Origins `90 Tournament Report
Part 2

Friday: Main Event, Round 3:
Operation Bolo (1967)

by J.D. Webster

North Vietnam, 2 January 1967

Background

Due to the increasing threat from NVAF MiGs, Colonel Robin Olds, the legendary leader of the 8th TFW (the Wolfpack), decided to strike them a blow. He led an elaborately planned raid in which F-4C Phantoms pretended to be the more vulnerable F-105s. Bad weather hindered the mission, but a large force of MiG-21s responded and under GCI control they began to pop up out of the clouds on all sides of the Phantoms. To their dismay, they did not find vulnerable bomb-laden F-105s, but deadly F-4s, armed to the teeth.

Game Length: 20 game turns

Notes

1 - All aircraft begin spotted, MiGs are silver, F-4s are camouflaged. The F-4C Phantoms appeared in Air Power #8 and the MiGs are from Desert Falcons.

2. MiG-21 loads: stations 1, 3 = AA-2A, station 2 = 600L FF.

3. F-4C loads: stations 1, 5 = 1200L FT, stations 2, 4 = two AIM-9B IRMs each, stations 5, 6, 7, 8 = AIM-7E RHM. 4. Weather: There is a stratus layer at altitude level 8.

5. Victory: The side with the most points wins.

6. Fuel: F-4 start = 360, bingo = 240; MiG-21 start =240, bingo = 60.

Overview of Play

The Phantoms were certainly hindered by the lack of cannons, but had plenty of missiles (eight each) to hose off. Unfortunately, with their disadvantaged starting set up, Sparrow parameters were difficult to achieve, forcing the F-4s to work on getting rear quarter IR shots. Against the more maneuverable MiGs, this precipitated a close-in dogfight situation.

The MiGs start scattered while the Phantoms are in a tight group and the MiG's weapons suite (a lousy cannon and two early Atolls) is not very good so both sides had weaknesses that could be used against them. The F4s had to avoid breaking up into individual dogfights with the more agile MiGs. If they worked as a team the odds were in their favor.

The MiGs had to try and scatter the F4s, then outmaneuver and defeat them individually, but with the calibre of players on hand this difficult to pull-off. The battles were tough and the outcomes were close.

MiG TeamF-4 Team
BouncerWiseguy
MadmanTop Wop
TargetMojo
WeaselSlash

Results (as told by Mark "Top Wop" Bovankovich)

I teamed with Paul, Ray and Curtis to fonn the dreaded and explosive "Canadian-Califomian Composite Cadre) (C4). The coin toss resulted in us receiving the Phantoms and our first order of business was to come up with a scheme for foiling the MiG's initial advantage while maintaining section integrity.

I was F-4 #2, and as I recall, we broke high and low, reversed, then formed back up for the coordinated attack. Paul, our fearless leader, however, spent the second turn dodging a missile fired by MiG #1 (Bouncer) and used a halfroll and dive to get favorable angle-off which caused the missile to miss on its attack die roll.

Our coordination lasted for about that one turn, then a serious furball ensued. The battle broke into two factions: those whirling above the stratus and those below. Unfortunately for the MiGs, the pilot of Fishbed #4 (Weasel) chose to hover high and not engage for the first several turns which allowed our four F-4s to keep the three engaged MiGs off balance and take the offensive. I broke out of the furball in time to meet MiG #4 head-on as he started in. Passing him with offset to avoid a gun attack, I unloaded below the stratus layer, extended out and pitched back two turns later with a climbing vertical roll.

Popping up through the stratus I visually reacquired MiG #4, who was still circling tentatively on the outer edge of the furball, dogging Paul and looking for a cheap shot. Using boresight, I locked on and launched two Sparrows. In the meantime, two of the MiGs in the furball were in deep trouble. Ray, in F-4 #3, was firmly glued to Mike's (Bouncer's) tail, and launched two AIM-9s, one of which failed while the other missed. Undaunted he launched two more on the next turn. Mike was in a desperate climbing vertical spiral when both hit, blowing him up. "Target" was also under pursuit, but escaped by dodging through the stratus layer.

Unfortunately for me, as I was illuminating for my Sparrows, Steve (Madman), in an unpursued MiG, broke out of the farball and rolled out deep at my six, launching his two Atolls. One failed and I ignored the other correctly judging that it would still be several hexes away at the end of the turn. "Weasel" went into a vertical dive rolling to avoid my Sparrows, the first missed, but the second vaporized him.

I could now turn my attention to that pesky Atoll I was dragging! An immediate half-roll and dive easily outwitted the missile's feeble electronic brain, but sadly, my own vaunted biological brain had misplaced the fact that I was only at level 10 and had a speed of 6.0 when I entered the vertical dive. This was a classic Tony Valle SAM evasion maneuver .... CRUNCH! My RIO ejected prior to ground impact. I didn't--the eject die roll clearly indicating that I was looking back over my shoulder at the missile and completely unaware of my impending suicide. The game ended with our team winning, though no further kills by either side were made. It was a fun, but tedious scenario.

Thanks, Mark, for your colorful write-up! At this table, the Phantoms showed some good teamwork, and with three against four initially, someone was always pressing a MiG for shot parameters. The MiGs never showed cohesion, each basically fighting his own battle with the nearest F-4s and, as a result, they stayed defensive, eventually losing.

MiG TeamF-4 Team
WoofGoldie Locks
CougarGreek
Sled-DogGrossman
MaverickJoker

Results

I didn't see much of the action at this table, but the flow of the battle was very similar to that of Table I with the Phantoms breaking into the MiGs and then starting a furball. Roger "Woof." Taylor and Ken "Goldie Locks" Maniscalco both reported that there was lots of turning and zipping up and down through the stratus layer, but little shooting. Everyone on both sides played carefully. "Woof" was fired at by Sparrows, but dove down into ground clutter to defeat them. The end result was a draw! No kills on either side.

MiG TeamF-4 Team
Killjoy Sundown

Results

Due to some additional drop-outs in the tourney, Tony and his opponent were all that were left for the third table. They set-up and played using only the first two aircraft from each side.

This game was relatively short as Sundown made a bad first move giving Tony (our illustrious editor) a blind missile shot from MiG #1 against one of the Phantoms. The missile hit doing heavy damage. A few more turns were played and then it was realized that damage control had never been done on the F-4. A quick series of catch-up die rolls for progressive damage were made which either crippled then finished off the F-4, at which point Sundown leapt up and conceded defeat, dropping out of the tourney.

Origins `90 Tournament Report Part 2

Origins `90 Tournament Report Part 1

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