BOTA 19 – Fire and Ice

If you liked this item, please rate it up on Steam Workshop page.

Authors: Hogthunder, IlDuce-17

Last revision: 1 Mar at 00:31 UTC (1)

File size: 10.36 MB

On Steam Workshop

Description:

BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC PART 19 – FIRE AND ICE:
The trap has been sprung and Operatsiya Krasnyy Rassvet — Operation Red Dawn — has reached its decisive moment. Marshal Ogarkov is betting everything on a three-pronged offensive to seize Iceland and break NATO’s grip on the North Atlantic. While HMS Invincible and USS Eisenhower bleed in running battles against Soviet submarines and a carrier strike group, the hammer has fallen from another direction. Under cover of darkness and storm, a Soviet amphibious armada has flanked NATO forces in the Norwegian Sea and blasted their way through the Denmark Strait, emerging into the icy waters between Greenland and Iceland. Its course is unmistakable—Reykjavik.

At dawn, NATO reconnaissance aircraft confirm the threat. Radar sweeps and satellite overpasses plot the Soviet formation, 100 nautical miles south of Iceland’s southern shore. Transports, escorted by cruisers, destroyers, and frigates, churn northward toward the beaches. Their objective: land Soviet marines and armour to capture NAS Keflavik and Reykjavik, decapitating NATO’s northern bastion. Once established as a fortified Soviet bastion, Admiral Chernavin’s surviving surface groups and submarines would have a forward shield for breakout operations into the North Atlantic.

The defences of Iceland are already reeling. For 48 hours, Soviet bombers have pounded Keflavik and its surrounding installations. Hardened shelters lie in ruins, runways cratered, fuel farms burning. The surviving NATO aircraft have been forced into dispersed operations, fighting from fractured tarmac and makeshift revetments. Through the night, engineering teams cut and filled and laid pierced steel planking under blackout conditions. Now, in the cold grey before sunrise, the main runway is barely serviceable again. Keflavik’s fighters start to launch. Initial combat air patrols form up over the island, P-3C Orions lift off to sweep for submarines around the approaches, and an E-3 Sentry climbs into its orbit to restore Iceland’s radar picture.

MISSION:
The picture that comes back is terrifying: a mass of inbound tracks from the north and northeast. Soviet bombers and fighters are assembling to shield the landing force and finish Keflavik for good. Farther north, TF IRONCLAD’s air wing warns of a new adversary: Su-27 Flankers, long range fighters with powerful radar and heavy missile loadouts. Eisenhower’s pilots have sent a blunt warning down the command nets. These Flankers are being used as extended range escorts for the bomber regiments. Over Iceland, they will sit on the edges of the fight, reaching in with radar guided missiles to carve gaps in NATO’s air defence. NATO commanders face a hard choice. Commit aircraft to intercept the bombers and their Su 27 screens before they reach Keflavik, or hold back strike and attack squadrons for anti-ship missions against the amphibious group. Every squadron is already stretched.

Intelligence on the Soviet fleet only sharpens the threat. Analysts at COMLANTFLT confirm that several of the heavy escorts are not the old Sverdlov gun cruisers of the early Cold War. Over recent years, the Soviets have rebuilt them into Sverdlov M missile cruisers, fitted with SS N 12 Sandbox anti-ship missiles, updated SAM systems, new fire control radars, close in weapon systems, and still carrying their legacy six-inch guns. Intel reports that additional Udaloy and Sovremennyy class destroyers have been pushed into service ahead of schedule to stiffen the screen. The armada advances behind a layered shield of radar, missiles, and guns. Whatever undersea assets Chernavin has committed remain unknown, but no one in NATO believes this force is sailing unescorted below the surface.

NATO’s answer is already moving. Task Force THUNDER, reformed around battleship USS Wisconsin after the Battle of Jutland, is steaming at flank speed northeast of Iceland. Her escorts form a dense ring of AEGIS and guided missile ships. Wisconsin’s sixteen-inch batteries are loaded for shore bombardment or surface action, while her escorts prepare coordinated salvos of Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles aimed at the heart of the Soviet formation.

Above the ocean, salvation may come from the skies. From RAF Fairford, a flight of U.S. Air Force B-52s has lifted off, each loaded with racks of AGM-84 Harpoons. The lumbering bombers are racing across the storm-lashed ocean, escorted by long-range fighters, their course bent toward the Soviet fleet. If they arrive in time, their strike may turn the tide. F-15s from RAF Lossiemouth are also inbound to reinforce Iceland’s shredded air defence screen and to backstop the weary local squadrons that have flown the island’s defence for days without relief.

For Ogarkov and Chernavin, everything is riding on Red Dawn’s final stroke. If Reykjavik falls and Keflavik is taken intact, the GIUK Gap is lost and the Atlantic ceases to be a NATO controlled corridor. Convoys will be forced onto longer, riskier routes, and the armies in Western Europe will begin to starve for fuel, ammunition, and replacements. If the Soviet transports are smashed at sea and their marines never reach the beaches, the Spring offensive breaks on the rocks of Iceland and the Red Banner fleets may never regain the initiative. Here, in the crucible of fire and ice, the fate of the Atlantic will be decided.

CAMPAIGN:
The Battle of the Atlantic campaign unfolds in a dark reimagining of 1984, where Cold War tensions erupt into full-scale war. After seizing power in the Kremlin, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov launches a lightning invasion of Finland, Sweden, and Norway. Soviet forces pour across Scandinavia and surge into the Norwegian Sea, threatening to sever NATO’s transatlantic lifeline and dominate the GIUK Gap. In response, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet and allied NATO naval forces mobilise for a desperate stand to preserve control of the seas.

From the fog-choked Baltic to the windswept North Atlantic, players will command Task Forces through a series of missions: from the defence of Gotland and interdiction of Soviet amphibious landings, to high-stakes carrier battles in the mid-Atlantic and convoy escorts across submarine-infested waters, to full-scale amphibious warfare. In this struggle for maritime supremacy, every decision counts—and the future of Europe hangs in the balance.

A 25+ mission linear campaign, The Battle of the Atlantic, is inspired by famous naval battles of WWI and WWII.

***FULL CAMPAIGN MOD COLLECTION: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3718111590

Thank you to @Hogthunder, @Fall Risk, @Nikethegreat1 for testing the mission.