RogerBW's Blog

This scenario took a while, because two Blue players in a row became unresponsive and had to be replaced. But we got there in the end.

The missile boats started separately, and soon picked up enemy radar.

With some navigational confusion, the Canadian helicopter got out of position, but was able to get a trace on one of the missile boats.

The boats closed in on their target, and tracked the helicopter as it moved back to the north.

It got an active radar paint, and moved on to look for the other boat.

The missile boats separated, and continued to track both frigate and helicopter.

The helicopter continued its search pattern.

With radars being switched on and off, and multiple course changes, the frigate was never fully pinpointed, but the boats were tracked on and off.

The helo moved in for a visual ID of the eastern boat.

With a good cross-bearing on the frigate, the Iranians decided this was the moment to act.

As the helo got incautiously close to the eastern boat, it opened fire with its 30mm gun, and got a solid hit. The helo was shot down. (This is the first time that's happened in my runs of this scenario.)

The eastern boat launched missiles in the general direction of the frigate. The helo was able to report this in the moments before it went down; and they were tracked on the frigate's radar too. Sea Sparrow fire whittled that group down.

The frigate returned fire with Harpoons; the Iranians weren't able to track them, but could receive the terminal guidance radar. The western boat launched its own missiles, and was then destroyed.

Both sets of Iranian missiles were able to choose between frigate and tanker; the tanker's a bigger target, so most of them went for it. The eastern missiles were all knocked out by Sea Sparrow fire.

The western missiles split: three for the tanker, one for the frigate.

The missile heading for the frigate was destroyed by Phalanx fire… but with the reliability of a bad penny, once again the missile fragments did airburst critical damage, and the very first roll was the magic bullet of a magazine explosion in the port VLS.

What's worse, the two Harpoons fired at the eastern missile boat both missed.

The final defensive missiles missed as they lost guidance from the frigate, and the tanker took the other three hits, suffering engineering damage, major fire and flooding.

The Iranians' surviving boat could see that the frigate was gone from radar, and they could return and sink or hijack the tanker with gunfire at their leisure.

So a certain amount of luck on the missiles, but a definite strategic victory for the Iranians here. Thanks to Craig, Ray and Ryan who took the Canadian forces at various points, and to Todd on the Iranian side.

Lessons learned:

• Yeah, low-probability magic bullet. Very bad luck. But now it's happened twice.

• The more I run this, the more I think that exploiting radar horizons may be the key to victory. What the Iranians could really use here is coordination with a patrol aircraft, but they don't have one, either in the regular Navy or in the Revolutionary Guard.

• You don't get any points for coming home with un-fired missiles. (All right, in the real world you might: they cost a lot, and there's a lot more sea to cover between here and safety. But winning this engagement matters more.)

• More games starting soon. Give me a shout if interested.