Airwar C21 Battle Report 1; Showdown over the Sea of

Japan
1988, Seaof Japan.

Unknown to theWestern powers, aSoviet transport ship carrying nuclear warheadshassuffered major technical
issuesand isadrift in international waters.
Whilethesituation cannot beviewed clearly by satellitedueto bad weather, thishasalso hampered recovery efforts.
Thepolitbureau isadamant that no USor US-aligned eyescan beallowed to fall on thevessel for classified reasons.
Air superiority over theareamust beestablished. In thiseffort, pilotshavereceived ordersto open fireat any craft
crossing theset exclusion line.

USintelligencehasfigured out that thereisobviously something special going on in thegeneral area, although initial
recon effortshavebeen threatened away by Soviet air and naval power. Even observation attemptsby apair of state-
of-the-art nuclear submarinesweredriven off by agressiveASW units.
Theweather doesnot look likeit will improveany timesoon, so adifferent approach will betried; several small
groupsof aircraft will attempt to infiltratetheareain such away that theSoviet air cover will not beableto intercept
all of them.

Oneof thesegroupsisapair of F/A-18CHornetsfrom VFA-195, theDambusters, which isstationed in Japan.

Callsignsare"Hogger" and "Stilts".
They arepart of thefirst wave, most likely to beintercepted. Their Rulesof Engagement allowthem to open fireBVR
if enemy weapon launchesaredetected.
Asluck would haveit, they areindeed intercepted by apair of Su-27 Flankers, well within theexclusion area.
Hogger and Stiltswereabout to haveavery bad day.

Thisgameof Airwar C21 isgoing to beabit of atest case. It'll only beasmall 2v2 battlewithout thespotting rules,
which should makethingsgo pretty quickly.
I'm also trying out somenewaircraft stat and weapon tracking sheetswhich arefillableand printableat trading card
size. By putting thesein card sleeves, damage, spent ammo/chaff/flaresand fired missilescan betracked using
dry-erasemarkers. Thisshould makethingsalot morehandy than thedefault A4-sized tracking sheets.
You can seethem in action next to theaircraft modelsin thepicturesthat follow.
In addition, I'm trying out theuseof distancesin cm instead of inches. Thisshould allowmeto havemuch more
room to maneuver outsidemissilerangeon adefault-sized table.

USNavy force:
2 F/A-18CHornets, each armed with 2 AIM-9M Sidewindersand 4 AIM-7PSparrows.

Soviet Air Forcesforce:

2 Su-27 Flanker-Bs, each armed with 4 AA-11 Archersand 6 AA-10CAlamos

Thisistheinitial situation:

TheHornetsarerushing along at top speed in thebottom right corner, with theFlankers, also supersonic, on an
intercept coursefrom thetop right corner.
Turn 1, phase1:

TheFlankersspeed on towardstheHornets, which turn slightly away from theSoviet fighters, maintaining top speed.
No missilesarefired, but thetargeting radarsarelighting up Hogger and Stilts.

Turn 1, phase2:

Asthechasecontinued, Hogger and Stiltssuddenly had someof their worst nightmaresbecomereality; theFlankers
got missilelock, followed closely by an actual missilelaunch.
Four AA-10 Alamo air-to-air missileswerenowmaking their way towardstheshocked pilots.

Turn 2, phase1:

WhiletheFlankersjust kept their radarspointing to their targets, guiding theAlamo missilesin, theHornetstried to
turn sharply towardstheFlankers. If donewell, thiswould also help them defeat themissiles.
WhileHogger'sbreak turn wastextbook, Stiltspanicked and messed up, turning alot lessthan hewanted and losing a
lot morespeed.
Dumping chaff, Hogger easily defeated both missiles.
Stiltswasnot so lucky; thefirst missiledetonated nearby, dealing only minimal damage. However, thesecond
missile'sblast shredded theairframe. Stiltstried ejecting, but wastorn apart by thefragmentsof hisdisintegrating
fighter moving at supersonic speedsbeforehisseat cleared theaircraft.

Screaming hiswingman'sname, Hogger managed to get lockson theSukhoi that had just shot down hispartner and
launched both of hisSidewinders.
He'd havesomething elseto contend with in themeantime, though, asboth Flankershad launched apair of their own
heat-seeking missiles, AA-11 Archers, at him.

Turn 2, phase2:

TheFlanker numbered 87 broketo hisright, hoping to catch theHornet it hedecided to turn that way. Unfortunately
for him, hemessed up histurn and lost alot morespeed than hehad planned for.
To increasehisshame, Hogger had actually turned theother way. However, thestressseemed to begetting to him, as
themaneuver wasrather sloppy, theturn not quiteassharp asplanned.
That would betroublesome, astheother Flanker had chosen to turn with him, entering ascissorsmaneuver.

