Phantom Leader 4 - USN Linebacker continued
Tags
It's super convenient that a short campaign will get me 5 plays of Phantom Leader, which was my goal for this year. I can see myself playing this quite a bit more. Doing just the long campaigns with 12 days each, for 4 different campaigns, for USN and Air Force provides a lot of replay value, 192 games in fact. Add in the short and medium campaigns and this number doubles.
But let's not worry about future plays right now. Right now let's get through the rest of the short Linebacker campaign for the USN.
Phantom Leader Turn Sequence
Preflight
1. Draw target cards
- SAM Sites: politics level 3 with flight of 5 pilots.
- Large Naval Base: politics level 5 with flight of 8 pilots.
2. Select target and move Politics Counter
I'm taking the SAM sites, not ready to fly 8 pilots yet!
3. Determine and place sites
This target feature an additional 6 SAM sites in the center area. All need to be destroyed.
4. Assign pilots
Here's the lineup for the campaign:
- Easy Money, average-7, stress 0.
- Whiplash, average-6, stress 2, he's going back out the door.
- Taxi, average-5, stress 0.
- Gringo, green-6, stress 0.
- Firefly, green-4, stress 0.
5. Arm aircraft
Everyone is getting ECM pods.o
The good air-to-ground pilots, Whiplash, Taxi and Gringo are all loading out with CBUs. The other two pilots, Firefly and Easy Money, are handling the air-to-air situation with mostly ARM-9, and a couple of ARM-7s for Easy Money to hopefully clear the Exit Approach. Easy Money is the Fast pilot.
Target-bound flight
6. Draw Target-Bound Event card
Political Considerations Sites in Approach areas may not be attacked or Suppressed unless they are mission objectives (which they are not for this mission).
7. Place Aircraft and Flight Paths
All enter west, exit east.
8. Determine and Place Bandits
Per Target, sadly, all bandits are leave, no duds drawn for this mission.
9. Intel Air Defense Destruction
I don't really understand how this works, so there is nothing here.
10. Draw Over Target Event card
SAM Site! Conduct 3 attacks against random aircraft. Cancel 1 attack with each AtG counter expended.
Here's a question though: All the aircraft are coming in Low, while SA-2 are High Altitude weapons. I'm disallowing it.
Conversely, I'll be subject to HMG and Infantry coming in Low, which would have otherwise been a mistake. If I came in High, I woudn't be subject to these.
11. Place Turn Counter in "1" box
Check.
Over Target (5 Times)
12. Jettison Decision
No Jettison.
13. Fast pilots attack
Easy Money fires on MIG-19 with AIM-7, roll 3, misses.
14. Return fire
Nothing can range the flight yet.
15. Slow Pilots Attack
Firefly on MIG-19 with AIM-9, roll 4 for a miss.
16. Aircraft move and adjust altitude
Move into West Approach area.
17. Bandits move
MIG-19 and MIG-21 from south and north respectively move into west approach area.
18. Advance turn counter
Turn 2.
Target Turn 2
12. Jettison Decision
No jettison.
13. Fast pilots attack
Easy Money fires on MIG in Central target area, roll 3, miss.
14. Return fire
Now the real fun begins:
- HMG on Easy Money, roll 4, miss.
- MIG-21 on Whiplash, roll 3 for ECM, no effect. MIG rolls 3 for a miss.
- MIG-19 on Firefly, ECM roll 3 no effect, MIG rolls 5 to induce 1 Stress on Firefly.
- Other MIG-19 on Gringo, ECM roll 8 negate attack.
- Infantry on Taxi, ECM roll 7 negate.
Pretty lucky, we squeaked through this.
15. Slow Pilots Attack
Firefly attacks MIG-21, roll 3, miss.
16. Aircraft move and adjust altitude
Stay low, move into center area.
17. Bandits move
All the bandits move, bummer.
18. Advance turn counter
Turn 3.
Target Turn 3
12. Jettison Decision
No jettison, let's roll.
13. Fast pilots attack
The only fast pilot has no more ordnance.
14. Return fire
- MIG-21 on Taxi, ECM roll 5, MIG-21 roll 10 Taxi is destroyed.
- MIG-19 on Firefly, ECM roll 8, negate.
- MIG-19 on Firefly, ECM roll fail, MIG roll 2, miss.
- MIG-17 on Easy Money, ECM roll 7, negate.
