[spoilers! - obviously]

 

After Action Report for 'Bearbaiting'

A scenario by rainman

 

'Bearbaiting' is a new HCE scenario for the EC2003 GIUK battleset. I played the scenario from the BLUE side using GE Build 2009.076 and the HCDB database.

 

Scenario Background

 

 

By late 2015 the balance of power in Europe has shifted dramatically. The collapse of the Euro and the following economic crisis has left a weakened Western Europe. The USA, divided and struggling, has a diminished ability to project power. Russia, emboldened by the takeover of Cyprus in 2013 and Sicily in 2014, has moved forces into its recent client, Iceland, threatening to dominate the Atlantic. The breakdown of the carrier sale to India has provided Russia with a second carrier, with air wing. The UK has decided not to resist this, But Canada, the USA, France, the Netherlands and Spain are conducting joint excercises in the North Atlantic. These combined forces will attempt to eject Russia from Iceland.

 

Orders

 

I am in charge of two surface groups, one centred on the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and the other on the amphibious assault ship USS America. The De Gaulle has a good number of Rafales aboard, while the America has only a handful of F-35B Joint Strike Fighters and US/Spanish Harrier II Plus types. Each group has a decent number of escorts and support vessels, and plenty of helicopters.

 

There are also three submarines arrayed between me and Iceland. These include the French Barracuda class nuke attack boat Suffren and a pair of conventional subs, a Spanish S-80 and a Canadian Victoria.

 

Two shore bases in France (so far away!) hold a handful of fighters, tanker/transports and reconnaissance types.

 

The Russkies have set up shop in Iceland, and it looks like they want to stay for the long haul, with both Keflavik and Reykjavik fully occupied, and several dispersement airfields also in use. They also have supporting airfields in the Faeroes and Norway.

 

I am directed to use my naval forces to clear out enemy forces defending Iceland and then use airborne assault troops (making ready in France) to retake the island.

 

Intel is telling me that the Russkies have sortied not just one, but two, carrier groups centred on the Kuznetsov and the newly refurbished Gorshkov. They are supposedly still prepping their defences on Iceland, but I am skeptical of this. As per usual, submarines are always a potential threat.

 

What Happened

 

My plan from the start was to make for the Denmark Strait and put some distance between the Russian occupied airfields in the Faeroes and Norway. If nothing else, it should reduce potential axes of air attack to mainly one direction.

 

The handful of Rafales and Mirages at French airfields would try to keep these airfields "occupied" while my forces at sea concentrated on Iceland. A small contingent of ageing Super Etendards were ferried out to the De Gaulle to bolster its antiship mission (the Rafales would be too occupied with strike and CAP to be bothered with plinking ships). The deck and hangar would be crammed, but I expected this to alleviate itself soon enough by the rather unfortunate method of attrition.

 

Early reconnaissance quickly indicated that one, possibly two, Russian naval groups (their positions given away by the telltale emissions of Helix airborne early warning helos) were transiting southward through the Gap east of Iceland.

 

De Gaulle would lead the way north, with Mateo Garcia and Corner Brook providing screening while Suffren (the most powerful of the three subs) headed into the GIUK Gap to face the enemy head on.

 

An early dilemma was trying to provide coverage to the two friendly naval groups while also reducing the enemy on Iceland. I intended to rely heavily on the stealth afforded by the F-35B, and use the Rafales in a supporting role. But I had many more Rafales than I did JSF. Also, with only a pair of Hawkeyes aboard De Gaulle, AEW coverage would be heavily tasked.

 

Only the F-35B would be able to adequately perform the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) role. (The French still lack an adequate replacement for the Armat. Expect the HARM/AARGM capability aboard JSF to possibly go away in future iterations of the HCDB, btw).