Hogger managed to defeat threeof thefour incoming Archers. Thefourth missilehit and dealt significant structural
damageto theHornet, severely limiting itsperformance.
Hisadversary easily evaded both Sidewinderschasing him and lined up to firemoremissilesat Hogger.
However, hewastoo closeto firehislast two Archerseffectively, so hedecided not to wastethem and continuethe
scissors.

Turn 3, phase1:

Still stressed out, Hogger tried to break right, out of thescissors. Unfortunately, histurn wassloppy again.
Meanwhile, theFlanker with whom hewasin ascissorsdecided to maneuver into an immelmann turn, opening the
distanceand keeping track of histarget.
Theother Flanker madeawell-executed sharp turn of hisown abit further away, ending with itsnosepointing
towardsHogger'sHornet.
Thenearby Flanker got tonefor and launched both of hisremaining Archers, which wereshortly thereafter joined by
another two Alamosfrom theother Flanker.

Turn 3, phase2:

Thefar Flanker slowed down to maintain hisdistanceand keep thenoseof hiscraft pointed at theHornet to guidehis
missileshome.
Thenear Flanker brokeinto Hogger'sturn, hoping to seetheAmerican fighter-bomber appear in hisaiming reticle.
Heread Hogger'smovecorrectly, asheplanned to turn behind theFlanker.
Unfortunately for him, Hogger misjudged another turn and put himself straight in thepath of theFlanker'scannon.
To makemattersworse, therewerestill four missilesflying towardshim aswell.

Thefirst Alamo missed, misdirected by oneof thechaff bundlesHogger launched. Thesecond did not and blasted
thealready-crippled Hornet to bitsbeforethepair of Archerscould even get there. Hogger had had no chanceto
escapefrom hisdoomed fighter. Bitsof him would fall into theseaof Japan along with what remained of hisfighter.
Thenearby Flanker pilot had ended up with afront-rowseat for thisspectacular fireball, with no need to firehis
cannon.

TheSoviet fightersresumed their patrol after thistextbook engagement, scaring off onemoregroup of American
fightersbeforeheading home.

Aftermath

Similar scenesoccured at several other pointsnear theedgeof theexclusion zone. Overall, not asingleUSaircraft
managed to get closeenough to sneak apeek with theobservation podsthat had been mounted on them. Total losses
werefiveaircraft destroyed and onedamaged, with two pilotstaken prisoner by theSoviets. Unconfirmed reports
stated that overall Soviet lossesconsisted of 2 aircraft destroyed and 1 moredamaged.

In theend, Soviet naval assetswereableto securethetransport ship and itscargo beforethestormsended, leaving the
Western intelligenceagenciessuspiciousbut without any clear dataabout what had really happened thereand what
madethistransport so special.
Thisresult waspretty much thebest-casescenario within thePolitbureau crisisplan and theentireaffair wasswept
under therug.
Thefamiliesof thepilotsweretold that their loved oneshad died when their aircraft flewinto an unexpected
thunderstorm.
Theincident remainsclassified to thisday.

Analysis

All in all, thiswasan interesting but very one-sided game.

Of particular notewasthebad luck theUSsidehad; they couldn't passamaneuver test to (literally) savetheir lives.
Soviet to-hit rollsfor their missileswerepretty good aswell.
When combined with their somewhat disadvantageousstarting positions, thisleft theUSpilotsat themercy of the
Flankers, who didn't even need to expend their entiremissileloadouts.
In most gamesof Airwar C21, you'd expect both sidesto have1, 2 or 3 additional aircraft, making thismuch lessof an
issue.

Both of thethingsI wanted to try in thisgameworked out pretty well.

Theaircraft and weapon tracking cardsworked perfectly with thedry-erasemarker. Having atissueat hand to wipe
off any markingsno longer needed (likeapreviousairspeed) madekeeping track of thestatusfor each aircraft very
easy.
Thesecardsarealso small enough to just placealongsidethemodel they refer to, unlikethestandard A4-sized
tracking sheets. Thismeansthat it'salot lesslikely that you accidentally fill in info for thewrong plane, which I have
seen happen with theA4 sheets.

Measuring distancesin cm instead of inchesworked pretty well aswell.

It meansmodelsneed to beeven closer on thetableto get within gun range(3/6/9 for close/medium/extreme
ranges).
However, it allowsyou to maneuver somewhat without immediately getting within rangefor radar-guided missiles
on astandard 120cm/120cm (48"x48") board.
Not much of that wasseen in thisgame, but in bigger battles, strategic movement should becomealot moreviable.

Fillable Aircraft and Weapons cards

I mentioned form-fillabletracking cardsin thisreport.

Here'sadownload link.

You can fill in most relevant statson this, although pilot skill isn't on there.
For thedamage/chaff/flares/ammo boxes, you can fill in thespareonesfor theaircraft you'reusing with apen or
pencil beforeputting thecard into thesleeve.
Theblank second pageisthereso you can print multiplecopiesof page1 on asinglesheet in Acrobat Reader; it won't
allowyou to do that for 1-pagedocuments.