crashing. All the ALARMs were shot down, but that used up a lot of AA missiles and I was able to sink an Udaloy. Unfortunately, three strikers on the way out fell to Gadflys from a 'Sovvie'. Then Bodo got damaged by 2 Backfires. These were downed along with three Fencers. It was decided to check focus on getting my ships docked...

As 2018 comes to a close, I wish you all a healthy and happy new year. I also promise that by the end of this decade, I shall safely complete this thread and return to safely to the Earth, where I may or may not misquote John F Kennedy. A link to the under construction single document can be found here. **** The Su-27s managed to down one of my helicopters before they were engaged by SAMs fired from the ships, mostly Masurca missiles fired from the frigate Suffren. Despite the technology being 20 years old, they managed to down all four of the interlopers, which I noted that REDFOR probably wasn't going to like. He clearly didn't as at 2234, he destroyed the Vaerness airbase with 13 AS-6 missiles. In response, I marshalled together another 23 aircraft for a strike on Pechenga, launching them at 2314. 18 minutes later, three missiles were detected flying over Iceland. This number swiftly increased to eight and the F-15s that were airborne were sent to intercept. They got into range and identified them as AS-4 Kitchen anti-radar missiles, which suggested that they had been fired from 'Backfire' bombers. In any event, AS-4s are not exactly the most agile missiles in the world and all them were downed by the F-15s. At 2341, a group of MiG-25s engaged the Pechenga strike, downing two A-6s. The F-16s escorting fired back, taking out three Foxbat-Es, but I no longer had enough air-to-surface missiles to make the strike effective when taking into account the air defences, so ordered the entire formation to RTB. As they were doing this, 3 Su-24s turned up heading for Bodo and fired 12 missiles at the airbase. These were all downed by the fighter cover and the SAMs, but I decided to send over four F-15s to reinforce the base as the aircraft there were not exactly optimised for air-to-air warfare. At 0002, four red aircraft were spotted over Iceland. I formed the mistaken impression that they were all retreating, but this wasn't the case and I lost two F-15s to a group of Su-27s which I then destroyed in turn. I then lost another F-15, but a positive impact of its demise was that I now had an idea of where the carrier group was...

A massively tough customer as it turned out. I had 88 missiles compared to their 12. The problem was that none of my missiles were capable of reaching the Very High band that Foxbats routinely operated at on their reconnaissance missions. After three minutes, I broke off the attack. Shortly after that, the MiG-25s came into range of Bodo, which could engage them with its Hawks and promptly did so. Two of them were downed and when the survivor went down to Medium altitude, the F-16s got a guns kill on it. At the same time, I lost my Nimrod ASW plane, that got too near the Soviet carrier group. Slightly later, four Super Etendards returning to Foch were downed by Su-27Ks and the carrier group was about to have other major problems of its own. At 2131, a batch of Soviet missiles were spotted inbound for the French carrier. Two minutes later, it was confirmed there were 10 of them and a further two minutes after that, they were identified as Sandbox missiles. One of these can ruin the day of most ships. I was able to shoot down or decoy six, but four struck home. Two struck the missile cruiser Colbert and two struck the carrier. I concluded that the latter was toast and started an aircraft evacuation - I must have got some aircraft off but I didn't record how many before Foch sunk at 2141. Four carrier based Su-27s turned up, going after what was now a Surface Action Group...

18 jets were launched to deal with these pesky kids aircraft. In the meantime, what I thought were carrier launched Flankers turned out to be l land-launched Su-17s when I destroyed two of them. An F-16 crashed due to lack of fuel. At 19:54, I detected a Bear-F, a destroyer and two Tarantul corvettes off the coast. I decided to monitor them with my Tornadoes until French carrier launched jets could attack it. Then I found the carrier group again and a bunch of Tornado F.3s got into a situation they weren't really designed for. A dogfight. I lost four of them as I started a long-range missile engagement against the helicopters of the carrier group. A Kara finished the last Tornado just after I launched Exocets at the group. From too far away as it turned out, since they all missed. I decided to wait for other aircraft to return and rearm before conducting further attacks. As the fighters were returning, I spotted three large aircraft and peeled them off to intercept. A solitary F-8 got there first at 2050 and discovered they were MiG-25s, before it was shot down. I was about to discover how tough a customer they were.

