Issue #31 October 2006 Table of Contents Rules Changes & Clarifications CaS Consolidated Bombing Table 11 Air Combat in the Admiralty Trilogy13 Q&A: Withdrawing from Battle 22 Smoothing the Curve: A New Damage Point Formula 23 Q&A: Low Vis Effects on EO Seekers 24 Resolving Large Air Battles 25 CaS AA Combat Resolution Table 28 Annex H3 Aircraft Guns 29 Sighting Through Clouds 31 A note on spelling: A recent issue of Warship International (V41#3) includes an article by a Japanese naval historian. He states that a more correct spelling of the class names “Kagero” and “Yugumo” is “Kagerou” and “Yuugumo.” We use these spellings in the Midway scenario on page 8, and will use these spellings in future publications. m Editor’s Note: I deeply apologize for the lateness of this issue. Getting the air combat rules and all the associated material right has taken all summer and fall, much longer than we had planned. We believe this will be a big change for the better, but it was a much larger task than we had anticippated. Larry Bond ple 2 Cover: Photo NH 97484, F4F Wildcat fighters in formation in mid-1943, colorized by irotooko_jt. US Navy Chief Fire Controlman Andy Doty has been a Trilogy designer roughly forever. Here’s Andy at the Hillsboro Air Show. Yes, that is a M249 SAW. Andy is: 1) Demonstrating a new way of resolving rules disputes. 2) Tired of waiting in line. Andy will be retiring at the end of this year after 24 years of service. Congratulations, and thank you! The Naval SITREP is edited by Larry Bond and is published biannually by Clash of Arms Games (www.clashofarms.com). US and Canadian subscriptions are $18.00 for three issues. Overseas subscriptions are $24.00 by air. Subscriptions and article contributions should be sent to Clash of Arms, 200 Lincoln Street, Suite 205, Phoenixville, PA 19460. Contributions can be in print Naval SITREP Page 2 of requests for back issues. Looking back over them, about 1/3 of each issue, relating to tactics or technology, is still worth reading. So we’ve collected all the good stuff from each issue, made a few very small edits to follow up points in some of the articles, and bound it into a 54-page booklet: The Best of GDW’s Harpoon SITREP. It’s available now for $20, with the price going up to $25 after December 31st. As far as new products, all our development effort is focused on the Trilogy harmonization, ensuring consistency across all three game systems and the entire 20th Century. The results of this show up in the air combat and bombing tables and the new damage point formula in this issue. Check out the new dogfight rules. Not only are we making the rules consistent, we’re also making them simpler. BT Sa Departments Product Updates The ship forms booklet for Dawn of the Rising Sun is on the street. For $28 you not only get all the Form 10s you need to play any of the scenarios in DoRS, the booklet includes a CD-ROM with all the forms stored as PDFs. Now that Bill’s done with the DoRS forms booklet, he’s going to restart Dave Arnesen’s Biplanes & Battleships project. Before Viking Forge and Clash of Arms published the Naval SITREP, now-defunct Game Designers’ Workshop published the Harpoon SITREP. It was sixteen pages long and supported the first game in what would become the Admiralty Trilogy. Published quarterly, we printed 20 issues (1990 - 95) before GDW folded and I had to find a new home for the game as well as the newsletter. Like the Naval SITREP, it provided a mix of technology and game system-related articles, as well as scenarios. Surprisingly, Charlie Spiegel has received a steady stream file Features Three WW II US Subs Found 3 German WW II Carrier Found 3 The Attack on INS Hanit4 New Chinese Warships 6 FG&DN Scenario: Encounter 8 CaS Scenario: Midway Variant 9 H4 Scenario: Falklands Carrier Duel 21 Modern-Day Camouflage 22 New Naval Aviation Resource 22 New Trilogy Forum 22 Italian Guided 76mm Round 24 Big Ship Sinkings 32 Product Updates or on electronic. They can be emailed to [email protected]. Include name, postal address, and phone number. Harpoon is a registered trademark of Larry Bond and Chris Carlson. Command at Sea is a registered trademark of Larry Bond, Chris Carlson, and Ed Kettler. Fear God & Dread Nought is a registered trademark of Larry Bond, Chris Carlson, Ed Kettler, and Mike Harris. Issue #31 October 2006 Three WW II US Subs Found Sonar image of Grunion taken 17 August 2006 lying on her starboard side at about a 45° angle. US Navy file Wahoo in 1942. US Navy m ple so that locating sunken warships, while still difficult, is no longer extraordinary. All three subs were lost to enemy depth charging. While there is a tendency to disparage Japanese WW II ASW, it was still a threat, and even a boat as good as Wahoo could be lost to it. None of the subs will be raised. All have been declared war graves, and their exact location is being kept secret by the US Navy. It is illegal to even dive on the wreck, much less go inside or take anything from it. Fifty-two US subs were lost during the war. Lagarto had 86 men aboard her, Wahoo 79, and Grunion 70. For their families, “lost” doesn’t have the same meaning now. Images of the subs and their discovery are available at www.navsource.org/archives. Details about US subs that were sunk can be found at www.oneternalpatrol.com and www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq39-1.htm Thanks to Bruce Abele and Michael Mohl for their assistance on this article. BT Sa Three US submarines sunk during WW II have been located this year. While none of the discoveries reveal any secrets or solve any mysteries, they are important discoveries both for the families of those left behind and for the men still on patrol. USS Lagarto (SS-371) was first, discovered by commercial fishermen in May 2005. She was lost sometime after 3 May 1945, in an action with the Japanese minesweeper Hatsuka. She was found in the Gulf of Thailand off the east coast of the Malay peninsula. Her identity was confirmed by US Navy divers in May of 2006. A much more famous submarine, USS Wahoo (SS-238) was found on 17 August 2006 in the La Perouse straits. One of the most successful submarines of the war, captained by Commander Dudley “Mush” Morton, she was lost in action with enemy antisubmarine forces on 11 October 1943. A Russian search team was looking for one of their own subs, L-19, when they found Wahoo. Her identity has been confirmed based on US records, but nobody has investigated the wreck. At almost the same time, the wreck of USS Grunion (SS-216) was discovered on 16 April 2006, by an ocean survey company hired by family members of Grunion’s skipper. She was on her first patrol near the Aleutians when she was lost to enemy action on 30 July 1942. The three subs were discovered by different means: commercial fishing, accidental discovery, and deliberate search. As Bob Ballard has shown, sonar and underwater robot technology has progressed German WW II Carrier Found A Polish oil exploration company, Petrobaltic, has discovered the hulk of KM Graf Zeppelin in the Baltic. Discovered in early July, the wreck was examined by the Polish Navy for two days. They reported that its dimensions and unique external features exactly matched the German WW II carrier. The announcement was made on 27 July. Although launched in 1938, Graf Zeppelin was never completed. She was scuttled in shallow water at Stettin in 1945 as the Red Army approached. The Soviets raised her and used the hulk to carry war booty back to Russia. Once there, they may have attempted to repair her (at a minimum, they surveyed her to see if it was feasible), but gave up the attempt. In 1947, she was sunk as part of an anticarrier warfare exercise. The Soviets never revealed her location. She lies 55 kilometers off the Polish coast in eighty-plus meters of water. There are no plans to raise the vessel, and by international law, ownership of the sunken warship passes to Germany. The website www.spiegel.de/ international/1,1518,428857,00.html has the best images of the carrier under construction and after her discovery. BT Graf Zeppelin at her launch on 8 December 1938 Bundesarchiv Naval SITREP Page 3 Issue #31 October 2006 The Attack on INS Hanit - Is Stealth the Best Defense? Naval SITREP Page 4 m ple file Given that intelligence dropped the ball (gee, when has that ever happened?) the only big question is why didn’t the missile hit destroy Hanit? The shooters must have thought they had a sure thing. They’re probably still scratching their heads and kicking each other. When the missile detonated, it started a fire on the flight deck, knocked out steering, propulsion, and blew four of