Scenario 11 AAR – Turn 5 CAS

During turn 5, we have our first CAS sortie. This time by the German F-4Gs that entered last turn but have been loitering to see how things develop. Not having ever used CAS in assault before, I wasn’t quite sure how to do it, so I tried two different approaches. Both F-4Gs have full loads of 3 x cluster bombs and an ECM pod.

The first one comes in at high altitude, hoping to avoid the ton of SCAP flak sure to come from all those T-80s David has in combat formation/cover. A few big stacks just entered the East edge during Soviet turn 5, so I send him down the middle toward the those stacks on the road. The F-4 gets within 12 hexes of the target before an SA-13 nails him on the very first shot (great rolls to hit and to kill). The F-4 burns into the countryside but doesn’t cause any damage.

The second F-4, seeing that, comes in at low altitude, which is terrain level +4. He knows where the SA-13 shot came from, so he heads for two Soviet units in the open just on the south edge of the big level 7 ridge. Staying low also keeps him out of LOS of several stacks of units in cover near the target hex. Since an aircraft has to been seen for 5 hexes before it can be attacked, that doesn’t give a large number of DSHK machine gunners time to fire. He stays out of line of sight of the SA-13 and makes it through to the target, dropping a cluster bomb on it for 120 HE points. One OP is eliminated, along with one step of trucks. Cluster bombs drop in a 4-hex pattern, and even though the rules only allow CAS aircraft to attack targets in open ground, we resolve the cluster bomb attack on the stack of T-80s in a woods hex adjacent (doesn’t cause any damage, however).

So, the first use of CAS results in a mixed bag of results. One aircraft shot down trying to go after a rear-area target and a couple Soviet steps eliminated by the other F-4. The SA-13s have downed two aircraft already (the F-4 and the PAH-1), so I have to avoid those in the future. The aircraft counters we are using are ones that I made for the vassal module.