As the aircraft started on their journey, three large enemy aircraft turned up. I sent nine fighters to intercept them, but lost contact before I could intercept. Halfway into the journey, three more aircraft turned up heading for my strike group. I pulled off Tornadoes to intercept them, but it was a tad late as a massive missile salvo started heading my way. Nine of my own aircraft were shot down and a 10th, hugging the weeds, went in for a full blown snog and crashed. The attackers managed to get into Sidewinder range and turned out to MiG-31s, fast and heavily armed interceptors. I swiftly bagged them and then got two naval Flankers for the loss of one F-15. The stand-off attack started with HARMs and continued with Mavericks. I think I tried to go in with LGBs, but the loss of an F-5 and a Tornado GR.4 convinced me that it was time to head for home. 18 of 30 aircraft did not make it back - the last losses being 4 F-5s that ran out of fuel; something that the game should warn you about a bit better. As they were returning, four fighters were spotted off the coast. I sent my own fighters to intercept and they did surprisingly badly. Like five four aircraft being lost for no kills. I was going to need more jets to deal with these people.

As the 41 aircraft headed NE towards Pechenga, further air-to-air combat was taking place in the skies above Norway. Four Su-27s were shot down for the loss of just one F-16. Then came the actual strike itself. Long range SA-10s engaged the strike force and I immediately countered with ALARM missiles. Two Tornado GR4s were claimed by SAMs and of the anti-radar missiles launched against the Pechenga Radar, precisely one got through. At 1608, I was in range to launch 40 Mavericks. I promptly did so and 25 got through, doing 18% damage to the base. At that point, I ordered the aircraft back to base to avoid any further losses. Things then went quiet for over an hour. At 1736, thee large aircraft were spotted heading for Bodo. A group of F-8s were scrambled to intercept them, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. The aircraft turned out to be MiG-25s and their SARH missiles were able to down three of the older jets. The survivors got into a gunfight with the Foxbats, downing one before aircraft with missiles of their own arrived to assist and also downed a Su-24 for good measure. 12 AS-13s were launched from somewhere, but downed by SAMs with no damage. The same wasn't the case for 8 larger Kh-31Ps, heading for the SAMs at Varenes. They found their targets and eliminated the base's defence. Now I was prepared for another mass attack with 30 aircraft ready to strike at Pechenga again...

BBC News Two of their Gyurza-M boats

For readers, I have managed to find the MessageLog.txt discussed above. **** Just as I started to get something together, I had some more successful - I managed to sink an Alligator class ship and downed three MiG-27s. Shortly after this, some of my aircraft got into strike range of the carrier group and fired a batch of Exocets. These were all shot down and it become clear to me that I was going to need a bigger attack to have any chance of success. I destroyed a Ka-27 and some Flankers, in exchange for some Tornadoes. I deemed these acceptable losses to thin out the anti-air coverage for further strikes. At 1347, six AS-16s were spotted heading for Bardufloss. The facility was now empty of aircraft, so its destruction a minute was not a big loss. A Tomahawk attack on the carrier group also failed. I observed that it had made the Soviets use up some missiles, but it would have been better to have some actual hits. Two Su-27s near Bodo took down 3 valuable A-6 Intruders before they were themselves shot down. Three large aircraft were spotted over Sweden and aircraft were sent to intercept. They turned out to be MiG-25s, but the F-16s failed to shoot them down despite using all their ammunition. They were eventually shot down by Hawk SAMs; joining two MiG-29s destroyed off Orkney. Bodo's SAMs took care of six Kh-31s, but it was the other two that were a major problem, both striking and doing 26% damage. I had now got the aircraft together to for a major attack on Pechenga. 41 aircraft in all, which took eight minutes to form up above the airbase. At 1530, they started heading east...

Mine isn't there.

Where would I find the MessageLog.txt file?