the crew overboard, killing them all. But why didn’t a missile with a 36-damage point warhead sink a ship with only 40 damage points? Some people think it was a smaller missile. Many websites and blogs show a picture of a Sa’ar V with a small hole aft covered with black soot and claim this was the hit location for an Iranian-made C701 missile. This is unlikely for the following reasons: First, the range at time of fire (about 20 km) is beyond the listed range of a C701. This is given as 15 km (8.1 nm) by Chinese websites and brochure data. The missile has a longer range (18-20 km) when airlaunched. Secondly, the C701 is a TV-guided weapon - the attack took place soon after dark, about 2000 hours by most newspaper/ blog accounts, and with the haze in the Mediterranean during this time of year, an attack by an optically guided weapon at the ranges discussed is virtually impossible. Sa by Larry Bond and Chris Carlson On July 14th, in the opening days of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, INS Hanit (Hebrew for “spear”), a Sa’ar V class missile corvette, was struck by an antiship missile fired from the Lebanese coast. The unit firing was not Hezbollah, but Pasdaran Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The most likely weapon used was an Iranian-assembled Chinese C802 antiship cruise missile, called a Noor. The major components are manufactured in China, then assembled in Iran. Various sources describe the Noor as a “modified” C802, but these modifications are minimal, most likely painting Farsi over the Chinese labeling. The Israelis claim that the missile launchers were supplied with targeting data from Lebanese military coastal surveillance radars. This is possible, but the firing unit could also launch on bearing only if the target’s location was obtained visually, from UAVs or human spotters in boats. Two missiles were fired in a high-low combination. The first missile overflew Hanit, then flew toward and locked onto an Egyptian coaster 40 km farther out, sinking the hapless vessel. The crew of 12 survived and were rescued. Salvo firing of anti-ship missiles is a standard tactic against ships with missile defenses. Hanit has a good number of hard and soft-kill missile defenses - they just weren’t used in this case, but Hezbollah wouldn’t know that - so a shoot-shoot attack would be typical. A single C802 TEL can carry up to three missiles. The first missile may have missed Hanit because of her low radar cross section. Although rated overall as VSmall, the hull may actually be Stealthy, with some fixtures, discussed below, increasing the net size of that signature. The second missile did lock on Hanit and detonated. Hanit is fitted with both Phalanx and Barak point defense systems, as well as a potent ECM and decoy suite. By rights, she should have handily shot down both missiles, but her weapons were on hold because of the intense Israeli aircraft activity in the area. Intelligence had described the threat of attack from land as limited to artillery. If missiles had been suspected, Hanit would have been much farther out from shore. While there are IR guided and millimeter wave radar variants of the C701 reportedly in the works, China has not displayed either of these at any arms shows. An Iranian website, however, recently claimed that Iran had the IR-guided variant in their inventory and fired some during a recent exercise. Still, the humidity just off the Lebanon coast would have had a significant impact on the seeker’s ability to find a ship with a VSmall signature. Thirdly, the location that open sources claim is where Hanit was hit is in reality one of the ship’s diesel exhausts - hence the dark soot around the hole. It is visible in the top photo on the next page, midships at the waterline. Fourth, a C701 still inflicts 20 damage points, exactly half of Hanit’s total rating. There would have been a much larger hole, something not confused with a diesel exhaust. Look at the photo of Buchanan below to see what we mean. These points present a considerable challenge to the any suggestion that Hanit was hit by a C701. And one final point. Hanit got underway three weeks after the attack. The only external signs of the attack were a missing hangar door and helicopter crane, and areas of fresh paint. This ship would not be getting underway so