Gulf Escort Deja Vu PBEM

[Piotr]

Well, it could have been worse...

I could have tried to open a bit more my angles of attack, in order not to "waste" missiles on Halifax, but I had not patience enough... Now, let's see if their Harpoons are bad enough or I'll be with Allah in a short time...

[CV32]

Commenting from the sidelines ... I would say you did very well. Shoot missiles down a bearing and get hits on two targets. Nice!

[kmart494]

^ I think the short range helped. The targets could not move very far. With SimPlot, I was able to precisely plot the target and missile movements for greater accuracy. Maybe one of these days I will add missile seeker radar cones.

 

* Back to Tactical Turns *

 

Turn 1221 - Planned Fire Phase: Halifax launches 4 Harpoons (2 at each Houdong).

 

Turn 1224 - Movement Phase: The missiles reach the Houdongs. The guns have such a low chance of hitting (not sea-skimmer capable) that I don't want to waste the effort of picking up the dice. Three out of four Harpoons hit. KABOOM!! KABOOM!! KABOOM!! Geez, these boats have only, what, 5 damage points? Sorry, Albert. Your stuff is "blowed up."

 

 

Conclusion

 

The Canadians failed to achieve their victory condition of less than 10% damage to the tanker. The Iranians failed to achieve their victory condition of sinking or crippling the tanker. The scenario is a draw. However, it seems reasonable that this outcome would have been favorable to the Canadians in the real world. They put up a good fight in spite of the restricted ROE, and got the tanker to port.

 

I will post my Blue side thoughts later.

 

Albert, please post your thoughts about playing Red side and using SimPlot in a multiplayer game.

[CV32]

^ I think the short range helped. The targets could not move very far. With SimPlot, I was able to precisely plot the target and missile movements for greater accuracy. Maybe one of these days I will add missile seeker radar cones.

Yes, with short range bearing only shots the attacker usually runs a high risk of all of his missiles concentrating on a single target. Here, probably the tanker.

 

The Canadians failed to achieve their victory condition of less than 10% damage to the tanker. The Iranians failed to achieve their victory condition of sinking or crippling the tanker. The scenario is a draw. However, it seems reasonable that this outcome would have been favorable to the Canadians in the real world. They put up a good fight in spite of the restricted ROE, and got the tanker to port.

If politics were to play any role, I can tell you with a good degree of comfort that this would be seen as a terrible loss in Canada and painted as a victory in Iran.

[Piotr]

As red player, I thought that trying a short-range launch was basic. This way the frigate had less chances of intercept my missiles. This tactic also implies that this is a near-suicide mission. There is almost no chance of run away.

 

Actually, I tried to target all my missiles on the tanker, delaying seeker activation until I calculated they would have surpassed the frigate. I did not count on disabling Harpoon launchers in order to have a minimal exit opportunity, so I played all for crippling the tanker, and surely becoming martyrs for the "revolution".

 

 

About SimPlot, I found it great to follow units situation. I just would have wanted to be able to add my own ref points and/or range circles, to make my own range and bearing calculations. Kevin provided relevant points and range circles, and they were very useful, but sometimes you want to play a bit more with the situation. Finally, I set my own turn file, with enemy units estimated position, bearing and speed to make simulations of future movement and location.

One possible change would be enable some changes to "player" turn files (i.e., ref points and range circles), even this files are not returned to referee. Otherwise, I enjoyed very much this playtest, and will be glad to play any other you want to try.

[kmart494]

The Blue side had very restrictive ROE so I couldn't just blast the Iranians as soon as they were detected. All I could do was keep an eye on them until they demonstrated hostile intent. I thought about trying to lure them into firing on the helo, but I didn't want to lose it. I was surprised the boats came as close as they did, so I moved Halifax to get in between at least one of them so it could shoot down at least some of the vampires.

 

 

I like the idea of allowing players to modify the turn file with their own ref points and range circles. I am beginning to code a separate program that will do just that. I am not sure I can modify SimPlot to do it, as the modification from single player to multiplayer created code problems that I may not be able to overcome at this point. Still, the new program will look the same as SimPlot but will utilize a "static turn file" with ref points and circles that would be loaded alongside the referee turn file.