There seems to be a hunting theme in most of your AAR's.
I assure you there's nothing sinister about it
Hope everyone is well, here's some more eye-candy. From a recently completed 'Northern Sabre' dynamic campaign in Strike Fighters 2: North Atlantic.
Jean-Pierre Marseille, CO of the 12th Flottille during the battle of Iceland (19th-22nd September, 1975),the 12th Flottille was the primary fighter complement on the French carrier Clemenceau, and today operates as a Rafale-M squadron off the Charles de Gaulle.
The Clemenceau's air group is surprisingly large for a carrier of her size; 14 or so Etendard's comprising her strike wing. Surprisingly, and a bit worrying, she only carried 8 fighters. American Naval commanders in WWII had quickly (and correctly) arrived at the conclusion that a Carrier needs far more, perhaps even a majority, of fighters. The dearth of F8s would start to wear on our ability to contribute to the battle after we began to take casualties.
Despite being the 'last of the gunfighters' the F8 got most of its air-to-air kills with IR missiles; so too would my squadron, firing R550 Magics and Magic Is.
It goes without saying that the Clemeanceau battlegroup is a small part of a larger whole: The USS John F Kennedy and the USS Forrestal provided the backbone of our fighting power. By the end of the four day intense land-sea-air campaign, the USN would account for 7 of the 10 aces produced.
A 'batch 2' County Class destroyer of the Royal Navy, acting as the Ark Royal's main surface combatant. The 1975 campaign stands at a weird threshold between the missile age and an era of naval technology more familiar to WWII vets. This more classically equipped Destroyer, with limited, after-production missile installations, would rub shoulders with a pair of Type 42s (of Falklands fame).
The Mig-23M "Flogger-A" - Perhaps the most capable adversary against us. I know the Mig-23 and other Soviet fighters have been largely panned by historical events, but in 1975 its worth our respect. Indeed, by the end of the campaign, the Soviet AI produced a Mig-23 Ace who taught RAF Harriers a painful lesson on the 2nd day of the battle. M-r Ivan Kuzmischev would be shot down and captured over the Ark Royal battlegroup when, in a fight with ourselves and some F-14s, his unit strayed too close and too low to the escorts and were hit by anti-air missiles.
Tu-16 'Badgers' - Soviet Strategic aviation was omni-present during the first three days of the battle. Searching for our carriers, and attacking Keflavik and Reykjavik were their main missions. They kept the F-14s out of the dogfights and busy intercepting. The F-14s were so effective in their fleet defense role that when a Soviet SAG entered the AO they had no fix on our location and could not attack us
The same could not be said for us. Three strikes across two days sunk several ships in the Soviet SAG, including its flag ship, a modern Kresta II BPK. The surviving three ships slinked away. Here, an anti-ship missile fired from a FAA Bucaneer screams in on a Soviet frigate, her fire control radars already burning from anti-radiation missiles.
Once a Marine Amphibious Group, led by the Tarawa-class LHD seen here, arrived the initiative switched to NATO swiftly and irretrievably. Losses remained high on Sept. 20-21s, however. Soviet VDV repelled one of our attacks and Mig-23s managed to get past escorting F-4s and F-14s to savage the Marine Harriers supporting their troops: only 3 USMC Harriers survived, out of a total roster of 8. With the ground war intensifying our once-myriad, spread out missions, switched to massive strikes on one or two areas. Often, the Ark Royal and JFK would provide close support and operational strikes (think supply dumps, artillery, roadways) while the Clemenceau, Forrestal and land-based fighters and bombers (including at least two strikes by a massive bomber stream of B-52s!) hit Soviet convoys attempting to reinforce/resupply, Soviet-held airfields and other strategic targets.
The price of conflict.
