Sacred Oil,
Scenario #1
Thin Red Line Games:
June 28th USSR invades Iran
June 30th 1985 USS Kitty Hawk [CV-63] Somewhere in Indian Ocean on a bearing to the Gulf of Aden & Red Sea.
In the CIC the PO 3rd class running the radar called “Contact! Bearing 220 degrees range 110 Nautical miles.”
‘Shipping trawler and a 2 container ships, Sir.” Said the Electronic Warfare module operator.
Taunt shoulders and the odd clenched fist relaxed yet again. The CV Kitty Hawk was making full speed with its Task Force – Taffy 14, otherwise known as Battle Group – Bravo right into the jaws of trouble. Encrypted orders had come direct to Captain Phillip Ray Wood [USNR ’59 ]of CV 63 to steam at a full 33 knots and ‘pave the way’ by clearing out or rendering inoperable the Soviet bases in Yemen( Aden ) and Ethiopia- Asmara.
US Airforce messaging center had recently reported heightened activity for burst encrypted traffic. Woods steel blue eyes and slight build belied his toughness he did not know the nature or the time of the attack but it was coming.
“Get me 2x 60H in the air from the Ready 5. Bring us to Alert 2 status, Where is my updated CIWS readiness report ? I got a feeling its going down any minute now, they want a fight lets give it to them with both barrels.”
“Aye Aye, CO, 2x 60H going up ASAP. Alerting Taffy 14 escorts. Updating CAG regarding readiness” The CW2 responded.
Everyone knew from the maps that Russian Victor I class subs and Victor III or Shchuka subs were waiting for them, and it would not be in the shallows of the Sea of Aden, but rather here in the Indian Ocean where they could run silent and deep. No doubt stalking them now. Their dual 72MW reactors were hard to track, their cruise missiles deadly and the crews top notch. How many were there and could they fight them off was the question on everyone’s mind.
“Kommander depth is 45m, stabilizing. ”
“Launch missiles.” Said the Captain then immediately after – “Dive, Dive and run silent.”
The Kommander crossed himself, everyone pretended not to see the political death warrant. Then he said ‘May God protect us all, and forgive me for what we have started. But men, hopefully our brothers in the water also are doing the exact thing we are! For the Motherland!”
Of the 4 subs taking packets of data from the Russian made Intelligence ship sliding along with a few container ships no other one had received enough clear data in the burst to pinpoint the Kitty Hawk and its 5,000 man crew.
Game details:
The Intelligence ships rolls and gets a 6! No increase of Detection for this segment for the Soviets.
K-175 rolls a 13 -2 drm. For an 11 they fail to intercept.
K-184 rolls a 17 -2 drm for a 15 placing a Detection DET 1 on Task Force 14 and itself. Their missiles streak away.
K-87 fails rolling a raw 10
K-412 is an ASW sub and will run its actions after our missile combat. They rolled a 14 which is a success,
“Battle stations, Battles stations, Launch Detected!” Klaxons sounded. Emergency lighting switched over and everybody hit their tasks with a sense of unhurried professionalism. The 1,000 of times drilling just this situation and a myriad of others like it made everything second nature.
Captain Wood said it even though he knew a solution was no doubt being plotted by every ship in the Taskforce ‘Find that sub and kill it.’
Game details:
TF’s are organized into tiers or sectors or I like to think of them as rings. Outer, Inner and Core.
Anti Missiles fires –rolls: 8,10,10,16,11 and 1. All rolls suffer a -2 due to low Detection rating of 1. The 16 becomes a 14 on the B column of the Missile Defense Rating results table inflicting a reduction of against the missile fire power of 4. So a 25% reduction, down to three.Which will be ‘evenly allocated’
Missiles are allocated against a distribution table and the targets are also randomly set for the ‘selected sector’ in this case the core has 3 ships. Rentz and Kittyhawk end up being the targets and the Soviets allocate 2 to it and 1 to Rentz.
Rentz is hit with a 1d20 roll of 19 but it’s a minus 5 DRM after adjusting for target toughness and detection combat mods. 1 hit. She is damaged.
CV-63 has 2 attack value against it and a -715 toughness generates -7. But the roll is just a 10 so a miss. Note that since the CV and other units fire the Detection rise by 1 I believe so no malus for Detection combat mods.
USS Berkley fails to tag the missiles, as does FFG Bradley and Destroyer Fletcher! The guided missile cruiser Texas [I swapped out the Scenario unit for this one ], and Frigate Rentz use the Anti Missile systems as the garanet missiles streak across the ocean. Only the Texas makes an impact, missiles explode mid flight.
Rentz diverts in front of the Kitty Hawk to confuse sensors and a missile zeros in on it. Striking the bow a mushroom blooms and fire and flame roils outward. Damage station bells sound across the water. The last of the missiles explode in and around the Kitty Hawk the majority exploding harmlessly nearby or splash.
While Captain Wood is checking status’s and receiving damage assessments another alert arises. ‘Torpedo in the water bearing…’
Game details
ASW phase both sides may attack with ASW capability.
K412 detected the TF and selects the core as a target.
Sub ASW fire -4 for toughness -o for detection with a 5 roll they miss. They accumulate an ASW Ammo ½’d marker.
All ships return combine fire with anti ASW rated at 10 cumulative. -3 for toughness and -2 more for detection for a net -5…they roll a one on the 9+ table. – They miss.
Accumulated VP’s so far 2 for the Soviets.
Let’s now see what the Soviets have in mind in the air.
To be continued.
Sounds cool. How long did it take for you to resolve all of that?
Not long a lot of rules referencing and double checks given that I was sharing the dice and drms etc. Its pretty quick 4-5 dice rolls. No fractions or percentages