Background
On 24 July 1965 an F-4C flying CAP was hit and shot down by a Russian-supplied S-75 Dvina missile. This was the first attack by SAMs on US aircraft and the shootdown took Washington by surprise. American reconnaissance had been watching construction of the SAM sites for some time but President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara were afraid of inflicting casualties on Soviet advisors at the sites and had determined to avoid further escalation. So through the spring and summer of 1965 attacks against the sites had been forbidden.
Now the SAMs had gone live a reprisal was necessary. On 27 July a large raid of F-105s was launched against the sites and nearby barracks where the SAM crews were living.
So I have plotted all the target hexes (Red Circles) and then placed the nine potential SAM locations.
Rolling a 3 on the AAA table gives me 3 Medium AAA to place. Two need to go on table and the other will appear during game play. As they have to go on targets closest to an entry point which don't already have a barrage marker this means that the two targets closest to Yen Bai in the bottom LH corner get an AA concentration which is activated.
So the USAF raid now rolls for the actual target and gets assigned to hit SAM 1537.
The DRV have just one hidden AAA and four FIRECAN units to disrupt the raid. MiGs can potentially come from either Kep to the North East of Hanoi of Phuc Yen just on the outskirts of Hanoi.
As it is a SAM target the strike mission comprises some 6 flights of 4 F-105D supported by a single MiGCAP and two EB-66C with their own CAP escort flights. No wild weasels or defence suppression are available this early in the war. I am also restricted to using entry points: 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Next up.....will be the raid planning and then time to get the models onto the table
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