- S-60 on Easy Money, ECM roll 2, fail, roll 6 for 1 SP.
- Zu-23-2 on Firefly, ECM roll 4, fail, Zu roll 10, Firefly destroyed.
15. Slow Pilots Attack
Whiplash and Gringo drop their CBUs for 2 SA-2 sites destroyed.
16. Aircraft move and adjust altitude
Staying low and heading east. Going high would get out of the range of the single Zu, but in the range of 4 remaining SA-2s.
17. Bandits move
Bandits move right along with them.
18. Advance turn counter
Turn 4.
Target Turn 4
12. Jettison Decision
Nothing to jettison, all ordnance delivered.
13. Fast pilots attack
None.
14. Return fire
Another hairball here, 7 return fires:
- S-60 on Gringo, ECM roll 4 fail, roll 2, no effect.
- S-60 on Easy Money, ECM roll 9, negate.
- MIG-19 on Whiplash, ECM roll 6, negate.
- MIG-19 on Easy Money, ECM roll 8, negate.
- MIG-17 on Easy Money, ECM roll 10, negate.
- MIG-21 on Whiplash, ECM roll fail, roll 2, miss.
- Zu-23-2 on Whiplash, ECM roll 10, negate.
Super Lucky on ECM rolls! And on firing rolls, the MIGs all missed!
15. Slow Pilots Attack
No ordnance left, Political Considerations preclude bombing in Approach areas.
16. Aircraft move and adjust altitude
All move to exit Pre-approach.
17. Bandits move
Bandits follow.
18. Advance turn counter
Turn 5…
Target Turn 5
12. Jettison Decision
All ordnance expended.
13. Fast pilots attack
None left. =(
14. Return fire
The same seven sites and bandits from last phase are still in effect, let's hope the squadron gets lucky again.
- S-60 on Whiplash, ECM roll 1, roll 10, destroyed!
- S-60 ECM on Gringo, ECM roll 10, negate.
- MIG-19 on Gringo, ECM roll 10, negate.
- MIG-19 on Easy Money, ECM roll 2, evade for 2 SP.
- MIG-17 on Gringo, ECM roll 9, negate.
- MIG-21 on Gringo, ECM roll 9, negate.
- Zu-23-2 on Gringo, ECM roll 8, negate.
Almost lucky again.
15. Slow Pilots Attack
Nope. No way.
16. Aircraft move and adjust altitude
And we're done here.
17. Bandits move
N/A.
18. Advance turn counter
We're done.
Home Bound
19 Draw Home-Bound Event card
Steak Barbeque Remove 1 SP from every pilot in squadron.
20 Roll for SAR results (if needed)
Sadly, we need to do some SAR here:
- Taxi: expend 3 AtG for +3 DRM, -2 for WP Penalty, roll 1 MIA.
- Firefly: roll 9 - 2 for 7, recovered with 5 SP.
- Whiplash: roll 7 + 1 - 2 (Homebound) for 6, recovered with 5 SP.
We get 2 pilots back. Could have been worse.
Debriefing
21 Record mission outcome, victory points, adjust recon and intel counter and special option points
- Mission outcome: fail.
- VP: 0
- Recon adjustment: 0.
- Intel adjustment: 0.
- Special Option Points: 0.
22 Add target card stress to pilots
+2 SP to all pilots.
23 Pilot stress recovery (all pilots)
- -1 SP to all pilots for Steak BBQ.
- +1 SP to all pilots for Taxi MIA.
24 Move Politics Counter 1 left
Politics level now 4.
25 Record Pilot Experience and Stress
On mission worksheet and campaign sheet.
And that's a wrap.
AAR
As it turns out, each aircraft can make only one attack per phase. With 5 aircraft, there is no way to destroy 6 sites while on target with low altitude CBUs. Should have packed some long range radar guided missiles to pick off the SA-2 sites before arriving on target zone. In fact, I loaded only 3 aircraft with CBU for targeting sites, which means almost certain destruction of those sites, but there are no VP for 0-3. I find this fact at the start of Turn 3, over target, where I'm about to take a colossal amount of fire.
Three pilots shot down. This was a disaster. I would fire me. What could have been done better?
- Tanker option: spend some SO Points to get more ordance in the air.
- Long range, radar missiles for SA-2 sites instead of trying to rely
It did not help that I pulled 4 bandits on this mission. That's just unlucky, one or two should have been a No Bandit counter. solely on CBU.