BOTA 12 – Dead Strait

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Author: IlDuce-17

Last revision: 24 Feb at 00:21 UTC

File size: 9.7 MB

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BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC PART 12 – DEAD STRAIT:

As the autumn storms rage across the North Atlantic, the war itself has calmed to minor, punctuated skirmishes. Chief of the Soviet Navy, Admiral Vladimir Chernavin, concentrates his forces with subsurface raiders striking NATO shipping lanes and a layered network of submarine and air defences protecting the Norwegian Sea and occupied Norway. In the motherland, Soviet industry toils to repair and replenish the battered Northern Fleet. In the air, Soviet long-range aviation remains formidable, launching regular raids against English and Icelandic NATO bases and holding the upper hand over the Norwegian Sea. On the continent, the land war grinds into stalemate — Soviet armies entrenched along the Elbe, NATO lines rigid but unbroken.

With the surface fleets bloodied and grounded, Chernavin’s new doctrine is clear: strike from below. The Soviet Navy has shifted its weight to the deep, deploying attack submarines to hunt NATO convoys and dispatching Yankee- and Delta-class ballistic missile boats toward the GIUK Gap. Each one that slips into the open Atlantic carries the power to alter the strategic balance — to place the continental United States within immediate nuclear reach. NATO analysts warn that the coming winter seas will conceal their movement, granting the Soviet Northern Fleet the cloak it needs to turn survival into advantage.

NATO’s countermeasure is an intricate web of vigilance — the fixed SOSUS hydrophone arrays anchored across the Greenland-Iceland-UK line, backed by a rotating picket of destroyers, frigates, and submarines. But even this network is fragile. The autumn gales that scour the Greenland Sea play havoc with sonar and communications, scattering surface ships, disrupting patrol patterns, and blinding NATO’s line of defence. When the storms come, the gap opens — and the Soviets know it.

MISSION:
Tonight, the barometer has plummeted over the Denmark Strait. Winds from the northwest tear across the black Greenland sea, building a steep swell. Rain lashes sideways in blinding sheets, merging with the fog. The Royal Canadian Navy destroyer HMCS Iroquois (DDG 280) plows through it all, her decks awash, her hull groaning against each breaking wave. She is one of several ships assigned to the NATO ASW screen across the strait — but tonight she is alone. Her sister ship Huron, to the North, is slowed with mechanical issues, and the U.S. frigates Brumby and Bagley are battling to reform through the weather.

Below the waves, the U.S. submarines USS Ray, USS Hammerhead, and USS Cincinnati patrol in near silence, their contact with surface command reduced to static bursts through the gale. The storm has turned the Greenland Sea into a vast acoustic blind spot. P-3C Orions and E-3A Sentries sit grounded at Keflavik, their runways flooded and winds exceeding safe limits. The hydrophone network reports intermittent, indecipherable noise — possibly interference, possibly a contact. Then, amid the distortion, one steady pulse emerges.

At 04:37 Zulu, the SOSUS array west of Iceland detects a faint, rhythmic contact. Command classifies it as Possible Sierra-Level Contact, bearing 72°, within the Iroquois patrol zone. The destroyer is ordered to investigate.

Inside Iroquois’s operations room, the red lights flicker as the ship heels against the swell. The sonarmen strain against a wall of static, trying to separate threat from ocean noise. The captain stands silent at the plot table, listening to the storm hammer the hull. Beyond the bridge windows there is no horizon, no sky — only darkness and the white flash of breaking waves. Somewhere out there, in the black water, a Soviet submarine is listening back.

At Akureyri, the forward-based Sea Kings of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 423 Squadron are secured to the tarmac, waiting for the winds to ease. If the weather breaks, they may yet launch to join Iroquois’ search. Until then, the ship stands the line alone, holding her station against sea and silence.

In this night of storm and steel, the Greenland Sea is the battlefield. For the sailors of Iroquois, their aim must be dead straight, for the shadow of death waits in the menacing black seas beneath.

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. Please let me know in the comments about any bugs or suggestions.

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

Full credit to Stealth17 Gaming for the mission playthrough videos.