REVIEW: Brad Leyte's Let's go to war

[Stalintc]

Scenario: Lets go to war

Author: Brad Leyte (CV32)

Battleset: Westpac

Database: HCDB

Skill level: Advanced\Expert

Involved units: Full (Land\Sea\Air operations)

Where can I get it? Here (Harpgamer)

 

 

Review:

 

First impressions:

 

On first opening the scenario I am greeted with an enormous order of battle and a very wide area of operations. Before engaging the clock it was of the utmost importance that I got dug in to the OOB and the scenario orders. Processing that and setting up my combat units and orders took me in the region of 1 and half to 2 hours. I had never opened a monster scenario, so this was my first taste of such a beast, I was determined to beat it at any cost.

 

I found the range of units at my disposal to be impressive ranging from carrier groups outfitted with the F-18 super hornet to bombers like the B1 Lancer. I felt very much from the outtake that I had the kit to get the job done. However these more advanced units were a long way from the front and I could see striaght away that some tactical ferry operations were going to have to be well planned to get the right coverage. (This was permitted in the scenario orders for certain units. Take heed of the units you are "allowed" to transfer to get the best out of the scenario) At the very front in the Japenese\Taiwanese\Korean and Vietnam sectors the air units available were basic and appeared to have been placed to give you a tough start to the scenario and get you thinking how their strengths and weaknesses can be combined to hold out till the real hardcore hardware gets into battle.

 

The RED side had been given a huge number of units that one would expect from a joint Chinese\Russian effort, that sent complete shivers of terror all over, especially when I noticed there were long range missile installations present for the Chinese...

 

I was not prepared for the coming chaos that ensued.

 

Gameplay:

 

Straight from the word go, the Chinese were unleashing hell on my forces, the long range fearsome D-21 missiles did not take long to get into play and were stretching my air defences to the limit. I swear I have never sweat so much playing a HCE as I have playing this one.

 

All the way through the game the combined RED airforces were completely un-relenting, requiring everything I had mentally to keep the situation stable and keep one step ahead of the RED side. Various considerations when forming my CAP's and inner defences had to take into account, catching missile salvos and aircraft.

 

Halfway through I had practically lost the Japenese set of airbases due to overwhleming attacks from the Russian controlled units of RED and I was forced to evacuate one airfield of its assets in order to preserve their availability later in the scenario. I did not wish those assets to suffer the same fate as those at the airbase of Chitose, which were annihalated in a combination of air and TBM attacks.

 

I found keeping my naval assets a secret very stressful and on many occasions the position of a key carrier group was nearly compromised by snooping TU-95's and other naval recon aircraft.

 

Despite the chaos, I kept the air to air kill ratio steady and limited losses as much as possible. Taipei was the key airbase where most of the air action was taking place, I came close on several occasions to getting overwhelmed by the highly numerous air power of the local Chinese air forces. However the turn in the tide came when I had brought the allowed aircraft to the front and began to engage them in the air war which kept the kill ratio at a steady 1 loss for 10 kills.

 

The heavy naval incursion around Taiwan meant that the need to back off my heavily fatigued battle group stationed there a neccesity leaving Taipei all alone with its compliment of aircraft.

 

Gradually the RED naval assets began to succumb to my well placed multi vector attacks leaving many of the remaining vessels crippled and running for home.

 

Seat of your pants action or what?!

 

Conclusion:

 

Again, another Brad Leyte scenario worthy of an award if there were ever such a thing. The amount of effort this must have taken to make the AI so durable, flexible and aggressive must have been incredible and I take my hat off to the man who put together something as extravegant and exciting as this.

 

I did not want to AAR this scenario, because there are so many things designed to catch you out and keep you gripped that it would be sacriledge to expose it to the those who have not yet had the priviledge.

 

For those lovers of the monster scenario, this would be high on my recommendations list, this is only the first I have played, but it has left me not only exhausted, by gasping for more.

 

One small thing I had picked up on however is that the time fram which the scenario takes place 72 hours, seems a little too long to me for the time it took me to claim a total victory. But none the less it leaves things open for a varied range of play styles to accustom.

 

Im off to go pick my jaw up from the floor....

 

The Score 96%

 

 

[CV32]

Glad you enjoyed it, Terry.

[CV32]

If you've acquired a taste for 'monster' scenarios, I recommend you try Akula's 'From Russia with Love?' found here.

 

It is the kind of scenario that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and gives you a rather rough shake.

[Kenennis]

has anyone else gotten an error when trying to run the SE when using this scenario. it runs in the game but when i try to load it in the editor i get an Annex error and it terminates the program.

[Stalintc]

Yes, I did get an annex error, but only because I had HCDA (stupidly) loaded into HCE at the time

 

But once I loaded HCDB all was well. Check to make sure you have not got HCDA as your database, see if that is the problem.

 

Brad - Thanks for the suggestion, looks like the next stop after I finish playing Sixth Battle