Cold War Viggen action

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

It’s 1978, a Swedish traitor has stolen Swedish secrets and stowed away on a Russian tanker, the tanker will meet up with a Russian sub in the Baltic where the traitor will board the Sub and disappear forever with secrets that can damage Swedish security for decades. Swedish “intelligence” has picked up where the Sub and tanker are supposed to meet, but the Sub is just minutes away from the tanker, no Swedish ship can reach it in that time. So The brave Swedish pilot Sven jumps in his Viggen, loaded up with Rb04s he must take out the tanker before it can transfer the traitor to the sub. Time is of the essence, it’s time for some low-level ludicrous speed stuff.

I also try and land in 20knot side winds. a new one for me.

[Darkest Star Games]

Nice landing!

Man, that’s some good graphics to make even me get a little rush from you flying fast and low.

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

Thanks, It gets the adrenalin pumping, it’s worse in the Mossie, while only going 280mph the fact it’s a bit “twitchy” and has no Auto-pilot makes it much more nerve-racking.

[John D Salt]

Mr. Picky-and-old-enough-to-remember-the-Torrey-Canyon thinks it would need more than a handful of above-the-waterline ASM hits to sink a modern tanker.

All the best,

John.

[Guy Farrish]

Blimey! – I remember watching that as it happened (on TV and Newsreel, not at the scene).

For those who didn’t, see – Torrey Canyon

A short film – with Roy Jenkins and his indecipherable Welsh accent – as well as some film of the bombing.

To be fair the ship was already on rocks so they couldn’t actually sink it. And the oil proved remarkably difficult to ignite.

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

John D Salt wrote:

Mr. Picky-and-old-enough-to-remember-the-Torrey-Canyon thinks it would need more than a handful of above-the-waterline ASM hits to sink a modern tanker. All the best, John.

Specially designed insane Swedish missiles made specifically to destroy heavily armored Russian ships, each with 400kg of high explosives. They’ll take out most things that exist, short of maybe a WW2 battle ship.

[Guy Farrish]

400kg? Hmm – c2.5 times what’s in an Exocet and about 13 times more than a Sea Skua!

Bit of overkill – Soviet Cold War ships weren’t armoured.

Mind you the Sea Skua didn’t manage to sink an 800 ton tug in the Falklands conflict so maybe go with 400kg. :^)  (although it did all right in Gulf War 1).

[Truls Engebakken-Fjell]

Guy Farrish wrote:

400kg? Hmm – c2.5 times what’s in an Exocet and about 13 times more than a Sea Skua! Bit of overkill – Soviet Cold War ships weren’t armoured. Mind you the Sea Skua didn’t manage to sink an 800 ton tug in the Falklands conflict so maybe go with 400kg. :^) (although it did all right in Gulf War 1).

Sorry 300kg each, so 600kg total.

[John D Salt]

Truls Engebakken-Fjell wrote:

Specially designed insane Swedish missiles made specifically to destroy heavily armored Russian ships, each with 400kg of high explosives. They’ll take out most things that exist, short of maybe a WW2 battle ship.

While I am a great fan of Swedish weaponry, I very much doubt that.

Against the 300 Kg of Rb-04, P15 Termit (Styx) has a warhead of 454 Kg, and Exocet a mere 165 Kg. Silkworm varies by version but seems to be 300 Kg to 500 Kg.

While it seems to be possible, from what I gather of the Tanker War in the Gulf, to kill a tanker with a single Exocet hit, sinking one outright is a good deal harder. Tankers have survived Silkworm hits.

Although it’s horribly unspecific about the weapons used,

Strait of Hormuz – Tanker War

mentions that tankers showed themselves (as they did in WW2) to be tough targets: “Oil tankers are not very vulnerable to damage. 61 percent of the ships attacked during the Tanker War were oil tankers. In total, only 55 of the 239 petroleum tankers (23 percent) were completely sunk or declared CTL, compared to 39 percent of bulk carriers and 34 percent of freighters.”

I shall try to accumulate more data on tanker vulnerability, but I really doubt you can reliably kill, never mind sink, a target as big as a tanker with a single hit from a sub-tonne warhead.

All the best,

John.

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