Fleet Command Single Mission 02

Chinese Special Forces is the second single player mission in the standalone scenario set that is apart from the campaigns available in the game. The mission tasking is to patrol the northern sector and to sink any Chinese patrol boats within 50 miles of Taiwan. There are numerous fishing vessels present which makes visual target identification a requirement before engaging any surface craft that have not already been flagged as hostile.

The player controlled platform is a single warship, the USS Valley Forge CG50 (Ticonderoga class guided missile cruiser), which was also featured in the first mission CVBG Norwegian Sea. There are no other assets available during the scenario.

The first thing I do is to launch the SH-60R Seahawk which is in the pending queue of the flight deck. Immediately a contact is reported as hostile directly in front of me and is assigned track 3246, and I fire a single Harpoon anti-ship missile at it.

Another Seahawk is launched from the flight deck and both airborne units are ordered to turn on their Surface Search Radar to illuminate the battle space. The single Harpoon ASM is defeated by the Chinese patrol craft which launches two SS-N-2 Styx anti-ship missiles at the Valley Forge.

To counter this threat I manually send a volley of SM-2 surface-to-air missiles in their flight path. The inbound bogies are so close that the ships local defenses activate and beginning firing rounds down range towards the enemy ASM as our missiles streak overhead.

During this time I fire off additional Harpoon ASM’s at track 3246.

The first ASM is destroyed however panic mode sets in as there was a second missile right behind it and it is immediately engaged by additional SM-2 SAM’s.

The missiles do not hit the inbound ASM as it streaks towards the ship which is firing away with its cannons.

The Valley Forge takes a direct strike at the bow of the ship and explodes in a fireball. At almost the same moment the hostile track 3246 is hit by the Harpoons and is destroyed.

Although my ship is on fire and the damage control teams are doing what they can to maintain seaworthiness, I still have Fire Control and some missiles remaining to complete the mission.

Another hostile track is picked up coming from the southwest and I engage it with a volley of multiple SA-2 SAM’s.

The enemy surface vessel is destroyed by the third missile strike.

A new enemy track is picked up coming from the south and I order the closest SH-60R Seahawk to prosecute the contact. While moving to within engagement range the Seahawk picks up a second contact off to the west. For this I pull down my other helicopter from up north to engage this new track.

The closest Seahawk is ordered to launch a single MK-50 torpedo at track 3247 and then shift over to attack the other track (as the second helicopter is lagging well behind).

The first torpedo is spoofed by track 3247 however the second fish fired at the other ship finds its mark and destroys track 3245.

Taking control of the Valley Forge once more I order a three missile volley at the final track which makes it through their countermeasures two minutes later to destroy the craft and complete the mission.

After-action Report

I only scored a 72% rating for this scenario due to the damage that was suffered when the enemy ASM hit my ship, costing me 568 points.

During the mission I destroyed four Chinese patrol craft which stopped the Special Forces incursion into Taiwan.

Post Mortem

I have won this scenario in the past several times at 100%, but there is enough randomness built in to the enemy spawn locations and proximity to the battle group that it is rare for two missions to play out very similar to each other.