JosefK

Thanks for the resource links everyone!

A Few Thoughts About ORBAT... I feel before I head into bed, I should write a bit about Order of Battle or ORBAT. With the possible exception of some Tu-22M3s... the below will be the Russian forces I use from WikiPedia... RUSSIAN AIR FORCE: 11th Air and Air Defence Forces Army (Khabarovsk) (Eastern Military District) 11th Aerospace Defense brigade (Komsomolsk-na-Amur) 12th Aerospace Defense brigade (Vladivostok) 6983rd aviation base (Komsomolsk-on-Amur Airport, Khabarovsk Krai) (Su-27SM, Su-30M2, Su-35S, Su-34) 6988th aviation base (Khurba, Khabarovsk Krai) (Su-24M, Su-24M2, Su-24MR) 6989th aviation base (Vladivostok International Airport) (Su-27SM) 265th transport aviation base (Khabarovsk) 4th Air and Air Defence Forces Army – Southern Military District (former 4th and 5th Armies of VVS and PVO) (Rostov-on-Don) RUSSIAN NAVAL AVIATION: Pacific Fleet Air Force – HQ Vladivostok 568th Independent Composite Aviation Regiment – HQ at Mongokhto - operating Tu-22M3, Tu-142MR/MZ; 865th Interceptor Aviation Regiment – HQ at Yelizovo-Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Airport - MiG-31; 317th Composite Air Regiment – HQ at Yelizovo - Tu-142; 71st Independent Military Transport Air Squadron – HQ at Nikolayevka, Primorskaya - An-12, An-24, An-26; 175th Independent Shipborne Anti-submarine Helicopter Squadron – HQ at Yelizovo - Ka-27; 289th Independent Anti-submarine Air Regiment – HQ at Nikolayevka - Il-38, Ka-27, Ka-29; RUSSIAN PACIFIC FLEET: # Type Name Class Year 011 Cruiser Varyag Slava 1989 543 Destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov Udaloy I 1985 564 Destroyer Admiral Tributs Udaloy I 1985 572 Destroyer Admiral Vinogradov Udaloy I 1988 548 Destroyer Admiral Panteleyev Udaloy I 1991 715 Destroyer Bystryy Sovremennyy 1989 333 Corvette Sovershennyy Steregushchy 2017 335 Corvette Gromky Steregushchy 2018 IF any of you have better ORBAT than WikiPedia, I'm all ears. Please advise sooner rather than later - remember my V1 due date is 25 March 2019 (helps when there's two late March events I'm attending and I need a good chunk of April to edit photos). Now obviously, I'm not going to include all these units on the assumption they all can't be there and clearly any competent military commander would want to save some ships, some aircraft for future skirmishes like when the JMSDF showed up in force. I'm also of the view the first attack will be premeditated, as Putin waits for a convenient casus belli to pick a fight with his neighbors. A few Japanese commercial ships that decided to hug the Kuril Islands hiding from a big but intermittent storm on their great circle route provoking a Su-30M2 (which you can get here) response which would prompt F-15Js (which you can get here) sitting northern Hokkaido alert would suffice... Oh and one last thing, I know it's tempting to try to write into the script US Forces either USN, USMC or USAF going rogue to honour treaties to help Japan out kinetically - but I think that would take away from the simulation and even if not, be highly difficult to predict. Plus take the focus away from the JASDF to the rogue US unit/s and by doing so turn this from wargaming into a Dale Brown novel (and I love Dale Brown novels!) with Megafortresses on the tarmac: Just figured some of you might want to see what's coming - and yes, you will get to take on the Varyag and Su-27SMs too. With that, another screenshot of what actually will 100% be in the single mission pak: Being my goal is realism, sorry to say the F-35A will be spare & rare in the 2020 mission pak. Used more as a Designated Hitter rather than a utility player like the F-15Js.

Thought it was time for me to start a forum thread on my Nihon Hitori 2020 campaign to update all on my progress. Learned a lot so far as to the SF2 engine, much more to learn. Also wanted to start a forum thread to explain my creative process and keep folks abreast of developments plus pose questions. Now the pretext of "Nihon Hitori 2020" (Japan Alone 2020 in Japanese) is a mid 2/2020 campaign where the 201 & 203 JASDF Squadrons of F-15Js hold the line against a red tide of Flankers attacking Japanese ships & Hokkaido airports until JASDF reinforcements arrive to start shoving the Russians off of the Kurils as payback... and then a few F-35As help F-2A reinforcements kick a** ending with an explosive air-sea battle against a Russian surface task force. All within 24 hours, so the JMSDF emergency task force is racing up at 30 knots to have some AEGIS & aircraft-carrying destroyers formate with some older "escort destroyers" out of Ominato base and then sortie together to North Hokkaido from their Honshu bases while the shooting war only intensifies. All without overt US assistance as the current US President is more than likely to tell Japan they're on their own - he's already shown a clear misunderstanding at best of his responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief, a clear contempt for NATO, a deep empathy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, there's some open contempt between the current Japanese Prime Minister & the US President as a previous mentorship seems to have fallen apart, and the current US President even openly thinks, "If the United States keeps on … its current path of weakness, [Japan is] going to want to have [nuclear weapons] anyway with or without me discussing it." With that backstory, here's how the first mission is going to likely go: There's still some things that need to be firmed up, but this is the general idea for mission 01. Using WikiPedia for Order of Battle/ORBAT unless tipped off for a better source so Sukhoi Flanker plane color schemes and variants can and will change. When the second mission in sequence is firmed up and the third & fourth one (one of which will have JASDF F-35A), will announce that here also. Please follow this topic and ask me any questions or requests you got. Goal is to drop this mission pak on or before 25 March 2019 - my birthday!