soon if she had been hit close to the waterline by a missile - even a C701 with a 29 kg warhead! USS Buchanan (DDG-14), a C.F. Adams class destroyer with 103 damage points, after it was hit by a 40-point Harpoon missile during a SINKEX. A C802 would do about the same damage if it struck the hull. The smaller hole to the right was made by a Hellfire (5 damage points). Issue #31 October 2006 In this engagement, a less than typical missile hit inflicted fewer damage points than rated, but still caused several crippling critical hits. The problem is that to model this type of hit in the game, we’d not only have to add rules for hit location, which we’ve always resisted, but also warhead behavior based on that location, and individual seeker behavior, which we don’t even want to attempt. It’s possible that with enough work, we could mimic this result. We don’t believe the resulting rules would be playable. BT INS Hanit some time before the attack. Note the crane on the port side of the helicopter hangar. This complex shape may have had a greater radar cross-section than the rest of the ship combined. m ple file Relative sizes of the C701 (top) and C802 (bottom) missiles Sa In fact, the missile does not appear to have hit the hull at all. Nor does it appear to have hit the hangar or any other part of the deckhouse. Too much of it is still around and there is no evidence of any damage inside the hangar. And yet this is the area where all Israeli newspapers say the missile went off, causing a fire, loss of propulsion and steering, and causing four deaths. In short, the damage is not consistent with a hit from a medium-size cruise missile. This is very strange, considering that a hit from a C802-sized missile would leave a very noticeable mark (remember Buchanan?). So here is a hypothesis: could the attacking missile have actually hit the heftylooking crane which is completely missing in the photo of Hanit after the repairs? The “repaired” hull section on the port side is in about the right place and the flimsy hangar door would not be able to resist the blast pressure. Fragments from the warhead would easily penetrate the flight deck and cause damage below decks; where the steering gear and auxiliary machinery spaces would be located. This isn’t a special case of the missile inflicting a “grazing” hit. There’s no such thing for a radar seeker. If it locks, it heads for the center of the radar echo. While the hull is stealthy, the crane is not, and may have actually provided the strongest radar return to the missile’s seeker. From the seeker’s point of view, it scored a bulls-eye by hitting the crane. This is “the exception that proves the rule.” When that expression was coined, “prove” meant “to test.” Note Missing Crane INS Hanit getting under way three weeks after the attack. Note the lack of a crane visible in the photo above. Naval SITREP Page 5 Issue #31 October 2006 New Chinese Warships FFL Sa m ple Displacement: 1075 std In Class: 3 In Service: 1997 Acoustic Counterm: 2nd Gen Twd Electronic Counterm: 3rd Gen J&D ESM: 3rd Gen Crew: 74 Propulsion: CODOG/CPP Signature: VSmall/Quiet Size Class: Small Weapons: ROF PB&PQ/SB&SQ(4)2 Mk141 w/4 Harpoon (8) D/USA F&A(32)2 Barak w/32 msls//2 EL/M-2221 (4) D F(R)1 Mk15 Phalanx w/5 bursts C/USA PB/SB(3)2 Mk32 324mm TT w/3 Mk46 Mod 5 F/USA P/S(1)2 Oerlikon 20mm/70 C/Switz. P/S(1)4 7.62mm MG C/Switz. Aft Pad(1)1 AS.365G Dauphin B Sensors: SPS-55 J/USA ADMR (EL/M-2228-S) J EDO 796 Mod 1 K/USA EL-OP MSIS (3rd Gen IR) Remarks: Eilat, Lahav, Hanit. Reduced acoustic, IR, radar signature. Radar signature reduced by the use or RAM, inclined superstructure. Fitted with Prairie-Masker, rafted machinery. Diesel exhausts discharge underwater, IR suppressors on uptakes. Special damage modifier of -15% for aluminum superstructure. El/M-2221 arcs are PB&PQ/SB&SQ. Phalanx can provide guidance for Barak missiles or direct own gunfire. Not fitted with planned PB&SB(1)8 Gabriel II due to concerns over topweight. Provision for third EL/M-2221 director with Aft arc and Coris-TAS towed array. Damage & Speed Breakdown: Dam Pts: 0 10203036 40 Surf Speed: 33 25 17 8 0 Sinks file Sa’ar 5 Two new Chinese warship classes have helped the PLAN continue its modernization program. The second of two Russianbuilt Sovremennyy variants was delivered to the PRC in September. This