WargamerScott
01-20-06, 11:49 PM
August 2007: Noam Chomsky is implicated in the ‘Oil-for-Food” UN scandal. America demands his extradition from his château in France. French President Chirac refuses to comply.
September 2007: America announces a unilateral embargo on all French products. Brie prices skyrocket.
October 2007: Chomsky stands alongside Chirac as the French President announces on state television that unless America immediately ends its embargo, drastic action will be taken. America refuses the ultimatum.
November 2007: Chirac announces that, in retaliation for America’s embargo, three cargo freighters, with escort, have been dispatched to America. Their holds are loaded with over 1 million copies of Chomsky’s latest book, “America is Evil---Volume 7: Further Political Insight by a Professor of Linguistics”. America warns that this provocation will not go unanswered….
==========================================
“USS Groton, my Seawolf-class attack boat, was dispatched to the Bay of Biscay in order to intercept the threatened shipment [of Chomsky’s book] from France. I was somewhat surprised that American-Franco relations had deteriorated so quickly, and regretted that military force was now required. However, I understood the grave nature of the threat to my nation and was eager to get underway.
We arrived on station about noon. Our first contact was east of us, about 30nm (first convergence zone) and judging by the noise it was making, was most definitely one of the ships we were looking to intercept. We closed the distance over a three hour period and after firming up the TMA and getting a definite classification of an outbound cargo ship, I rose to periscope depth and took a look at high magnification. Sure enough, it was the De Sade, one of the ships loaded with Chomsky propaganda, about 8 nautical miles away. I submerged and closed the distance. A few minutes later, we got an active sonar intercept, roughly 15nm away---no doubt, this was one of the escorting frigates. All things considered, I decided to make a torpedo attack.
When the De Sade was about 5nm away, I again rose to periscope depth to get another visual fix. This time, my ESM antenna picked up a search radar, most likely from a AS-565 Panther-class helicopter. Spinning my periscope around, I found a helo heading in my direction. I quickly dived the boat to 800 feet and cruised at a quiet 4 knots for a few minutes. Did he see my periscope? Since nothing bad happened in the following moments, I surmised we avoided detection and resumed the hunt of the De Sade.
At 3nm, I was at 100 feet and launched two Mk 48 torps, both set to passive mode. Neither found the target. I quickly launced a follow-up single active torp at the De Sade and dived to 700 feet, changing course to 180 degrees. The active torp acquired the target and detonated against the hull, sending the ship to the bottom.
http://wargamerscott.tripod.com/storage_bin/ScreenHunter_4.jpg
Now it was time to go after the escort which seemed to be conducting a more intensive active sonar sweep. We were still a good distance away, so we took our time firming up a TMA. Before long the ship was identified as of the D’Estienne D’Orves class. Not wanting to take a chance, I targeted this ship with two TASM cruise missiles. We slowly closed the distance to about 10nm and launched our missiles. Despite some defensive fire, they hit, sending the frigate to the bottom.
Score two for Groton.
http://wargamerscott.tripod.com/storage_bin/ScreenHunter_6.jpg
Where were the remaining two cargo ships? As our radar was broken, we would need to search by sonar alone. I ordered a series of zig-zags, from northeast to southeast, between a depth of 100-300 feet, so that our towed array would have a maximum opportunity to detect any other contacts. The towed array did get an intermittent contact every few minutes, but it was hard to get a steady fix. I assumed it was a distant surface ship and closed the distance to the east at about 8-12 knots. The contact closed to within 10nm, but the towed array still was having a hard time keeping the contact. Then, suddenly, the BSY-2 PBB [passive sphere sonar] got a strong fix on the contact, placing it at a close 8nm! Concerned, I came to periscope depth and took a look and found nothing in the area. Hmm. I dived to 100 feet and pondered the situation, personally inspecting the narrowband sonar display. Since the sound contact was so strong on the sphere array, there were a number of candidates to choose from. Finally, one caught my eye---a French Amethyste-class nuclear sub! That had to be it! I immediately reduced speed to a crawl and prepared two Mk 48 torps---one set to active and one to passive. Confident with the solution, I fired and dove below the [thermal] layer at high speed. Before long, my sonar guys had a return torp heading in our direction, pinging away. We dropped two active decoys and continued our dive while the enemy torp’s pings continued to get louder and more frequent. I can tell you we were sweating at this point! Fortunately, the French torp went for the decoy and lost us. Our active torp, on the other hand, found its target and killed the enemy sub (the passive torp failed to pursue yet again).
So far, the French navy had not proved much of an opponent.
We resumed our search for the enemy now with three enemy ships to our credit. We never did find any more. We later learned that France only sortied the single cargo ship with one frigate and the nasty surprise of a SSN. In the final analysis, it did no good.”
----Cmdr. Frank Wesley
“The Brie War at Sea: A Retrospective”
=======================================
December 2007: France files a formal protest with the United States (pinned to the shirt of an extradited Noam Chomsky). The brief Brie War ends.
=========================================
Notes:
1) This was a mission I quickly threw together just to try a fight against some Western equipment. The above scenario is in jest, no disrespect was intended (well, maybe to Noam). :P
2) I was perplexed by the absence of one destroyer, one supertanker, and one freighter that I placed in the mission. In the replay I discovered that the supertanker proved to be on our side! It rammed and sunk the French destroyer and then rammed the freighter---this time sinking itself along with the vessel it rammed! LOL!
