[suBB]

Originally Posted by Molon Labe

This sounds like it's going to be an interesting project.

As far as possible OpAreas go, choices are somewhat limited by the fact that Russia only has 4 points of access to the worlds oceans: the barrents/arctic, the baltic, the black sea, and okoskt. Chosing between those is going to depend on your backstory and the tactical situation you want to create.

As far as backstories go, your strongest candidate is the Baltic, followed by the Black Sea. Russia has been freaking out the Baltic states as of late, and with a little bit of imagination, you can apply similar pressures in southwestern asia that might cause Russia to come into conflict with the Ukraine, or more likely, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. Turkey would likely side with G/A/A over Russia, which means NATO has access to the Black Sea. The barrents isn't bad, but the White Sea (S. of arctic, E. of Barrents) and Okhost don't seem to be areas where naval conflict is plausible.

In terms of assets, the Barrents is strongest, since that's where most of the sub fleet is based--akulas in particular. Of course, with a little bit of strategic pretext, those assets can be redeployed. The Black Sea is going to be the worst off in terms of assets present without being redeployed, sub assets in particular.

Tactically speaking, I think depth is going to be a consideration, since you'll probably want a layer to play with. This will be a major blow to the baltic and barrents. It'll hurt the White sea as well, but it does have some deep canyons. The Black Sea and Okhost can both get quite deep.

It looks like the black sea will be the op area for the 3 map set and here are some things to consider:

1.. for what I have in mind, the black sea offers a number of entryways spanning over a 280nm stretch, on a longitude roughly at the RU / Georgian boarder. So for map A, the 688 approach could be anywhere from the south along that stretch. Considering the maritime support, buoy deployment, 2 AK2s, and influence over AI platforms(mainly air units), with the right planning RU shouldn’t have a problem covering the entire area. But if the 688 is detected, I’ll spawn another maritime unit and have it dispatched into the general area of RU forces, since air support can arrive much faster than anything else. I do have concern that appears to be almost a dead giveaway, and that is POSID conducted by AI platforms. I’ll need to test human influence over AI but 9 out of 10 AI gets the class dead on 100%, at least this was my experience in conflict of interest v1.00 on 1.03 and lwami < 3.08. For this reason I would like POSID conducted by human drivers, but still I need to test human influence on v.104 / 3.08. Also when ROE comes into play, if by default ROE is peacetime, AI will class a hostile as friendly and not engage, when they should class as unknown(I think) since intentions aren’t very clear at that point. But in wartime, AI will class as hostile and engage. So when attempting to influence AI platforms, always use unknown until otherwise, or AI will violate ROE.

2.. we could enter the area from the east anywhere on a 144nm stretch of latitude, same level of support as (1) but when air assets come into play for RU I think 144nm can be covered much faster than 280nm. For that reason the experience may be short lived.

3.. deep waters and layer present in the black sea, but no canyons to be found anywhere in areas suggested. Too bad we can’t edit our own land formations. Moving forward the baltic and barrents will serve purpose for a future project involving shallow water ops, so I’ll keep these areas in mind.

4.. back story-wise there is no need to consider the white sea or Okhost, so for those reasons I left them alone. Based on your suggestions, the black sea could lead to yet another project but different mission parameters, mainly for akula missions, but that is TBD.

Good stuff, Molon … I guess I’ll get cracking with testing.


Thanks!!!