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View Full Version : AAR: Black Market Boomer (1.03+LWAmi 3.0)


Molon Labe
12-15-2005, 12:30 AM
In this mission, two US subs (The Seawolf and the Columbia) have to penetrate a Russian ASW screen to kill a Delta IV SSBN which is scheduled to be transfered to North Korea. Russian forces include a DDG and FFL guarding the edges, an IL-38 on patrol, and 3 defending submarines.

Luftwolf and Skeem took the Seawolf and Columbia, respectively, and I played the Gepard, which was on Luftwolf's side of the arena.

The first thing I did was come to comms depth to link the Tula (the SSBN) before it went deep. I drew a 27nm circle around it. Then I drew a 10nm circle around the Grisha to my south. Where those two circles intersected was where I wanted to be, which was about 10nm NW of me.

About 45 minutes into the game, I had intermittent 60 hz sound reach me above the layer. I turned to resolve the bearing ambiguity, but lost the signal. I picked it up again by letting the towed array drag under the water. TMA wasn't going to be my strong point; I figured he had already detected me, and the bearing rate suggested he was close. I fired a UUV set to search under the layer, but it wasn't much help (yet). I took my best guess, which put him at 10nm. I fired two shkvals (in case he was closer) at him and two UGSTs. I shanked one shkval because I dialed in the wrong bearing, and for some reason the UGSTs didn't lead him. This actually worked to my advantage; by the time I turned them in the right direction, Luftwolf retured fire with 3 ADCAPs which were a good 30 degrees off. I cranked it up to 11 knots and headed away from the torps, and started coming shallow for a missile shot.

Right after firing two SS-N-27 ASWs near what I guessed his track to be, my UUV picked him up. I merged the data, and found him to be a bit closer; my UGSTs were abreast of him. I turned the torps, enabled them, and promoted the link to my AI friends. As I dove again, the other Akula fired 4 ASW missiles, and the Kilo fired another.

All hell broke loose. 7 TIWs from my allies alone, on the same bearing as the Seawolf, made me pretty nervous, and with LW's ADCAPs passing abeam of me, I thought I was getting pincered. Skeem started shooting ADCAPs too, although this turned out to be a mistake. My torps ended up getting confused, but one of the AI torpedoes took out Luftwolf. I'll paint half a sub on my sail for that one.

Meanwhile, the IL-38 detected the torpedoes Skeem fired and started searching the area. I think it eventually got a MAD hit. Once I was reasonably certain no torps were threatening me and uncluttered my NAV map, I came back to comms depth. The IL-38 radioed me to tell me another sub had been detected, so I checked the link and got his location. I fired a single -27 ASW for the kill on Skeem.

Two of his ADCAPs made it close to me, and one seemed to acquire but actually found a nearby whale. One of Luftwolf's ADCAPs found the unlucky Grisha that was south of me. I'll trade a Grisha for a Seawolf any day.:wink:

It's nice to have air support for a change! :cool:

Furia
12-15-2005, 03:21 AM
:cool: Hey, that sounds pretty exciting match.
You did great using the resources of your air and surface AI friends, this is a multiplying factor some people forget to use.

I would love to have ASROCS on my FFG, this thing about being able to fire from a stand off possition and imagine the sub driver face:
:cussing: Where on Earth this torp comes from?????:damnit:
Nice report Molon, Thank you
:cool:

SKeeM
12-15-2005, 08:00 AM
Very nice AAR Molon. For my first dive againts human opponents this was very exciting for me. look forward to the next one. But man i tell you i had NO! idea what was going on:gdamnit: I had nothing but whales on my sensors and 1 very faint contact that i couldnt lock on(thought he was the Kilo) So i launched a UUV and got so many contacts on all points of the compass:cussing: So i started the process of identifieing wich contacts were whales and wich were not when i got a buch of TIW warnings. 2 torps were fired from the bearing of my faint contact. But i said to myself, They cant be shooting at me. Then i heard the ping from the torp. So i snap shot 2 down the bearing of the faint contact and started to buggy. When i slowed down all was quit for about 2 mikes and i got pinged out of no were. Buggied again. Slowed down to try to aquire something. Nothing but whales again:hmmm: Then TIW! and it was too close hit me before i could reach 20K's. Good Job Molon:biggrin:

Just 1 question, Did it mention in the brief that there were so many ships and subs out there? Because i thought it was only 2 subs and a plane?

Molon Labe
12-15-2005, 09:55 AM
The briefing doesn't say anything about enemy forces... maybe it should include an intelligence estimate. I guess it's funny, I wrote a full page brief but left that out. :rolleyes:

BUT, the mission description has a complete listing of all platforms on both sides.

Furia
12-15-2005, 01:23 PM
The fog of war? :wink:
Sometimes it is better not to give the exact nature of the enemies and its numbers.
In real life you have not such certain info.
I think it is good tyhis way, isn't it?

SKeeM
12-15-2005, 01:43 PM
Yes I would agree it is better like that. But it was my first MP and The pressure was on. LOL!:biggrin:

LuftWolf
12-15-2005, 03:33 PM
My consolation in this match is twofold: 1) my TMA on Molon was very good, as I had been tracking him for sometime before he fired, as well as playing with the depth under layer a bit, which has given me some good data for the future, 2) I was just following orders by holding fire. :gdamnit: I'm pretty sure if I had fired on Molon first, I'd still have had all kinds of hell to deal with from the MPA and four SUBROC capable OPFOR platforms in the mission, so I tried to slip by him in the SW... didn't work.

Thanks for the game guys... btw, Molon, has anyone ever won this mission as Blue?

Molon Labe
12-15-2005, 07:02 PM
I'm not sure. Since it's all subs playable, I haven't played it too many times. It's possible that I've beaten it, I just don't remember. This mission was, however, designed as a foil to all the games that Red could never win because of air support and/or the active sonar bug.

But, it's far from unwinnable. Both of you made serious tactical errors, which allowed me to take you down. You allowed me to get a pinpoint-accurate triangulated solution on you, which is why the ASROCs were on the mark when the Narval and Vladikavkaz fired. Skeem panicked and fired when he wasn't detected or at risk of detection, and attracted the IL-38, which allowed me to engage from 25nm away with pinpont precision.

By the way, your orders allowed you to destroy platforms as necessary to complete the mission. Trying to slip by is a losing strategy for this mission, at least with 1.03. (In 1.01+LW/Ami 2.03, it might have worked). Although granted, with the Seawolf in LW/ami being as godly as it is, you may be able to get away with it anyways. But, this mission is set in an SSBN bastion; the Russians put the SSBN there because it was a defensible position, which means more likely than not you have to fight your way in.

I'll be happy to turn it around for a rematch.

SKeeM
12-15-2005, 07:17 PM
I game for a rematch.:attack:

LuftWolf
12-15-2005, 09:10 PM
I didn't expect to be detected at over 10nm.... you must have a rock bottom set, because the map is an echo chamber even with the rain, and with the increased ranges in 1.03. Which of course is no problem, I just misjudged the situation.

Bottom type and overall depth plays a big part now in sound propagation occurs.

Overall, I think 1.03 heavily favors the Akula and the tactics used by Red.

My tactics in this situation were based on getting past you quickly while remaining undetected as you floundered about in the south, that didn't work, but I had no way of knowing until too late. :censored:

If I had wanted to sink you there, I would have fired 10 minutes earlier when I had a good solution. :attack: :wink: But I was trying to be Bluesque and use "precision", kind of like Solid Snake in a submarine... :tongue:

SKeeM
12-16-2005, 04:57 AM
So is that YES! to a rematch tonight:arms: