September 25, 200718 yr INVASION OF ANTILLES Harpoon ANW scenario for the PlayersDB Author: Freek Schepers Jerome (a.k.a. Angle of Attack) came looking to try another scenario from Freek Scheper's Hugo's Folly battleset, made with ANW's most functional database, the PlayersDB. Having played the first one, we chose the second one in the series, "Invasion of Antilles" with Jerome continuing in his role of S. American aggressor. Elections in the Netherlands Antilles have seen gains for the political party seeking closer ties to Venezuela and its President, Chavez. The Government has fallen and the legal status of the islands is unclear; with Curacao an independent nation within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Aruba, and Bonaire seeking a similar status, and the three smaller islands of St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, and Saba being municipalities within the Netherlands. Early this morning, Venezuela carried out a sudden invasion of the ABC islands. Netherlands has a standing presence in the Caribbean with an FFG (currently Van Galen), 2 companies of Royal Marines, and several Coast Guard Cutters to deter any aggression and interdict drug shipments. The 2 short companies of Royal Dutch Marines fought a gallant rear-guard action towards the airport and left the island in two Fokker patrol planes. The Netherlands has announced that it will send a task force to retake the islands, and convened an urgent NATO meeting this morning. The NATO meeting ended in an uproar after the NATO president determined that Article 5 did not apply and recommended diplomacy to end the crisis. The Dutch ambassador announced that Netherlands was ending its NATO military mission in Afghanistan with immediate effect and that in fact the 1500 Dutch troops there were already packing. It looks like Netherlands will have to fight the first phase of the aggression alone. With my successful escape from hordes of Venezuelan Flankers, now I was charged with the defense of St. Maartens. Any hope of a successful liberation of the ABC Islands would require use of St. Maartens as a springboard. I ordered all my ships to flank speed to hurry back to the island and bolster her defences. There were reports of a paratroop drop on St. Eustatius with possible re-inforcements arriving by sea, air, or sub. As I had no idea what AoA intended, I launched my Maritime Fokker patrol planes out to eyeball the situation. A quick flight over St. Eustatius was enough to confirm the presence of enemy paratroops on the island. I ordered the FFG van Galen to make a slight detour in order to smash the invaders with her naval guns. The Fokker continued on her way to classify and identify the shipping in the area. The last thing I wanted to find was a follow-on amphibious force. Suddenly, she detected more Flanker radar! (Just how many of the damned things did Hugo buy?!) She dove to the deck and shut down her radar all the while running back for the safety of St. Maartens. Unfortunately, she only made 278kts and was caught over 100nm away and shot down. Soon enough, the Venezuelans discovered the FFG van Galen and sent in their Exocet-armed Mirage to attack. There were four Mirage, but they failed to execute a combined attack. Three Exocet were fired and then a final one followed minutes later. The frigate's Sea Sparrow easily defeated them. However, there were a finite number of missiles in the launcher. Having failed to destroy the target, AoA ordered his bomb-laden F-16 Falcons to attack. (AoA is an ex-Argentine army pilot, so he remembered all the tales of bravado and daring from the Malvinas conflict.) He separated his Falcons and each came in on afterburner at low level from a different vector. The approach would have been called 'beautiful' if it were not for the fact that he was running down my throat! The van Galen got one of the attackers with her 76mm gun, but another managed to lay her stick of bombs right across the bow of the frigate. Unlike in the Falklands conflict, there were no fuzing errors and little warship blew up in a tremendous explosion. The remaining strikers tried to suppress St. Maartens airport and only left it damaged after one of their number was shot down on the approach. At this time, we decided the game was a draw since neither side could achieve its Victory Conditions. My loss of the frigate and the destruction of AoA's paratroops meant that the game could only end in a draw. AoA, you did the Aerea Fuerza Argentina proud, tonight. Thanks for a great game and thanks to HarpGamer for hosting the server. Anyone looking for an MP game can drop a line here or look for us on HarpGamer pHp chat room or the HG mIRC chat room.
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