makes a total of four: the two earlier Project 956E and the second pair, Project 956EMs. Compared to the earlier Sovremennyys, they have incremental improvements, but they are useful. The AK-630 30mms have been replaced by Kashtan (export Kortik) CIWS, the 65-nm 3M80E Moskit-M missiles have been replaced with the 3M80MVE Moskit with a range of 108 nm. The aft twin 130mm mount has been removed to make room for a larger helicopter deck, and a second radome aft covers a Positive-ME1 radar, used with the Kashtans. The first of the pair (hull 138) is named Taizhou. The name of the second, hull 139, has not been announced. The second new class is much smaller, but is impressive. First seen in the spring of 2004, the stealthy fast attack craft is a wave-piercing catamaran, allowing high speed, while its waterjet propulsion lets it operate in extremely shallow water. This is not only a requirement for China’s shallow coastal areas, but allows it to use the coastline for concealment against a more powerful opponent. Designated the Type 022, few specifications are publicly available. Displacement will be small, speed will be high. The only visible armament is the single AK-630 forward, but SSMs of some type will certainly go inside the stealthy housings aft. The housings could be for YJ-82 or YJ-83 missiles, but there are no launch ports or doors, so the missile armament is speculative at this point. The Chinese are building these in numbers. Photos of at least six in one place have been posted on the web (see page 7), and more than one shipyard appears to be constructing the class. Over sixty of the Type 021 [Osa/Huangfeng] were built, and China needs a lot of small craft for its islands and coastline. By the way, Takara makes a prebuilt, prepainted 1/700 model of this vessel, complete with splinter camouflage. Look for it on ebay. BT The C802 is the export version of the Chinese Yingji-8. It entered Iranian service in 1993, but was never adopted by the PLAN. It has a 2nd Generation I/TARH seeker. It has a 4.3 - 65 nm range with a seaskimming flight profile. It has a 165 kg warhead, inflicting 37 damage points. Naval SITREP Page 6 The first Type 022 seen, hull 2208 www.sinodefence.com Issue #31 October 2006 Russian Project 956EM Type 022 PTG Sa m ple Displacement: 400 est In Class: 6 + ? Acoustic Counterm: None In Service: 2004 ESM: ? Electronic Counterm: None Propulsion: Diesel (est) Crew: ? Size Class: Small Signature: Stealthy/Quiet ROF Weapons: PB&SB(3)2 SSM, possibly YJ-82 or YJ-83 (?) D F(R)1 AK-630 30mm//1 EO director C/Russia Sensors: Type 364 Seagull C, Type 756 J Remarks: Wave-piercing catamaran hull, reduced signature. Waterjet propulsion. First observed Apr 04. Possible all aluminum construction, special damage modifier of -25%, multihull, special damage modifier of -25%. Damage & Speed Breakdown: Dam Pts: 036810 11 Surf Speed: 33 25 17 8 0 Sinks file Multiple Type 022s at Qiuxin Shipbuilding Factory at Shanghai www.datviet.com DDG Displacement: 6500 std In Class: 2 Acoustic Counterm: 2nd Gen twd In Service: 2006 ESM: 2nd Gen Electronic Counterm: 3rd Gen J&D Propulsion: Steam Crew: 296 Signature: Small/Noisy Size Class: Medium ROF Weapons: PB&SB(4)2 3M80MVE w/4 Sunburn //1 Band Stand, 2 Light Bulb (6) D/Russia F/A(1)2 Yozh [SA-N-7b] w/24 Grizzly//6 Orekh (7) D/Russia P/S 2 Kashtan [CADS-N-1] w/48 Grison & 15 bursts//2 Hot Flash (8) C&D/Russia P/S(6)2 RBU 1000 w/5 salvoes E/Russia Aft Pad(1)1 Ka-28 Helix A B F(2)1 AK-130 130mm/54// 1 MR-145 Lev [Kite Screech] C/Russia P/S(2)2 533mm TT w/2 SET-65MKE F/Russia Sensors: MR-760 Fregat MA [Top Plate B], Mineral-ME J/Russia 3 Volga [Palm Frond], Positiv-ME1 J/Russia MG-335EM (Hull array only) K/Russia Remarks: Taizhou and hull 139. New-build units ordered by PRC. Fitted with RAM to reduce signature. Aluminium superstructure, special damage modifier of -15%. Special damage modifier of -10% for Russian surface ship design. No ASW weapon storage. Kashtan CIWS hybrid mount has twin 30mm rotary cannon and eight Kortik [SA-N-11 Grison] missiles reloaded from 48-round magazine. 30mm are fired together and rolled as one shot. Damage & Speed Breakdown: Dam Pts: 0 37 75 112 134 149 Surf Speed: 32 24 16 8 0 Sinks Differences between the Project 956E units (above) and the newer 956EM (below) www.sinodefense.com Naval SITREP Page 7