July 12, 201411 yr File Name: Philippines Invasion 1988, hypothetical scenario. File Submitter: broncepulido File Submitted: 12 Jul 2014 File Category: WestPac Philippines Invasion 1988 ... or Battleship Return to Vietnam in WWIII. A Harpoon Commander's Edition scenario for the EC2003 Battle for Western Pacific Battleset and the HCDB-130818 1980-2015 Era Platform Database. Image: Missouri (BB-63) in company with the Long Beach (CGN-9) and others just prior to RIMPAC '88. Retrieved from navysource.org,courtesy of Larry Lee, probably in public domain as taked for an US servicemen. http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/63h.htm This scenario is designed for play with the US-Philippine/Blue side or with by the Soviet-Vietnamese/Red side, to avoid spoilers is better to play a few times first the US/Blue side, and only after the Soviet/Red side. In part is pretended as an introductory scenario, but worth of play for experienced Harpoon players because a lot of random elements. I hope it will the first of a series inspired in old boardgames of the 1970's and 1980's, but modified mainly to introduce the accumulated knowledge about weapons and forces deployment after the Cold War end. In the wake of the Black Sea naval incident of 22 February 1988, some other clashes droved to WWIII. One of them was the Soviet clear and open support to Philippine rebel forces against Corazon Aquino democratic presidency, the Benigno Aquino widow, and his Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, contrary to the collectivist aims of the leftist opposition. As climax of the crisis, a Soviet convoy with support of his old Vietnamese allies is openly sailing on the South China Sea with weapons and on board the new revolutionary government to be imposed on Philippines, starting in the poor region of Occidental Mindoro, were the pro-Soviet forces have the control after the seizure of the sugar mills and the rice plantations. The reduced US and allied forces (with old and odd types of planes and ships on his force composition like a remembrance of the ABDA force 46 years before) in theater have the task of prevent the unloading of the convoy, sinking it if necessary, as the first clash of titans is inevitable. Enrique Mas, July 2014. Click here to download this file
July 12, 201411 yr Author Changes two hours after the release: added some neutral shipping and Paluan status changed from neutral to rebel.
July 12, 201411 yr Author A few considerations from a chat with a fríend in FB: The more painful task building this scenario was to determine concrete ships names (to avoid not Pacific fleet shipnames) classes (example, 7th Fleet shows on the tokens Coontz-class DDGs, they were never Pacific-placed) and variants (the last weeks I even wrote a Spruance-class table to determine things as when a concrete ship was VLS converted or adquired Phalanx. Regrettably the table is incomplete, as the sources). And all the ships and subs in the scenario were Pacific-placed and sailing near the theater on May 1988, as the photo illustrating the scenario reflects.
July 13, 201411 yr Author Modification 13 July 2014: add a RC-135W Rivet Joint patrol, unapperceived deleted.
July 17, 201411 yr Author Modification 18 July 2014: modified a Red victory condition, previously was imposible for Red to fullfill one of the Mínimum Victory Conditions, to sunk two ships of the subtype BB, when is only present one BB in the scenario. Now is corrected, Red gets a Mínimum Victory Condition if sunk the only one US Battleship present on scenario.
July 20, 201411 yr Author Modification 20 July 2014: little text description change adding the appellative "Peugeots" to the Clark-based 3rd TFW.
July 21, 201411 yr Author Confirmed in two different Facebook chats with 3rd TFW veterans: the USAF Aggressors F-5E Tiger II were combat capable and combat ready.
July 26, 201411 yr Hi Enrique, just playing it. First, I annihilated the red base to my South. Now on with my force setup and doing recce jobs. Very interesting scenario!
July 26, 201411 yr Victory achieved: Sunk 19 ships and downed 93 aircraft. Own losses: 9 aircraft, F-4s. This was a nice battle, Enrique! Some ideas if you want to make it harder: - substitute the Badgers with Backfires. - include a Kiev Class carrier with Yaks and a Slava AAW cruiser in the red group - place some Soviet subs close to Nato´s SAGs - create a second red SAG, centered around a Kirov Class Cruiser which ambushes the blue SAGs
July 26, 201411 yr Author Ok thanks by the comments, this is a first scenario of a series, and reflects the first hours of a limited WWIII, and pretends to be a introductory scenario, the second scenario (Manila Galleon 1988) reflects the situation after a week of war or so, after the failure of the Tu-16, forcing the Soviets to sail with some Subs on South China Sea to prevent the transit of US reinforcements. Backfires, Minks, Novorossisk and Frunze are near Vladivostok, protecting the zone face US, South Korean and Japanese Forces, only when the Soviets are forced to protect Vietnam and the South China Sea they will send those forces to the South, perhaps on the third scenario ...
July 26, 201411 yr Author Very randomly a Soviet sub can appear near a US surface group, but only a few times.
August 4, 201411 yr Playing this one now, Enrique. Very thankful that I have to 'catch up' with your newest scenario releases.
August 5, 201411 yr Bit of an AAR: Usual spoilers apply! * * * * Stopped the convoy about 350 nm out from its intended destination. Destroyed it at will after that and achieved victory with 1:15:11 to go. Having E-3B Sentry AWACS on hand probably was the deciding factor, as it permitted me to keep Soviet bombers at bay (they never did detect the US Navy) and scope out a safe route for friendly maritime reconnaissance. I lost an RF-4C that went snooping around the Vietnamese coast (which wasn't really necessary) and eight F-4E Phantom II fighters. All of the latter were lost to roving MiG-23MLD Flogger K patrols that tended to pop up and bounce my CAP at the fringes of AWACS coverage. Destroyed 24 ships and damaged two others, destroyed 112 aircraft and 15 helicopters. Damaged the rebel base and smacked four MANPADS there.
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