 

The SEAD mission was going to be tough. (Surprise!) The Russkies had clearly pushed the best of their gear to the front of the battlefield, placing SA-10, SA-20 and SA-21 batteries in and and around the large airfields at Keflavik and Reykjavik. It became clear that the best (or easiest) method of achieving early strike success was to skirt around these areas and hit the dispersement airfields from the flank. With the Denmark Strait apparently clear of enemy presence, this seemed an obvious choice.

 

Well, as they say, the "best laid plans of mice and men often go astray".

 

As it turned out, my F-35B jets were largely occupied by trying to hold off enemy fighters (Flankers galore) hell bent at stripping away my AEW&C. They had little time for the SEAD/strike role, at least initially.

 

Worse still, the Su-50 showed up. They jumped up and killed half of my F-35B force, and an uncomfortable number of Rafales too.

 

Still, piecemeal attacks by F-35B JSF with anti-radar missiles and Rafales with cruise missiles were - in time - able to degrade the remote dispersement airfields. Follow up attacks by more Rafales with LGBs slowed enemy sortie generation and destroyed aircraft on the ground. With these airfields reduced, I was eventually able to turn my attention to the forward bases.

 

But the Russians got in some licks of their own. The closest Russian task group centred on the battlecruiser Petr Velikiy managed to get close enough to the America group to launch a missile attack. One Shipwreck (the most aptly named of all missiles) got through and smashed the Lewis and Clark class logistics ship Carl Brashear. It was my first ship loss.

 

There were two others. Both came as a complete surprise and I had initially believed them to be torpedo attacks. Instead, it was hits from SS-N-26 Sapless missiles.

 

The Spanish frigate Reina Sofia and the Canadian frigate Charlottetown both fell victim (on separate occasions).

 

Back east, Rafales out of France were chipping away at Vagar (in the Faeroes) with SCALP cruise missiles. A Harfang UAV was also in the area, but in the end provided little intel of use.

 

I chose to ignore Orland (in Norway), as it was quite distant and apparently had MiG-31s forward deployed. Scary! This airbase ended up playing no role in the conflict.

 

I did not encounter any enemy submarines (beyond the very effective SS-N-26 attacks) but my own submarines provided invaluable service.

 

There were other Russian SSM attacks - mainly Sunburns - but by that time, I had air superiority with the Rafales providing top cover.

 

Leaning heavily on F-35B (shooting AARGM), Harriers (shooting Mavericks) and Super Etendards (shooting Exocet), I grappled with both the Velikiy and Gorshkov groups south of Iceland.

 

In the endgame, it was the Suffren (sinking the battlecruiser) and Mateo Garcia (sinking Gorshkov) that scored the big points.

 

Minimum victory was awarded with the sinking of the Gorshkov.

 

A third group (I believe centred on Kuznetsov) was not confronted.

 

Helicopters with Hellfire and gunfire from the Burke destroyer Bulkeley cleaned up. There was no further enemy air activity and ground based air defenses had been dismantled.

 

At this point I could have sent in the airborne troops to seize key objectives like bridges, radio station, antenna farm, etc, but it seemed a forgone conclusion so I did not bother.

 

Comments

 

A fun scenario, challenging because the most effective assets are small in number and rather exposed.

 

There were no significant air to surface attacks, however. (It helps to have AI controlled aircraft in formation for that purpose).

 

Thanks for sharing it!

With 2 days 9 hours play time to go, I saw in the status report I've sunked 5 red warships (correct) and damaged 4 (I've only detected to this momento the 5 sunked ships).

Use the cheat mode and constate the red damages ships, incluiding Admiral Kutznetsov and Admiral Gorkhov, are grounded in the Iceland East Coast, a little dissapointing constatation ...

The Gorshkov and Velikiy groups came through the Gap just fine during my play, but I suspect this is what happened to the Kuznetsov group.

 

One of the major drawbacks of what happens when the AI detects your surface groups and then makes a beeline for them.

 

Something that I would like to see rectified long before we dig into other issues, e.g. jettisoning ordnance.