Fleet Command Single Mission 01

CVBG Norwegian Sea is the first single player mission in the standalone scenario set that is apart from the campaigns available in the game. The general task is to protect the aircraft carrier from cruise missile attack. The more detailed mission tasking is “Protect the carrier from attack by bombers equipped with long range air-to-surface missiles. Kill all hostile aircraft”. The area of operations is off of the coast of Norway, between Bergen and Alesund.

The player controlled platforms are the USS Ronald Reagan CVN76 (aircraft carrier), the USS Valley Forge CG50 (Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser), and the USS Princeton CG59 (also a GMC). There are two aircraft on patrol at the start of the scenario, one F-14 Tomcat and one F/A-18Hornet. There are two known tracks both directly NW of the battle formation, 5636 (on a hostile trajectory) and 5637.

The first thing I do is launch the two F-14 Tomcat aircraft that are in the pending queue on the aircraft carrier with the intention of sending them to perform a VID (visual identification) on the hostile track 5636.

After sending the already airborne Tomcat to perform a VID on track 5637, I order the launch of an E-2 Hawkeye Airborne Early Warning platform. Once the bird is in airborne I light up the sky with the long range radar capability to paint the battle space.

Before the two Tomcats that were launched can get within range for a VID, the track 5636 switches to hostile and there are two AS-4 Kitchen Air-to-Surface Missiles inbound to the battle formation. These are fast moving threats coming in at approximately 1,800 knots.

I order the two Tomcats to attack the now hostile track 5636 (which they eventually kill), and in the north the lone Tomcat has a red dot under its track indicating that it is being actively jammed by the enemy.

At this point I take control of the Valley Forge and order a volley of SM-2 Surface-to-Air Missiles to intercept the incoming bogies.

On SM-2 finds its target but the other gets past, causing the cruiser to begin employing local countermeasures. A final last minute SM-2 strikes the AS-4 causing it to explode sending shrapnel all over the port side of the Valley Forge, but luckily the cruiser escapes damage.

The lone Tomcat on patrol at the start of the scenario identifies track 5637 as hostile and I immediately order it to attack the target. This is a successful engagement which destroys the final threat and completes the mission.

After-action Report

The scenario ends with a Mission Effectiveness of 100% (no platforms were lost or damaged and all objectives were achieved).

There were a total of two enemy aircraft, a Tu-22M Backfire and an Tu-142 Bear J.

I have had some difficulty launching this old game in Windows 7, and the best fix I have found so far is to disable the intro movie by adding the following into the run parameters in Steam: -skipopening

I have been having a lot of fun with this game and have made it through several of the single player missions, so this may end up being a blog possibility. FRAPS and Raptr does not work in the game so I had to use the basic Print Screen and grab the BMP files from the Steam game directory.