:-j
September 2007: America announces a unilateral embargo on all French products. Brie prices skyrocket.
October 2007: Chomsky stands alongside Chirac as the French President announces on state television that unless America immediately ends its embargo, drastic action will be taken. America refuses the ultimatum.
November 2007: Chirac announces that, in retaliation for America’s embargo, three cargo freighters, with escort, have been dispatched to America. Their holds are loaded with over 1 million copies of Chomsky’s latest book, “America is Evil---Volume 7: Further Political Insight by a Professor of Linguistics”. America warns that this provocation will not go unanswered….
==========================================
“USS Groton, my Seawolf-class attack boat, was dispatched to the Bay of Biscay in order to intercept the threatened shipment [of Chomsky’s book] from France. I was somewhat surprised that American-Franco relations had deteriorated so quickly, and regretted that military force was now required. However, I understood the grave nature of the threat to my nation and was eager to get underway.
We arrived on station about noon. Our first contact was east of us, about 30nm (first convergence zone) and judging by the noise it was making, was most definitely one of the ships we were looking to intercept. We closed the distance over a three hour period and after firming up the TMA and getting a definite classification of an outbound cargo ship, I rose to periscope depth and took a look at high magnification. Sure enough, it was the De Sade, one of the ships loaded with Chomsky propaganda, about 8 nautical miles away. I submerged and closed the distance. A few minutes later, we got an active sonar intercept, roughly 15nm away---no doubt, this was one of the escorting frigates. All things considered, I decided to make a torpedo attack.
When the De Sade was about 5nm away, I again rose to periscope depth to get another visual fix. This time, my ESM antenna picked up a search radar, most likely from a AS-565 Panther-class helicopter. Spinning my periscope around, I found a helo heading in my direction. I quickly dived the boat to 800 feet and cruised at a quiet 4 knots for a few minutes. Did he see my periscope? Since nothing bad happened in the following moments, I surmised we avoided detection and resumed the hunt of the De Sade.
At 3nm, I was at 100 feet and launched two Mk 48 torps, both set to passive mode. Neither found the target. I quickly launced a follow-up single active torp at the De Sade and dived to 700 feet, changing course to 180 degrees. The active torp acquired the target and detonated against the hull, sending the ship to the bottom.
http://wargamerscott.tripod.com/storage_bin/ScreenHunter_4.jpg
Now it was time to go after the escort which seemed to be conducting a more intensive active sonar sweep. We were still a good distance away, so we took our time firming up a TMA. Before long the ship was identified as of the D’Estienne D’Orves class. Not wanting to take a chance, I targeted this ship with two TASM cruise missiles. We slowly closed the distance to about 10nm and launched our missiles. Despite some defensive fire, they hit, sending the frigate to the bottom.
Score two for Groton.
http://wargamerscott.tripod.com/storage_bin/ScreenHunter_6.jpg
Where were the remaining two cargo ships? As our radar was broken, we would need to search by sonar alone. I ordered a series of zig-zags, from northeast to southeast, between a depth of 100-300 feet, so that our towed array would have a maximum opportunity to detect any other contacts. The towed array did get an intermittent contact every few minutes, but it was hard to get a steady fix. I assumed it was a distant surface ship and closed the distance to the east at about 8-12 knots. The contact closed to within 10nm, but the towed array still was having a hard time keeping the contact. Then, suddenly, the BSY-2 PBB [passive sphere sonar] got a strong fix on the contact, placing it at a close 8nm! Concerned, I came to periscope depth and took a look and found nothing in the area. Hmm. I dived to 100 feet and pondered the situation, personally inspecting the narrowband sonar display. Since the sound contact was so strong on the sphere array, there were a number of candidates to choose from. Finally, one caught my eye---a French Amethyste-class nuclear sub! That had to be it! I immediately reduced speed to a crawl and prepared two Mk 48 torps---one set to active and one to passive. Confident with the solution, I fired and dove below the [thermal] layer at high speed. Before long, my sonar guys had a return torp heading in our direction, pinging away. We dropped two active decoys and continued our dive while the enemy torp’s pings continued to get louder and more frequent. I can tell you we were sweating at this point! Fortunately, the French torp went for the decoy and lost us. Our active torp, on the other hand, found its target and killed the enemy sub (the passive torp failed to pursue yet again).
So far, the French navy had not proved much of an opponent.
We resumed our search for the enemy now with three enemy ships to our credit. We never did find any more. We later learned that France only sortied the single cargo ship with one frigate and the nasty surprise of a SSN. In the final analysis, it did no good.”
----Cmdr. Frank Wesley
“The Brie War at Sea: A Retrospective”
=======================================
December 2007: France files a formal protest with the United States (pinned to the shirt of an extradited Noam Chomsky). The brief Brie War ends.
=========================================
Notes:
1) This was a mission I quickly threw together just to try a fight against some Western equipment. The above scenario is in jest, no disrespect was intended (well, maybe to Noam). :P
2) I was perplexed by the absence of one destroyer, one supertanker, and one freighter that I placed in the mission. In the replay I discovered that the supertanker proved to be on our side! It rammed and sunk the French destroyer and then rammed the freighter---this time sinking itself along with the vessel it rammed! LOL!
:-j