I'm not sure what happened to the MiG-21, but a Su-24 that changed its luck near Bodo was shot down, along with two others. Meanwhile, HMS Conqueror discovered a new surface contact that, like Anna Kendrick sitting opposite you on the Tube, was too close for contact. While it is not acceptable, desirable or indeed feasible to fire a torpedo at that lady, this was not the case with the new surface contact, which turned out to be a Krivak II. The torpedo was Pitch Perfect and the frigate was sunk. However, it soon became Scott Pilgrim vs. the World as Conqueror was damaged. It started to retreat, came up to the surface and then detected another surface group containing two troop ships. It decided to do them the Simple Favor of sinking them, but got sunk itself and that's where I will end the Anna Kendrick jokes. What didn't end was the overall firing of NATO weapons as another strike got into range of some Soviet surface contacts and started firing Harpoons at some Nanuchka corvettes. Before Taylor Swift could sing "Shake It Off", two of them were sunk and I was firing seven missiles at a large surface contact. This turned out to be an Udaloy and it was soon "End Game" for the destroyer. In the meantime, an aerial duel was taking place near the carrier group. I bagged two Flankers, a Flogger K elsewhere, then had four F-16s run out of fuel and crash. (Couldn't these guys be a bit smarter?) Three A-6s were shot down and I was now planning to get everything together for a mass strike at something. Probably the carrier group. I would need at least "Fifteen" aircraft to sink that and I'd better take a break before the Taylor Swift puns get old.

The problem you have when writing contemporaneous notes, as well as spelling "contemporaneous", is trying to understanding what precisely went on after the fact. It's the sort of thing that bedevils historians the world over and my notes for the next couple of pages are sometimes as clear as Brexit negotiations. So, this is some of what I have happening: 12:23 Missiles shot down 12:24 F-16 is leaving 12:26 F-16 gone, but have destroyed two Backfire. Now a Badger has shown up sending 10 F-16s to intercept 12:30 F-5s are having to return to base due to lack of fuel. Anyway, I shot down the Tu-16 as Su-17s starting firing at Bardufloss. A group of F-16s fired 16 Penguin missiles at the carrier group, eight at a Krivak II and eight at an Udaloy. Precisely two struck home at the former as the Soviet SAM umbrella proved very effective. The USSR had better luck with their attacks, as Bardufloss went to 71% damage in a short period of time and then a MiG-21 decided to strafe the place...

Harpoon CE I chose to go back to the Blue side for the final game in this series (which I started doing on 13 April 2017, BTW), choosing Surprise in the Snow from HDS 9. The scenario here was that Blue was observing Soviet exercises in the Norwegian Sea that were feared to be the cover for an attack... one of which duly followed. There is a very pleasing new arrangement of windows in this version (you can tile them) that allows you to have all the key data easily visible without too much faffing around... although it still didn't save the date setting. CE has a lot of pleasing new sound effects and you certainly don't fall asleep in the opening moves over this. Less than 15 minutes after the scenario started, Red stuck the first blow with an attack by MiG-23s that downed two of my F-16s, something that I duly did back to the attackers. I then had one of my submarines, Valiant, launch a Harpoon attack on a surface contact that soon turned out to be a Tarantul III with some holes in it. In the meantime, I launched a twenty plane attack in the Soviet airbase at Pechanga. Five minutes after that, a large group of incoming missiles turned off the coast of Norway. These turned out to be Sandboxes that destroyed Banak airbase, just after I'd had a 2-4 loss in a F-16 vs. Flogger-K fight. A bunch of A-6s were launched from Keflavik airbase in Iceland against enemy ships, F-16s were attacking surface to surface missiles with Sidewinders, a Nanuchka was sunk by me and two of my airbases were flattened by further missile attack. My 1151 entry simply reads (if you can read my handwriting) "Load happening". I found 31 aircraft sitting around in Scotland, so sent them north on a ferry flight as further intense air combat continued. At 12:15, under an hour into the scenario start, I had bagged 42 air to air kills and learned F-16s are not the best thing to send against MiGs. I set my surface contacts in the direction of Iceland as per my orders. I then found a helicopter over the sea. Six helicopters. A Krivak, an Udaloy, a Sovvie and a Kirov... then a carrier... It was just over an hour into the game...

I've finally completed my playthrough for Harpoon CE. Write up to follow!

No injuries, Kyiv claims sabotage.

What's the guidance system on a SA-5 again?