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This is a multi-player session between Herman Hum and Captain Piluso, also known as Mario Fernandez.
We are making this first video in order to welcome our Spanish followers from the Punta de Lanza forum.
I will be making the video in English and Mario will be making his video in Spanish as a courtesy to our new members.
We are selecting the Classic GIUK Battleset. This is the first one because many people have been playing this scenario and watching After-Action Reports from the Harpoon Classic side.
We are doing this one in Harpoon ANW to show how the same scenario runs under multi-player conditions.
We start the multi-player session and we do a communications check to ensure that everyone has arrived within the game.
Now, I am re-positioning the map windows in order to maximize the efficiency of the game user interface.
We will examine the scenario information background and see that this scenario is 10 hours in duration.
Now, we will examine our current orders and see that we are up against a number of Soviet missile craft.
No more intelligence is available.
Our orders are to sink two Soviet ships and not sustain heavy damage to more than two of our own. High tasks indeed.
This is our Area of Operations, AO, that we are to patrol.
We have two task groups. One, centred around four Storm-class missile boats and a task group Bergen which has the frigate Bergen and the British frigate Juno.
We have activated the anti-surface warfare range ring to give some perspective.
Here are the characteristics of our two frigates.
These are the characteristics of our Storm-class missile boats.
I have decided that my strategy for this scenario will be to break up the missile boat group.
I will send them off in different directions in hopes of making visual contact or ESM contact with the enemy.
My thinking behind this is that the individual missile boats can be sacrificed.
If they are destroyed, I will only be losing a small craft. If I keep them together, the chance of the enemy stumbling across all four of them quickly, will be quite high.
I will use the sonar from the Bergen in hopes of detecting the enemy before he detects me.
As well, I have activated the jamming from Juno.
Should he turn on his radar intermittently and try to surprise me, I hope that the jamming will degrade his system sufficiently to prevent counter-detection.
That is the strategy I am following.
I do not mind sacrificing individual missile boats because every missile boat has sufficient firepower in which to sink many enemy vessels.
A one-to-one exchange rate is in my favour.
We have detected a skunk. That is an unknown surface contact through commercial navigation radar.
We hit the database button and see that the database offers it could be any one of these ships as they all operate the same type of radar.
Two of these are Soviet intelligence-gathering ships, AGI. Auxiliary General Intelligence, I think it stands for that.
It was detected by the Bergen. To try and triangulate on this contact, I am going to set what I believe is a perpendicular course to the contact.
This allows me to have contact the Skunk from two different positions.
I see how the uncertainty zone has reduced by changing course.
I am getting a little bit better cross-fix on the contact and I can tri-angulate on it.
The faster you are moving, the greater the change in your bearing, the easier it is to tri-angulate.
However, we have lost contact with the Skunk. He must have been going further away.
Another contact is detected. Again, this one has commercial navigation radar.
The uncertainty zone seems fairly close.
I will order the two closest missile boats to try and provide a cross-fix to the contact.
More skunks are detected.
I will slow down the time compression and select one of the skunks.
One of them has commercial radar.
The other has military radar. Fire control, Air Search, Surface Search and we check with the database function and we see that this only comes with the Nanuchka-class missile corvette.
This is an enemy.
We hit the H-Hotkey to classify it hostile.
Then we use the re-name function to call it a Nanuchka.
The enemy must have flashed his radar. Just turned it briefly to get a fix and we have counter-detected him.
My ships are operating under Emissions Control, EmCon.
Which means radar silence.
We were hoping for a situation like this.
We move across his bearing hopefully with the intent of generating a cross-bearing.
But, he must turn his radar back on in order for us to pick him up.
The merchant is now classified visually as a fishing vessel.
We see that he is doing fourteen knots.
I am going to slow down my missile boats, as well.
We are mimicking a neutral or civilian fishing vessel.
We detect the Nanuchka. He is fairly close. Look at the size of that uncertainty zone.
It is pretty small. I am gambling that he is close enough.
My missile boat, Kjekk, is going active. Perhaps, we can catch him by surprise.
Now that I have revealed myself, even though I have not detected him, I am firing my missiles; hoping that they will be able to track on him or activate closely enough to track upon him.
Now that I have revealed myself, there is no point in remaining silent.
I increase to flank speed.
Unfortunately, the missiles do not track upon the enemy.
Instead, they have found another target, the fishing boat!
These fishermen are about to die a horrible death. And, they are even tracking on my other missile boat!
This is what is known as a blue-on-blue encounter.
Since I am going to die, I decide that I am going to fire my Penguins off at the enemy, in hopes of possibly catching him.
Notice how the radar automatically turn on.
We are now defending ourselves against our own missiles. But there are also enemy missiles.
The enemy missile boat is close.
So, we will open fire with gunfire.
I am probably going to die in this process.
I want to see if I can take him with me.
The fishing boat is already on fire, as we have killed it.
From the south, my Sea Sparrows are engaging the enemy missiles.
We shot the first one down.
The second one is shot down by a Sea Sparrow.
My missile boat explodes under an SS-N-9 Siren.
The Nanuchka seems to be still afloat making five knots.
The Glimt has decided she will try her luck.
The civilian is already sunk so we may as well take our chances and try to sink the Nanuchka.
If I am going to lose, I am going to see if I can't take some of the enemy with me.
More vampires are detected.
Here come some of my own missiles.
Tracking back towards me. Wonderful.
Nope, they are Sirens. So, the enemy has detected me and is attacking my Kjekk missile boat.
Kjekk is destroyed by another SS-N-9 Siren.
The Bergen has gone active in trying to protect the missile boat.
This is an involuntary action.
The AI just decided to turn on my radar because it thought that it could fire.
This is one of the big bugs of ANW.
It is fixed in HUE, the next version, but as long as HUE is not possible to play multi-player because it crashes every time you log onto the server.
So, we are forced to use ANW in order to play this multi-player session.
By forcing me to turn on my radar, he has revealed my Juno and Bergen positions.
And, he has attacked from another direction.
He has done a really good job. He has surrounded me from three different directions and is attacking from three separate axes.
Wonderful job.
I have decided to fire off my missiles from the Bergen against the missile boat.
As well, I am firing my Exocets from the Juno in the general direction from which the missiles are inbound.
Perhaps, I can still catch him.
The Bergen goes down in a mass of flames followed by the Juno.
It appears as though I have not gotten any of the enemy ships.
This indicates that Captain Piluso has won. He has received a victory message.
I will resign the game at this time.
Notice how I am facing a board of inquiry for sinking a civilian vessel.
I have not done a very good job.
My butt has been thoroughly whipped.
A great session by Mario Fernandez.
This concludes Dawn Patrol, written for the Players Database.